The “Tousheh” project, which has been launched for over two years, provides users with the ability to receive video, text, and other digital content available on the internet through a satellite channel of the same name, for free and transfer it to their computers. The significance of this method of sending and receiving information, which has been launched for the first time in the world by the Tousheh project team and made available to Persian-speaking users, is doubled in situations where access to news and information is limited due to extensive filtering in Iran.

In this issue of Khatt-e-Solh, we had a conversation with Milad Hosseini Kashatan, the content manager and social media coordinator of the Tousheh Project. Mr. Hosseini Kashatan has graduated from the field of industrial management in Iran and in recent years has collaborated with various organizations and campaigns, including the Union for Iran, the Right to Life Campaign, and the No to Forced Hijab Campaign, in pursuit of social freedoms and human rights.

Mr. Hosseini Kashatan, during the nationwide protests in December, the Iranian government once again took action to filter social media networks. At a time when access to news and information was severely limited due to this extensive filtering in Iran, “Toosheh” was one of the few tools that allowed citizens to access news through it. Share your experience during this time.

As you mentioned, with the start of nationwide protests and the increase in internet filtering and complete blocking of access to social media networks such as Telegram, people in Iran needed more than ever alternative ways to access news and information freely, and the service of Tousheh provided this opportunity. In the early days of the protests, the importance of Tousheh became clear to me, as a post about how to use Tousheh to access news about the protests and use filter breakers on social media was viewed over 250,000 times. My colleagues and I in the content production department were very excited about the effective role of Tousheh in disseminating uncensored news and filter breakers, and they spent hours daily collecting news and videos from news websites and social media networks. The result was a daily package of news, including the most important events of the day, expert analysis, and the hottest topics on social media, with a size of approximately 500 megabytes.

This is a caption for the image.

این یک عنوان برای تصویر است.
Milad Hosseini Keshatan

Have you previously predicted such conditions?

Yes, absolutely. Interestingly, the start of the nationwide protests coincided with the New Year holidays and at that time, myself and several other colleagues were traveling. Fortunately, due to previous predictions, we quickly changed our plans and were able to respond to the needs of our users in the best way possible. The most important needs were receiving the latest uncensored news about the country’s situation and having up-to-date and reliable VPNs, which I previously explained how to send. Another prediction we had for such conditions was to reduce the size of the packages sent in order to decrease the time it takes to receive them.

During this period, have you received any reports about whether Yahsat satellite or specifically the Toushe channel has been targeted for parasitic purposes, and whether these parasites have had any significant impact on the quality and ability to receive Toushe signals and make it impossible to receive files?

Yes, based on the news that has been published by users on social networks, especially on Twitter, many satellite channels, including BBC Persian and Manoto TV, were affected by interference during the protests in various cities across the country. This interference was present on satellites such as Eutelsat, Hotbird, and Yahsat, and therefore Tousheh channel was not exempt from this issue. However, we specifically asked Tousheh users in a Telegram poll on January 11th about this, and 57% of respondents confirmed the presence of interference on Tousheh channel during the nationwide protests. Respondents from all over the country participated in this poll, and the provinces of Tehran, Isfahan, Gilan, Fars, and Khorasan Razavi had the highest reports of interference.

But fortunately, the Toushe service has a better chance of dealing with interference compared to other satellite channels. This is because Toushe engineers have allocated a portion of the bandwidth for reconstructing the content being transmitted, which helps repair any missing content. In special circumstances, such as when there is interference on the channel, making it difficult for Toushe users to receive files, we increase the bandwidth allocated for data reconstruction so that users can receive the transmitted content without any problems and with only a little extra time.

During the days of nationwide protests, you had planned special content for your audience with a different schedule. Did your viewership change and did you actually receive more reception?

As I mentioned, during the protests, we reduced the size of the packages we sent, so that people could receive their desired content more quickly. During this time, half of the daily packages consisted of special content for nationwide protests and filtering tools.

During the nationwide protests, the usage statistics of the Toosheh service significantly increased. Although due to the offline nature of the Toosheh service, we cannot have an accurate count of Toosheh users, our data shows that the number of Toosheh users during the first week of the protests was at least six times higher than the number of users one week prior. Within that same week, more than 21,000 people directly downloaded the Toosheh software from our website or Google Play, while we do not have statistics on the number of downloads from other sources such as Telegram.

What is the plan for the future and similar situations?

I am happy to announce a 40% increase in bandwidth for our network in recent days, and I hope this change will greatly help in accelerating the delivery of programs to our users.

We have also recently tested a new feature on our Tousheh service, where individuals can receive only their desired content based on a schedule, without having to receive the entire daily package. This feature can be a helpful tool for users who do not want the usual Tousheh programs and are only looking to receive news or a filter through our service.

The content creation team of Toushe is always fully prepared to deliver comprehensive and suitable content in such circumstances.

Thank you for the opportunity you have provided us with to reach a peace agreement.