Internet activism during the 2009 Iranian election protests

Last updated

Internet activism and, specifically, social networking has been instrumental in organizing many of the 2009 Iranian election protests. [1] Online sites have been uploading amateur pictures and video, and Twitter, Facebook, and blogs have been places for protesters to gather and exchange information. [1] Although some scholars in the West stress that Twitter has been used to organize protests, [2] [3] Iranian scholars argue that Twitter was hardly used by Iranian citizens in the midst of the 2009 protests. [4] [5] [6] [7]

Contents

Use of social networking

Twitter in particular has been seen a key central gathering site during the protests. [8]

The U.S. State Department urged the company to postpone a scheduled network upgrade that would have briefly put the service offline. [9] [10] Twitter delayed the network upgrade from midnight American time/morning Iran time to afternoon American time/midnight Iran time "because events in Iran were tied directly to the growing significance of Twitter as an important communication and information network", but at the same time denied that the State Department had "access to our decision making process". [11] [12] Social networking sites became the primary source of information, videos, and testimonials of the protests. Major news outlets, such as CNN [13] and BBC News, [14] gained much of their information from using and sorting through tweets by Twitter users and videos uploaded to YouTube. [15] The use of social networking became central enough to the reports from Iran to make Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown state that the way the internet has democratised communication has forever changed the way foreign policy can be carried out [16] and even suggest that web-based social networking could have prevented the Rwandan genocide. [16]

Several reports disagree that the role of Twitter is central to the protests. [4] [17] The Economist magazine stated that the Twitter thread IranElection was so deluged with messages of support from Americans and Britons that it "rendered the site almost useless as a source of information—something that Iran's government had tried and failed to do". [18] The Economist asserted that the most comprehensive sources of information in English by far were created by bloggers who pulled out useful information from the mass of information, of whom it singles out Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post , Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic and Robert Mackey of the New York Times . [15] A study by social media analytics company Sysomos shows that of 65 million population, there are only 19,235 Twitter users who disclose their location as Iran. [19]

Internet activism and hacktivism

DDoS attacks

Mousavi's supporters, through social networking sites, exchanged scripts for launching distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) against Ahmadinejad's website. [3] [20] British citizens were reported to support the DDoS attacks against president Ahmadinejad by providing software for launching them. [21] Many anti-Ahmedinejad activists have attacked the websites of Ahmedinejad and the government. The impact of the attacks remains unclear. At times the government's official website (ahmedinejad.ir) was inaccessible. [22]

Anonymous Iran

Homepage of The Pirate Bay on 20 June 2009; it remained renamed in solidarity for several days, as Anonymous and TPB had collaborated on the launching of the website Anonymous Iran. TBP The Persian Bay 20 June 09 front page.png
Homepage of The Pirate Bay on 20 June 2009; it remained renamed in solidarity for several days, as Anonymous and TPB had collaborated on the launching of the website Anonymous Iran.

Anonymous, together with The Pirate Bay, established the Iranian Green Party Support site Anonymous Iran during the protests. The site, which has drawn over 22,000 supporters worldwide, provides several tools to circumvent the Iranian regime's Internet censorship; the site thus provides covert resources and support to Iranians who are directly protesting. [23] [24] Anonymous has published a short video on Iran Archived 2009-07-07 at the Wayback Machine and has released a message to the Iranian government, manifestos in which Anonymous declares its reasons for supporting the protests.

In addition to providing support and resources, the site also features a daily report on events in Iran by underground journalist Josh Shahryar called the Green Brief.

Haystack

On July 4, an IT professional called Austin Heap announced together with Daniel Colascione their preparations to release Haystack, what would be a program designed specifically to bypass Iranian authorities' Internet monitoring and censorship mechanisms and allow the Iranian population to access an unfiltered Internet. [25] [ self-published source? ]

The program has begun to be tested with the help of collaborators from Iran [26] and development continued also for the supporting network of servers and its security policy. [27]

Global advocacy group Avaaz.org donated a grant of $15,000 US for the ongoing project. [28]

However, independent reviews showed the software was dangerously insecure. Not only did it fail to encrypt secrets properly, but it could also reveal its users’ identities and locations. [29] Digital activist Danny O'Brien openly criticized Haystack over how it would leave its users vulnerable. [30] Also, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has advised all of Haystack users to stop using it. [31]

There were critics [31] about the hype made at the time of the software announcement, with the government and media accepting all the claims at face value.

The disclosure of the security issues with Haystack has led its sole programmer, Dan Colascione, to resign and ultimately, to the announcement in September 2010 that the software had been withdrawn over security fears. [31]

Webcomics

Cover of Persepolis 2.0 Persepolis2.jpg
Cover of Persepolis 2.0

A webcomic called Persepolis 2.0 was created in 2009 by Iranian-born artists Payman and Sina whose subjects were the re-elections of conservative Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the social turmoil that followed them. The novel uses previously published graphic material by Marjane Satrapi from the original Perspolis graphic novel and is ten pages long.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse, the pseudonymous authors said, "Marjane's images describe events from 30 years ago yet they mirror the postelection events so well." [32] The artists live in Shanghai, China, and use only the names "Payman" and "Sina." [32]

In an e-mail, Sina said that visitors of the website came from 120 countries, that the reception "has been great," and that he received e-mails from many people wishing to support the Iranians. [33]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Iranian Green Movement or Green Wave of Iran, also referred to as the Persian Awakening or Persian Spring by the western media, refers to a political movement that arose after the June 12, 2009 Iranian presidential election and lasted until early 2010, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office. Green was initially used as the symbol of Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, but after the election it became the symbol of unity and hope for those asking for annulment of what they regarded as a fraudulent election. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi are recognized as political leaders of the Green Movement. Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri was also mentioned as spiritual leader of the movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hacktivism</span> Computer-based activities as a means of protest

Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism, is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hacker culture and hacker ethics, its ends are often related to free speech, human rights, or freedom of information movements.

An Internet bot, web robot, robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) on the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity, such as messaging, on a large scale. An Internet bot plays the client role in a client–server model whereas the server role is usually played by web servers. Internet bots are able to perform simple and repetitive tasks much faster than a person could ever do. The most extensive use of bots is for web crawling, in which an automated script fetches, analyzes and files information from web servers. More than half of all web traffic is generated by bots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Controversies of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad</span>

Controversies of the former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad included criticism after his election victory on June 29, 2005. These include charges that he participated in the 1979-1981 Iran Hostage Crisis, assassinations of Kurdish politicians in Austria, torture, interrogation and executions of political prisoners in the Evin prison in Tehran. Ahmadinejad and his political supporters have denied these allegations.

In Iran, censorship was ranked among the world's most extreme in 2024. Reporters Without Borders ranked Iran 176 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, which ranks countries from 1 to 180 based on the level of freedom of the press. Reporters Without Borders described Iran as “one of the world’s five biggest prisons for media personnel" in the 40 years since the revolution. In the Freedom House Index, Iran scored low on political rights and civil liberties and has been classified as 'not free.'

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of Internet conflicts</span>

The Internet has a long history of turbulent relations, major maliciously designed disruptions, and other conflicts. This is a list of known and documented Internet, Usenet, virtual community and World Wide Web related conflicts, and of conflicts that touch on both offline and online worlds with possibly wider reaching implications.

Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the major reason for their popularity. Some popular social networks such as X (Twitter), Threads, Tumblr, Mastodon and Instagram can be viewed as collections of microblogs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anonymous (hacker group)</span> Decentralized hacktivist group

Anonymous is a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2009 Iranian presidential election protests</span> Protests against the 2009 re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The protests continued until 2010, and were titled the Iranian Green Movement by their proponents, reflecting Mousavi's campaign theme, and Persian Awakening, Persian Spring or Green Revolution.

Twitter Revolution is a term used to refer to different revolutions and protests, most of which featured the use of the social networking site X, formerly and colloquially known as Twitter, by protesters and demonstrators in order to communicate.

Following the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests against alleged electoral fraud and in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi occurred in Tehran and other major cities in Iran and around the world starting after the disputed presidential election on 2009 June 12 and continued even after the inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as President of Iran on 5 August 2009. This is a timeline of the events which occurred during those protests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International reaction to the 2009 Iranian presidential election</span>

Reactions to the 2009 Iranian presidential election varied across the world. Most Western countries expressed concern, while most countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that expressed any opinion congratulated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his victory. The UN and EU also expressed concern about the aftermath.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei</span> Iranian politician and former intelligence officer (born 1960)

Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei is an Iranian conservative politician and former intelligence officer. As a senior Cabinet member in the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he served as Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2013, and served as the fourth first vice president of Iran for one week in 2009 until his resignation was ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Haystack was a never-completed program intended for network traffic obfuscation and encryption. It was promoted as a tool to circumvent internet censorship in Iran. Shortly after the release of the first test version, reviewers concluded the software did not live up to promises made about its functionality and security, and would leave its users' computers more vulnerable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Payback</span> Series of cyberattacks conducted by Anonymous

Operation Payback was a coordinated, decentralized group of attacks on high-profile opponents of Internet piracy by Internet activists using the "Anonymous" moniker. Operation Payback started as retaliation to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on torrent sites; piracy proponents then decided to launch DDoS attacks on piracy opponents. The initial reaction snowballed into a wave of attacks on major pro-copyright and anti-piracy organizations, law firms, and individuals. The Motion Picture Association of America, the Pirate Party UK and United States Pirate Party criticised the attacks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Censorship of Twitter</span> Restrictions to access on Twitter by governments

Censorship of Twitter refers to Internet censorship by governments that block access to Twitter. Twitter censorship also includes governmental notice and take down requests to Twitter, which it enforces in accordance with its Terms of Service when a government or authority submits a valid removal request to Twitter indicating that specific content published on the platform is illegal in their jurisdiction.

Anonymous is a decentralised virtual community. They are commonly referred to as an internet-based collective of hacktivists whose goals, like its organization, are decentralized. Anonymous seeks mass awareness and revolution against what the organization perceives as corrupt entities, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Anonymous has had a hacktivist impact. This is a timeline of activities reported to be carried out by the group.

Hotspot Shield is a public VPN service operated by AnchorFree, Inc. Hotspot Shield was used to bypass government censorship during the Arab Spring protests in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High Orbit Ion Cannon</span> Denial-of-service attack tool

High Orbit Ion Cannon (HOIC) is an open-source network stress testing and denial-of-service attack application designed to attack as many as 256 URLs at the same time. It was designed to replace the Low Orbit Ion Cannon which was developed by Praetox Technologies and later released into the public domain. The security advisory for HOIC was released by Prolexic Technologies in February 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BlueLeaks</span> Data leak of US law enforcement

BlueLeaks, sometimes referred to by the Twitter hashtag #BlueLeaks, refers to 269.21 gibibytes of internal U.S. law enforcement data obtained by the hacker collective Anonymous and released on June 19, 2020, by the activist group Distributed Denial of Secrets, which called it the "largest published hack of American law enforcement agencies".

References

  1. 1 2 "Internet brings events in Iran to life". BBC. 14 June 2009. Retrieved 14 June 2009.
  2. Sullivan, Andrew. Twitter vs The Coup. The Atlantic. 15 June 2009.
  3. 1 2 "In focus: Iranian Opposition DDoS-es pro-Ahmadinejad Sites". 2009-06-16. Archived from the original on 2011-10-08. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
  4. 1 2 Honari, Ali (2015). "Online Social Research in Iran: A Need to Offer a Bigger Picture". CyberOrient: Online Journal of the Virtual Middle East. 9 (2).
  5. Honari, Ali (2014). "From Virtual to Tangible Social Movements in Iran". In Paul Aarts; Francesco Cavatorta (eds.). Civil Society in Syria and Iran: Activism in Authoritarian Contexts. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rinner.
  6. Esfandyari, Golnaz (7 June 2010). "The Twitter devolution". Foreign Policy.
  7. Rahimi, Babak (2011). "The agonistic social media: Cyberspace in the formation of dissent and consolidation of state power in postelection Iran". The Communication Review. 14 (3): 158–178. doi:10.1080/10714421.2011.597240. S2CID   143717833.
  8. Stone, Brad; Noam Cohen (15 June 2009). "Social Networks Spread Defiance Online". NYT. Retrieved 15 June 2009.
  9. Reuters. U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran 16 June 2009
  10. Ben Parr (2009-06-16). "U.S. Government Asks Twitter to Stay Up for #IranElection Crisis". Mashable.com. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
  11. Twitter Blog Up, Up, and Away 16 June 2009
  12. "Twitter Reschedules Maintenance Around #IranElection Controversy". Mashable.com. 15 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
  13. "Officials: Social networking providing crucial info from Iran". CNN. 2009-06-16. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
  14. Shiels, Maggie (2009-06-17). "Twitter responds on Iranian role". BBC News. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
  15. 1 2 "Coverage of the protests: Twitter 1, CNN 0". The Economist . 2009-06-18. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
  16. 1 2 Viner, Katharine (2009-06-19). "Internet has changed foreign policy for ever, says Gordon Brown". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
  17. "Iran's Twitter Revolution? Maybe Not Yet". BusinessWeek. 2009-06-17. Archived from the original on June 19, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-23.
  18. "Coverage of the Protests Twitter=1 CNN=0". 2009-06-18. Retrieved 2011-09-26.
  19. "A Look at Twitter in Iran". Sysomos. 2009-06-21. Archived from the original on 2009-06-24. Retrieved 2009-06-23.
  20. "Iran election protesters use Twitter to recruit hackers". 2009-06-18. Archived from the original on 2009-07-19.
  21. "Briton's software a surprise weapon in Iran cyberwar". CNN. 17 June 2009.
  22. Shachtman, Noah (2009-06-15). "Activists Launch Hack Attacks on Tehran Regime". Wired . Retrieved 2009-06-15.
  23. "Internet underground takes on Iran". Nine News. 2009-06-29. Archived from the original on 2009-07-03. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
  24. Iranian Support Site http://iran.whyweprotest.net Archived 2011-02-21 at the Wayback Machine
  25. HaystackNetwork.com
  26. Austin Heap's blog, "Moment of Truth" Archived 2009-07-11 at the Wayback Machine
  27. Austin Heap's blog, "Building the 'stack" Archived 2011-11-08 at the Wayback Machine
  28. Morozov, Evgeny (September 16, 2010). "The Great Internet Freedom Fraud - How Haystack endangered the Iranian dissidents it was supposed to protect". Slate.com.
  29. "Worse than useless". The Economist. September 16, 2010.
  30. O'Brien, Danny (September 14, 2010). "Haystack vs How The Internet Works".
  31. 1 2 3 "Anti-censorship program Haystack withdrawn". BBC News. 14 September 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2010.
  32. 1 2 Itzkoff, Dave. "Persepolis Updated to Protest Election." The New York Times . 21 August 2009. Retrieved on 24 March 2012.
  33. Weaver, Matthew. "Persepolis 2.0: Iran poll inspires sequel." The Guardian . Tuesday 30 June 2009. Retrieved on 24 March 2012.