Internet & Social Media with Mahsa Alimardani

[00:00:00] In the name of the God of Rainbows, welcome to Woman Life Freedom. All in on Iran. A podcast series in which we’ll go deep in conversations with experts on various aspects of the revolutionary uprising that began in Iran in September when 22 year old Mahsa Jina Amini was killed in Morality Police Detention. In each episode, we’ll unpack an important aspect of the unfolding of this historic moment in Iran.

[00:00:44] I’m your host, Nahid Siamdoust, an assistant professor of Media and Middle East Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Our intention is to quote unquote, archive the important insights of our experts here and now, both in their capacity as professional observers, as well as humans living through these momentous times.

[00:01:04] Stay tuned

[00:01:12] Today, I’ll be speaking with Mahsa Alimardani, doctoral candidate at Oxford University’s Internet Institute. Mahsa is an internet researcher focusing on freedom of expression and access to information online in Iran. Her research aims to understand communications ecologies within Iran’s information control space. Mahsa has worked on digital rights on Iran since 2012 in various capacities within civil society.

[00:01:37] She does research on freedom of expression online and in the Middle East and North Africa region with the Human Rights Organization, article 19. She’s also a senior information control fellow with the Open Technology Institute. She’s been very active, giving us a sense of the media landscape, social media landscape, um, especially on Twitter.

[00:01:57] We look forward to speaking with her. But first, just a little recap of the timeline.

[00:02:11] Today is Friday, February 10th, just a day ahead of the 44th anniversary of the 1979 Revolution. As I speak, an Opposition Coalition event is live streaming over Facebook opposition figures. Zaja and Naza are at Georgetown, basically demonstrating their unity as an opposition coalition and taking questions from the audience who seem to be mostly reporters.

[00:02:39] Another important news item is that Farha has been freed from prison. He’s the civil rights activist who was imprisoned in 2019 for opposing compulsory hijab, recently a photo surfaced of him, completely emaciated due to the hunger strike that has been holding for months in Evian prison. And so one of the top news items today is that he has been freed.

[00:03:03] He hadn’t received even a day of furlough during his imprisonment for, nearly four years. And, another, important news item that keeps popping up is the letter issued by Mir Hossein former Prime Minister during the 1980s, and then the leader of the Green Movement opposition, who’s been under house arrest for 14 years.

[00:03:27] His letter. Basically surpassing the Islamic Republic and needing a whole new constitution, has uh, drawn a lot of attention and even actually drawn support from two or three of the opposition figures at the panel at Georgetown that I just mentioned.

[00:03:53] Hello, Massa. Hi, . Hi, Massa, June. So today we’re talking with Mahsa Alimardani. She’s a doctoral candidate at Oxford University’s Internet Institute. Mahsa is an internet researcher, focusing on freedom of expression and access to information online in Iran. She has been very active, working on digital rights in Iran since

[00:04:16] 2012 in various, capacities within civil society. She does research on freedom of expression online, in the sort of focusing on Iran, but generally sort of the Middle East, north Africa region, and works also with the Human Rights Organization, article 19. it is such a pleasure to have you. On this podcast today, nasa, social media, internet, all of these issues are so central to what’s been happening in Iran, of course, and generally just to our social and political relations in the world today.

[00:04:48] So thank you so much for being on this podcast. Thank you for having me, NAED. I’m excited to have this discussion. Wonderful. So, you know, part of the Woman Life Freedom podcast series is really trying to weave in the personal, the people behind the kind of research and expertise,into the narratives that we have.

[00:05:06] Oftentimes, we sort of, you know, exclude that, and I don’t think that does, any of us, any favors in the social science or, you know, the kind of intellectual work that we do. So, I just, I wanna start this podcast by just asking you if you could give us a little bit about. background and what brought you to this research topic and this professional trajectory doing what you.

[00:05:25] Yeah, I mean, it goes back a while. I guess. I’ve been working on human rights, digital rights and Iran. basically since, my undergraduate degree. I, was. Doing my undergrad in Political Science at the University of Toronto. And, it was actually the summer of 2009 and I was, back in Iran visiting my family.

[00:05:51] And it was just a couple weeks after, the, 2009 Green Movement protest was settling down. And I mean, I can’t say I was, you know, A activist on the ground or anything like that. I was just surrounded by my family and those that were involved and kind of caught up in the conversations and the mood of that time, and I became, Very deeply involved and interested in everything to do with democracy, and the future of, you know, progress and the potential for, the fall of the Islamic Republic and the future for thriving democracy in Iran.

[00:06:30] Of course, is both you and I know probably, for many of us, Iran is quite, it’s kind of our homeland and we care quite a lot about it and. . Mm-hmm. , , his passion kind of started and I made sure that, the last couple years of my undergraduate degree, I did more courses related to Iran.

[00:06:49] I did a course on nonviolence with Professor Ramin Jahanbegloo. Mm-hmm. and I decided to work with him on an undergraduate thesis, which was what the future trajectory for democracy could be in Iran, through the women’s movement. and so I was very, I guess , it, it wasn’t a original notion.

[00:07:09] Everyone was talking about this. I mean the 1 million signatures campaign, right. A woman during that time had come out of Iran , and there was a lot of discussion of,the ground that movement had, created in terms of, you know, the future of any change being held in the hands of women.

[00:07:23] unfortunately, I. Continue working on the Women’s Rights Movement in Iran. Cuz shortly after my, undergraduate degree, I started working with a group of students who were at the University of Toronto on issues related to digital rights. access to things like virtual private networks, VPNs to Iran.

[00:07:44] and so I really got caught up with, the digital human rights aspect of things. . But as I did get into that, I did have a, a couple months, I guess, that I did spend, volunteering for this project at the time that was known as the Iran Tribunals, right? I’m not sure if you are familiar or.

[00:08:02] Fewer audiences are familiar. but I did,volunteer and go to the Hague for, one part of the Iran Tribunals which , was trying to document what had happened during the 88 massacres in Iran. . and I, was helping to blog and write about it, with a kind of young cohort of volunteers that were working on that project.

[00:08:22] Met, I met some incredible people actually during the Iran tribunals that some I sometimes work with till this day. and greatly admire including,you know,Dr. Padis Shafafi, and Gissou Nia. I met them all during the Iran Tribunals. I learned a lot about, the kind of human rights work that was being done professionally, on Iran.

[00:08:43] And, it was one of the most harrowing experiences actually listening to the stories of some of the victims. in the courts. I mean, it was kind of a mock court that was trying to document the crimes that had been committed during that time. Mm-hmm. .. But it was a very, I guess informative moment in trying to understand the kind of trauma, and the kind of violence that had been inflicted, even a couple generations ago, within the Islamic Republic.

[00:09:10] and I did try. I guess carry forth, that learning into the work that I was doing on digital rights. and yeah, basically I’ve been working in that sphere since then. I, went, decided to do my master’s on the topic of. social media and the internet in Iran. and then I started working at the International Human Rights Organization, article 19, helping lead some of their digital projects.

[00:09:34] on Iran. while, as struggling to finish my, PhD at Fox Oxford Internet Institute. Right. Good for you. You are keeping busy for sure. And of course the 1988 massacre has become a sort of key moment now also during the woman life freedom movement, not least because those were the people who had claims on that and we’re trying to, hold certain people accountable for the crimes committed.

[00:09:57] Then,you know, they were some of the really first people who’ve been asking for this kind of accountability and pointing to this very violent, face of the regime and I, it seems quite early. So is that, in terms of your own trajectory, was that a moment when you realized that doing this kind of work, and I know this is something that affects all of us, in the, in the diaspora.

[00:10:19] Was it a moment when you decided this work is important enough for me to engage with, and I know from this point onward, I won’t be able to return to Iran? Yeah, I mean, I never really even thought. , uh, it, as I am, you know, making a personal decision in my life, I just thought this is the right thing to do.

[00:10:39] I mean, I came from a, a family that was very much, you know, constantly talking about politics. I mean, my dad called himself a bad anddo. I think before it was even trendy to call yourself. Does, So I very much came from this background where this was at the forefront of the discussions and I, it always kind of pushed me and interested me to understand more mm-hmm.

[00:11:03] Um, and you know, the thing that’s so interesting about, I, I say that I worked, on this issue it was more of human rights documentation and mm-hmm. truth and justice. And then I went into this work on digital rights and it might seem like it’s kind of unrelated. . The more and more I think of, you know, what I learned during, listening to the testimonies of the victims and understanding that historical point.

[00:11:27] in the Islamic Republic, I learned how important actually communication. and the internet has been in Iran, which is what I really work on because of course, during the 1988 massacres, we didn’t have the internet. We didn’t have the same kind of media and communications, and I really believe that the kind of control that the Islamic Republic had on the decimation of information and the media during that time, really emboldened them to commit those crimes on the scales that they have.

[00:12:02] Of course, they have continued with different kinds of atrocities and crime since 88. , but they have never been able to get away with something of that scale, and they know they couldn’t, they could never justify such a scale ever again with the introduction of something like the internet, because you.

[00:12:19] The internet provides a kind of daylight that they’re deadly afraid of and have been investing in for over a decade to try to contain and they haven’t managed to, you know, properly or efficiently contain it. And it still continues to be a threat to them. it’s, as long as it continues to be a threat to them, I think it does help to hold them accountable and.

[00:12:43] Make them afraid of the crimes that they’re committing. Right. And you mentioned the 2009 green uprising and how your interest in Iran and the demo, the democratic process at work there really was peaked by that movement. And of course, social media was seen as. Playing an important role in that movement itself.

[00:13:03] And there have been books written about it. And in fact there was a very sort of key debate,with if Evgeny Morozov for example, saying, you know, the social media is not all that you hold it to be, and I wonder where you fall on that fault line, when we take it back to the green movement and then we’re gonna take it onward.

[00:13:17] But what do you think was the role of social media in the green movement given that it was the first uprising in which social media did play a role. Now, to what extent I would love to ask you, , if you, if we could just start there. Yeah, I mean, of course, I was following those debates.

[00:13:34] It was a famous debate. I think that, happened a lot between, the arguments of Afghani Moiz, of which presenting. Of course, clay Shirkey was, more leaning towards techno utopianism. Mm-hmm. Afghani was, more towards, the skepticism. I definitely, I’m not a techno determinist.

[00:13:52] I do not think technology determines our politics or,it’s not as central. so I’d like to think I have a little bit of a. not to be a bla on techno determinism, but I do think clearly it is a tool. It has a lot of impact. It’s never going to be what brings democracy to Iran.

[00:14:12] It’s never going to be what, enables. or, let’s a movement come to its conclusion and it’s always just a tool and a support there. so I definitely, I guess I’m of a more moderate, techno skeptic. when it comes to these things. It’s, yeah, it’s hard to deny its role. I mean, in 2009, I believe.

[00:14:33] the power of technology and the role of social media was a little bit understated, if not un misunderstood during that era. I’m not, it’s not original thoughts. A lot of, you know, really great researchers and writers have written, kind of, dismantling that idea that we had a Twitter revolution in 2009.

[00:14:52] Twitter, it was the first time that Twitter was really involved in a social movement, of course, with when the Arab Spring started a couple years afterwards. It also took on a much more central role in those movements. but Twitter did play, I guess, a role in trying to keep the news in the headlines.

[00:15:10] For the Western world as opposed to it being kind of a means for voices on the ground to get out. I think it was a little bit more complicated than that. I mean at the time Twitter usage was even quite low amongst, those on the ground in Iran. so there were different ways that I think a lot of the communication was organically happening.

[00:15:30] you know, on the ground between folks on the ground. and you know, there’s been a lot of research done on, you role of Facebook pages and some of the campaigns that were happening for the presidential candidate. the role of text messaging to mobilize folks. so it was a bit more complicated than it was understood.

[00:15:48] It certainly had a significant role, but, you know, the role of social media, I think, as it was misunderstood, had more to do with kind of how the western world or the international community was trying to follow and understand what was happening then it actually having a role in mobilization mm-hmm.

[00:16:05] or anything like that. Mm-hmm. , I. , it has significantly changed since 2009. till now. Um mm-hmm. , clearly the growth of users on Twitter and Iran has grown. It is not the most widely used platform in Iran. you know, before this revolutionary movement started, Instagram was the most used, social media inside Iran.

[00:16:27] then followed by Telegram. and Twitter was, you know, further down the line in terms of different apps and communication tools being used. Mm-hmm. .Um, but we have, I think, seen a significant, Increase in users since the beginning of the revolution, especially, I think it’s hard to dismiss, the power and the meaning of the Masa Amini hashtag in Persian.

[00:16:49] when the Revolution started or right after, Masa AM’s death. because I think, I mean, I’m sure there are going to be lots of papers. and I’ve talked to researchers who’ve already started writing about this, about what that hashtag has meant. I mean, it’s hit records in terms of its use.

[00:17:07] There’s has been billions, of instances of it being used on Twitter. and. I think I have spoken to several people who, you know, have said they created Twitter accounts just so they could populate that hashtag, not necessarily with documentation or information, but just to, keep the hashtag trending and contribute.

[00:17:27] To, the movement being on the, international community’s agenda. That’s super interesting. and you pointed to the fact that, you know, on the ground, perhaps Twitter wasn’t playing as large a role, but the, you know, use of social media has really developed, And gone far beyond what it was in 2009, even on the ground.

[00:17:45] And I remember at some point Telegram was just so widely used and also cross generationally that everybody was on Telegram, until it was banned in Iran. But can you take it forward and just tell us in which ways you think Iranians have used social, like what’s been the role of social media in the woman life Freedom movement on the ground, if you could point to it, especially considering the, you know, absence of freedom.

[00:18:09] in conventional media. Absolutely. I mean, any kind of documentation. , I mean, the majority of documentation and information we have on what has transpired in terms of crimes, in terms of mobilization, really comes from the fact that we have the internet. and we have been able to have, different networks of citizen journalists, different Iranians on the ground.

[00:18:37] Make sure that, you know, victims are being documented, those arrested are being documented. The crimes that we see on the streets are being documented, or just the number of people who are on the streets being documented. So without the internet, . Without social media, we probably wouldn’t know anything.

[00:18:56] I mean, there have been over 500 deaths since, Gina AM’s death. We wouldn’t have any of that kind of statistics. without thisability to have the free flow of information, and of course the stats and documentation we have is very clearly just the tip of the iceberg because there are so many other restrictions.

[00:19:17] Not only technical restrictions, but you know, restrictions in terms of self-censorship and fear. that stops information from being documented. And so when it comes to, protest hotspots where we’re. the most extremes forms of violence were inflicted on people in places like Zhik and Stan.

[00:19:36] can you talk a little bit about the role of,the internet and social media, especially in those kinds of places? And also,you know, you already mentioned Massina, I mean’sdeath and the photographs that, uh, were leaked. if you could just address those a little bit more. Yeah. I. . I think we should really divide the conversation between the power of the internet to impact the international community and then the power of the internet to just impact folks inside Iran.

[00:20:02] I mean, again, this is not our original thought, but the power of witnessing, I think is extremely important and I think has been a driving force. And one of the reasons why, the momentum. of this revolution has continued from September onwards. So the fact that we had master crews that occurred in Za Hadan, that we have, protests every Friday after Friday, prayers and Za Hadan.

[00:20:28] And then folks in Tehran are, chanting from their balconies in support of what is happening in Za Hadan, this power to witness, you know, know, what your fellow Iranians are doing on the other side of the country. is really enabled by the internet, and I think it’s very powerful in terms of move.

[00:20:47] for sure. And you just mentioned,how we should be dividing the understanding, our understanding of the internet, both in terms of its impact abroad. and then on the other end,how Iranians on the ground have been using it. And I wonder, your own expertise is on freedom of expression, access of, access to information.

[00:21:04] Can you tell us a little bit about. Media landscape that Iranians in Iran,have had access to, uh, both in the recent movement, and if you wanna go back a little bit, but how do they navigate them? So for somebody who doesn’t know a whole lot, we all know at this point that Iranians obviously have limitations and they’re using, uh, virtual private networks and circum mentions, software.

[00:21:24] but can you tell us a little bit as an Iranian on the ground, what kinds of obstacles do people have to access information? Yeah, I think there’s just like minefields everywhere, , and it obviously starts at the technical level of censorship and surveillance that is within like state infrastructure.

[00:21:43] I mean, even before this revolution started, we obviously there was widespread censorship. Most, foreign platforms and applications were already censored. So having a VPN was already very common. Having issues with bandwidth has always been very common. Mm-hmm. , um, within Iran, especially if you’re trying to.

[00:22:04] Foreign platforms. it’s very well known that,the Islamic Republic has been trying to nationalize the internet, of course. unpacking what nationalizing internet means is also a very long conversation. But they have made, they had made a lot of incentives, you know, to get Iranian.

[00:22:21] cheaper data if they were accessing national applications or national websites. So it’s significantly cheaper to use a opera, for example, the Iranian version of YouTube than it is, to use YouTube, which is of course censored. But even if you’re using a VPN n and using, YouTube to stream.

[00:22:40] Content, it’s going to end up costing you much more than paying to stream a video, an opera app, for example. . So there have been a lot of these issues. Of course,bandwidth can be quite slow and irritating at different times for different reasons. And then when this, revolution started this.

[00:22:58] These attempts wanted to overdrive. the remaining, apps that had not been censored, like Instagram and WhatsApp were immediately censored on national security grounds. and the one thing, and it continues to this very day, if you speak to anyone on the ground that they have been doing has been.

[00:23:19] censoring and trying to attack VPNs. Mm-hmm. . So it’s . . . Very hard to get your VPN to work, in Iran right now. And so that’s a major hurdle. Mm-hmm. , um, in terms of, what protocol is gonna work on which network, at what time, and. , I believe, and it’s widely believed that they have been developing different technologies to actively monitor networks for different VPN n protocols and block them.

[00:23:46] That’s, this has become very sophisticated and it really impacts, how Iranians access to internet. Of course, during the first three months, we saw a lot of internet shut downs, like mobile connections. Were going through nightly curfews, so between 4:00 PM and 1:00 AM. , A lot of folks for the first, uh, couple months of this revolution had no mobile data.

[00:24:11] and this is very significant because the majority of Iranians are connecting to the internet through mobile data. Having at home, fixed line broadband connections is a much more rare occurrence for, average Iranian household. So this had a really big impact. access to the internet as well.

[00:24:31] Um, and of course, in the areas you mentioned Za Hadan, insist on in Baluchistan and then various cities in Kurdistan that had some of, you know, the worst kind of protest, repression also encountered, many days of internet shutdowns. . So these regional shutdowns had a lot of impact as well.

[00:24:50] As we were following, as anyone was following this revolution, taking place, there were so many different layers to understanding how that content was getting out from, finding enough bandwidth to upload the videos, to finding the right v p N on the right network. so many different considerations and so much effort had to go into.

[00:25:12] it’s, it’s a bit disheartening because it almost seems like, you know, the things are just so stacked against, the struggles that, those who are fighting for this revolution have on the ground. And I know more recently you talked about, the National Information Network and how the state is trying to create this network wherein it can control very much, what kinds of information and content people can access.

[00:25:36] And I know, you know, there’s. . Just recently there was news of a new secretary being chosen for the Supreme Council for Virtual Space. I don’t know if that’s a good translation for for this council. And I’m not sure how new it is. I, I feel like I didn’t really know about it much. Um, you know, I knew that Fata, the police,organ in charge of controlling and surveying.

[00:25:56] And, the, the internet was very much in charge of, dealing with that content. But there seems to be also these new, structural organs, of the state being created to deal with, Iran’s information, ecosystem. clearly that is this, the space that they’re very sensitive to, and they understand that in order to control this movement, they need to put most of their efforts onto controlling the flow of information and access to information.

[00:26:22] Mohamed Iri,the new secretary is a very well connected guy who has familial relations with some of the regime’s top personalities, and you know, was leading the BA in its suppression of the clampdown at Chatty University in the 2009 Green Uprising, for example. I mean, when you look at this ecosystem, do you think that if the state manages to really enforce this national information network onto the population, Could we almost say the battle might be lost as far as access to information and freedom of expression within the Iranian,you know, information system is concerned.

[00:26:58] I mean, I think you were referring to the Supreme Council of Cyberspace. So Uh huh , I think it’s really interesting to understand what cyberspace or what the internet means to the Islamic Republic. So it’s been, well over a decade that. internet policy and cyberspace has become one of the top foremost foreign policy considerations of the regime.

[00:27:21] So much so that it’s a policy that’s directly, being kind of decided on and directed by the supreme leader in his office. So they created the Supreme Council of Cyberspace and they ultimately direct what’s happening there. , I mean, understanding how, governance of the internet works in Iran is,a very confusing and not a transparent process.

[00:27:45] We tried to document how the decisions for the shutdowns happened during the. November, 2019 shutdowns I in a report I wrote for Article 19. but the fact is,it’s a major national security concern. It’s discussed and directed at the very core of the Islamic Republic and it’s elite and the supreme leader.

[00:28:04] So I think it’s important to understand it through that lens. . At the same time, they also understand that it’s a really important factor. , an industry, an economy, which is why I think we’ve seen a different kind of reaction to the Gina Amini movement start than we saw during, the horrific days of November, 2019 when they shut down the internet for the whole country.

[00:28:32] I have no doubt that the economy is the reason why this happened. I mean, a lot of analysis has been done by the costs that the November, 2019 shutdown had to the regime. There was billions of dollars lost by what they had done. Mm-hmm. . . So there is this consideration at the back of their minds, of how do we make this process of control, which is such a central national security matter, more efficient.

[00:28:56] and . That’s why we haven’t really seen the full on shutdowns in the same ways this time around. . And we have been seeing the development of new technologies and policies that want to allow, pockets of the internet to survive with, the regime’s control. I mean, there have been so many different projects, even silly projects like smart filtering that if you look into past budgets, the regime has spent.

[00:29:19] Like 30 to $50 million U S T developing smart filtering, which was this project where they didn’t want to censor platforms like Facebook and Instagram, wholesale. They wanted to allow the platforms that exist, but they wanted the ability to filter specific content and pages, which. Possible if you’re not actually working with those companies themselves.

[00:29:44] So they were investing in technologies to be able to do smart filtering. and it never got anywhere. But why would the regime want to invest in something like smart filtering? Why wouldn’t they just wanna, censor the whole thing? Well, it’s cuz they, there’s benefit to it. There’s benefit to having these social networks that everyone trusts and wants to be.

[00:30:05] because it helps in service of the economy. I mean, Instagram, before this revolution was estimated, it brought about one to 2 billion U S D injected one to 2 billion U s D into the Iranian economy. Just through, the commerce and jobs that it created. and they haven’t been able to provide alternatives for these platforms cuz users just don’t trust anything that comes from the regime.

[00:30:28] I mean, a number of projects that they invested a lot in like Suru. , which was the alternative to Telegram, built by R I B, was a massive failure that they had to basically disband. This is so fascinating. R i b being the national, television and radio Network in Iran. And, the one to $2 billion, is that an annual figure or is that a.

[00:30:51] Yeah, it’s an annual figure. I It’s an annual figure. Yeah. Wow. So basically what you’re saying, because this is kind of an important question or you know, something that one, one might wonder like, why don’t they just shut down the, Facebook and Instagram and what you’re arguing is that actually these networks are beneficial, not just economically, I’m kind of hearing you say, but also perhaps in some ways to monitor some of the information on these networks and the discussions or, no, really this is about economic.

[00:31:18] Well, yeah, I think there’s both of them. I mean, we know that different institutions with the regime are also hiring contractors to, propagate, disinformation online. We have seen evidence. from inside the regime, their leaks have come out that, they have contractors that, have created these Twitter dashboards where they pretend to be different types of, like, political figures from opposition.

[00:31:42] different types of opposition to different types of like regime factions to inject chaos into dis discourses online, for example. Huh. They are also, investing in the information warfare. I mean, it’s very clear if you open up any kind of regime associated telegram account that, the regime warfare in terms of, the narrative on these protests, it’s very much full on in effect, and I’m sure it’s going to just get worse and worse as well.

[00:32:13] That’s fascinating. I mean, I know in the Syrian case, for example, you know, some scholars have written that ultimately, , you know, the Assad regime was trying to complicate, basically mess with people’s sense of truth and reality, right? saying truth is more complicated. And so just putting people into these spaces of doubt where they simply became less active, because of this, you know, creation of this narrative of doubt and complexity.

[00:32:42] is that kind of what you’re referring to in the, in terms of their injecting their, narrative into these spaces? Of course, yes. I mean, why else would they,hire folks to create dashboards where they could be different kinds of opposition members? It’s all about this. I mean, we, a number of us, internet researchers, we had spotted one really well known, Baton Uma’s account that turned out.

[00:33:06] you know, very much connected in a project of intelligence that Twitter suspended once they discovered what it was actually doing and what it was connected to. And it was all about creating doubt about different kind of human rights activists and creating these narratives. , that’s fascinating.

[00:33:23] And when you say about those dashboard, what,what social media app is this? Would this be. So this was Twitter. I mean, it’s a very,, well known video that was leaked. where you can see that’s kind of different types. It’s like a monarchist or , a, or like all these different kinds of, types of, Accounts it’s pretending to be.

[00:33:43] Mm-hmm. to, I guess, you know, create this kind of chaos or as you said, create doubt on what the truth is or undermine different people. and Master John, for anybody who’s listening right now and who would like to just access this particular video that you’re talking about, how would they find it?

[00:33:58] I mean, I can send you the link and you can, I can post it under the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. , I think this is fascinating for sure, because, the online media space, I mean, there are really two questions, that come from this for me. One is, can you, I mean, it sounds like is, are Iranian regime operatives becoming technologically super sophisticated, and sophisticated enough that they’re, they no longer really need to rely on help.

[00:34:26] From outside, state actors, or would you say they’re state funded actors who are, helping not state funded actors, sorry, state support for Iran in order to be able to do this technologically. . I mean, there’s different types of things. it’s very hard to find, uh, documentation for,you know, like the budgets for these kinds of projects within the official budgets of the Islamic Republic.

[00:34:51] I mean, there’s sometimes certain pockets related to, like the propaganda commissions that they have, where you would assume, but you know, you’d then have,there’s even well known personalities and they have been active, if not suspended yet on Twitter, that are well known kind of social media contractors.

[00:35:10] So we had one. There’s one kind of cult figure amongst very traditional conservative. Iranians known as Rafik Uhhuh . So he’s a well known, state contractor and he’s well known to lead social media campaigns. I mean, he’s a little bit more overt. So I think some of these covert, psychological campaigns, prob, might not be in his hands or they might be in, we just don’t know.

[00:35:34] But he has been, for example, a figure that’s well known to lead. campaigns that, that are, kind of directed from Telegram and then onto Twitter. I believe Twitter suspended Rafi poor in the past few months. . And youI mean, social media has become, this is something that everybody who has been engaged in, what’s been happening in Iran has commented on how social media has really provided the space of toxicity that has in some ways led to, you know, As a force of disunity, right?

[00:36:06] or count, counter, any kind of unity, political unity that could, come together on social media. And I wonder if you can,comment a little bit on this kind of,the kind of toxicity online and how you explain it. I mean, there have been. , they’ve been all kinds of McCarthy era blacklists issued against,all kinds of people, including people who,most people really respect as being solid, researchers, academics, people who are really trustworthy.

[00:36:33] And so these strange lists and the kind of, poisonous atmosphere that some of these actors have created online. Do you have, do you think, I mean, how do you explain it? Do you think this is somehow. Driven by certain actors. Do you think it’s just the chaos arising from this, open information system?

[00:36:50] How do you explain this? I mean, just looking at the history of the Islamic Republic, I think explains a little bit about this. I mean, you have over four decades of trauma and I mean, going back to. the things that I witnessed and heard from the victims and the witnesses of the 88 massacres.

[00:37:12] . These are very harrowing things and I think there are so many people in our community, both inside Iran and outside Iran that are dealing with this trauma. Umhmm , and. . I mean, in that regard, it’s very rational. Like there, there has been a regime in place that has inflicted so much pain, so many different types of atrocities on this population for multiple generations.

[00:37:40] And the current generations that’s been at the forefront of what we’ve been seeing, has,they came to the breaking point in terms of the generational trauma and have been taking it into their own hands. So I think it’s part of our, it should really be part of our community understanding to understand this, that there is so much pain and there’s so much anger at what this regime has done.

[00:38:06] And, Of course, maybe some of that will get misdirected. I mean, I was speaking to someone,in Iran and they were saying they spend a lot of their time coming on Twitter to just swear at someone, to let them have this release of anger, cuz they just don’t know what to do. They feel so powerless against, the machinery of this regime that has been murderous for so many decades.

[00:38:34] So I think that kind of empathy and understanding is really needed. as a starting point to understand this. And of course I think the regime also understands this and definitely tries to take advantage of this, to sow more chaos. Um, . Yeah, it’s very, it’s a very hard thing and I think it’s unfair to condemn anyone.

[00:38:55] cuz I think it’s a lot of trauma processing that’s happening, but there has been a lot of hope. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of, people try to, have more unity and try more to, come together and work more together. different divisions. So I think while also talking about that kind of chaos that we sometimes see online, I think there should be also a lot of focus on the unity that we see.

[00:39:22] Like, I mean, yeah, online things. often seem messy and Persian Twitter or you know, the Iranian community on social media is not the first community to be very chaotic online. I’m sure if we spend time, and I have spent time talking to other folks who work on different issues and. are involved in different dis discourses.

[00:39:43] Everything has, you know, the toxicity and the chaos that we also see in this community or these dis discourses. But, we had this rally in Berlin a few months ago where, you know, over a hundred thousand Iranians came. , we should spend more time talking about that kind of incredible unity that we’re seeing for the first time across the diaspora, across folks inside Iran who are really doing this effort to, bridge the divides and come together on that one common cause, which is kind of truth and justice and the end of a regime that is causing so many atrocities.

[00:40:26] thank you so much, Massa. And that is really just a good injection of, optimism and positivity and really sort ofredirecting our attention, right, toward, away from the kind of the, the kind of conversation and discourse that really continues to distract us or detract us away from, what’s important.

[00:40:45] So I appreciate you, your comment just now. and I mean, the. Protests on the streets have died down, to a great extent. And I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about the,you know, artificial intelligence powered machinery that the state is using for its surveillance of protestors.

[00:41:01] Can you tell us a little bit, because, lot of these protestors were actually apprehended or arrested, sometimes several weeks after their participation in a street protest. Can you tell us a little bit about the power of the state? really, monitor and,surveil people to such an extent that it becomes almost, not viable anymore to go onto the streets.

[00:41:24] Yeah. I mean, first, about your comment of, kind of, I, I mean I have been seeing some data. fellow academics have been putting together in terms of what they see in terms of numbers on streets. , there has, I think there has been a change, and obviously I’m not a, I’m not an expert on this. I could probably recommend, one academic who knows a lot about this kind of data on, turnout of protests.

[00:41:46] . But I think it’s also important to note that. protests, revolution, social movements take on different kinds of forms. So just because there aren’t the same amount of people out on the streets in February, then there were in October, I don’t think it necessarily means it has ended or, anything like that.

[00:42:06] So I think that kind of discussion of what social movements and revolutions look like should be a little bit more broader and open to the different shapes and forms they take. so on the one hand you’re saying, let’s not, discount the spirit of the protest and the actual existence of, and I don’t actually, and, let’s pay, you know,let’s not just see it in terms of bodies on the streets.

[00:42:27] But then the question was about, their AI powered machinery, and if you could comment a little bit on that. . Yeah. So there has been a lot of investigations and discussions into just what kind of surveillance apparatus the Islamic Republic is using in repression. I mean, I know the United States, for example, is considering sanctioning, China’s Tand, d for selling video surveillance equipment to Iran.

[00:42:53] I mean, they. are selling it under the guise of they’re selling them traffic surveillance equipment. But as has been documented in many different cases, we have seen a number of women being notified of, their hijab violations. Through what appears to be traffic, um, video surveillance where they get threatened to have their cars impounded, if they have more than three strikes re related to wearing improper hijab.

[00:43:21] so it is a little bit gray in terms of what exactly they’re using. Sometimes, you know, technology can be quite benign, like traffic surveillance video suddenly becomes,monitoring of. Someone’s personal space in their car. and then of course we have, I mean, the regime in its own propaganda, videos that you can see on some of these, I R G C telegram accounts has even promoted the fact that they have drones monitoring protestors.

[00:43:50] and I mean, we have seen a lot of you. We haven’t necessarily documented, protestors who have been arrested based on drone evidence, but we have seen protestors kind of identified based on their SIM cards, because cell towers have identified their SIM cards, which are attached to their national IDs and protest areas.

[00:44:12] so in terms of, you know, the discussion of what AI power technologies there are, it’s a little. More complex cuz there isn’t much daylight in terms of exactly what the equipment they’re using is or what exactly the technologies are. But there are a number of indicators that video surveillance is being used.

[00:44:33] and clearly, monitoring of different kinds of data from sim cards to even data from benign applications like food delivery apps are being used to track and monitor protestors or any kind of activists in Iran. , thank you so much for explaining that Masa. And I wonder, you know, given the significance of this uprising since September, and the fact that Tamara is the, the Biman, the 11th of February, is the 44th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic.

[00:45:10] can you tell us a little bit about the kinds of dis discourses we see on social media in regards to this anniversary? how is social media helping shape the discourse on this anniversary, and do you think it has impact inside of Iran as well? . yes, it definitely has impact. I think, we touched on the power of witnessing.

[00:45:29] , and I think one thing that shouldn’t easily be discounted is also the power of the diaspora. . I know a lot of folks say, oh, this is just what the diaspora says. This isn’t what Iranians on the ground want. I think the diaspora dis discourses are extremely important. A large portion of the diaspora are channeling what, their close contacts and family are saying and echoing it outside of Iran.

[00:45:53] And that definitely, I think, helps invigorate and increase morale, inside Iran. I mean, it was a number of human rights professionals within the diaspora that led, the C S W vote. so I mean, of course, the CSW is the commission for Status of women at the un and this was a movement really charged by a number of human rights activists in the diaspora to kick off the Islamic Republic.

[00:46:19] And it was a success. states voted to do this and it was, it might. bring the downfall of the Islamic Republic, but it certainly helped increase morale, within Iran. I mean, we saw fireworks within Gina, Emmy’s, hometown in Kurdistan when this occurred. so I think this definitely, I mean, I know you said the discourse on social media, but I think all these events help with that discourse to kind of thrive and, impact what’s going on the.

[00:46:47] Yeah. In closing, this interview with you, I would just love for you to reflect a little bit on what these past, you know, five months

[00:46:55] Have been like for you and how you feel about,the coming months I guess going forward. yeah, it’s, there have been so many different emotions from, I’m sure you share some of these as well, from hope to despair to exhaustion. but the overwhelming feeling has always been hope.

[00:47:14] you. , I have never seen folks so united across, different visions and politics in terms of accomplishing one common goal, which is to have, I, and I’m, I apologize if this doesn’t sound objective, but I think when it comes to Iran, there’s really no question of neutrality. if, we all recognize that what this regime does is atci.

[00:47:41] And I mean, at least I hope that we all recognize and that it must go. and I have never seen, kind of a movement more united. in wanting to see that happen. So your overwhelming feeling is one of hope, and I really appreciate that. I really appreciate your insights, MAA. thank you so much for doing such great work and, providing so much expertise for all of us to rely on and to really make sense.

[00:48:04] of the information,you know, sort of landscape, which is so complex and, will continue to follow your work. And I really appreciate you and your work and for, giving me this interview. Yes, thanks for having me and thank you for all your work as well. Thank you Mao. Thank you for listening.

[00:48:22] My guest was Mahsa, a doctoral candidate at Oxford University’s Internet Institute and an expert on the Iranian internet and social media space.

[00:48:37] You were listening to an episode of Woman Life Freedom. All in On Iran. Broadcast to you from the University of Texas at Austin. I’m your host, Nahid Siamdoust. Until next time, Jin, Jiyan, Azadi. Zan, Zendegi, Azadi.