Minister of Culture: Confrontation with Cyberspace Has Not Worked

Reza Salehi Amiri, Iran's Minister of Culture, stated that 'blocking' and 'confrontation' with cyberspace has not worked and will not work, and that this government recognizes social networks. According to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Mr. Salehi Amiri made these remarks on Friday, March 6, during the thirteenth Industrial Engineering Conference held in Babolsar, stating that Iranian society has undergone an 'information revolution.' The Minister of Culture said that 'the country has passed the paper age, with newspaper consumption at 2.5 percent, while daily social media consumption has reached 27 percent.' He also added, 'Today, we must believe that development requires change, and we cannot reproduce with historical past patterns, which relates to the cultural and social structure of Iran.' The Minister further stated, 'Today we are facing an information overload, with 40 million smart users monitoring several tens of millions of messages on social networks daily.' He also mentioned that the government is not seeking to 'block' cyberspace and 'we must accept that cyberspace has become a real space.' Salehi Amiri continued, 'We must protect cyberspace, but blocking and confrontation have not worked and will not work,' but 'we believe that a logical order and regulation must be established.' On January 30 of this year, the Minister had also stated that 'the government does not believe in blocking social networks, but is looking for their purification.' This official also reported the closure of over 160,000 'corruption channels' in cyberspace, which he claimed had 'heretical' and 'corrupt' activities. The government of Hassan Rouhani has differences with the judiciary and other governing bodies in the Islamic Republic regarding mobile social networks and the internet. The judiciary, along with several of these institutions, refers to the internet, social networks, and smartphones as tools of 'threat' and 'change' and calls for strict limitations on them. The eleventh government has repeatedly stated in the past three years that it believes in 'smart filtering' in dealing with these modern technological facilities, which some experts have questioned the effectiveness of this method. Despite pressures and criticisms of its policies regarding social networks, the eleventh government continues to emphasize their 'regulated' activities in Iran. In the latest of these pressures and criticisms, the website 'Basij Press' affiliated with the Tehran Great Guard quoted Mostafa Izadi, deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, as saying that the existence of 54 million smartphones in the country is a threat to 'unity' in Iran. Mr. Izadi stated, 'Currently, we have 54 million smartphones, and inside, the enemy is trying to destroy our unity through cognitive warfare and social movements.' He added, 'These programs have been carried out under the title of internal proxy warfare.' A significant group of clerics and military officials in Iran believe that the internet and social networks are tools of 'soft war' and 'espionage' by the West against the Islamic Republic and that strict oversight should be applied to this space. Previously, Reporters Without Borders labeled the Iranian government as the 'enemy of the internet' and severely criticized the repression of cyber activists and internet censorship in Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, referred to 'cyberspace' as a 'real battlefield' and stated that 'clergymen and students must be armed and ready to enter the arena to confront doubts and incorrect and deviant thoughts.' While Iranian officials advocate for such restrictions, many of them are also members of these social networks, and they republish many of their programs, positions, and speeches through these networks and channels. In addition to media affiliated with and close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij, a significant number of senior clerics and conservative political activists in Iran currently have personal accounts on social networks, and the number of these officials and authorities on these networks is increasing day by day.