Iran Launches Their Own YouTube-Like Web site

Iran has recently launched it’s own video-sharing website.

According to CNET News, Iran launched the website in an effort to provide alternative government-sanctioned Internet services.

The website, called “Mehr,” aims to attract Persian-speaking users and promote Iranian culture.

Lotfollah Siahkali, deputy chief of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, said:

“From now on, people can upload their short films on the Web site and access [IRIB] produced material.”

The Iranian government has been fighting against “inappropriate” content on the Internet. In September, the Iranian government announced that it would start blocking its citizens access to Google’s search engine and Gmail.

This was retaliation for an anti-Islamic film that caused outrage throughout the Muslim world when it was posted on the company’s on the company’s YouTube site.

A government deputy minister also announced that the government is moving ahead with plans to create a domestic Internet as a way to improve cybersecurity.

All government agencies and offices have already been connected to the “national information network,,” and the next step was to connect citizens to the network.

Iran has reportedly been developing a national internet in an effort to create “a clean Internet.”

Even though the Iranian government denied these reports, the Iranian media say that the domestic system would be fully implemented by March 2013.

Iranian Internet users have grown accustomed to censorship.

Earlier this year, Iran’s government cut off access to the Internet a few times. The last time they cut off internet access, they blocked access to all encrypted international sites outside the country that operate on Secure Sockets Layer protocol.

Many Iranians use proxy servers over Virtual Private Networks to bypass government efforts to block access to foreign news sites and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.