How Iranian moderates push back on Internet censorship, just paid off big time
Hassan Rouhani’s calculated online campaign, broke media monopoly of hardliners, playing a key role in his reelection
During the 2013 presidential elections,
when hardliners controlled everything, more than 6 months to the election day, a series of new limitations were imposed on the Iranian Internet, and it intensified in March. Authorities systematically blocked various VPN protocols, including L2TP, PPTP, SSTP, OpenVPN and then they moved to less popular protocols like Kerio VPN, SoftEther, etc.
In Early may 2013, they started terminating any encrypted connection sustaining more than 60 seconds. And of course they started blocking popular voice and messaging apps of that time, including Skype, Viber, Tango, Line, etc.
2017 presidential elections,
brought a welcome surprise for everybody: NON of the previous limitations were imposed. Rouhani’s government went out of his way not to impose new limitations during his first term, knowing very well a less restricted Internet will benefit people and also his moderate government in return. That’s why many calls by hardliners to block various apps and services, like Telegram messaging app for instance, were ignored by his Telecommunication ministry. They even went as far as not executing a court order for blocking telegram. Hardliners continued pushing for more control and censorship, which his team — in most part — ignored or refused in the past 4 years.
Bandwidth development (which has been suspended for many years during Ahmadinejad’s government) were rapidly increased during Rouhani’s first term, international bandwidth increased from 170 Gbps to nearly 800 Gbps in 2017, and new licenses for 3G and 4G mobile data networks were issued in his first year in office:
Running a very successful online campaign:
Rouhani’s reelection campaign was very intelligently planned and executed, using the exact same ground work his team has put in the first term:
a) Less Restrictions: Less restricted Internet meant not only no new disruptions happened before and during this election campaign, some older restrictions — like standard VPN protocols — were lifted during his first term in office.
b) Free social media: By not capitulating to hardliners on blocking new social media including Instagram and Telegram, his team ran a hugely successful campaign using the same channels, braking media monopoly of the hardliners on TV, Radio and Newspapers. Only his campaign’s Telegram channel has 600'000 members. Some of the campaign posts on Telegram has seen by a few million users.
c) Video Streaming: Use of video streaming ( http://live.president.ir ) which again was only possible by having a much faster Internet in the first place
All and all, it seems president Rouhani just got paid a massive dividend on his investment on a faster, less restricted Internet: He now got his second term in office.
