One thing that I was asked about in Iran a few times was how to blog anonymously. And about better ways to get around the filter. I tried my best to explain what I knew about the subject, but I think I lost most people pretty quickly. And besides, it can be somewhat complicated and these things are so much easier to understand when they’re written down. Now Ethan Zucherman, of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, has compiled a step-by-step guide to explain the necessary procedures in great detail.

The guide is in only English as of now, and it would be so much more useful if it was available in other languages as well, I think. It would be great to have it in Persian to send to my friends. Is there anyone out there who would be willing to do the world a huge favor and translate it? If the author permits it, that is?

I brought some magazines with me when I went back to Sweden from Iran. The thing was that I was very surprised to begin with when I found copies of The Economist in the window of a newsstand near the Tehran University in Enqelab Square.

Since hotel rooms are boring, I picked up a couple of magazines – they even carried older issues. Went back and started reading. It was not until the second time I saw one of the black slabs of ink that I realized that the magazines were indeed censored! This sparked my interest, and I went back several times in the following days, and basically cleared out the store of foreign magazines. (It turned out that the shop owner had some uncensored issues of fashion magazines under the counter – which he very subtly offered me to purchase – and when I said that I’d rather buy the censored ones his jaw fell to the floor.)

I bought three different magazines, just one of some and many of others: The Economist, National Geographic and Wallpaper. I guess they were chosen primarily since I normally buy them.

Anyway, I posted one of the pictures here a couple of month ago, and I’ve finally found time (ehh, not really, but I did it anyway) to do it right. One thing I can’t do, it to provide you with the originals for comparison, and some things – particularly the cartoons – are hard to say anything about. If you have the uncensored issues of the magazines below, and feel like helping out, take a picture of them (or scan them) and mail them to me and I?ll post them.

Please note that the images can be clicked if you want a higher res image. (To get a copy of the original images: mail me.)

The Economist, May 13 2006, pp6-7. This is a cartoon of George Bush and some unmentionable person. My guess is Ahmadinejad or Khamenei, since it apparently was so important to cover it up. They used both ink and a white sticker.

The Economist, Apr 23 2005, pp30-31. Advertisement for Portugal. Apparently featuring a woman in swimwear.

The Economist, Jul 16 2005, Survey of America pp8-9. This girl shows too much skin, and her shoulders were covered.

The Economist, May 6 2006, pp62-63. The Economist reports that Indonesia is creating new laws to get tough on pornography. Here, the word Playboy has been censored, as well as the backs of the magazine read by the people in the background.

The Economist, May 6 2006, Cover. The cover of the magazine that also had the previous picture in it. This cover is not censored, but included here to point out that the entire magazine is full of articles that are extremely critical to the regime. Leaders and op-ed’s that say that the Iranian regime is outright dangerous. Yet, that is not censored. Not one word of it. It’s all there. But the word “Playboy” is a no-go.

The Economist, Apr 16 2005, pp24-25. “Damn those Portuguese! They should know how to cover themselves up. Let’s do it for them!”

The Economist, Apr 16 2005, pp78-79. Two censored images in the Books and Arts section. One of Billie Holiday’s shoulders and the other is some kind of drawing. I’m very curious as to what lies beneath here. It must be of considerable danger, considering the dual use of ink and sticker.

The Economist, Apr 29 2006, pp42-43. Article about the shopping mall Debenhams, illustrated with a scantly clad woman.

The Economist, Apr 15 2006, Cover. This is an issue focusing on the conflict in Israel. Nothing censored on the cover – I just wanted to frame the coming three spreads.

The Economist, Apr 15 2006, pp8-9. A cartoon again: probably Ahmadinejad.

The Economist, Apr 15 2006, pp26-27. Advertisement for LG. The woman is wearing a jogging dress.

The Economist, Apr 15 2006, pp40-41. Cartoon of Uncle Sam with a sword. My best guess is that his opponent in this picture is Khamenei – probably also equipped with a sword.

The Economist, Jan 15 2005, pp94-95. Samsung advertisement, with the woman wearing a tank top.

The Economist, Oct 9 2004, pp88-89. Marilyn Monroe is in the photo behind Richard Avedon. The article is an obituary for the famous portrait photographer.

The Economist, Apr 22 2006, pp44-45. Advertisement for LG. The woman is wearing a jogging dress running clothes.

National Geographic, Feb 2006, Cover. This issue of NG is about this phenomenon called love. The cover is a photo of a couple in embrace, not really kissing, but almost. On the uncensored cover, that is.

National Geographic, Feb 2006, Editor’s section. Under the image, the text says “Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable on the set of The Misfits.” Apparently they were up to no good.

National Geographic, Feb 2006, pp32-33. The same picture that was on the cover – only slightly larger.

National Geographic, Feb 2006, pp36-37. Another spread in the feature article about love. The woman – probably wearing a bikini – is censored, but the guys are not.

National Geographic, Feb 2006, pp108-109. These images are part of a story on life in the Alps, where the NG photographers attend a teen charity fashion show.

National Geographic, Feb 2006, pp120-121. A girl in Florida wearing too little. Tank top? Bikini?

National Geographic, Feb 2006, pp122-123. Continuing the love-story, a knee is casually exposed. And swiftly removed.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Louis Vitton advertisement. They redesigned the dress. The black is not supposed to be there.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Dior advertisement.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Tretorn advertisement.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Versace advertisement.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Tod’s advertisement. Mind the knee.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. René Lezard advertisement.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. This one is interesting, because it seems to be a slipup. This bathing suit should have been censored, I would think?

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Technogym advertisement.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Fashion piece. Considering the publication, the woman in the tub, might be naked. Ironically, the setting is the Middle-East, thus the women in chador in the background.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Fashion piece cont’d. Look at the women on the right.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Another fashion piece.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Another fashion piece cont’d.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. This girl had a tank top that was too revealing it seems.

Wallpaper, Sept 2005. Hospes Hotels advertisement.

This is part of the wrapping that the magazines came in. Nashravaran Journalistic Institute is the organization (agency?) that handles that censorship. They also stamp all magazines with a stamp upon inspection. It’s mind-boggling to think of the people whose work it is to sit there with a giant felt-tip pen and cover up skin all day long.

Practices of Iranian Censorship
One of the more interesting things with all this, I think, is how words are left uncensored, but images are not. The only word that was explicitly censored was “Playboy”, in spite of the articles being full of things that must be considered western propaganda.

From a westerner’s point-of-view, the censorship can be described in terms of political and/or sexual. The political censorship is the cartoons of the religious and worldly leaders, and the sexual being primarily the female body and some of its attributes. It’s important, however, to remember that women are not censored to the standard that is expected in the real world: in the Iranian society the hair is supposed to be veiled from a strangers gaze – in these images its left untouched and visible. Thus, it can be argued that there is a degree of tolerance that goes beyond what is normally considered acceptable and that censors target the Iranian equivalent of hard-core pornography.

The Iranian censorship is better than other forms of censorship, in that it’s done in the open. The black ink is there for all to see. No pages that “disappeared”, but the evidence of interference is there. That way, Iranians at least know that they’re missing out and can act accordingly.

Iranian Censorship in Relation to the West
The images of censorship above should be considered both in relation to other repressive regimes, but also on the practices in western newspapers. It’s tempting to just come to the conclusion that they are not free – while “we” are.

I’d like to question this, just for the fun of it. For example, National Geographic often shows dual standards in the way it portrays women from different cultures. While they would never print a full-page picture of a topless 19 year-old Californian girl, they have no problems doing to with a native African woman. This practice has been called colonial and is, in a way, also censorship – although not made with black ink.

My point is not to defend Iranian censorship in any way. But we, as westerners, should also be aware that to some extent all societies censor to defend what they consider being the outer limits of decency. Another example is my own country. Sweden is no different – here politicians are often arguing that measures should be taken to “reduce the sexualization of the public sphere”, meaning that laws should be passed to put clothes on women in advertisements. I ask myself, how is that different?

UPDATE (OCT 21):
On a Brazilian site someone has been so helpful as to find the originals for some of the advertisements and present them side-by-side in a nice flip-book kind of way.

In an effort to start blogging again, after a summer’s absence while concentrating on completing my thesis, I would like to follow up on my previous post about internet censorship in Sweden.

Bosse Ringholm, deputy prime minister of Sweden, was reported in the media to threaten online gambling sites (link in Swedish – sorry!) with being filtered and banned from the Swedish internet. The background to this debacle is that gambling in Sweden is only legal through the state monopoly Svenska Spel, and that their income have decreased steadily in the last years as gamblers have turned to other companies operating outside the boundaries of Swedish law through placing the servers in another countries. The banks would also be prohibited to process creditcard transactions from such sites.

The rationale for the government?s crackdown on such companies is to take precautions against gambling addicts. (Exactly why it would be less addictive to purchase a raffle ticket from a state-owned company than with a private one remains unclear.) To come to terms with this competition and perceived threat to the Swedish model, the government now draws inspiration from other regimes that are much more efficient in upholding their national laws, despite issues with this new thing called the internet.

So, what where the odds misusing a filtering system once it?s in place? Probably not a bet that even Svenska Spel would gamble on.

The other day I came across an interactive flash-map, made by OpenNet Initiative (ONI), that show the status and levels of internet-related censorship in the world. One thing that struck me was that my neighboring country of Norway is on the watchlist. It turns out that Norway along with Great Britain operates a filter for child pornography.

A similar filter is in service in Sweden – but Sweden is not listed on the ONI map.

Rikskriminalpolisen (National Criminal Investigation Department) supplies the ISP?s with a list that they are ?recommended? to block. Minister of Justice Thomas Bodstr?m have put pressure on the providers by saying that a law might be passed to force them to filter, if they did not comply voluntarily.

From what I have come to understand the blocks are done on IP-number level, effectively blocking other sites that happen to share physical server with an offending site.

As usual, censorship starts small and then expands as new challenges present themselves and the temptation to ?just push that button? gets impossible to resist. Currently the Swedish government is on a quest to stop human trafficking (and prostitution – since in their eyes, the words are synononymous) and Bodstr?m have said that the list of blocked sites also might include prostitution sites sometime in the future.

One thing that surprised me with Iran was that it was not particularly hard to get over foreign magazines. Just visit a specialized newsagent, and the stacks were pretty much the same as anywhere; Times, Newsweek and the ubiquitous The Economist.

You have to remember that I brought very little ? if any ? literature with me, in order to travel light, so the first time I saw English-language magazines I bought pretty much everything I could get my hands on. (Hotel rooms are boring at night, you know.) All was fine, until I came back and started reading them.

They were all censored. And not in any subtle way ? but with black felt-tip pens and white stickers! The interesting thing is that an article can be very critical towards Iranian policies in writing, but pictures are apperently much more sensitive. An issue of the The Economist, for example, featured an extremely opinionated leader on Iran?s nuclear policies. It was not touched. The caricature cartoon of Khamenei, however, was a big black hole.

As was all images of women with a little less clothes than prescribed.

This sparked my interest, and the next day I went on a quest to find more magazines. I bought a whole bunch, from newspapers and viewspapers to Wallpaper and National Geographic.

The latter also had the most prominent censorship of them all ? as shown in the image in this post (the untouched cover in the lower right corner).

I will make a more methodical study of the 30-or-so magazines I brought back to Sweden, and return with more scientific results on the censorship.

In the spirit of defying those who attempt to limit free speech, the radio show On Point broadcasted a special hour-long segment about Internet Censorship and Surveillance last Friday. Featured guests include Ron Deibert of the Open Net Initiative, Tim Wu of Columbia Law School, Julien Pain of Reporters Without Borders and Declan McCullah of CNet.

You can search for whatever you like, but type in “democracy” in China’s blogosphere, or “human rights” or “women” in Iran, and you’re getting nothing. E-mail trails are sending dissidents to jail. Whole realms of thought are being filtered right off the web — and American companies are helping.

The whole show can be found online in RealAudio and Windows Media format. No MP3, it seems, so you can’t listen to it on the subway home, unfortunately.

Laura Secor, reporter with The New Yorker, has written a lengthy piece about the situation in Iran. It attempts to explain the current political developments in the country, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the recent chicken-race when it comes to Iran’s atom program.

It’s a really nice read, and she interviews both public and not-so-public people, in her – seemingly genuine – quest to explain the apparent quirkiness of another culture. The result is an honest account, if maybe somewhat normative at the egdes. Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder – exile Iranian ?berblogger, gives the article his blessing and calls it the deepest and most insightful piece by an American he’s ever read. That I cannot judge, I’ll just have to take his word for it.

The article describes the political and public sphere, and how participation sometimes is frowned upon – to say the least. She quotes: “We have freedom of expression – just not freedom after expression”. Particularly interesting was the section about blogger Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, who was jailed last fall for writing material on his blog that stirred up emotions among the rulers. The story has been told before, from another perspective, but the account is more detailed.

Yesterday Wikipedia was not true enough for some. Today, it is too true for others.

Via: Information Policy

The Swedish Court of Appeals decided today that a satellite dish mounted on the facade of an apartment building is un-lawful, because it can hurt somebody if it fell down on the street below. One of the defendants, Mr Adnan, will be evicted on April 1st, following the courts verdict, together with his own and two other families.

Mr Adnan need the dishes to watch television from their home countries, but apparently the freedom to access information was considered less important than the landlords wish to keep the neighborhood stylishly neat, tidy and consistent. This caused Mr Adnan – a trained architect – to construct a mobile rig so that the dish would not be a permanent mount, but this solution was also deemed to be non satisfactory by the court – although they agree that it is safe.

The verdict will be a mandatory precedent, which in practice means that landlords across Sweden can force their tenants to remove satellite dishes without any chance of appeal.

Besides being extremely discriminating – since ethic Swedes are unlikely to want any other channels than those that are being provided by the terrestrial or cable broadcasts – isn’t the individuals freedom to access information much more important than anything else. I agree that satellite dishes may not be the most beautiful things in their own right, but it is neutralized in any urban environment. And, if safety cannot be guaranteed when tenants mount the dishes themselves, why oblige the landlords to help them?

Hopefully, Mr Adnan can find another apartment soon – and get access to the channels he wants through any other mean.

Google Earth placemark to the apartment buildings in Rinkeby
More on the event from Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish)

I don’t want to be overly dystrophic, but these are dark days for free speech. Internet filtering is becoming increasingly common in the world, the regimes are getting better at it and the schemes harder to circumvent.

This is where Tor, an EFF supported project, comes in. It is what’s called an onion router that obscures communication by letting the data pass through several nodes in encrypted form. Using the Tor network, a user in, say, China, can access sites without ever getting caught by the government. People can blog and participate in the public sphere without leaving much trace.

Reporters sans fronti?res have a handy chapter in their publication Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents, which explain the end-user benefits and the technical background using simple, pain English.

Not only people living in countries we westerners normally consider repressive, can benefit from this technology. Even in countries like my native Sweden, the police are maintaining a list of sites that ISP’s are “recommended” to block (link in Swedish). Today, the blocks are used only to fight child pornography – a noble cause indeed – but even the existence of such a system and the power of whatever outbreak of moral panic we might come across in the future is a recipe for disaster. History has numerous examples of when free speech gets threatened by short-term public opinion.

Another threat is the new data retention initiative from the European Union, already ratified in Sweden, also threatens the access to information and the right to free speech by keeping record for several years of all calls made, e-mail’s and internet sites visited.

A solution to all these problems is to hide – and hide well. To help facilitate this I set up a Tor-server today, and donate a chunk of my available bandwidth to those in need.