Iran Creates Alternative To Un-Islamic YouTube

There have been several sites, that I know of, that have created an alternative to YouTube, some have come and gone, a few are still around, now Iran is joining the ranks and has created its very own, brand spanking new version called Mehr. Iran's reason, as with all things Internet, YouTube is too un-Islamic.

The site, which today took forever to access, will exclusively feature videos in Farsi since the site is exclusively geared towards Persian-speaking viewers.

“From now on, people can upload their short films on the website and access (IRIB) produced material,” said IRIB deputy chief Lotfollah Siahkali.

A Facebook page dedicated to Mehr is providing links to some of its content, including music clips produced in Iran.

Iran has censored (and sometimes blocked) YouTube for the past three years, the latest was in  response to the anti-Islam film "Innocence of Muslims."  YouTube isn't the only website that Iran runs  scared of.

It has also been trying to stop its population accessing a number of foreign websites authorities see as undermining the Islamic regime, including popular social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, as well as the online pages of many Western media outlets, blogs, and pornographic hubs.

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The announcement came amid first steps by the Islamic republic to establish a walled-off national intranet separate from the worldwide Internet.

Iran is working on rolling out its national intranet that it says will be clean of un-Islamic content. Authorities claim the “National Internet” would not cut access to the Internet.

Regardless of Iran's attempts at controlling its populace, those who want access to the world wide web will continue to access the Internet through software work-arounds like Virtual Private Network (VPN), which is illegal in Iran.