Iran Slows Internet Access Before Student Protests

RiffRafff writes "Iran is at it again, pre-emptively slowing or cutting Internet access before anticipated student protests." From the article: "Seeking to deny the protesters a chance to reassert their voice, authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl in the capital, Tehran. For some periods on Sunday, Web access was completely shut down — a tactic that was also used before last month's demonstration. The government has not publicly acknowledged it is behind the outages, but Iran's Internet service providers say the problem is not on their end and is not a technical glitch."

Comments

Re:Have they gotten to /.?

[jellyfrog]

You know, writing that you expect people to mod you offtopic/troll/flamebait doesn't necessarily make you not any of those things...

Re:In Australia

[cryfreedomlove]

The same is true here in the U.S. if you are planning on organizing a demonstration on public property such as a park, or street. You have to get permits to do it.

No, sorry, your analogy does not begin to hold water. Are protesters within the USA held indefinitely without charges and tortured? I don't think so. Bush tortured foreign terrorists and a free American people in a legitimate democratic election rejected that world view and elected Barack Obama. Do you think that could happen in Iran today? No, be honest, no.

the american government controls its media?

[circletimessquare]

please explain these miraculous invisible mechanisms

see in china, or iran, there are actual laws about everything being approved and monitored, there are actual large and well-staffed/ well-funded offices for doing exactly that, and severe punishments are doled out if the government doesn't like what it sees online or in print, and the strict party line has been brutally enforced on hundreds of occasions in the last couple of years

so please tell us how this is EXACTLY how it works in the usa. see as a simple sheeple horribly under the foot of american propaganda, i cry out for your "insightful" enlightenment on this matter

k thx

Re:Let's do it right this time.

[MightyMartian]

Looks like we've got one of the Ayatollahs' little willing whores here. What do you do one weekends, find dissidents to beat up?

Heh.

[Lokinator]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator Time to fire up the production line, and carpet bomb Iran with the things....then stand well back.

Re:Let's do it right this time.

[easyTree]

Can we please stop comparing oppressive theocracies to the governments of the USA, UK, (insert democratic power here)?

Sure... right after it stops being a valid comparison.

Your implication that the USA and UK are democracies is offensive. That you likely believe it, adds insult to injury.

Let's quickly take a few snippets from wikipedia's definition of democracy

...all citizens being equal before the law...

Nope - e.g. the wealthy are untouchable (OJ Simpson, anyone?) unless specifically targeted by someone more wealthy.

...and having equal access to power.

Nope - e.g. one must profess belief in some flavour of christianity before being elected to high office and 'travel in the right circles' - cash leads to power leads to being elected. Simple pattern.

The "majority rule" is often described as a characteristic feature of democracy

Nope - e.g. the majority of US citizens want socialised healthcare but it's been blocked for years by the 'healthcare' industry lobbyists.

Don't like history? Revise it until you do!

[AP31R0N]

"Answer: No they didn't. US did a coup in Iran 40-50 years ago and overthrow their national democratic government and returned the dictator "Shah" to power. people were forced to act more aggressive to put the Shah away. An aggressive act of revolution caused more aggressive opinions."

Wrong. There were maybe a handful of Americans within Iran during the revolution. The Iranians did all that to each other.

"Then a war was exposed to Iran by Iraq (Saddam) which killed almost 1million Iranians. The war was supported by most Arab countries + Europeans + USA. Arabs paid Iraq by oil and cash (around 200 billion) and Europeans and US gave them weapons etc (including chemicals for illegal chemical warfare). 50,000 Iranians are effected by chemicals provided by Europeans to Saddam."

Did you opposed the overthrow of Saddam? Which presidents did all this? Did you know that the US changes presidents from time to time?

"The same Saddam used those weapons against same Arab countries a few years later."

Well, he won't be gassing any Kurds or Iranians for a while.

"About your comment on Nukes I should say, USA is the only country which has both built and used nukes."

So? It's naive to assume that the USSR wouldn't have used them if they had won that race. Our use of them did two important things: ended WW2 (which Japan, Germany and Italy started, no the US) without a land invasion of Japan AND showed the world the horror of nuclear weapons. Which in turn prevented their further USE. Imagine the cold war without that knowledge.

"US has started around 50 wars in recent history. Iran has never started any war in last150 years or more."

Wrong. The US hasn't started ANY wars in living memory. Not one. We've joined two after being attacked. But we didn't start either of those and we tried to stay out of them. Since then we learned that isolationism and cruel indifference don't work.

"You want to condemn the 7000 years old culture of Iran"

The culture that exists there is not based on the culture that existed before. Once Islam took root there it became another culture. If Islam took root in the US in the way it did in Iran, it would be a radically different culture.

Furthermore the sins and virtues of the ancestor are not the descendant's to bear. i don't care if 1000 years ago some Iranian did $somethingMiraculous or $somethingAwful. All parties involved are dead. i could no more credit an Iranian born 20 years ago with the Cyrus Cylinder than i could a German born 20 years ago for Mein Kampf. It doesn't matter in the slightest.

The person you replied to wasn't condemning 7000 years of culture. Just the culture since 1935 or so.

Don't worry, i'll tell the girl at the campus bookstore how multiculti you are. She'll be impressed.