The Power of the Internet: Technology helping Iran
Filed under: Politics & Issues, Topher
Author: Topher
Date: Jun 18, 2009
There is political turmoil in Iran right now. The results of the recent presidential election held on June 12th, 2009 are under protest, as incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won with two-thirds of cast votes. Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Prime Minister of Iran Mir-Hossein Mousavi received the other 33% of cast votes, but claims that the election was rigged and the total vote count is false.
You may remember Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University in the United States a while back, where he made some fairly homophobic remarks. “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.”
Iranian citizens are supporting Mousavi’s claims by protesting in the streets and by trying to gather support through texts, the internet, blogs and even Twitter. The Iranian government, led by Ahmadinejad is attempting to block all information about the election and it’s results by banning all internet traffic and jamming cell phone texts.
The controlling of this information is disgusting to me, and just seems to implicate the falsity of the results. I totally take for granted the fact that I have unlimited, unrestricted access to pretty much all the information I want. And, I have a free venue to post any of my opinions (doesn’t mean you’ll read them, but at least I have the option).
I’m a lazy bastard, an armchair activist if you can even call it that. I don’t usually pay enough attention to world politics and I’m not the only one. While researching this article the top three video articles on BBC News were (in order): “Girl to sue over facial tattoos”, “Obama swats fly mid-interview” AND THEN “Fresh protest in Tehran”.
I did come across such an inspiring article today, though.
S.F. techie helps stir Iranian protests
Basically this guy, Austin Heap, from the states (who previously took on main-stream media by providing episodes of South Park online for free) transferred his information sharing skills into providing the Iranian public the ability to get their voices heard in such an important political climate.
What allowed Iranians to have their voice in the news, also reconnected families separated by thousands of miles.
Traffic on his blog grew from a couple of dozen unique users a day to more than 100,000 in 24 hours. A woman in Canada asked him for help getting her Iranian family back online.
On Twitter, a Tehran resident posted: “@austinheap Thank you for all you are doing to help my people. This support and kindness will never be forgotten.”
“Most of the reactions from Iran have almost made me cry,” he said. “Having somebody tell me that their family thanks me – that’s the power of the Internet.”
Iran is a far away land to me. I know almost nothing unbiased about its culture, or government. But, I have the utmost interest in the right to information, and for everyone to at least have their voice heard. It makes me very happy to know that there are people out there like Heap.
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Jamshid
February 27th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Thank you for your post. We feel strongly Austin Heap is not an honst person. we believe his haystack project is a fraud.
Please read:
http://iran115.org/blacklist for more information.
My name is Jamshid.
My number is 202-509-0933 if you have any questions. Please help me spread the word. He has done some very harmful things to our organization.
A very cruel person to say the least.
Jamshid
February 27th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
I can not correct the previous post.
Please fix. Austin Heap is a very dishonest person. We feel strongly that his project is a scam.
I have been involved in the struggle for democracy in Iran since 2001.
Jamshid
March 1st, 2010 at 8:40 am
Ten reasons why Austin Heap, haystack, and Censorship Research Center is a scam
Yes. We understand Austin heap has received a great deal of press coverage. We have watched all of his interviews and presentations. Our opinion is that the media has been hood winked. Desperate to find heroes in the struggle for freedom inside Iran, people have latched on to a person who we feel is a dishonest, cruel, and unethical charlatan. We will admit that we are very angry. But we think our anger has good reason.
1. Austin Heap is not Iranian and admits he was not even involved with Iran before this recent election crisis.
2. Austin Heap admits to working with a certain “group”. His work is not human rights, it is political activism. We believe he is working with a known terrorist organization called the MKO. The MKO apparently has created an alliance with Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah. Whoever this group is, Austin Heap has alluded to them on his blog.
3. Austin Heap says you need a USB thumb drive to use his program to bypass filtering in Iran. We think this is a flawed concept and is very dangerous. It could potentially allow everybody’s movements to be tracked. It would also be difficult to implement.
4. Austin Heap was asking for donations and USB thumb drives back in July before he was even registered properly. He claims that he now is a registered 501c3. He most certainly put the cart before the horse. His original PayPal account was also suspended.
5. Austin heap’s haystack project is illegal. It is against the law until certain changes are made to the export rules involving Iran.
6. Austin Heap makes up false stories. At one point he confirmed personally tanks were rolling in the streets of Tehran.. He accuses our organization of being a sham without even trying to do any research.
7. The only thing Austin Heap has really accomplished was to distribute a list of proxy servers. He is also very good at milking the media for all it was worth.
8. Austin heap’s behavior towards Iranians fight for democracy in Iran has been unethical. His friends were telling people not to contribute to our work, but rather to donate money to Austin Heap. He also began calling us a sham based upon rumors and never bothered to call us or to do further research. Example: twitter.com/rage4iran
9. Austin Heap was offered $1,000 if he could prove to us that Haystack works in Iran. He has never responded to the offer.
10. Austin Heap associates with very dark people like a character called Tehranweekly on twitter and somebody called Sanguinarious from a website called whyweprotest.net. A group that apparently was first created to fight the church of scientology. They created a sub forum on their site called:
iran.whyweprotest.net which according to certain news stories is also sponsored in part by Pirate Bay. And no… I am not joking.
You can read more about Austin Heap and Operation blacklist at the following link:
http://iran115.org/blacklist
Jamshid
202-509-0933
Feel free to delete previous posts as I can not remove them.
Warning Iran115 is a scam
March 1st, 2010 at 8:54 pm
iran115 is a scam and everyone knows it, read more about him here: http://iran.whyweprotest.net/twitter/60551-special-report-about-iran115.html