As Unrest Grows, Iran Restricts Access To Instagram, WhatsApp (reuters.com) 41
Iran curbed access on Wednesday to Instagram and WhatsApp, two of the last remaining social networks in the country, amid protests over the death of a woman in police custody, residents and internet watchdog NetBlocks said. Reuters reports: Last week's death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police in Tehran for "unsuitable attire," has unleashed anger over issues including freedom in the Islamic Republic and an economy reeling from sanctions. NetBlocks also reported a "nation-scale loss of connectivity" on Iran's mail mobile telephone provider and another company's network. WhatsApp's servers have been disrupted on multiple internet providers, hours after Instagram's services were blocked, London-based NetBlocks said.
The group's data shows a near-total disruption to internet service in parts of Kurdistan province in west Iran since Monday, while the capital city of Tehran and other parts of the country have also faced disruptions since Friday when protests first broke out. Two residents in Tehran and southern Iran said they could only send text and not pictures on WhatsApp and that Instagram appeared to be completely blocked.
The group's data shows a near-total disruption to internet service in parts of Kurdistan province in west Iran since Monday, while the capital city of Tehran and other parts of the country have also faced disruptions since Friday when protests first broke out. Two residents in Tehran and southern Iran said they could only send text and not pictures on WhatsApp and that Instagram appeared to be completely blocked.
They remember (Score:5, Interesting)
My kid's soccer coach once told me about how Iran was a really a nice place to live before the zealots took it over. He had fond memories and missed those days. It felt a lot like a European country. Women & men were allowed to mingle together in cafes wearing the latest fashions, and the economy was good. Many remember those days and told the next generation about the "good ol' days". They are itchin' for them back now.
Yes, it was a semi-corrupt semi-puppet regime before, but still better than the current jerks. Just because a B- is not an A is not a reason to overhaul it into a D-.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And guess who you can directly blame for the last couple of decades of problems in Iran...
A certain country disliked the puppet.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh boy. Score 2 Troll? Haha. I guess I hit a divisive topic :D
Re:They remember (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up in Iran for 16 years until I came to the U.S. in 1984, 5 years after the 1979 revolution. The coach is right. Before the revolution women used to wear what they liked (at the time probably about the same as what women in the U.S. wore), there were bars, discotheques, casinos, probably the top ski resort in all of middle east (Dizin), and everything else you could name. But at the same time, there was abject poverty which affected a majority of the population.
Fast forward to 2022. Most of those are gone. The ski piste is still there, but last I heard they're still segregated by gender. Women are 2nd class citizens (although still better than Saudi - not that I'm boasting, as Saudi is the a total clusterfuck in terms of women's rights), and there is still plenty of poverty, probably just as much as there was, if not more. But a lot of that is because of the sanctions the U.S. has imposed. Basically, in my opinion, the sanctions end up punishing the people only, and not the government. It is my belief that the U.S. imposed the sanctions to nudge the people, enraged with the living conditions, to rise up against the regime, something I don't think is going to happen. At least not because of the sanctions.
There are a couple of good things that have come out of the revolution. For one, when you take people's source of entertainment away, they tend to try to find SOMETHING that'll fill the void. In Iran's case, the arts proliferated. Music classes, everyone playing instruments and painting, went up, as did folks who took up to educate themselves. Iran has never seen as many educated young as it has now. It's just that there's not much they can do with the education.
The system is even more corrupt than before. You can pretty much bribe your way out of every situation, given enough money, and, just like the rest of the world, there's the 99% and then there's the 1% who have profited immensely from the sanctions and gauging people.
It is not a good living condition for anybody at all, let's just say it that way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> the sanctions end up punishing the people only, and not the government.
It's hard to punish just the gov't. Sanctions do make it more expensive for gov't to build WMDs and other weapons, though. It's just that they take resources away from regular citizens to pay for their war toys.
Re: (Score:2)
And unfortunately like we've seen from Russia, China or the Saudis, engaging and trading with them just gives them more money to be assholes.
I think in Iran's case the sanctions have been reasonably effective at bringing the regime to nuclear negotiations. Unfortunately someone blew up that deal and now they reasonably don't trust it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Either you fight for your existence, or you get what you get.
Could just as easily be directed at Russians,
Either get sent to murder some innocent Ukrainians, or get rid of the evil people in your own country. You'll be killing people either way. Why not the ones who deserve it?
Re:They remember (Score:5, Insightful)
You expect the world to support that garbage by sticking our heads in the sand like the people living there?
I understand where you're coming from, but I think there's much naivete in your thinking process and you dismissed what I said with a wave of a magic wand. Sanctions are a charade; they don't work because not everyone is on your side. Sanctions didn't stop North Korea from developing nukes. Iran will also likely develop nuclear capabilities, because once you have nukes, nobody fucks with you. It's a guarantee to ensure not to get invaded by the U.S. or any other country. If Saddam had nukes, he's still be in power, if not dead yet. It's an existential need for a country like Iran, regardless of how much they say they are not after nukes, especially to ensure that Israel won't interfere and sabotage in their efforts and their facilities. The slogans against U.S. and Israel are just rhetoric. No country with nukes is going to be the first one to use it, especially against an adversary who has nuclear capabilities, because doing so will ensure its destruction or massive amounts of damage. That why nuclear weapons are a deterrent.
I say all this because that's what western media feeds everyone (about Iran gaining nukes) and doesn't bother to cover the atrocities the western world has unveiled over the rest of the world. And I'm not speaking of military operations. Economically many countries have been devastated by the works of the U.S. and U.K. governments (more U.S. in the latter half of the last century) and corporations. Read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man to gain a better understanding of how corporations have, with the help of the U.S. government, ruined the lives of many many millions, if not over a billion, people worldwide.
But that's not what you want to discuss and would rather reduce the problem to the world's support of that garbage by sticking its head in the sand. By all measures, the lives of Iraqis is more miserable now than before the U.S. invasion in 2003. One could even say the U.S. wanted the state of Iraq to fail after creating trumped up charged of weapons of mass destruction. The reality is that it all boils down to money. War is good for governments and corporations; the government uses it as propaganda to justify its atrocities and its existence while corporations like Halliburton reap the benefits of war by selling arms and services to at least one side. Once the war is "over", then other corporations make money hands over fist by "nation-building". The U.S. has no desire for democracy across the world. If it did, it would not have toppled Mossadegh in 1953 in Iran and reinstated the Shah. The U.S. has only one thing in mind: its own interests.
I apologize for the long rant, but, as I said, almost everyone gets their news from the media and it's very unsatisfying and frustrating watching the media hone in on what "excites" people and divert their attention while things like this pass right under our noses. It's like watching a magician: you watch the left hand while the right hand does whatever it wants.
Re: (Score:1)
I understand where you're coming from, but I think there's much naivete
You actually don't understand where I am coming from, because, if you did, you would realize the 50k years worth of "civilized" History and how Humankind resolves exactly these issues exactly how I said.
Re: (Score:2)
Iran will also likely develop nuclear capabilities, because once you have nukes, nobody fucks with you.
Which is why it's all but guaranteed "somebody" will fuck with them first, to ensure that they never get the nukes.
Re: (Score:1)
Like we do with China? Most-favored nation trading status and their human-rights record is abysmal.
Who cares? Stay on a single topic at a time? Or is there not enough whataboutism A.D.D. for your addled mind?
Re:They remember (Score:4, Interesting)
Either you fight for your existence, or you get what you get.
You seem to have missed a bit of history lessons regarding Iran. Iran was a democracy. Then the US and the UK came and overthrew their government so they could grab the oil. Afterwards the Iranian people have seen the US do stuff in Iraq and Afghanistan and we all know how that ended. These people are not idiots; why would they put their lives on the line for a few years of freedom before the US steps in again and reinstates the religious goons like they always do?!
Re: (Score:1)
Either you fight for your existence, or you get what you get.
You seem to have missed a bit of history lessons regarding Iran. Iran was a democracy. Then the US and the UK came and overthrew their government so they could grab the oil.
Are you seriously telling us you think History and strife in Iran started 150 years ago with the British and Americans? Your comment has to be the most obtuse comment here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
They wouldn't have to overthrow that problem - if America and the UK hadn't over thrown the last corrupt regime.
So IRAN and the people who live there, they just popped up in the dessert 150 years ago when the UK and US had an interest all the sudden?
Please tell me your statement was satire and not obtuse ignorance.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand what your beef with the time before "150 years" ago is. Are you denying that the CIA helped overthrow Mossadegh in 1953 and reinstate Shah? Or are you denying that the British (as well as the French and the Spaniards) subjugated half the world's population at one time? Or that the U.S. has had a big hand in creating misery for the world since after WW2? Are you asking why the people of Iran had 2500 years to overthrow monarchies and waited until 1979? You do realize different people
Re: (Score:1)
I don't understand what your beef with the time before "150 years" ago is.
If you think IRAN has had these problems since only the last couple hundred years, you are a moron. THAT is the point.
Re: (Score:2)
It was a totally corrupt, totally totalitarian dictatorship puppet regime.
Can you imagine just how crappy the current regime has to be that people want that back?
Re: (Score:2)
My kid's soccer coach once told me about how Iran was a really a nice place to live before the zealots took it over.
2030: The US was a really nice place to live before the ChristoFascists took over
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, that can't be the case, you know, over here in Europe we have gays and POC and whatnot, and it's generally nice and problem free, I live in the largest city in my country and you can go anywhere here at any time without fearing for life or wallet.
Maybe it helps that even the poorest here still have something to lose.
What's the plan? (Score:2)
Iran has had several feints at overthrowing the mullahs, and they have all ended the same way: street protests, the regime kills a few hundred people, a sense of futility sets in, and they return to the status quo.
Has any kind of underground emerged and organized from the last round? If the answer is "No", then this will probably be just another feint.
Revolutions don't actually require you to be flooded with firearms as so many US 2A advocates think. Organization, infiltration, and planning are far more
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yeah, "infiltration". Or in other words, a coup done by people already sitting in government / police / military, with a leader probably already very close to grab of ultimate power by established means.
A "revolution" can only be free of bloodshed if it can promise almost everyone in old establishment to stay employed / sitting in the new establishment. This may or may not be feasible depending on the cause / purpose of the "revolution". Modern oppressive regimes make sure the corruption / massacre is
Re: (Score:2)
Many revolutions have been carried out with surprisingly little violence amongst populations who have almost no firearms.
What often happens in the soldiers sent to shoot the protestors join them instead.
That is less likely to happen in a theocracy where the soldiers believe they are serving God.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the Iranian revolution in 79 was exactly that. The Shah had the 4th largest and arguably the 2nd best armed army on the planet. And the protesters were essentially unarmed. And they won.
Revolutions are not won or lost with arms. They are won and lost with conviction. Sure, afterwards, when people realize just WHAT they got with their revolution, I kinda doubt the same level of conviction would have applied...
Re: (Score:2)
iranian men are animals? question to morality poli (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, the Iranian morality police pretty much says that Iranian men are spineless, weak willed and morally corrupt, devoid of decency and guided only by their base instincts? Did I get that right?
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, the Iranian morality police pretty much says that Iranian men are spineless, weak willed and morally corrupt, devoid of decency and guided only by their base instincts? Did I get that right?
Pretty well, yes. That's the undertone of all these religious restrictions on women - men are weak and have to be protected.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe we should simply put people who can't take responsibility for themselves under the guardianship of more qualifed people. Maybe women are up to the task.