GOOGLE CHIEF: IRAN CAN'T CONTROL THE NET
By Mark Sweney
The Guardian
June 26, 2009
Original LinkThe Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said today that he hopes that clips of the Iranian election protests posted on YouTube, allowing people in other countries to keep up with developments despite the government's media censorship, have helped to lessen the retribution meted out by the authorities.
Schmidt, speaking at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, said that it was at their "peril" that regimes such as Iran attempt to impose blackouts on media such as TV, internet, radio and mobile phones.
He added that the search giant, which owns video sharing website YouTube, always tried to explain to regimes that restrict communication that, ultimately, attempts to isolate a population fail.
"We have lots of lawyers, lawyers in every one of these countries," Schmidt said. "We explain if they do this [block freedom of speech and communication] what will happen. Sometimes they moderate their behaviour and sometimes not. If they don't listen to us it is at their peril."
Speaking to MediaGuardian.co.uk following the seminar, Schmidt expanded on this point: "By 'peril' I mean it is what the citizens will do, citizens can no longer be restricted by the kind of strategies evil dictatorships do... you can't keep people in the dark."
About 20 Iranians have been killed in the protests, and there are reports of hundreds of beatings and arrests, since the 12 June presidential election, in which the incumbent, hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed a victory that is disputed by his main rival Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The Iranian regime has tried to block many communications channels, including the internet, to limit international scrutiny and the dissemination of information. However, the public has turned to new technologies, such as Twitter and YouTube, to continue to provide a picture of the developing situation.
Schmidt said he hoped that the many clips of violent protest scenes posted on YouTube – in many cases the only footage available following reporting bans for international media – had helped to "moderate an over-reaction by the government".
Mobile phone footage of the shooting of Neda Soltani, the young Iranian woman killed during a protest on Saturday, was posted on YouTube and other websites within minutes and has become the defining image of the Iranian crisis.
"The internet is the strongest force for individual self-expression ever invented," Schmidt said, during an interview hosted by Maurice Levy, the chief executive of ad agency holding company Publicis Groupe.
"Governments around the world, even democratically elected, have difficulty with [the flow of] information online. Dictatorships and closed communities one after the other will try and shut down communication from inside. Strategies governments use trying to shut down people's speech are terrible strategies and will not succeed," he added.
Last week Google, and Facebook, swiftly rolled out Farsi-language tools so that Persian speakers could "communicate directly to the world, and vice versa – increasing everyone's access to information".