Blogger And Orkut Banned In Iran
The Iranian government has ordered internet providers to filter out all blogging services including PersianBlog, BlogSpot, Blogger, BlogSky, and BlogRolling, as well Orkut, Yahoo Personals and some other popular dating and social networking websites. This information comes from Iran blogger Hossein Derakhshan, who says:
The EU and the US must seriously consider demanding for an end to the Internet censorship during their negotiations with the Iranian government.
Sadly, its not just Iran. China is far, far worse. There is one problem. Even though censorship is part of the definition of government oppression, the moment the U.S. gets involved, you know we’ll start hearing ridiculous complaints that we’re interfering and imperialistic. What exactly is so wrong that we are allowed to get involved?
(via Boing Boing)
I say we either pull out fully, meaning zero aid, or these people (the ones saying we stick our nose where it doesn’t belong) need to shut up. I bet you anything the moment we stop stroking checks they’ll just start mumbling about that. They need to choose, either we help and give it our all to get it right (I’m not saying we do always get it right, but d****t we try).
On another blog I once compared this scenario to a playground. You know, where the smart kid gets the big dumb kid to do all his dirty work. More often I’m starting to think the world considers us the big dumb kid, here to come and go when they want us and as they want us. They need to get over their arrogance and either accept our help as we offer it, or tell us to pack our bags and not expect financial hand-outs once we’re gone.
Sorry, very long rant that I probably should have held back
Comment by Matt | January 10, 2005
[…] UPDATE 3: I did a check, and as far as I can determine, I have one blocked post in Google.cn, this one, where at one point, talking about internet censorship in Iran, I say “China is far worse”. You can still get the date archive page, but the post itself is blocked, as far as I can determine. […]
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