Iran has blocked access to more than five million Internet sites, including Facebook and YouTube as part of a crackdown on content perceived to be immoral and anti-social.

Abdolsamad Khoram Abadi, an advisor to Iran’s prosecutor general told the media that “The enemies seek to assault our religious identity by exploiting the Internet.” The Internet “inflicts social, political, economic and moral damage, which is worrying….social vice caused by the Internet is more than that by the satellite network.”

Iran has around 21 million internet users from a population of 70 million people. Persian bloggers are frequent participants on online social media sites, and a well represented on sites such as FriendFeed.

Iran has blocked websites before, particularly political, human rights, women’s sites, dissident blogs and porn sites, although the decision to ban 5 million sites in unprecedented.

(Reuters via Startup Meme)