Iran launches own video site to compete with 'inappropriate' YouTube

Published time: December 09, 2012 16:31
Edited time: December 09, 2012 20:31
Screenshot from mehr.ir

Iran has launched its own video-sharing website after the country deemed YouTube’s content inappropriate. The website aims to attract Persian-speaking users and promote Iranian culture, according its ‘About Us’ section.

The website is called 'Mehr,' which means 'affection' in Farsi. It has its own Facebook page dedicated to providing links to its content, including Iranian-produced music clips.

Tehran has censored YouTube since 2009, in the wake of the controversial elections that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.

The country has also been trying to stop its citizens from accessing a number of foreign websites that Tehran says undermine the Islamic regime. The Islamic Republic has blocked Facebook and Twitter, and aims to also censor blogs, pornography and Western media outlets.

Speaking at a conference in Amir Kabir University in August, Iran’s head of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Reza Taqipour, accused the Internet of being “untrustworthy” and in the “hands of one or two specific countries.”

Iran’s Web censorship plan has been met with criticism from the US, which has accused Tehran of seeking to develop an 'electronic curtain' to cut its population off from the world.

Others believe the move has less to do with censorship and more to do with the future protection of Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

In 2010, the Stuxnet virus, which was developed by Israeli and American intelligence agencies, was used to disrupt around 1,000 centrifuges in Iran's nuclear program. The virus is estimated to have delayed Iran’s nuclear program by as long as 18 months, although skeptical assessments say the impact may have been lower.

The announcement of its video-sharing site is one of Iran's first steps in its goal to establish a walled-off national intranet separate from the worldwide Internet. The project could be completed as early as 2013, officials said.

If the plan goes through, Iran will not be the first country to successfully develop its own intranet.

North Korea’s 'Kwangmyong,' which was launched in 2002, contains its own newsgroups, a browser, an email program and a search engine. Direct access to the Web is largely censored, much like China’s ‘Great Firewall.’

Comments (56)

tricky (unregistered) 10.12.2012 17:59

@guest

Just name calling? Very poor.  The 'islam' that you speak of are YOUR friends. The terrorist type employed to overthrow a secular Syria and add it to the list of backward Arab countries that tow the line of the west.
Iranians on the other hand know what repression is first hand and overthrew it with their bare hands.  And they can do it again if they chose.  As far as trading places goes..do not confuse respect and admiration with loyalty ( I an neither Iranian nor Muslim).  Supporting a country's rights against sinister imperialism is in the intersts of the World.  Do you see see Iran or Russia -that both suffered from failed western color revolutions- interfere in wetern politics? 
Actually here in England we have an un-elected government that seeks to spread democracy, human rights and rule of law abroad. Ironic.

Speek ing of democracy, the U.K were seething at the success and high turn out of the elections, where the president received ~ 60%  of votes.  Not only did the west accuse Iran of vote rigging (without proof of course- a familiar trademark and like the case of nuclear weaponisation), the state sponsored BBC were caught red-handed posting Ahmadinejad supporters as 'green revolutionaries' LOL! 

Do not try to bracket me into a group.  Because despite your best attempts, I fit none.  Who the hell appointed you World Police and from what moral high ground to you stand?  There is NO template of central governance and all should have their distinct approach.  Something the NWO is trying to extinguish.

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JJ (unregistered) 10.12.2012 13:16

Actually I think Iran having their own Internet stuff is a good idea, everyone
knows the USA tries to control the Internet so now they are tyring to control
the Internet through their puppet The U.N. 
    So having your own little Intra-Net is actually a good thing I think.
Iran is not the backward place the Zionist controlled Western Propaganda
press would have you believe, they want you to think Iran is all a bunch of
people riding around on Camels.  So I'm still trying to figure out how these
guys on Camels take control of American Drones and Launch Sattellites into
Outer Space.

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Danaos (unregistered) 10.12.2012 12:30

Well according to internet statistics, the worst internet-censorship offender is not Iran, nor Russia nor anyone else but Turkey - it had double numbers of sites to take down than US (a country 4 times the size and the major cross-road of all the world's interent, i.e. dealing with all the world). US takes down mostly civil-law illegal sites (sites that contravene a law) and of course some ''irritating sites'' on the side, while Turkey takes down mostly sites that are simply irritating the political-military establishment of Turkey (sites regarding the genocides Turkey commited in the 20th century, Kurdish sites etc.). Imagine...

Ir an is the least of the problem... Turkey is the camel here... but oh... Turkey is a US ally, isn't it? So it should be alright...

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