Iran to lift the veil on Facebook

The government of Iran has confirmed that it is working on the development of new smart filtering software which will enable internet users in the country to gain limited access to currently banned social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. A report from AFP quotes police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghadam as saying: ‘Smart control of social networks is better than filtering them completely.’ The government has introduced a national intranet service which contains only approved content, while the conventional world wide web is heavily restricted to remove content which is considered as ‘un-Islamic’.