Finding Love in Iran – Via a Proxy

Since President Hassan Rouhani was elected in June, the question of whether Iranians living in the country should have unfettered access to Facebook has been the subject of fierce debate. When reporting on the subject, journalists have mainly focused on Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, whose popular Facebook page has become a sensation both inside and outside the country.

In Iran, this debate seems pointless, for the same reasons the furore over Iranian women wearing leggings has been pointless. Just as the Morality Committee has been unable to control what women wear, government attempts to filter and censor "immoral" material online is undermined by the fact that Iranian citizens continue to use proxies to get around these restrictions. It has become a way of life, making online control a lost cause for the authorities.

A recent pop song called “Facebook” by Masoud Sa’datmand, a new artist on the Iranian music scene, shows just how common Facebook has become in Iran. Over the years, the scene has had its fair share of comical and sometimes absurd music and lyrics, and this witty song is certainly a part of this trend, telling the story of many of the two million Facebook users in the country and reflecting a common truth. Since cultural and social restrictions in Iranian society limit public interaction between the opposite sex, Facebook serves as an outlet for Iran’s internet users to flirt and search for love. It provides a platform for interaction between women and men and offers an alternative to a public setting. Since public interactions between men and women could be misinterpreted by strangers and result in trouble with the authorities, Facebook offers a safe way to communicate and socialise across the gender divide.

Masoud Sa’adatmand has not been on the music scene very long. The video for "Facebook" was posted on YouTube in late October and has just reached 4,000 views. Since there is virtually no information about him on the web, IranWire reached out to Radio Javan, a Washington DC-based Persian radio station, to find out more about him. “The song is catchy, but I have not heard of him before", a resident Radio Javan DJ said. "The video also has Dubai written all over it", he added, referring to the large ex-pat community of Iranian musicians and artists currently living in Dubai in order to circumvent Iran’s cultural restrictions.

The lyrics are entirely relevant for many of Iran's social media users:

When I awake from sleeping

I go straight to my laptop

I quickly turn it on, and switch on my proxy

I search for your name, until your beautiful photo appears

My heart flutters and beats, it’s not long before I go mad.

(Chorus) I check my Facebook because of my love for you, in case you left a comment, in case you left a comment. (Repeat)

I love you my beautiful,

Why don’t you believe me?

Why don’t you post any comments on your love’s wall?

If I make you mine, I don’t want anything else,

Take my hand my flower,

I will go wherever you want me to go.

Facebook: a Way of Life in Iran

In an absorbing and revealing account of a year he, his wife and newborn baby spent in Iran, Iranian-American writer Hooman Majd's new book The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay: An American Family in Iran also describes Facebook's role in everyday life. After their babysitter cancels, claiming she has been involved in a road accident on the way back from Shomal in northern Iran, Majd and his wife discover that she has just changed her Facebook status from "single" to "in a relationship." The babysitter did not take into account the possibility that Majd and his wife were both active users of Facebook.

Even those Iranians who are not part of the Facebook community are indirectly exposed to social networks: much of the Iranian media regard tweets posted on Rouhani’s Twitter account, as well as posts on Zarif’s Facebook page, as semi-official government statements.

Despite the popularity of Facebook among Iranians, government officials continue to lambast and discourage the Rouhani administration’s preliminary efforts to loosen restrictions on citizens' use of the social networking site. In November, female MP Fatemeh Rahbar criticised a meeting held between a presidential aide and members of the High Council of Cyberspace, in which the subject of uncensored Facebook access was discussed. Furthermore, during a weekly news conference, judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei strongly reaffirmed Iran’s policy of filtering Facebook, stating, “Until counter-measures can be taken against immodesty, prostitution, and incorrect teachings, Facebook will remain filtered.”

If this is the case, it will be a long time before Sa’adatmand can comment on his love’s wall without using a proxy server.

To listen to Sa’adatmand's song "Facebook", click here