View from a Rhino House: FB goes nuclear

Banned in Iran since 2009, Facebook has an unlikely new member, the “Big Man” himself, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Facebook page “Khamenei.ir”  was launched (if that’s the word) last week & displays photographs of the BM alongside his speeches & pronouncements.

The page has been publicized by a Twitter account of the same name that “Iran experts” think may be run by the BM’s office.

Both of the social media sites are blocked in Iran but they are still commonly used by millions of Iranians who utilize a range of VPN & proxy-server software to get around the ban. (Just a guess here, but I think the government doesn’t try too hard to stop people going on to banned sites; it makes it easier to arrest them when you have the IP addresses of the “enemy within”.)

In 2009, FB & Twitter were extensively used by Iranians who believed that the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been rigged. They were used to help organize the biggest street protests since the Revolution.

The BM’s Facebook page shows a picture of the young Khamenei alongside the founder of the Islamic Republic (& every Iranian cleric’s wet dream), Ayatollah Khomeini, apparently taken in the 1960s.

The page is similar in style, content & tone to the BM’s Khamenei.ir website, an acknowledged official BM website, currently published in 13 languages.

“Experts” (yes, them again) said the FB & Twitter accounts showed that Iran, despite denying easy access to such sites for those inside the country, was keen to use them to project its religious & political views onto the global stage.

Just in case you have been living in a cave without access to the outside world for the past decade, Iran is locked in a dispute with the West (well OK, mainly the US) over its nuclear program, which the US (et al) suspect is aimed at developing a weapon, something Iran has repeatedly denied.

Iranian authorities have said they are trying to build a national intranet, something “experts” say is a way to further control Iranians’ access to the global web. Tehran tried to block Google email service this year but soon re-opened access.

Good thing the Indians & the Pakistanis aren’t interested in nuclear weapons, or we’d have even more FB pages adorned with pictures of lunatics this time taken alongside Nehru & Gandhi.

“Dear Santa, this year I would like…….”