Internet censorship by definition "is the control or suppression of the publication of or access to information on the Internet" stated by Christopher Leberknight et al. in the article “A Taxonomy of Internet Censorship and Anti-Censorship” (2010). The thought of not being able to use the Internet freely might seem strange to someone who lives in a country with free Internet. We live in a country where we have access to all kinds of information and news simply by searching for the desired topic. However, in some countries people do not have full and free access to the Internet. Internet content is usually blocked, censored, or manipulated by that state's local government. Some governments, especially non-democratic regimes, believe that Internet freedom will expose their citizens to topics and information that threaten their power and overall politics. These threats can range from gubernatorial elections to protests. Among these countries are countries such as Iran, China, Russia, etc. These governments fear that Internet freedom will raise awareness among citizens. And as awareness increases, the number of people who question government policy and strategy will also increase. The Internet and more specifically social media can reach a large audience in a short amount of time. This also allows anti-regime ads to spread easier and faster. This is exactly why undemocratic governments censor the Internet. Unfortunately, this problem is becoming more and more prevalent as we move forward. According to Sanja Kelly et al., in the article “Silencing the Messenger: Communication Apps Under Pressure,” Internet freedom has declined over the past six years. Today, more and more governments are targeting social media and communications applications to stop the rapid spread of information. Over the past two years, “Facebook and Twitter have been subject to increasing censorship for several years,” Kelly says. However, today governments are going after Telegram and WhatsApp, which are voice communication and messaging apps. These apps have a high level of security and end-to-end encryption that does not allow governments to easily track messages even if the records are necessary for law enforcement and national security. Therefore, some governments block these apps in their country. The issue of Internet censorship must be addressed because we live in an era where more people have access to the Internet than to a toilet and, conversely, two-thirds or 67% of these people live in countries where Internet data is censored (Kelly et al. 2016). It is crucial to be sure that the content people are exposed to is not manipulated and is true. This article will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of Internet censorship in unfree countries, mainly focusing on Iran. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Historically, the Internet has been censored to support political and religious objectives. As stated by Leberknight et al., the frequency of censorship increased in the 15th century as printing became widespread. The press spread information and news more widely and was much more difficult to control. He also helped in the preservation of books. Then radio and television broadcasts were able to stimulate the speed of communication which made them better and faster means of spreading news. However, the Internet allows for faster dissemination of information than previous means. Another problem governments face is keeping information on the Internetwithin its borders. The Internet's borders are permeable, as Leberknight states. Therefore, even if the content of a website is blocked, it is accessible on a website outside the country. Today, governments must become innovative with their censorship methods as networks and devices are changing rapidly. According to Leberknight, another reason why online information cannot be controlled is that the goal of this innovation was to make information accessible to the majority of people. As mentioned before, the diffusion and access to the Internet is very extensive. The inability to control the product of rapid news sharing and the difficulty of exploiting it will pose a threat to authoritarian regimes. Regimes such as Russia, China and the totalitarian government of Iran. The increase in control over content accessible on the Internet only proves that social media and online communication have a significant effect on the advancement of political freedom, social justice, and general knowledge in general (Kelly et al. 2016). There are several criteria for censorship. The criteria, as Leberknight et al. state, include cost, scope, scale, speed, granularity, false negative, false positive, and circumvability (2010). Opportunity and resource costs determine the availability of censorship. Scope refers to the number of media outlets censored. The number of people affected during this process constitutes the scale. Granularity refers to different servers, ports, web pages, etc. The false negative terms determine the accuracy of the censoring process. False positive refers to exhaustion of censoring resources if it is too high. And finally, circumvention incapacitates censorship. In addition to these criteria, there are several techniques that these governments use to filter information on the web. These techniques include attack mode, filter mode, and target (Leberknight et al. 2010). Each of these methods is designed to filter Internet content in a unique way. IP filtering is the most common censorship method. This method has its disadvantage since many websites are hosted on one IP address, blocking that address would block websites that do not even have any objectionable content (Leberknight et al. 2010). China has the most advanced censorship technology and network and is the only country that uses all three methods (Leberknight et al. 2010). This allows China to strictly control information on the Internet. In addition to strict censorship, China has smart cities that allow the government to control citizens' activities even more. While some countries rely only on Internet censorship, other countries have even decided to go a step further and shut down all access to the Internet during the political crisis just to prevent users from sharing the ongoing events with the world. In these countries, users who tend to publish political content are arrested. According to Kelly et al., 27% of people with access to the Internet live in these countries. Many argue that censorship threatens free speech and privacy. Countries are currently censoring more diverse content. Although the main focus is on newspapers that disseminate political opinions opposed to the local establishment, issues relating to the LGBTI community and anti-religious material are also censored. All of these actions are taken with the aim of strengthening national security by preventing people from being exposed to fake news and Western culture. On the contrary, the steps these governments are taking are diminishing free speech and democracy. Unfortunately, numerous governments, both democratic andnon-democratic, they have passed laws that allow them to exercise greater surveillance over their citizens and limit their privacy. Although it is difficult to go against the government, especially in some countries, citizens should not underestimate the power of the Internet. The Internet can be used as a powerful voice to make the world listen, fight for human rights and demand better government. The people living in these restrictive countries have been able to achieve something unprecedented that was not possible before. Online activism revealed corruption, embezzlement, political contributions, prisoners' freedom and even saved many from execution. Therefore, as time passes, we can see more tangible results from Internet activity in unfree countries. Although the experience is different depending on the country you live in, to demonstrate what it is like to use the Internet in a non-free country in more detail, this article will focus on Iran mainly because I was born and raised in Iran. I am aware of both the previous and current situation as I witness it myself. I believe that having this experience would allow me to better explain what it means to use the Internet in a non-free country. Iran has a long history of censorship, especially after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Iranian leaders believe that social media is a Western conspiracy but, ironically, all Iranian government officials, including the supreme leader, they have personal social media accounts. As BBC writer Nasim Hatam points out, this is a disadvantage of Internet filtering that removes checks against the government. The Internet and social media are closely monitored in Iran. Iran is among those countries that use IP filtering to block access to certain social media platforms and websites. Iranian citizens have already found several ways to bypass the filtering and have found a kind of backdoor to access their desired websites using VPNs and Internet Proxies. But obviously the Iranian regime is aware of this trick and persecutes any popular VPN by disabling it. So ordinary citizens should look for new ones. Some platforms such as Facebook, Viber and Telegram are filtered daily. However, the government will also shut down the Internet entirely if certain political incidents have occurred or are about to occur. Eleven years ago, following the 2009 presidential elections, millions of Iranians took to the streets questioning the validity of the elections. The government manipulated the election results, which sparked a lot of anger that led to a mass protest the likes of which the Islamic republic hasn't seen since the 1979 revolution, says Omid Memarian, author of “Iran's Green Movement Has Never Gone Away” ( 2019). Many of the protesters were arrested and many were killed during the marches. The Internet and social media are the reason the world knows about this movement and what happened to the Iranian people. As noted in the article “The role of social media in the Iranian green movement” written by Somayeh Moghanizadeh, shortly after the protest began, photos and videos of the demonstration were shared on social media regardless of the limitations imposed on the Internet and this led to what the West called the Twitter movement because the extensive use of the platform as a means of communication as the use of regular text messaging was restricted by the government. Unfortunately, the Green Movement did not lead to a concrete result because the government's retaliation was too brutal for the people to tolerate. Fast forward a few years, there was another protest after the gas price increased by 50%. The Iranians used the.