CNET’s Charles Cooper is reporting that Iran is cutting its citizens off from many major Web services and sites. You’d think authoritative governments would learn from the lessons of the Arab Spring. Egypt, Libya, and Syria all turned off the Internet. Egypt and Libya now have new governments and Syria is fighting a civil war. Cutting off the people off from the Internet is clearing such a smart move.
Unlike Egypt, Libya, and Syria, though Iran hasn’t simply turned off external Internet access. Instead, the Iranian government appears to be blocking access to popular, external e-mails services such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo. In addition access to at least one major social network, Facebook, seems to have been cut.