FACEBOOK IN IRAN: DO YOU KNOW WHO YOUR FRIENDS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ISTANBUL 000105

SIPDIS

LONDON FOR GAYLE; BERLIN FOR PAETZOLD; BAKU FOR MCCRENSKY;
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/12/2019
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS PHUM ECPS IR
SUBJECT: FACEBOOK IN IRAN: DO YOU KNOW WHO YOUR FRIENDS
ARE?

REF: 2008 ISTANBUL 466

ISTANBUL 00000105 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Deputy Principal Officer Sandra Oudkirk; Reason 1.5 (d).


1. (C) Summary: In early February the Iranian regime
reportedly unblocked internet access in Iran to social
networking sites like Facebook. Since then tens of thousands
of Iranians have signed up, according to Iranian contacts,
and use the website not only for socializing but also for
political advocacy (including in support of Iranian
presidential candidates like Khatami). But there are risks
to this expansion of cyber-freedom: Iranian bloggers have
reported the use of fake or hijacked "friend" requests coming
not from friends but from regime authorities. Observers
suggest the regime may have concluded that rather than fight
a losing battle trying to block Facebook, it is better to
"herd" political and social activities towards using Facebook
to facilitate easier regime monitoring of their activities
and social networks. Comment: Although any granting of more
(cyber) space for Iranians to express themselves is a
positive development, activists who use Facebook to advocate
controversial political views will continue to be at risk,
and now could put their network of "friends" at risk as well.
Despite those risks, however, one contact predicted that
"like Khomeini's cassette tapes," this valuable tool of free
expression will quickly grow beyond the regime's ability to
monitor or control. End summary.

Facebook in Iran: An inconsistent ban
--------------


2. (C) Several contacts of ours inside Iran have underscored
to us in recent weeks the potential significance of an
apparent decision by the Iranian regime in early February to
unblock internet access in Iran to a range of previously
banned social networking websites, including Facebook.


3. (C) Access to that site, and many other popular sites
(including Google, Yahoo, and YouTube),had been at least
intermittently blocked throughout Ahmadinejad's presidency,
with an upswing in web-site filtering according to some
accounts in the Fall of 2007. Many Iranians, however, were
able to overcome that internet filtering relatively easily by
use of filter-breaking software and proxy servers. Moreover
the ban at that time appeared selective: Students at Iran's
elite Sharif University of Technology told us last year
(reftel) that they continued to enjoy uninterrupted access to
Facebook via Sharif's servers, while Iranian Press TV's
Istanbul correspondent told us this week that most of her
contact with Press TV editors in Iran over the past two years
has been via Facebook email.


4. (C) A Tehran-based contact who works for a mobile phone
company told us that the ban in 2007 was never effectively
enforced by the regime, and that as a result some internet
service providers never applied the ban on their subscribers.
As a result, according to web-tracking service alexa.com,
Facebook in 2008 was still among the 30 most popular websites
accessed by internet users in Iran. Even so, our contact
added, most Iranian users were cautious enough to sign up for
Facebook accounts under pseudonyms, and to list their
locations on their "profile pages" as being outside of Iran.



5. (C) In mid-November 2008, according to our mobile phone
company contact, the regime made an effort to tighten the ban
by blocking access to as many as five million "western"
websites. Iranian media that week reported remarks from by
an Iranian judiciary official warning that "Iran's enemies"
were using the internet to undermine the regime. That was
followed within days by a statement from an Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman claiming that
"internet, satellite, and text messages played an important
role in color revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia."
Our phone company contact speculated that the timing of that
decision may have reflected an initial reaction by the regime
to President Obama's election, fearing his election might
provoke a wave of pro-Obama sentiment among Iranian civil
society which could have been circulated instantly via the
internet. He said Iranian authorities warned all ISPs that
they would be prosecuted if they allowed access to proscribed
websites, leading to a more effective shut-down in Iranian
access to sites like Facebook.

Unblocking Facebook: A valuable social tool...
--------------


6. (C) An Iranian journalist living in Istanbul first

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informed us in mid-February of what appeared to be a decision
by the regime around February 4 to lift domestic filters
blocking access to sites like Facebook, a development she
said had provoked lively discussion on many Iranian blogs.
Moreover, a Tehran-based consulting company's newsletter
assessing political and economic developments in Iran noted
recently that the move coincided with the Interior Ministry's
announcement that the MOI is easing its "social security"
policy, under which it had been conducting surprise checks of
Iranian offices and work-places to fine or arrest dress code
offenders.


7. (C) Since the restrictions were lifted Facebook has
jumped to become the eighth most visited website in Iran,
according to alexa.com. Of six Iranian contacts that we
pulsed on this development, five acknowledged having signed
up for (or resumed) Facebook pages and many admitted that
they have added dozens of "friends" in the past several
weeks. Our mobile phone company contact estimated that "tens
of thousands" of Iranians may have joined Facebook in the
past five weeks.


8. (C) A Tehran-based contact who returned to Iran in
December after a three-month visit to the U.S. described how
she and her friends are now using Facebook not only for
social networking and promoting social causes but also for
political advocacy and organization. This contact had done
some volunteer work for President Obama,s campaign in New
York, specifically working on internet outreach. She is now
using some of the lessons she learned to help support former
President Khatami's presidential campaign, and considers
Facebook to be "a uniquely valuable tool" for reaching
potential voters. She said she and her friends have helped
persuade hundreds of other Iranian "friends" to sign up to
Facebook web pages devoted specifically to Khatami's
presidency. (Comment: We found at least ten separate
Facebook pages supporting Khatami's candidacy, the largest of
which has over 15,000 members. There are also Facebook pages
that support Tehran mayor GHALIBAF and former Majles Speaker
Kerroubi. We found several dozen Facebook pages devoted to
President Ahmadinejad, a majority of them negative.) This
contact is also using her Facebook email to alert "friends"
to election-related news and to strategize about other steps
they can take to support his candidacy.


9. (C) This contact professed not to be concerned about the
risk of regime surveillance of her activities, asserting that
she was doing nothing illegal in using Facebook to support
Khatami. She suggested, however, that some friends of hers
now use Facebook to email "sensitive messages" to each other
on more taboo topics (dating, purchasing alcohol and drugs
for parties, complaining about the government) because they
believe the regime has become very effective at monitoring
cell-phone text messages. Sometimes those sensitive emails
are often conveyed via simple "home-made" codes, she claimed,
for example using a Facebook application that sends verses of
poetry from the Persian poet Hafez, with some stanzas having
pre-arranged meanings. She was not aware, however, of any
friends using Facebook to organize more controversial
activities, like rallies or protests, though she assessed
that doing so "would be easy."

...But also useful for the regime
--------------


10. (C) Our journalist contact pointed out that that regime's
decision to unblock Facebook and other proscribed websites
followed on the heels of an article in the IRGC's official
newspaper, Sobh Sadegh, announcing that the GOI was launching
"10,000 revolutionary blogs" as a counter to "western efforts
to sow velvet revolution." She suggested that promoting IRGC
blogs and unblocking Facebook were part of the same GOI
policy decision to use the internet more aggressively to
monitor and counter civil society. Our phone company contact
assessed that the decision to allow full access to Facebook
and other sites was evidence that the regime recognized it
could no longer effectively block such access, given the
online ubiquity of free anti-filtering and proxy server
software. "They realized they can't fight it so they might
as well join it, and use it to their advantage."


11. (C) The journalist noted that concurrent with the
unblocking of Facebook, the regime has moved to restrict or
close down a number of websites supporting Khatami's
presidency, including yaari.com and yaarinews.com, as well as
a website that supports Tehran Mayor GHALIBAF's candidacy.
She speculated that regime may be trying to "herd"
pro-Khatami and GHALIBAF supporters and other activists

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towards Facebook as the primary vehicle for internet advocacy
of opposition candidates, to make tracking the networks and
activities of those activists easier.


12. (C) She also recounted several recent claims from
Iranian bloggers who had received "friend requests" on
Facebook from people they thought were genuine friends, only
to learn later that the "friends'" identifications were
either "hijacked" from real friends, or entirely fake. The
bloggers speculated that the source of those fake "friend
requests" had been the IRGC or MOIS, and had used the access
to the bloggers' Facebook pages as a means to record and
monitor their "friend" lists, and then moved on to record and
monitor those friends' "friend lists", and so on. "It may be
that they want to use Facebook to map all of the social
connections between activists, which may be easier than
trying to monitor and track text messaging." She pointed out
that the nature of social networking on Facebook, with easily
traceable links between "friends" makes it an ideal platform
for Iranian security service surveillance of activists,
social networks.

Comments
--------------


13. (C) Given the tight control that Iranian authorities
have always exercised over domestic TV and radio programming,
and the frequency (and unpredictability) of regime efforts to
censor Iranian print media, the only media tool available to
most private citizens and civil society that offers any space
for free expression has traditionally been the internet. As
a result, Iran by many accounts has the third highest number
of blogs in the world (over 2.5 million blogs),behind the US
and China. However, one consequence of the internet's
popularity in Iran has been an ongoing cat-and-mouse game
between the regime -- intent on preventing anti-regime
activists from using the internet to advance their agendas --
and internet-savvy Iranians, who have proven they can almost
always work around regime blocking and filtering. The
regime's decision to allow unfettered Iranian access to
Facebook may portend a subtle change in that dynamic.


14. (C) This move is encouraging on its surface because of
the wider (cyber) space Iranians may now have to express
themselves and build links with each other and the outside
world. However, if the regime's real reason for lifting
restrictions on Facebook and similar sites, as some of our
contacts warn, is to more effectively monitor Iranian
activists and their social networks, or even hijack their
identities and foment suspicion among Iranian civil society,
fast-expanding Facebook usage in Iran is indeed a
double-edged sword. Activists seeking to use it to advocate
controversial political views will continue to be at risk,
and may also place their own network of" friends" at risk.
Even in the face of those risks, however, one contact
confidently predicted that the regime is "making a mistake if
they think they can control how we use Facebook or the
internet. It's like the Shah allowing distribution of
Khomeini's cassette tapes only because he couldn't stop it.
A tidal wave of free expression is coming."
Wiener