Iran Could Replace Internet With National Intranet By August

In a statement released by Reza Taghipour, the Iranian Minister for Information and Communications Technology, made an announcement that Iran plans to create a national intranet. This would cut off millions of Iranian internet users from the world wide web, which would be replaced by a government regulated “clean internet”. The International Business Times, which has reported Taghipour as saying “All Internet Service Providers (ISP) should only present National Internet by August,” is being called western propaganda by Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology. The reports do, however, fit in with previous reports of Iran’s desire for a national internet. That, coupled with Iran already cutting off internet access multiple times earlier in the year, only adds further weight to the argument especially when considering their efforts at blocking foreign news, social networking and even the London 2012 Olympic websites. Still it remains to be seen how the Iranian public will handle further censorship by their government, but considering many already use proxy servers over virtual private networks to thwart government blocking efforts, I doubt they will be accepting of the censorship to say the least. With all this said, the Iranian ministry still firmly denies these reports.