
Iran's blogfather: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are killing the web - plg
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/29/irans-blogfather-facebook-instagram-and-twitter-are-killing-the-web
======
aaron-lebo
_But hyperlinks aren’t just the skeleton of the web: they are its eyes, a path
to its soul. And a blind webpage, one without hyperlinks, can’t look or gaze
at another webpage – and this has serious consequences for the dynamics of
power on the web.

More or less all theorists have thought of gaze in relation to power, and
mostly in a negative sense: the gazer strips the gazed and turns her into a
powerless object, devoid of intelligence or agency. But in the world of
webpages, gaze functions differently: it is more empowering. When a powerful
website – say Google or Facebook – gazes at, or links to, another webpage, it
doesn’t just connect it , it brings it into existence; gives it life. Without
this empowering gaze, your web page doesn’t breathe. No matter how many links
you have placed in a webpage, unless somebody is looking at it, it is actually
both dead and blind, and therefore incapable of transferring power to any
outside web page.

Apps like Instagram are blind, or almost blind. Their gaze goes inwards,
reluctant to transfer any of their vast powers to others, leading them into
quiet deaths. The consequence is that web pages outside social media are
dying._

Best part of the piece, imo.

~~~
open-source-ux
A lot of sites seem terrified that users might (gasp!) leave their site to go
elsewhere. The result is ridiculous articles like this: _42 startups that grew
to be worth billions in 2015._ Not a single link to any of the comapnies
mentioned in the article.

[http://uk.businessinsider.com/new-billion-dollar-startup-
uni...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/new-billion-dollar-startup-unicorns-
in-2015-2015-12)

Another horrible trend is to hide links behind Javascript. Simple Hypertext
links should _never_ require Javascript to be clickable, on many websites they
very often are.

~~~
jacquesm
Pet peeve: pdf links on google. When you want to mail someone a link to a pdf
you search for the pdf, then copy-and-paste the link from the results page and
_boom_ a whole screen full of garbage and a link that is next to unusable
instead of the actual link to the document.

Super annoying.

~~~
gengkev
Actually, this happens for all Google results, not just PDFs.

~~~
jacquesm
With a normal result you can just click on it and then cut-paste the URL to
your email. But with a pdf the link will simply start a download without ever
showing you the link.

~~~
gengkev
Hm, I hadn't considered that. I use Chrome, so for downloads I can press
Ctrl+J and copy the link from the Downloads page.

------
SmallBets
It seems the real shift is from the web's nodes being ideas/text, to being
people/personas. Guided and organized not by what is said and the relationship
of ideas, but by who said it, their relationship to me, and what liking it
says about me. From ideas to identities. From the message to the messenger.

The author nailed it when talking about "two of the most dominant, and most
overrated, values of our times: newness and popularity" and the shift from a
book to tv mentality. The newness/TV aspect is another way to look at
FOMO...these things are exploiting deep fears about group status and
exclusion.

I don't think this means the death of ideas, but they are secondary now and
spread when tied to a story/hero's journey involving a strong persona.
Ironically, the author has a great one in being imprisoned for his ideas then
freed.

~~~
irixusr
"It seems the real shift is from the web's nodes being ideas/text, to being
people/personas."

Brilliant.

I would add that just this point in itself is a sufficient reason to stand up
for an internet whose technology and culture allows you to be anonymous

------
jseliger
I'm sympathetic to this point of view—I write one blog and contribute to
another!—but at the same time, it's not really FB, Instagram, and Twitter
that're killing the web—it's _us_ , every day, with every choice we make.
Every time we fire up Facebook we choose to enable the proprietary web instead
of the open web.

It's fun pointing at corporate villains. I've done it. But it's more true and
less satisfying to say that we enable the online world that has come to be.

~~~
ajmurmann
Given that this is the Y-Combinator news aggregator it's much worse than "us"
choosing to use these services. Most of us here would love to be a substantial
part of the next Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. I am sure the vast majority
here would do everything they can to make it happen if they thought they had
an idea that could turn them into the next Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs or even
"just" Evan Williams. I've been ranting about Facebook being the new AOL since
at least 2009 and yet I would become an unstoppable force in order to create
the next one.

~~~
irixusr
I disagree. I think of this community as driven as much by intellectual thirst
as it is by entrepreneurship.

I tried working for a start up and I hated it. But I love YC news for
everything the web has ceased to be,

Interesting and intellectually engaging Quick to load Simple UI Strictly text

Which was the internet when I first encountered it I all its 28kbs glory (with
songs gifs)

------
amirmansour
The author also published a related article on the Matter publication on
Medium titled. "The Web We Have to Save": [https://medium.com/matter/the-web-
we-have-to-save-2eb1fe15a4...](https://medium.com/matter/the-web-we-have-to-
save-2eb1fe15a426?mod=e2this#.6gdnjidkp)

His writing can be found on his personal site:
[http://hoder.ir/en](http://hoder.ir/en)

~~~
dyadic
And the same article was previously discussed here on HN at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9994653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9994653)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Forgive me for lacking the time or energy to read this article. I've read a
previously posted on HN piece by the same author on the same subject, though.

Those three services are quite different. Instagram is a stream of photos,
nothing more, nothing less. It's not a site that links outward, it's not even
a site you really link to. It is simply pretty pictures. There's nothing wrong
with that, really. Instagram doesn't want to and doesn't need to be a
communication tool.

Facebook is website for keeping in touch with friends and relatives,
organising your social life, viewing advertising videos, viewing plagiarised
YouTube videos, and viewing sponsored BuzzFeed videos. It doesn't link outward
much because that's not really what it's useful for. Facebook wants to deliver
you a stream of mostly garbage, addictive and not-entirely-unpleasant content.
It's almost useless as a platform for real communication, and nobody should
expect it to be one, they'll be disappointed.

Twitter is a website for following people who interest you, and sharing things
with people interested in you. Twitter, unlike Facebook or Instagram, is
actually very outward-looking: Twitter is a huge source of links to other
websites. People use Twitter to share pieces they find interesting, to share
content they have created, to comment on pieces they have seen. People use
Twitter and end up finding new and wonderful websites.

None of these are killing the web in the end.

~~~
unusximmortalis
Who is then? What is then?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Perhaps people choosing to use sites which are inward-looking. It's not really
the sites themselves' fault.

And this really is a choice thing. Many people (myself included) can't afford
not to be on Facebook, but I'd argue we do have the choice of whether or not
to use it much.

------
codecamper
I wonder if there is really a smaller blog audience now than before.

Or is it that a massive number of people have arrived to the Internet knowing
only the FB, IG, and WA apps. Those people don't quite get it yet. Some of
them are new because of finances. Computers and routing equipment too
expensive 10 years ago. The smartphone has brought massive numbers of new
arrivals.

I think the problem could be app stores. Could be paid search results.

But these are short term problems. I think eventually all these new people
will discover blogs. And podcasts.

Just like people these days are discovering grunge rock, and mullet hair. Or
at least they were 8 years ago - last time I had a look.

~~~
pjbrunet
I think it's the majority of people won't ever pay $10/year for a domain name.
If domain registrations were free, that might help save the Internet as we
know it. But $10/year vs. free Facebook, most people will take the free
cookie.

~~~
superuser2
It doesn't matter what domain registration costs when there _are_ no domains
to register. The namespaces of the TLDs people have heard of were picked clean
by squatters years ago. It taxes extraordinary creativity and a giant heap of
luck to come up with a relevant, vaguely pronounceable string for which the
.COM is available. Reliably determining which John Smith you mean based on
your social graph is one of Facebook's main value propositions.

~~~
pjbrunet
I disagree. You can easily find good names if you have an original idea. One
technique that I use, just combine two words. Most two-word combinations for
an original idea are not taken. Also, use an honest registrar that won't
register the name ahead of you.

------
pizza
Evgeny Morozov [0] has talked [1] and written extensively [2] about the
capacity for social media to entrap those the regime deems social
undesirables, and also about the naiveti of those in Silicon Valley who don't
realize this capacity of their technology (insert Oppenheimer world-eater
quote here...)

From what I understand of my own family's experience, it is safe to say that
far fewer butchers would have discovered safe havens in Rwanda (such as my
grandmothers' \-- my _muzungu_ father calls it the Anne Frank house of Kigali.
I never noticed the bullet holes littered throughout the bricks in her
compound until my latest visit...) through their own self-determination, if
the locations had not been broadcast on government radio channels... _sigh_

[0] [http://www.evgenymorozov.com](http://www.evgenymorozov.com)

[1]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/evgeny_morozov_is_the_internet_wha...](https://www.ted.com/talks/evgeny_morozov_is_the_internet_what_orwell_feared?language=en)

[2] See "To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological
Solutionism" by Evgeny Morozov

------
muddi900
When Hossein Darekshan went to jail, the Internet was for the pioneers, an
uncharted territory. It was a place for the brave, required _arcane_ knowledge
(computer literacy), and basic understanding of the underlying systems. When
he came out it was _settled_.

Was it the availability of easy to use technology (smartphones) that created
the market for populist interfaces or the simplification of interaction that
made the demand for simplified devices? That's a debate. However as more and
more people came online, they didn't want to explore the frontier. They wanted
their patch of land. They didn't want diverse ideas, but affirmations for
their beliefs, as News media has trained us all to expect from the world.

It was this way before. Most people's idea of music was limited to whatever
was on the radio or MTV. Political discourse was limited to what was the news.
The reason early Internet was the bastion of outsiders, freaks, geeks and
degenerates because these people wanted to break new ground, wanted new ideas.
Those people are still here, but they are minority.

I do think Derakshan overestimates the value of the blogospheres. My primary
interaction was message boards, which were closed-off, and in many cases
private spaces. That is whete I discovered new music, new movies and new
ideas. They too still exist, but they are also _minority_ , as far as reach
and influence are concerned.

------
cubano
He seems like a gifted writer, so I am sure, over time, he will make these
platforms work for him, perhaps in greater ways then he could have ever
imagined just using blogs.

People I know use the "big-3" because it allows them to easily connect to
their real-world friends and share tidbits with them, not because they are
looking for a publishing platform to reach the entire world.

~~~
ZenoArrow
One could argue that Tumblr fills the 'social publishing platform' niche, and
it seems reasonably popular.

I think the wider issue is content discovery outside social networks. I wonder
whether there are still lingering issues for blogs after the death of Google
Reader, or whether new services have been successful at filling that void.

------
AdeptusAquinas
I know that a big concern is the centralisation of power (something that might
be mitigated by legislation, albeit problematically if the legislators are the
ones to worry about) but aside from that, are aggregation sites like FB and
such really that bad?

His argument that they only show you what you like, keeping you in a little
bubble, _feels_ plausible, but is it true in practice? Those who are
interested in new ideas will find them regardless of FB, and may even be shown
them by FB if it works out that is what they will like. And those that are
more passive get the benefit of the net without effort. Seems like a good
arrangement, at least for now.

~~~
gengkev
I think part of the problem is that one benefit of the web is to be exposed to
new ideas, and passive users are hardly benefiting from seeing stuff that
doesn't challenge them.

Centralisation of power is not just a problem in that Facebook tailors content
to your preferences, but also that it has the power to choose how it does so.
For example, I believe that Facebook said that it might choose to ignore that
a user clicked "Show me less of this", because what we say we want isn't
always what we actually want. Another example is that when even people who
have liked an organisation's page don't see its content, Facebook basically
forces them to pay for advertising.

Some of these ideas I found in a TED talk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s)

~~~
spc476
And some people like living in a bubble. A friend of mine "unfriended" me (and
a few others) because we dared to present differing points of view to what he
posted (in my case, it was a study that showed marijuana use had potential
side effects).

It's all too easy to remove yourself from alternative points of view, which
was another prediction David Brin made in his novel _Earth_.

~~~
prebrov
_Most_ people like living it in a bubble and go to lengths to create a
comfortable bubble. That's why we hang out with like-minded friends, choose
jobs at companies we share values with, watch Vice and not Fox News (or vice
versa), etc.

Support and backing for the choices we make give us a warm and fuzzy feeling
that we're in a good place or on the right path there.

Bubble is good. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.

------
kevindeasis
The author seems to fail to understand the new social dynamic present in the
web. Just because the author fails to find his target audience does not mean
these platforms are killing the web. I was a fan but not any more of the
mentioned social media, but some of his statements are not insightful.

These platforms are the gateway to a better web not born yet, which is just
about to emerge. High-quality content is becoming more relevant.

These social media websites are not killing the web. I'd argue it is doing
something that is opposite to killing the web. People can find people who
share the same ideologies in the social media platforms described. A decade
ago, would you consider the web more prosperous without the presence of these
social media platforms? I'd like to think that these platforms are gateway to
a better web.

Bloggers are still rock stars in contemporary time. Hossein Derakhshan is just
looking at the wrong place.

There is also more competition in the blogging space. What does he think
happens when there is an inflow of supply?

People are smarter now. In fact, they are getting really smart with the
availability of knowledge, wisdom, skills, and ideas. If you want more people
to read your blog? Better start finding ways to influence new people and
affect their lives, while offering meaningful. Furthermore, I hope he finds a
way to get the numbers he wants by out-competing other bloggers in his niche.

~~~
quadrangle
> Just because the author fails to find his target audience does not mean
> these platforms are killing the web.

He didn't make that claim, that's a strawman. The social media things are not
the normal web anyway. His point isn't complaining about his audience issues,
it's about the closed silo nature of these systems that give them massive
power as gatekeepers in ways that the normal web doesn't.

> People are smarter now.

Now that's just the rantings of a myopic futurist-cultist.

~~~
kevindeasis
>He didn't make that claim, that's a strawman.

Was it not implied from reading the whole article?

>social media things are not the normal web anyway.

What is normal? If billions of people are using social media would that not be
normal still? How many people have to do a certain behaviour for it to become
normal?

>> People can find [other] people who share the same ideologies in the social
media platforms described.

It is a close silo.

>Now that's just the rantings of a myopic futurist-cultist.

Now that's just the rantings of a pessimist. How about things like the Flynn
effect. Or do you have proof that people are not getting smarter or people are
getting dumber?

~~~
quadrangle
No, the article was _not_ about him saying he lost his audience. That's the
sort of reading that comes from simplistically thinking that everyone is only
ever taking any position because of self-interest. Yes, he has a conflict of
interest, which was clearly revealed. But the point of the article was about
the shift in power, and the concentration of power in the way that the social
media networks work. The point has NOTHING to do with his own access to an
audience and is all about his concern about imagining the way today's versions
of himself (young Iranians writing about issues today) will be limited and
controlled to favor commercial interests in ways that were not the case
before.

Re: pessimism vs futurism etc., you're the one that made the "people are
getting smarter" claim, which is quite bold and demands evidence. I'll grant
that it's possible that more percentage of people are getting adequate
nutrition, health care, and education such that they are potentially more
intelligent, but there's no basis for just asserting that an educated, well-
nourished person today is generally any smarter than someone of that status
from generations ago. So the curve is more about the percentage of people with
decent health and education, and that's not something that leads to a
conclusion of ever-increasing future intelligence.

------
hudell
Other than social networks, I really miss the internet before youtube got so
popular. These days, people put a video on youtube for everything. Things that
used to be written, parsed and easily searchable, now are locked inside
lengthy videos.

------
bronz
I think this is an interesting problem. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr et al
dominate the internet. They are mostly used for garbage. There are more people
on the web now than ever and they use these platforms like they use a
permanent marker and a bathroom stall. At the same time, as has been mentioned
elsewhere in these comments, it hasn't gotten much easier to run a blog. There
are hosting costs to consider and the technical barrier is still there,
although it is lower than it used to be. Also, perhaps most importantly, it is
not immediately clear whether one can or cannot gain traction with a blog.
People don't seem to read them as much as they used to and they don't have a
fancy interface to subscribe and follow (at least not one that most people are
familiar with today). Maybe someone could make a platform for people who want
to make a blog but are dealing with these issues. Some kind of intellectual
Tumlr? A place where making a blog is simple and you are sure to make traction
because of the large readership of the platform. A place like Hacker News but
with blog posts perhaps.

~~~
wgx
I guess that's what Medium is aiming for. It's certainly how I use it.

------
adventured
This is at least the third or fourth generation of whining I've been through
about XYZ is going to kill the Web, in the last 20 years.

AOL was going to kill the Web in its infancy, ensuring a walled off garden.

Microsoft was going to kill the Web and dominate cyberspace by inserting
various points of control. Magazine cover after magazine cover predicted and
warned on this for years in the mid to late 1990s.

Apps were going to kill the Web.

Facebook, Twitter et al. are going to kill the Web.

Four or five years from now: new thing is going to kill the Web. Rinse &
repeat for an eternity. Absolutely nothing has changed in the argument, they
just keep replacing one boogieman with another. I'm pretty sure after watching
it for two decades that it's just an excuse to whine, forecast doom, and be
overly dramatic. As it turns out, the Web is _extraordinarily_ resilient +
adaptive and will be just fine.

~~~
ArchieT
Nothing _kills_ the web, at least at a reliable time scope. Just the comfort
of browsing and quality content decreases in the "main stream" (not to be
confused with stream_(social networking)). In the past, there were nice, plain
text peer-to-peer newsgroups, plain text chat (IRC, maybe XMPP), (almost)
plain text websites, plain text emails. Nowadays, newsgroups are no longer
popular enough to be considered a window to the world. People send bloated
HTML emails and chat using proprietary services, requiring heavy GUI. Websites
prompt for Java, JavaScript and Flash just to show you less than 2KB of text,
and run tons of scripts to make you share a link to their content to the
social networks, or even just to upvote their content on such. Almost nobody
uses trackbacks.

What people mean by "killing the web" can be compared to what people meant
when talking about Eternal September, but now it got worse, and way more
people are in it.

~~~
mschuster91
> Almost nobody uses trackbacks.

No one sane allows trackbacks on his blog any more. Too abused and spam-
ridden.

~~~
ArchieT
Is really trackback spamming still _that_ popular amongst spammers? There are
really more than 10 IPs a month? In 2015, when nobody uses trackbacks?

------
arthurcolle
I feel like users don't really want to get switched out of apps as they scroll
through a feed. I've noticed Facebook has many links that point outside of
facebook.com/, but the constant new tab context switch is a pretty big
distraction.

~~~
gengkev
This reminds me of when tabs were introduced to browsers (remember when you
had to open a new window for each webpage in IE6?)

------
systems
i have to strongly disagree i am egyptian, and the revolution that started in
egypt in 25th Jan 2011, was more or less organized on facebook on a facebook
page that started few years earlier to condemn the torture and killing of a
young man "khaled Said"

it was even kinda a surprise to the twitter crowd where most of the activists
hanged out

in the two following years, twitter played a major role in sharing information
on whats happening in the streets vs what the controlled media show

twitter and facebook did kill the web they revolutionised the world, literally

~~~
mavdi
I think your point sort of proves the case that a revolution that's guided by
mass submissions of Twitter and sensationalism and populism rather than well
thought out ideas will end up in the dust bin of history. Egypt is back
exactly where it was pre Arab spring. If not a little worse. Hence the point
this blogger makes.

------
xdinomode
I disagree and here's why. The web platforms he mentions are for following the
lives of people you like. Links get in the way on these specific apps.
Especially on mobile where clicking links by accident is a dread. If you want
to share your web links then post it on your blog. Make a link from Twitter to
your blog. But DONT expect apps to allow you to spam your garbage links to
others. That's what Reddit is for.

------
marincounty
I was watching Solyent Green last night. I have seen the movie so many tines,
but last night it reminded me of my own eventual mortality.

There's a scene when Charleton Heston shows his, I believe, father some
refrence books that he stole from the rich guy.

On the books, I saw report for 2016 to 2025.

I thought to myself, I'm glad we are not living in a Solent Green world--yet.
I thought about just how difficult it is to predict the future.

That said, I don't like the direction of this internet. I loath FB. I loath it
for various reasons. I'm trying to be objective. "Do I dislike it because I
don't have a lot of friends?" I don't know? I just loath the site. Always
have, but I'm a odd person. I'll cop to that.

Somebody above me asked for solutions. I think we should share anything we
have. Yes, there are poachers, with deep pockets, that will steal ideas, but
we're talking something that was very special. I liked the Internet in 2008. I
don't like it as much now. So, please offer solutions?

(To the Downvoters, give people a chance to offer their ideas without your
petty boos. It's not all about you, and your precious, fragile mood?)

------
enraged_camel
He wrote something similar earlier this year that was discussed on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9994653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9994653)

There's definitely more to be said on this topic, though.

------
bikamonki
This too is an endless stream of 'newness'. I log to HN as much as I do to FB.
One pays with karma, the other with likes. Both are mostly garbage yet
sometimes gems are found. I guess some of us are ready for curatedcontent.com

------
xkarga00
Great article that sums up the reasons why I am not using any of these social
networks anymore. I am going to point this to anyone who asks me why I don't
have a Facebook account, thanks.

------
tim333
Meh. Hypertexted linked blogs and web pages are still there. Facebook et al
aren't killing them any more than radio killed books, TV killed radio or the
internet killed TV. I doubt he would have lost his blog audience if he had not
been imprisoned. It wasn't social media that did that.

~~~
topspin
I would know nothing of this person or his views but for the concise,
image/video free list of hyperlinks+descriptions I frequent on Hacker News.
Ironic.

------
kevin_thibedeau
> On his release, he found the internet stripped of its power to change the
> world and instead serving up a stream of pointless social trivia.

The web works just fine for me. I just route around the damage. It's not like
anyone has a gun to your head forcing you to have an Instatwitbook account.

------
sehr
Is there any way to, or rather, is it even worth fighting centralization?

Has anything similar to this happened?

------
wahsd
Well, Zuckerberg has said that he wants Facebook to replace the internet, at
least in people's minds and actions; hence why he is ever expanding the walled
garden.

------
djKianoosh
This is why it saddened me to see Prismatic News shut down. It was a really
great way to find new and interesting things outside that filter bubble of fb
and twitter.

------
andrepd
This was surprisingly insightful, both at the human and the technical level
(especially the thoughts on hyperlinks). Amazing read.

------
MichaelMoser123
i think that hyperlinks and decentralized blogs will make it back if the
concept can generate value for advertisers.

So if all blog hosts hand out the same sticky cookies and then exchange the
tracking info to collectively spy on its users - that will be the killer app
(or killing app) for hyperlinks and decentralized blogs ;-)

------
MichaelMoser123
I think livejournal would be one of last remnants of the old web. In some
quarters it is still quite popular

~~~
MichaelMoser123
(second thought); I am not sure if the internet changed so much - there seems
to be a fixed percentage of people who read and investigate things / are ready
to hear alternative viewpoints, etc. These people were reading blogs in the
olden times and are probably doing so right now.

Now what happened is that the online audience got much wider - now my guess is
that this added audience did not result in more people reading and
investigating stuff - its the same old number. (the author probably lost touch
with his former readership while in prison, but eventually they will come back
- if the author is still valued, but that's a separate question).

The net can't make us more curious all by itself...

------
thrw00
Throwaway account for obvious reasons.

At the time of Iranian disputed elections of 2009, I worked as an engineer for
one of the biggest Iranian websites with millions of audience looking for
reliable source of news, in the strict absence of any news, when people were
getting killed on the streets of Tehran.

I see the need to clarify who this self-titled 'blogfather' of Iran is. I see
this need as things get out of control quickly on hn due to hype and links
like this jump to get 1k votes, where most of the voters simply vote because
others voted.

For those who do not know, since just before the Iranian disputed elections of
2009, Hossein Derakhshan has been living in Iran. He was 'supposedly' in jail,
but there were rumors about his collaboration with the Iranian government to
build their cyber presence, which almost did not exist at the time. Shortly
after his arrest, many anti government bloggers inside Iran were arrested too,
there are speculations that he revealed their identities.

Years before entering Iran, Derakhshan was busy with 'blogfathering' Iranian
web space for a few years, explicitly being anti Iranian government, which
always bring visitors. This way, at the rise of the weblog era, he was doing
good. He had a big number of visitors which could make him enough money to not
look for another job.

During post golden era of weblogs, specially when the Iranian Digg copy
websites appeared, his monopoly weblog business was going south. At that
point, he started publishing more unconventional content in Iranian web space
to gain attention. Mostly, they were of sexual nature. A good example is a
video he published where he asks an Israeli girl to repeat graphic sexual
words in Farsi (Persian) after him. The girl did not speak a word of that
language. Another example is his dedicated website to naked pictures of Monica
Bellucci.

I am not writing this to reveal that Hossein Derakhshan is a successful web
attention seeker. I am writing this to let you know that in summer of 2009,
when our tiny team was trying to protect huge DDoS attacks on a handful of low
budget EC2 instances funded by donations, we were convinced that on the other
side of the line, Mr Derakhshan had made a deal to conduct the operations by
hiring Russians. This was by tracing his old account on our website to
multiple new accounts claiming how they enjoy taking down the website, and let
me tell you this, if you write thousands of lines on the web with your
identity, it is not easy to escape your writing style when you pretend to be
someone else.

Another elections is coming in a couple of months in Iran, where the
government allows high profile media to report from inside Iran, hence this
article pop up out of no where. This is a known pattern.

I had to get this off my chest after so many year. It is disturbing to see
links like this on the front page of hn, where people claim to be pro
democracy and freedom. This hurts.

------
zkhalique
Well, looks like he's back :)

So many people reposting his article!

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onewaystreet
Most of this is just a guy complaining becuse he can't adapt to the new world.

~~~
danielhunt
I don't agree with you, but you shouldn't be downvoted for a comment like
this.

I can understand why this perception could be read into his post, but I think
the much stronger argument here is that the web he sees now, after his
release, is not a web at all - it's 3-4 massive nodes that are connected only
because they use the same pipes

~~~
Dylan16807
>I don't agree with you, but you shouldn't be downvoted for a comment like
this.

If onewaystreet had said "guy complaining about kids these days" then sure,
shouldn't downvote for opinion. But "because he can't adapt" is not what the
article's about. As far as I can tell, that dismissal is factually wrong. So a
downvote is okay.

------
gotchange
"There’s a story in the Qur’an that I thought about a lot during my first
eight months in solitary confinement. In it, a group of persecuted Christians
find refuge in a cave. They, and a dog they have with them, fall into a deep
sleep and wake up under the impression that they have taken a nap: in fact,
it’s 300 years later. One version of the story tells of how one of them goes
out to buy food – and I can only imagine how hungry they must have been after
300 years – and discovers that his money is obsolete now, a museum item.
That’s when he realises how long they have been absent."

Slightly off-topic, does he realize that this was a fable and not a true story
as human beings can't live for 300 years much less without food, water and a
way to expel waste?

