More than three decades ago video calling was contraband and its use was considered a crime. To combat it they launched arrests and crackdowns. A little later in multiple operations, with rappelling, they went onto rooftops and threw satellite dishes into the streets.
Soon filtering showed up and people bought VPNs to circumvent it, and later it turned out that the money they paid for VPNs benefited a group that curses internet content once around the rosary every day and insults critics of filtering two more times.
Now they have launched the war against Starlink. Who? The same people who until yesterday were ruining the business of VPN sellers!
Starlink is certainly a dangerous phenomenon but the way to fight it is not what the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace says. He imagines that if he sits on a launcher and fires at it the story will be over and this technology will disappear from the face of the earth. He had the same delusion about filtering and predecessors did about satellites. At best they create a delay.
Starlink is a communications technology and undoubtedly the enemy will use it against us, but to fight it, repeating past methods brings nothing but failure and depression.
If you put no-entry signs on all side streets off a main road what happens? A driver will comply once or twice, but when he sees them all blocked he ignores all the signs and defiantly goes his way despite the no-entry signs.
Now that the clumsy weapon of filtering is being used and in effect a no-entry sign is placed on every app and messenger, the audience will eventually find a way even if it costs them.
Don’t trouble yourselves. Technology moves so fast it outpaces you and the audience will find a way by any ruse. Fighting Starlink, like fighting previous examples, has only one solution: raising public trust in domestic media including IRIB, which is at the nadir of popularity and struggling for breath.
Instead of needlessly fighting Starlink, think about increasing internal cohesion and strengthening public trust. Any policy other than this is nonsense. / HamMihan Online