Iran blocking Orkut...

[HiddenNook]

I know many of you probably know about this, but this is just to inform those of you who might have missed it.

Orkut source

Reports came in last week that the Iranian government has ordered a country-wide ban on what they saw as corruptive sites, including our own little hell-raiser, orkut.com. Internet service providers must immediately block users from accessing orkut and several other social networking, blogging and dating sites, including Yahoo Personals.

According to BBC Persian, the block was ordered by Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's chief prosecutor, who's been linked to the torture of Iranian journalists by human rights groups, and apparently not a big fan of communities like "G Spot Search Expedition." He has commanded ISPs, privately owned in Iran, to filter out a list of specific sites or else possibly face jail time.

Reasons vary as to why orkut was targeted. One manager of an Internet service provider in Iran wrote to me and said government officials warned him of the web site's dangerous effects. They told him about a father who suffered a heart attack and died after he saw his daughter's orkut profile, replete with fancy photos, mobile numbers, and pictures of various boys. Another blog reported that newspapers were contriving conspiracy theories connecting orkut to intelligence agencies.

Despite the orkut block, you may have noticed that our friends in Iran, the third largest presence on orkut behind Brazil and the U.S., are still participating. The Net savvy among them have found ways around the system, using anti-filter software and other means.

Just keeping you guys in the loop...Selah!

[mondine]

I'd been curious about this. In a few communities I looked into, I'd noticed that some Iranian participants who had been contributing regularly had a conspicuous period of absence.

Nice to know that there will always be people that find work-arounds for this kind of thing. It may be a bit of a cliché, but getting to know people in other parts of the world as well as (or better than) your next-door neighbour can go a long way in making the planet a more peaceful place.