Filtering is removing Persian language from the web

A cage for the Persian language: filtering, sanctions and Iranaccess

Hamed Bidi, the CEO of Karzar platform, pointed out the fall in the statistics about the status of the Persian language on the web and said: The main reason for this decline, despite the many potentials that exist and the active users in the field of content production in Persian, can be seen in several events. One of the most important reasons for the decline of the share of the Persian language on the web is filtering, which has generally caused the presence of Iranians on international platforms, especially in the content production layer and in the consumer layer, to fade, or in other words, the presence of Iranians in effective platforms such as YouTube. Facebook and Instagram should be less. Of course, according to Hamed Bidi, another important reason called sanctions, in addition to filtering, has been influential in this decrease in rank.

He said about the sanctions: The sanctions prevent Iranians from using the professional features of many platforms, including Google Ads, YouTube, and Instagram, where Iranians have a significant presence, for their advertising, because the use of the advertising features of these platforms requires payment. And most Iranians cannot benefit from such a possibility.

Bidi added: But in addition to the two reasons of filtering and sanctions, there is another reason that the share of Persian language in the world is decreasing, and that is the policy of Iran access (Iran access) to access websites. Many government systems and internal systems that exist in Iran and host a large part of the contents, they have been accessed with Iran’s security justifications, meaning that users who are outside of Iran cannot access that content and Google’s crawling bots cannot find that content either. In this way, many contents are not available internationally, and this also causes the rank of Persian language in the world and the world of technology to be lower than before.

About the increase in the share of the Persian language on the web in 2017, Azari Jahromi, as a young minister during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, announced on his Twitter the growth of the share of the Persian language on the web, citing “W3Tech” statistics.

Of course, there were doubts about this statistic at the same time. Some media had claimed that the perception of the head of the Information Technology Organization about the data of “W3Tech” was wrong and the meaning of the statistic cited was only the detection of Persian language in two percent of the websites reviewed. Of course, regardless of whether this perception is right or wrong, the deep gap between the statistics shows the serious danger of removing a civilized language from the technological world.

A good thing to help Persian language

At the end, the CEO of Karzar, referring to the addition of automatic Persian language subtitles on YouTube, said: of course, good things are happening, including the addition of automatic Persian subtitles to YouTube. This new feature can help non-Persian speaking users to be addressed by simultaneous translation of Persian content. This actually creates a new window for Persian language content producers to attract non-Persian speaking audiences for their content. Also, artificial intelligence language models often support the Persian language and are improving day by day, and this also helps us benefit from the benefits of technology in the Persian language. But as long as we are subject to sanctions and internally we are facing negative policies with Iran’s ideas of access and filtering, we cannot hope to have a say in the fast-paced global competition, which is considered a kind of civilizational competition.

The insignificant position of the Persian language in the world economy

Majid Kasiri, the founder of the Akhbar Rasmi platform, cited new statistics about the share of the Persian language on the Internet and said: Many measure the success of the Persian language by the number of its articles on Wikipedia. Last year, the number of articles in Persian language reached one million, and I believe this is a significant success for the Persian language, but it should be said that this success is the result of the voluntary and unpaid efforts of some lovers of this language, and this success has no long-term effect on the economic and social status. It does not have Persian language. Persian language is one of the top 20 languages ​​in the world with more than 70 million domestic speakers and 60 million Persian-speaking population as the first and second language in other countries, but its position in the global economy of content and other indicators of global cultural, social and political influence is very insignificant.

Filtering caused the biggest damage to the Persian language

Kasiri stated: Until Iran’s Internet is integrated into the global Internet and its economic and sanctions issues are not resolved, the abandonment of the Persian language will increase and we should not expect success or a great effect from it. The Iranian audience’s access to quality Persian content is the first principle that determines the fate of this language.

Kasiri said about the effects of filtering on the contribution of the Persian language on the web: the effects of internet filtering in Iran should not be seen as limiting the Iranian audience’s access to global content, but from another angle, Iran’s role as the guardian and maintainer of the heritage of the Persian language “and even other languages ​​and Local dialects in Iran” has also challenged in the world arena.

The success of global platforms in attracting audiences from all over the world and beyond the borders was an opportunity that was given to Iranian citizens and as a result Persian content producers to interact and communicate, and finally, this community of Persian speakers in different platforms, cultural communication to the cultural power of the country. They used to convert in virtual space. But the internal decision-makers, instead of taking advantage of this opportunity, were tempted to create parallel platforms. Platforms that are limited to the border and, for example, a Tajik or Iranian living on the other side of the world cannot use it. In the Internet, where communication is assumed to be unlimited, the first damage to Persian content comes from the fact that its ecosystem is closed.

Kasiri continued: In my view, the second effect of filtering on content in Persian language is innovation and creativity in content. What makes an industry grow is its consumption. Without a buyer or having a limited or niche market, one cannot expect growth, innovation and transformation from that product. When we in Iran limit the content market inside the country with slogans like national internet, we actually separate the Persian language from the global market. This means destroying the great potential of innovation that the Persian language could use in interacting with the world.

Kasiri said: The third and most important effect of filtering is its economic effect. Content makes money from more visibility, and the content economy is built on a larger, more profitable market. The fact that we in Iran are deprived of a large part of the global content economy on platforms such as YouTube has caused the motivation of content producers to decrease, as well as the volume and quality of content produced. While the activity of Iranian content producers on global platforms could make the economy of this field flourish in Iran, and by producing high-quality and luxurious content, it would have a positive effect on the world’s Persian-speaking community and even on other societies. Even if we accept this, the activists in this field are faced with various challenges, from bypassing the VPN to cashing the earnings, which practically make its benefits unusable for many people.

If we compare this rate of access to income generation from content production in the global market with other countries in the region, we will understand what opportunities we have lost to generate income in dollars for the country. Of course, this issue is also related to the sanctions, and since the content economy has a direct interaction with the advertising industry, global platforms as well as brands must pay to be seen by the Persian-speaking audience, which is currently not possible due to the sanctions.