Twitter CEO Dick Costolo called out Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for hypocrisy last Wednesday, noting that the leader of the Islamic Republic has banned Iranians from using Twitter while still using the social media platform for PR. Rouhani has declined to respond to the jab. Iran is notorious for its internet censorship . Since the June 2009 post-election uprisings, protesters facing violent retaliation by government forces turned to the internet and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as blogging sites, as effective and safer ways to voice political dissent. Rouhani, has indicated, however, that he intends to revise Iran’s censorship policy. In a speech he delivered a month before being sworn in, Rouhani said that a strong government does not “limit the lives of the people.” Two weeks after his victory in the elections, Rouhani told a popular Iranian youth magazine that he believed social networking sites such as Facebook were a welcome phenomenon. At the same time, even under Rouhani, Iran has continued to detain activists accused of providing material to “anti-government websites”. Iran in May blocked WhatsApp but not because of censorship. Rather, the reason given for the move was the application’s “Zionist connection”, a likely reference to the fact that Facebook, headed by Mark Zuckerberg, bought the company for $19 billion.
