Britain changes it’s social media approach towards Iran

The British government has launched a website and a Facebook page for Iranians, using social media to evade Iranian censorship and undermine the authority of the regime. Currently the BBC complains of frequent jamming of its services to Iran. The use of social media as a foreign policy tool is a very new development, a sophisticated approach that on the surface looks as though it helps Iranians to communicate but on closer inspection fits into the British government’s foreign policy of containment towards Iran, causing the regime to become more unstable.

Iran is a country that already considers every political development to be a conspiracy dreamt up by the CIA or MI6, this approach will be added to a long list of subversive measures that have tainted Iran’s history since the 1953 Iranian coup d’etat (known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup) that the British government was heavily involved in.

More recently Britain has been at loggerheads with Iran over its nuclear energy programme, which Tehran says is peaceful but which Britain, Israel and the US suspect is being used to develop a nuclear bomb. Bilateral relations between Britain and Iran have always been difficult, in 2007 Iran kidnapped several British sailors  and diplomatic ties hit a new low last November when Britain closed its embassy in Tehran after protesters stormed the building and Iranian diplomats were expelled from London.

The Foreign Office however, says the website as well as new Facebook, Twitter and Google+ account will provide information about Britain and its policies towards Iran as well as allowing Iranians to have discussions and ask questions that ordinarily might be censored.

“We are relaunching now our Iran website and social media presence for you and for you to use it,” Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a video message on the “UK for Iranians” website (ukforiranians.fco.gov.uk/en in English and ukforiranians.fco.gov.uk/fa in Farsi).

To talk to Tug about social media drop me a line at ben.romberg@tugsearch.co.uk

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