Tehran, Iran, May 10
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
The issue of social and mass media has been a stage of controversy in the administration of President Hassan Rouhani.
In fresh statements, Iran's Minister of Culture Ali Jannati has called for a different approach by the police to the issue.
The police have to enforce the law, which has set restrictions on using satellite channels; but we have to see how effective these measures have been, he said, Fars news agency reported May 10.
Jannati was referring to police operations of collecting satellite receivers as mandated by law with the aim to fight what has been dubbed in Iran as the West's cultural assault.
He also pointed to social applications such as WhatsApp and Viber, and maintained that the form of communication in these apps is so that they can no longer be fought.
Jannati stated that the large number of social media make it impossible for a country to contain them.
"We have to take the scene and produce as much (content) as we can, because the more our products on the (cyber) space, the stronger our imprint on the public mind," he said.
"The best way to fight is to use these very satellite channels and cyberspace. We have to make the best of these very tools. Why shouldn't we be posting videos on Youtube?" he asked rhetorically.
The best way to control the public mind is to go along with it, not fight it, he said.
"We have to use the reference sources in order to control and build the public mind," he said, referring to non-governmental organizations.
"Instead of controlling NGOs ourselves and preventing them from growing, we should enforce the insider organizations," he said.
Iranian media outlets reported Jan.7 that the judiciary had ordered the Iranian government to block access to WhatsApp, Line, and Tango because the services can be used to share "immoral" content. They reported that the apps will be blocked in the near future.
The judiciary has been trying to get Iran's government to block access to these services since September 2014.
In response to a final order by the judiciary to close down mobile messaging services, the country's Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said in October 2014 that it would have no effect.
A survey by Iranian Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports indicates that 69.3 percent of the country's young generation use proxy servers to bypass the filters and access banned Internet websites.