Iranian censors vs. the Web: No contest

The recent Iran presidential election's results - hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allegedly winning in a disputed contest against Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi - have caused a firestorm of information to be shared all over the Web in the face of Iranian censors, who have declared a moratorium on any information getting out of the country. Let's look at just a few of the ways that Iranian citizens (and those who sympathize with them) are voicing their protests in spite of their country's restrictions on Web access:

• Nearly 5000 photos tagged with the phrase "iran election" have made their way onto the popular photo sharing site Flickr. Almost 300,000 photos tagged with "Iran" are available, many of these surfacing in the days since the election on June 12.
• YouTube, one of the most popular video sites on the Web, has over 5000 videos tagged with the phrase Iran Protests. Almost 3000 of these videos have been uploaded in the last week.
• A cursory search of Twitter, a popular microblogging service, has literally thousands of "Tweets" tagged with the phrase Iran protests. Other popular tags related to these events include #iranelection, Tehran, and #iranprotest.
• According to Topsy, a Twitter search engine, 1,070 people are currently talking about the Iran election on Twitter - and that number jumped up as soon as I typed this in.
• Google Blog Search counts over 50,000 Iran election-related stories being written on blogs in the last 12 hours alone.
• Mahalo , a human powered search directory, has nearly 400 questions being asked and answered about the Iran election. Yahoo Answers, a community powered question and answer service, counts nearly 80 questions being asked about the Iran election, a small number until you consider the amount of discussions actively swirling around each of these questions (hundreds).
• Technorati, a blog search engine, counts over 13,000 blog posts tagged with the phrase "iran election", in languages ranging from Arabic to Vietnamese.

In addition to these Web sites, Iranians are also using anonymous surfing techniques to get around Iranian censors, a method that many people in countries where Web access is blocked have been using for a long time. The Pirate Bay, a popular torrent tracker, has renamed itself (temporarily) The Persian Bay in an attempt to support the Anonymous Iran Forum, a place where Iranian citizens can meet and discuss their views without fear of reprisal. Suffice it to say that Iranian citizens and those who support their fight for free elections are definitely using the freedom of the Web to broadcast their opinions, their news, their videos, photos, thoughts, etc. even though they have been banned from doing so. The Web has provided a forum for these people that no amount of censorship can ever crush.

Related:

How to Unblock Blocked Sites: Why are sites blocked? Certain countries (China, Saudi Arabia, and more) block anything to do with popular culture, sexual issues, women's resources, or politics. In addition, both large and small companies block sites to cut down on security breaches and boost productivity. However, sometimes you need to get somewhere on the Web. The following methods can help you get around common roadblocks.