Farsical
On Slate, Bonnie Goldstein writes that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “seems to welcome dissent” on his official blog. Goldstein is correct to point out that Westerners can engage the president in an open forum in English or French on the blog and have done so with comments that are at times intensely critical. However, she fails to mention that the Farsi section of the site (i.e., the one used by actual Iranians) seems painstakingly censored: All users must enter an e-mail address before posting comments that are then reviewed by a site administrator. As a result, there is very little dissent to speak of. I could find only two Iranian visitors saying anything remotely critical about the president on the president’s blog. One, who calls himself Zayed, asked rhetorically, “Why do you only print the brown-nosing comments?”
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