"Since the “Green Movement” protests in 2009, the Iranian regime has adopted increasingly complex surveillance and monitoring techniques, complementing technical filtration tools with legal frameworks and information manipulation. These techniques of control overlap: technical filtering is reinf ... orced by a more constricted legal environment and efforts to “nationalize” Iranian cyberspace. »» ONI testing over the past several years has revealed consistent filtering of websites pertaining to social media, international news channels, non-Shi’ite religions, social and religious taboos, and anything remotely opposed to official government policies. The creation of a “Supreme Council on Cyberspace” indicates the Iranian government’s interest in centralizing their approach towards the Internet as well as their view of cyberspace as a larger security concern. Internet censorship in Iran—culminating in the National Information Network—is framed as a way to protect the nation’s unique culture and identity and defend against the onslaught of Westernization. The Iranian regime considers cyberspace a geopolitical as much as a domestic policy realm. Surveillance and censorship are simultaneously tools of suppression and a means of national defence." (Key findings, page 3) more