In the middle of the hotly contested election campaign, Iran has banned its citizens from accessing FaceBook. The move is seen by outside observers to be an attempt to weaken the position of reform candidate Mir Hossein Mouavi, who has used the social networking site to great effect during his campaign.
FaceBook users in Iran were met with the following message this morning when attempting to log onto the site: “access to this site is not possible.” Free speech advocates have, rightly, been outraged by the Iranian government’s move to ban FaceBook in the middle of a hotly contested election campaign.
FaceBook has weighed in on the controversy as well, saying that they were disappointed that their site has been blocked from public access at a time when more and more Iranian citizens are finding information about candidates and their political positions online.
Of course, censoring free speech and media outlets is nothing new in Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frequently moved to ban media outlets considered “unfriendly” to his regime. But the move to block FaceBook in Iran is a particularly obvious political tactic, and demonstrates just how well his opponent has used the Web — and social networking sites in particular — to garner support from the masses. Blocking FaceBook is a clear indication that Ahmadinejad is running scared.
Not only does banning FaceBook make the current government look petty and frightened of a little healthy competition, it also seems like a desperate move that could possibly backfire. After all, there are plenty of other web sites online other than FaceBook where Iranians can get information about the political candidates, not to mention that the overwhelming majority of Iranian citizens have access to cell phones, and can easily send text messages promoting one candidate or the other.
Ironically, other social networking sites like MySpace and even Twitter were not affected by the ban. And even though FaceBook is the most prominent social site in the Middle East, there are still lots of alternatives to get the word out about the candidates and make their positions known to the public.
For all of these reasons, banning FaceBook in Iran is unlikely to have a big impact on the outcome of the election; in fact, with so many FaceBook fans in Iran, banning the site could even backfire and create even more feelings of ill will toward Ahmedinejad’s government. What delicious irony it would be if Ahmedinejad ended up losing the election by a narrow margin consisting primarily of pissed-off FaceBook fans. We can always hope…
