How Iranians evade online censorship to surf the internet despite objections of hardliners

President Hassan Rowhani vowed to expand internet freedom when he was elected in 2013 but has failed to fully deliver on those promises

YouTube also remains largely off-limits, as it’s hard to download and view videos while using the workarounds

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Before Iranians can check out the latest offerings on Twitter or YouTube, they must scroll through an array of icons on their smartphones, searching for the best workaround to bypass official censors. Photo: AP

Published: 3:08pm, 26 Jul 2019Updated: 3:12pm, 26 Jul 2019

Before Nazilla Akbari can check out the latest offerings on Twitter or YouTube, she scrolls through an array of icons on her smartphone, searching for the right workaround to bypass state censors.

It’s a cat-and-mouse game that has become second nature in Iran, where the clerically led government restricts access to popular social media sites and where US sanctions create other barriers.

“Every day I struggle for 40 minutes just to get connected to uncensored internet,” said Akbari, a 30-year-old software developer. “Even after I do, the internet is so slow that I have difficulty even watching a short video.”

Iranian authorities have sought to limit Western cultural influence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. They began blocking popular sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube when activists used them to organise mass protests and document a crackdown after a disputed election in 2009.

That has not stopped Iranians from accessing such sites through virtual private networks, or VPNs, and other services. It also has not prevented a number of top Iranian officials from using the sites to broadcast the official line. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif frequently tweets in English, and accounts believed to be run by the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rowhani regularly post on their behalf.

Khamenei himself has urged the nation’s youth to “smartly use the cyberspace to slap the enemy in the mouth,” and pro-government accounts have proliferated on Twitter and Instagram.