[liberationtech] The Truth about Iranian Search Engines

[Amin Sabeti]

Hi,

We've published a comprehensive report about Iranian search engines and how
they try to change users' behaviour by results manipulation. Also, you can
find latest news about the Internet censorship and policy in Iran.

Please let me know if you have any question regarding this report and feel
free to send your feedback.

Cheers,

Amin

***
In mid-February, Iranian officials announced the launch of three domestic
search engines, which they claim can be used without any interference from
the filtering system. This month’s report puts this claim to the test by
searching for some sensitive keywords on Iranian search engines and
comparing the results to Google.

It won’t come as a surprise to readers that our findings suggest that
Iranian search engines do indeed filter results for some sensitive
keywords. However, it turns out that this filtering sometimes works in
unexpected ways, and other times results we thought might be censored were
actually pretty easy to find.

We think this report offers some introductory insights into how Iranian
search engines work, and how they interact with the country’s filtering
system. In addition to this feature, we’ve also got more information about
a “spy operation” in which eight Facebook ‘activists’ were arrested, the
ICT Ministry’s latest comments about 3G and 4G mobile communications
technology, along with other ICT-related statements from politicians and
policymakers.

If you are interested in discussing further any of the issues raised in
this report, please join our group on LinkedIn. [1]

Read more: http://smallmedia.org.uk/sites/default/files/u8/IIIP_Mar2015.pdf
[PDF]

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=8292252&trk=anet_ug_hm
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