Internet Execution Season/ Barbod Mirage
The chain of deliberate and unintentional events in the government of Ebrahim Raisi has led to the satisfaction of the internet in Iran reaching its lowest level. The 34% increase in internet prices was the final link in this chain that brought us to this point. But why have governing institutions, especially the government, raised the voices of internet users in Iran to the sky by implementing censorship and blocking policies?
The internet became expensive. This was a news that internet operators in Iran had been waiting to hear for a long time. Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Hassan Rouhani, considered the expensive internet as one of the red lines of his ministry and strongly opposed it. Despite the fact that third and fourth generations of communications in Iran have grown during Rouhani’s term, and of course later than the global trend, operators were not happy with the twelfth government in this regard.
With the start of Ebrahim Raisi’s government in August 2021 and the establishment of his cabinet in September of the same year, Isa Zar’apour was chosen as the Minister of Communications of the thirteenth government. A person who cannot be compared to Zar’apour in terms of academic qualifications is Azari Jahromi, but he has not shown the same level of recklessness as the young minister Rouhani. He, like a large part of the fundamentalist movement of the Islamic Republic, is not familiar with the game of media.
من امروز تصمیم گرفتم که به سفر بروم
I have decided to go on a trip today.
Internet Surgery
In the early months of its establishment, the government showed itself to be very active and made desperate efforts to gain the trust of the society. Therefore, most cabinet ministers, including the Minister of Communications, did not blame the previous government for their shortcomings, a practice that has recently changed significantly.
Zarepour, who caused a wave of dissatisfaction upon entering the Ministry of Communications, attributed the inadequate conditions of the internet to the lack of development in the fixed network over the past 10 years without directly mentioning the previous government. He also stated that mobile operators cannot handle the network load, which has led to an increase in dissatisfaction. He said that we should follow the example of most countries in the world and shift the internet load towards the fixed network.
Harf Zarepour’s statement about the gap between fixed and mobile networks in Iran is largely correct. In the years that mobile internet has been relatively developed in Iran, people have not been inclined to use fixed internet due to differences in quality and accessibility, and this reluctance continues. Operators, during the two terms of the current government, have been in agreement with the Ministry of Communications in raising internet prices, but this has not been an easy task.
Ibrahim Raisi took over the government at a time when the inefficiency of the Islamic Republic was more evident than ever. In a situation where Rouhani had unleashed inflation since 2018 and the system was at its lowest level of public satisfaction after the November 2019 protests and shooting down of the Ukrainian plane, and the leader of the Islamic Republic had caused the death of thousands of COVID-19 patients by banning the import of American and British vaccines, the 1400 presidential election was held. In this election, the lowest rate of public participation was recorded and ultimately Ibrahim Raisi, a key member of the Death Commission in 1988, was elected as the head of the government; a government that its critics consider to be the weakest in the history of the Islamic Republic.
Contrary to the optimistic expectations of supporters of the president, and as expected, he also did not succeed in gaining the satisfaction of the people and ending the economic crisis. The 7-month government of the president at the end of 1400 (2021-2022), recorded a 46.2% inflation rate. The following year, inflation was also recorded at 45.8%, and with the intensification of social and political unrest, the crisis of dissatisfaction reached a point where on September 1401 (2022), the most widespread and longest-running popular protests since the revolution began. In those months, with the implementation of the first currency shock in the thirteenth government, cabinet officials used the excuse that it takes time to remove the previous government’s mistakes, and since the budget for 1401 (2022) was mostly the result of the previous government’s work, this government was unable to carry out its desired economic reforms. However, in 1402 (
Operators have shown throughout all these months that they are seeking interaction with the government and do not have a confrontational approach at all. Even in the months following the protests of 1401, when the country’s internet was falling into the black hole of restrictions and filtering, this approach was not seen; black holes that are well seen in their financial situations. According to official reports, Hamrah-e-Aval’s income decreased by 734 billion tomans in Mehr month of that year compared to Shahrivar month, and AsiaTech also experienced a decrease of 15 billion tomans in income in this month.
They were only after their own profit, even in situations where the internet was becoming more limited every day. To prove this claim, one can refer to the names of the CEO of Irancell, affiliated with the Foundation for the Oppressed, who wrote letters to the Deputy Minister of Communications and complained about the new restrictions on internet usage. He said that these conditions have caused a decrease in their income. However, Bijan Abbasi did not mention the necessity of ending these limitations and stated that according to the law, the damages caused by blocking the internet should be paid to the operator, not the user.
من به دنبال یک دوست واقعی هستم
I am looking for a true friend.
We filter, but not for our own good.
In these circumstances, the government implemented the plan for tiered internet with the lights off. A plan that was first taken up by the parliament and then executed by the government. The government used the excuse that some professions require unlimited internet and with this baseless justification that such practices exist everywhere in the world, they attempted to filter certain groups.
Previously, affiliated reporters in Rouhani’s government were included in this plan, and now the Ministry of Communications wanted to develop class-based internet. From university faculty members and the head coach of the national football team to the spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and members of the Chamber of Commerce, they were all seeking unfiltered internet or, in general terms, class-based internet.
The government, however, denied the existence of such phenomena and claimed that it had not carried out such actions; it only provided such possibilities for a few specialists who have special needs.
من از تو متنفرم
I hate you.
Intentional blocking.
What the Islamic Republic system and its government have brought to the forefront, is not limited to just slow internet speeds. There are many countries that have a worse situation in terms of internet, but their citizens are not as dissatisfied as Iranians, because internet restrictions, censorship, and filtering are the biggest problem for Iranian citizens.
One of the trade organizations in this field, called the Electronic Commerce Association, which consists of several large companies active in this sector, prepared a report in the summer of 1402 stating that Iran has the worst internet situation among the top 100 GDP countries in various aspects. As mentioned in this report, operators benefit from filtering in Iran.
In this report, it was claimed that intentional disruptions to the internet are being implemented in Iran and that Iran has the second most limited internet access in the world after China.
This forum recently announced with the release of its second report on censorship and internet blocking in Iran that conditions have not improved and the internet situation in Iran is still dangerous. The report stated that Iran ranks better than only China and Myanmar in the Freedom on the Net index by Freedom House. Additionally, Iran holds the record for the highest number of intentional internet shutdowns by the government in the first half of 2023 with 14 incidents.
من یک دانشجوی رشته مهندسی کامپیوتر هستم
I am a computer engineering student.
Inefficient system, dependent on the private sector.
In countries with normal economic conditions, the real price of each gigabyte of internet usually decreases over time. This is due to the increasing demand for internet usage among people. In situations where consumption is growing, the cost of each gigabyte for the operator decreases and the real price also decreases.
Iranian operators, however, say that despite the rapid inflation after 1996, the price of fixed internet has remained the same and this situation is not economically beneficial for them. They also point to the increase in labor costs as one of the reasons for the decrease in their income. Meanwhile, in recent years and contrary to the law, governments and the private sector have often been successful in controlling the increase in base salaries for their own benefit.
Operators have always considered the internet in Iran to be the cheapest or one of the cheapest, but they have not mentioned the impact of the devaluation of the national currency in Iran, especially after the recent currency shocks in the Rouhani and Raisi governments, which have made the national currency of the country according to Forbes, the most worthless national currency in the world.
Operators on the verge of internet inflation, wrote mass letters to Ibrahim Raisi and requested for internet prices to increase. This is something they did not even do during the toughest times of internet censorship in the country, when public protests were at their peak. At that time, even if they did protest, it had no connection to filtering, and according to the approach expected from profit-seeking businesses, they only expressed concern about their declining incomes.
The high cost of internet in Iran was a final blow to the public’s trust in the effectiveness of the internet system. This comes at a time when the internet is facing its most severe censorship and restrictions in Iran, and on the eve of parliamentary elections, the government has decided to pay the price for increasing internet rates. However, this dissatisfaction did not manifest itself in street protests like in November 1998. The dissatisfaction with the poor quality and high cost of internet in Iran added to the list of inefficiencies of the system, causing the tree of the legitimacy crisis to grow even stronger and threaten the system’s existence more than ever before.
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