🧵1- It has been 57 days since the internet went down in Iran. For many, the only remaining option has been Starlink. In 2023, Iran invoked “digital sovereignty” at the International Telecommunication Union to push for disabling Starlink connections. Yet the number of terminals continued to grow.

🚨 We are pleased to announce that Farzaneh Badiei (@farzdusa.bsky.social), a leading expert in Internet governance and digital rights, has joined us as a Senior Research Fellow.

Went to an AI governance and copyright event and the judge kind of said: get it out of your head that the judges and legal systems ban all sorts of scraping and crawling because of some copyright quarrels! In a way he was the only voice for end users!

It’s not just child-unfriendly, it’s massively anti-human. That’s what optimising for profitable efficiency gets you - a world of rampant corporatism in which the role of humanity is to serve, feed and offer sacrifice as necessary to prop up brand valuation.

This week the UN ITU's Radio Regulations Board is meeting on IRI’s demand to disable Starlink in Iran. This will set an important precedent for one of the key ways people are circumventing Internet shutdowns. Read the full breakdown by @farzdusa.bsky.social: iranianwomen4internet.org/blog.html

Seriously ... please don't use war terminology for things that aren't war. "Sniper" tactics for cyber scam? really? Meh

Amidst of all the heart wrenching news… here is a fundraising campaign for a short movie by a budding director. gofund.me/dabc7985c

You know you can be pro-war and condemn war crimes.

By keeping millions of people in a digital blackout but granting connectivity to a select few, Iran’s regime is openly using Internet access as a political tool. @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social explains: carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

Roya Pakzad wrote this after the supreme leader was found and killed by Israel: "You see how the tools used as a system of oppression become a fragility for the oppressor?" On the irony of cameras built to police Iranians becoming the regime’s Achilles’ heel royapakzad.substack.com/p/youre-welc...

This is why the west should be worried about the future of its own connectivity.

One thing that crawlers and scrapers do.

What islamic republic is doing is not just whitelisting its supporters to have access to the Internet. It’s Internet apartheid system. Just like it did to the women, does it to access to the Internet too.

A manifesto by some of us dreamers aka Iranian Internet freedom lady nerds fed up with the internet shutdowns endangering the lives of our loved ones and our people in Iran. @azadehakbari.bsky.social @farzdusa.bsky.social @royapak.bsky.social & Afsaneh Rigot.

This is "our" Manifesto for a Free Internet. We are Iranian Women's Coalition for Internet Freedom. Happy International Women's Day! initiated by @azadehakbari.bsky.social @farzdusa.bsky.social @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social @royapak.bsky.social & Afsaneh Rigot

We should have a warning label somewhere: nation states kill.

Chatbots provide essential information for some of the most vulnerable communities. Governments don't and can't provide that kind of support, ever because it's too expensive. And now they want to take away this essential service from people. Licensing costs money! The providers will charge people!

so when people say policies should have "teeth" what do they mean? They should have teeth to bite people so that they get hurt and bleed? Such great governance mechanisms we think of!

Set up a conduit-psiphon so that people can connect to Internet service. only a few peers from time to time. I cannot bring myself to shut this down thinking I am depriving people of a vital service. And the Islamic Republic sabotages millions of people's Internet.

set up conduit.psiphon.ca and help people connect. A window of connectivity has activated in Iran that enables Iranians to have access.

Another sleepless night! We are on a never ending roller coaster which nobody stops…

An extremely important thread for everyone who does digital governance especially UK experts.

Set up a conduit-psiphon so that people can connect to Internet service. only a few peers from time to time. I cannot bring myself to shut this down thinking I am depriving people of a vital service. And the Islamic Republic sabotages millions of people's Internet.

It is important not to misframe what Wikimedia has done as a "license" deal even if free. Licensing will restrict smaller actors and individuals. It creates a host of “export” and “import” issues. We need to be very careful about this otherwise we are going to create a digital divide in access.

Stop whatever you're doing and read @farzdusa.bsky.social rejoinder to "digital sovereignty" at @futurefreespeech.org's Bedrock Principle:

Yes I am having existential crisis and feeling like an utter failure. Nation states normalize these shutdowns by blocking kids from social media, age verification and sometimes even blocking apps in your colonies! Tired of your lip service to a free and open Internet that you don’t protect.

It is very obvious that the Internet community which I am a part of has let people down. Islamic Republic can just keep people in the dark because they have access to technology and network operators are not empowered enough to resist it? Isnt this because access and connectivity became secondary?

Some people in western democracies are so used to their basic freedom that they don't even notice when nation states take them away. Or support it even!

There are different ways to achieve justice. My Maman Zahra paved the way for the rest of us through tolerance, resilience and compassion.

I am thinking a lot about my Maman Zahra. I am glad you aren’t here to see how many more mothers are grappling with the monstrous grief of losing their children to injustice. But also I am hoping for those mothers not to take their dreams of justice to grave.

1. Indiana passes law requiring website with more than 1/3 harmful-to-minors sexual content to verify that users are adults. 2. Pornhub parent Aylo responds by blocking Indiana users. 3. Indiana now sues because Hooisers may use VPNs to evade the geoblock, so ... events.in.gov/event/protec...

And here you go with Telegram ad! The fun part is that Telegram picks the ads for your channels. So your channel could be about how bad cow milk is for your gut health and Telegram will add an ad under your post: join the cow milk advocacy group! Fun times!

I understand that people want to think they have found the cause of the agony they are going through, they have found the perpetrator who took their loved ones away. Fixation on one factor might bring you temporary relief but it’s not worth the distraction from effective solutions.

My mom says Generative AI chatbots made a big difference in her life this year. In your fight with big tech, don't forget that these AI online services, can be essential for some of the most vulnerable people.

Encryption is not a risk factor, encryption is security of the service. Its existence doesn't inherently increase risk. Its lack of existence on the other hand does.

Christmas present to self: a trio of freshly typeset and footnoted editions from the master of the 1920s and the 2020s, from the delightful almabooks.com

Watch the story of an actress who joined the uprising against hijab and for liberty in Iran and said something so profound: I will not participate in a cinema that does not present people with the image narrative that speaks to them and is acceptable for them. www.youtube.com/watch?v=y29z...

This is how a lot of laws get made: roll out a “security” rule with foreseeable harm, let people absorb the damage for years, then slowly carve out exemptions.remedies that arrive after humiliation, loss, and stress don’t erase the harm. Anyway this is good news! swalwell.house.gov/media-center...

Another Christmas meal: ash reshte

And after years I had Nan, butter and honey for Christmas breakfast. At this point I miss Esfahan.

I managed to close all my tabs! There were over 100 of them!

The real cost of the administration’s utterly bonkers restriction on visas for trust and safety workers. dcjournal.com/state-dept-v...

It’s definitely a choice to file a 1201(a) suit for web scraping in the same week that a judge definitively rejected that theory of liability.

As the former Google Associate General Counsel for web search -- a product built on scraping third party content without permission -- I'm having a lot of trouble processing Google's new lawsuit against someone else for scraping search results. storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog...

Joy

Watched the Islamic Republic statement on Wsis… they like sovereignty 😂 they dont like human rights also they are critical of big tech because they cant apply their finger chopping laws.

And if I am not mistaken wsis+20 draft was adopted which means IGF is now permanent.

And of course India amidst of conversations … weighs in during UNGA that we need to identify people online to hold them accountable. Of course throws in a bit balance with human rights too.