Five Top Tweets: Iranians Ridicule Censorship on the ‘Filternet’ · Global Voices
Small Media

Iran's Minister of ICT, Mahmoud Vaezi on the right at the WSIS 2015 forum in Geneva, Switzerland. Image remixed by Mahsa Alimardani.
This post was written by Small Media researcher Kyle Bowen, and first appeared on Medium.
Recent disruptions to the messaging app Telegram have caused a stir on social media. The country’s Twitter users took this as opportunity to voice more general complaints about Iran’s slow, expensive, and heavily filtered Internet, known among some Iranians as the ‘filternet’. Here are five of the best reactions from the past month:
متشکریم از تمام دوستانی که کشور رو اداره می‌کنن، بابت این جهنمی که با سرعت اینترنت و فیلترینگ واسه ما تدارک دیدن. ادامه بدین کار خوبتون رو.
— تاتــولوژی و هرزگوین (@blackvvine) October 6, 2015
We thank those running the country for providing these hellish internet speeds and filtering stuff. Carry on, you’re doing great work!
طرفدارای نظام اگه واقعا به این حکومت اعتقاد دارن گه میخورن فیلترشکن میگیرن سیستم فیلترینگ اینا رو دور میزنن میان اینجا— habib (@habib62) October 9, 2015
Regime supporters who’ve bypassed the filtering system to get onto Twitter are shit-eating hypocrites.
Iranian conservatives have always bent the rules to get onto ‘forbidden’ social networks. See our report ‘Unmasking the Arzeshi’ for more info.
وضعیت طوری شده که آدم توی شورتش رو نگاه می‌کنه، تعجب می‌کنه که صفحه فیلترینگ نمیاد
— مرتضا (@morteza__m) October 5, 2015
We’ve reached the point where I’m surprised I don’t see the filtering page when I look in my underwear.
اینا چرا اینجوری می کنن؟ یهو اینترنت و قطع کنن بگن هرکس از اینترنت استفاده کنه مجرمه خلاص! #فیلترینگ_تلگرام
— لَمیک (@Dr_lamik) October 28, 2015
Why they do this? They cut the internet completely and say that anyone using the internet is a criminal—end of discussion! #telegramfiltering.
Over the last couple of months, Iranian authorities have been criticising Telegram loudly. Since late October, it’s been intermittently unavailable in Iran.
اینستاگرام با هر بار آپدیت، آفتابه میگیره به کل سیستم فیلترینگ هوشمند 😂😂
— Armin (@arminophen) October 1, 2015
With a single Instagram update, the whole smart filtering system will be destroyed.
Iran’s “Intelligent Filtering” project is aimed at censoring ‘immoral’ content on platforms like Instagram. But as this user points out, technical changes on Instagram’s side could render Iran’s intelligent filtering efforts outdated and ineffective. Oops. That’s $66 million down the drain!