In the meeting “Professional analysis of the future of the Internet in Iran; In search of a path for convergence” the second report on the Internet situation in Iran was examined
According to Iran digital economy annotation, in the meeting “Professional analysis of the future of the Internet in Iran; In search of a path for convergence” which was organized by the data and governance laboratory in collaboration with Andishe Varzan House, the head of the Radio Communications and Regulatory Organization stated that Iran’s Internet has not had a complete shutdown in the current government despite the previous years.
This meeting was attended by “Amir Lajevardi”, head of the Radio Communications Regulatory Organization, “Nima Ghazi”, head of the Tehran Electronic Commerce Association, “Mohammad Sadeq Emamian”, a member of the faculty of Amir Kabir University and co-founder of the Sharif Governance Think Tank, and “Mohammed Keshvari”, the director of the scientific group. -Spectrum analysis was included.
“Amir Lajevardi”, the head of the Organization for Regulation and Radio Communications, regarding the second report published by the Tehran Electronic Commerce Association entitled “Iran’s Internet Status”, criticized the sources of this report and its comparison with other countries. According to him, Iran’s internet should be compared with other countries when there is clear information from all of them on the internet.
In this regard, Lajevardi said: “After the first e-commerce report was published, we announced our readiness to help and participate when we came across the second report of the e-commerce association. It is important whether a political and media report is published or a comprehensive and scientific report.”
The head of the Regulatory and Radio Communications Organization, considering the bandwidth issue as important, stated that this issue was wrongly raised in the report of the Electronic Commerce Association and that the bandwidth has not only decreased, but has also always increased.
He further stated: “The number in the report may be related to traffic, and the discussion of bandwidth and traffic is different. In the football match between Syria and Iran, the peak traffic was 50 gigabits per second.
Criticizing the criteria of the e-commerce association, Lajevardi said: “We have many criteria for different operators in the regulatory organization and we evaluate them based on these criteria. Regarding the fact that Iran has obtained the 50th rank in the speed index, upon further investigation, we see that 47 countries on this list use Cloudflare. The evaluation program is not the right program and should be evaluated with all indicators. Also, a country should be compared from which there is clear data and information.
“We didn’t have complete internet connection”
Lajevardi said about the Internet interruption: “The Internet was not completely interrupted in the current government. Last year, unlike previous years, we did not cut off the Internet and we are always ready to cooperate; Provided that we discuss and exchange information in an accurate, scientific and comprehensive manner.”
Lajevardi added: “About 300,000 sites of Iranian users were banned. Therefore, many Iranian users are required to use a filter for authorized use. The next day, we evaluated the forum report and emphasized that many of these sites were banned. Also, among the 100 sites that were checked, 30 sites were on the list of embargoes, which did not mention this issue. Nearly 37 sites were filter sites and many of them had immoral contents. At the time of evaluation, we must observe comprehensiveness and completeness.
Regarding cooperation with the private sector and creating a better user experience, the Deputy Minister of Communications said: “The private sector can help in evaluating the user experience. The user experience of many data is not in our hands, but the quality of many services and data is at the disposal of the Ministry of Communications, which can help.
The private sector or the association should have specialized research on the harm and benefits of this issue, and we had invited the private sector for this interaction in previous meetings. The private sector can help at this point and provide a small part of their data to the Ministry of Communications. According to available reports, 96% of people are using filter breakers; But it is not at all clear that this percentage was determined based on what indicators and evaluation factors.”
The private sector is looking for a way to interact and cooperate
In this meeting, Nima Ghazi, the head of the Tehran Electronic Commerce Association, pointed out the limitations of the information that the private sector has access to and said: “We have applied many times and demanded that there be clarification regarding filtering and make it available to the public. to take But our request was ignored.”
He emphasized on the many complexities that exist regarding the Internet and considered the increase in ambiguity and complexity in line with the events of last year. Ghazi considered one of the important goals pursued by the e-commerce community is to find a way for interaction and cooperation. Also, regarding the purpose of publishing the second report on the Internet situation, he stated that we are looking for interaction and a way to cooperate to help improve the situation.
Regarding the challenges that platforms and businesses are facing due to filtering, he said: “We are facing a lot of filtered sites. Meanwhile, there are sites that have a high market value and are considered important resources for many professionals and businesses. The use of these resources resulted in reducing time, increasing speed and improving the quality of the user experience.
Ghazi added about the importance of user experience: “These sites are tools that many people use. There are no tools for us to declare that we use these sites as technical tools and reporting is not possible. We have tried many times to address this issue, but it did not attract everyone’s attention at all, and cooperation and interaction are not seen. “What is impacting businesses is user experience, which poses a huge challenge and is leading to mass migration.”
“Mohammed Keshvari”, the director of the scientific-analytical group of Specter, separated the applied filtering into three categories: “social networks”, “important external sites that are sources” and “internal filtering”, and the most important of them is the filtering of social networks due to the consumer community and the volume of use.
While emphasizing the lack of clarification of the applied filters and the importance of its political dimensions, he said: “We have been witnessing this filtering for a year and a half and it has caused many consequences in different dimensions. There is no political consensus for the existing challenges and obstacles, and no one offers a solution. Also, government officials are not responsible; While these people are clearly and proudly bypassing filtered platforms.”
Keshvari said regarding bandwidth and non-governance issues: “There is no hardware problem regarding international bandwidth, but there are many political sensitivities. Although a number of sites and services are non-governance tools and we cannot isolate them, these same services and protocols cause problems in internal services.
In the end, the director of the scientific-analytical group of the spectrum pointed out the importance of clarification regarding filtering and considered it important to have reliable reports that help in this matter; He also mentioned it as a way to interact between the public and private sectors.
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