Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Iran has launched a video-sharing website called Mehr in a bid to provide local users an alternative government-approved Internet services. Mehr mainly focusses on Persian-speaking users and promoting Iranian culture, says the About Us page of the website.
The new website
comes at a time when the country is rumoured to be working on a
country-wide Intranet, which allows the local authorities to have
monitoring and restricting access to 'anti-Islamic' content. Iran had
blocked YouTube
since mid-2009 and deployed various filters to restrict Iranian's
access to websites it considered 'anti-government'. Facebook is also
banned in the country. In September this year, the Iranian
government blocked Google search and Gmail until further notice. The
government then announced it is working on a “domestic Internet
Network”, which it says will improve cyber security.
The Indian government has also time and again made efforts to control the Internet, social media in particular. According to Google's latest transparency report, India ranks second in the world for accessing private details of its citizens, only after the U.S.
