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United States Technology

Iran Alleges State-Linked News Websites Were Seized by the US (bloomberg.com) 92

Posted by msmash from the breaking-news dept.
Iran alleges that the U.S. State Department seized the websites of some of the country's major news networks, hours after a message on several state-run Iranian news websites claimed they were "seized by the United States Government," the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network said in a statement on its website. From a report: The statement alleges the move was part of a larger-scale crackdown by the U.S. government on news websites linked to what Iran calls the 'Axis of Resistance,' which includes Syria, Hezbollah, some Iraqi militias and Hamas. The web domains, the English-language news network Press TV as well as Arabic-language channels, Al-Alam News and Al-Kawthar TV appear to have been affected according to the report.
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Iran Alleges State-Linked News Websites Were Seized by the US

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  • There's just no way for a terrorist^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h news organization to stay on teh web because other U.S. gubbiment overarching control. /s

    Cry me a fucking river.

    • Freedom of speech for the westboro Baptist church, but not for foreigners? I guess you don't really believe in freedom of speech then.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by BardBollocks ( 1231500 )

        The whole concept of 'foreigners' is the keystone to having the stupider Americans treat everyone else like shit.

        I feel sorry for the regular non-brainwashed variety who are lumped in together with their stupider brethren.

    • The only terrorists in this particular instance are the US State Department.

      Who's putting up a show of force and exerting power here? Hint: it ain't Iran.

      • Yeah because Iran has never abridged anyone's speech since the revolution. And absolutely haven't executed people for speaking out against the government of Iran.

        What goes around, comes around. It bears far more weight if human rights abusers aren't crying about human rights abuse. That applies to the United States equally btw.

        • Are you going to be morally superior to people you call terrorists? Or are you going to copy whatever they do?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Aubz ( 7986666 )
          Right, Iran bad because they fuck with freedom of speech, us good when we fuck with freedom of speech. Moron. If only I could I would abridge your freedom of speech. But I guess you are to fricken stupid to understand the point I am making.

        • You do know that the Brits and Americans were responsible for what Iran turned into right? or are you one of those people who think the Shah of Iran wasn't a Brutal
          Western Puppet Dictator who was used to replace Iran's first Democratically Elected government when they tried to make sure Iran got a fair share of the profits oil companies were making there?

          The same type of dickhead behavior as they are trying in Central American right now, have been doing in North Africa, and are trying in Syria.

          The level of

          • You do know that the Brits and Americans were responsible for what Iran turned into right?

            Absolutely, I do. That's why we should stop fucking with their shit...

          • Yeah, it's almost like carving up entire geographic regions for your own personal gain at the expense of the people already there is a bad idea. I'm glad you brought this to my attention, because it's absolutely a new revelation. /s

            For the record, I don't have a beef against Iran other than what the Iranians themselves do. The Shah was a shithead dictator that was unfortunately propped up by western powers for access to oil, and deserved what he got - cancer and exile. I don't care if they want to have a

        • That's classic whataboutism. It doesn't excuse us, but the topic of discussion in this instance has an aggressor (the US State Dept) and victims (Iran's media services and citizens who rely on them).

          We can talk about the other one too, but trying to hijack this is just disingenuous.

    • I 'd guess this isn't a speech issue but rather related to the sanctions in place. Slashdot posting the article before the justice department has been able to comment is by my guess just looking for the clickbait outrage, you're all welcome!

    • Yes, how dare those Iranians resist the power of the American Empire?

    • i guess it's all good so long as you're a completely brainwashed twat that doesn't actually know what the fuck is going on.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      Now, why haven't they seized Faux "News" and OAN, if they're seizing terrorist networks?

  • You get what you pay for, I said. Using Go Daddy for your state sites is a bad idea, I said. But no, they wouldn't listen.

  • I have to admit, I prefer the kind of warfare, that (almost) does not kill anyone. Much as some of the enemies deserve killing...

  • I believe that in rational countries this would be referred to as 'cyber-terrorism', of course in the US it's just the way things are supposed to be.

  • Compared with Vietnam, how integrated with the world is Iran in terms of travel and censoring outside news? I ask knowing little of either, but I want to compare the fates of our two blunders of the 1970s. My impression is that Vietnam is where China was in the early 90s, and that Iran is where it was in 1986 +internet.

    Underneath this question is my wondering whether our hard-line stance re Iran, Cuba, and North Korea has made things worse, or if the unthawed relations (and abysmal human rights practices) c

    • You should visit Vietnam. It's nothing like you imagine it to be. Also fantastic coffee.

    • Vietnam is a lot more modernized than you think. Everyone is walking around with smartphones and data plans, because the largest telecom in the country is operated by the Vietnam government / military. Then there are three other major telecoms that have competitive pricing and coverage. You can get a prepaid SIM with 30GB of LTE data transfer on it for $13 - $15 USD in basically any major airport in the country.

      • I suppose I didn't think my description of Vietnam though. I wasn't imagining a country of brick phones and 386's--though now that I think of it, I don't know much about early 90s China either. So my reference for Vietnam was projecting my significant ignorance onto an area of greater ignorance. I suppose I am imagining lots of State intervention into entrepreneurship and media consumption, but less than in China, Cuba or, North Korea.

        • Iran is two countries (Score:4, Informative)

          by aberglas ( 991072 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @06:19PM (#61511452)

          There is the strong quite western middle class, mainly in the south and west, and the repressive mullahs in the north east. Unfortunately, the latter have the guns.

          There have been elections of sorts, and at one point were relatively free and fair. But the last round was totally corrupted by the mullahs, with no liberal candidates allowed to stand.

          When I was there in 1986 it was quite different from, say, Pakistan or eastern Turkey. For example, women dressed in tight jeans and makeup under an imposed scarf, not the ghost ladies of Pakistan. And it was concerning that many people would tell us how much they hated Komanei and look forward to the opening up of democracy. This was during the war with Iraq, in which we supported Iraq using poison gas against Iran.

          It would appear that everything the USA has done since has been designed to support the mullahs against the liberals. Trump's recent rejection of the nuclear deal being an example. But that is mistaking gross ineptitude with conspiracy, I suspect.

          Very sad. Iran should be a beacon of light in an otherwise repressive part of the world. The vast majority of the population understand democracy and want the mullahs gone. But the nullahs have the guns.

          • Very sad. Iran should be a beacon of light in an otherwise repressive part of the world. The vast majority of the population understand democracy and want the mullahs gone. But the nullahs have the guns.

            The majority of both Israelis and Palestinians do not support the actions of their ruling classes either, but they're not going hungry enough to reject them yet.

            Same pretty much everywhere. People don't riot until they are hungry. Which is a shame, because it's easier to riot when you're well fed

            • Nonsense.

              Israel is democratic. There are free and fair elections, and the winners reflect the general view of the people. The Palestinians are more complex, they have had elections, but they are not repressed in the same way that the Iranian population is.

              And Trump may not have got an exact majority, but he got pretty close, both elections. Almost half of Americans genuinely believe he is good for America.

              In Iran, if a fair election was called, I doubt that 20% would vote for the mullahs. But the mullah

  • After a bloody invasion with countless victims, the U.S. are leaving Iraq to Iran; seizing a couple of Iranian websites is a meager consolation.
  • How do you take over a web site in another country? You could possibly take over the URL if registered somewhere else, but not the web site. Or have they just been hacked?

  • Ebrahim “The Butcher” Raisi sent some 5000 Iranian dissidents to their deaths [legalinsurrection.com] in the late 1980s.

  • The article does not tell what domains where seized. I guess they ware generic top level domains (such as .com) and not country code top level domains (such as .ir). The later's registry is out of reach from US courts.
  • As an Iranian i'm just having a laugh at this. Press TV spewed nothing but lies. Of course there's the matter of free speech, but i do not really know what that means anyways.

  • A "domain", not a "website". (Score:3)

    by Dr.Dubious DDQ ( 11968 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @06:48PM (#61511552) Homepage
    The Iranian channel's "website" is fine, and from what I see on Twitter is still up.

    What's been seized is their control of their ".com" domain name. The registry for ".com" is Verisign, in the U.S., and therefore subject to this sort of oversight. They've changed the DNS for their ".com" domain name to point to a US-government controlled "HA HA WE PWN YOU" (well, obviously in more formal language) web server, probably on one of Amazon's AWS systems. This is the internet equivalent of the cartoon joke about pointing a road sign at a cliff and watching cars obediently turn off the road and crash.

    "Presstv.ir" (in Iran's country-code TLD/zone) is reportedly still accessible just fine, the website itself is apparently intact and operating without issue.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The issue is the implication that any non-country-specific domain is subject to arbitrary seizure by the US government.

      How far does this extend? .net and .org as well? Or what about all the fancy new ones, like .bank and .xxx?

      • The issue is the implication that any non-country-specific domain is subject to arbitrary seizure by the US government.

        Correct.

        If the internet actually detects this censorship and routes around it, then the solution is going to be that all the current non-country TLDs get moved under .us from the perspective of the rest of the world, and they'll make their own replacement SecondLDs or not as they see fit.

        This is really how the internet ought to work, there ought to not be any non-country domains. Having any one country in charge of TLDs is a fail so we should just get rid of them and let every country control their own spac

  • Fake news about fake news (Score:3)

    by BishopBerkeley ( 734647 ) on Tuesday June 22, 2021 @07:38PM (#61511652) Journal

    Given that everyone in the upper echelons of the Iranian government--especially the clerical council--is as honest as our 45th president, it is safe to ignore this bit of propaganda. This is nothing but a propaganda piece designed to get Iranians to feel threatened by America. This is what hardliners do every time in order to distract the people away from rampant corruption and incompetence on the part of the hardliners.

    Nothing to see here. Move along.

  • Every comment I read has to do with moral issue of this action.
    This is why China is making is making it's own Internet.
    It is abuse the Internet philosophy.
    If all DNS root was at the Isle of Man, This would not have happened.
    The US uses it's technical control of the Internet to enforce it's [ fill in blank with your moral word]
    He who controls DNS rules the world!

  • Doesn't mean we should. Do we treat Iran as a sovereign nation or as an enemy? Have we declared war? What if Iran took some of our newspapers offline?
    This is a naked show of power, like a bully pushing somebody around. It's definitely not gonna win hearts and minds.

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