This research was conducted and summarized by Mahsa Alimardani and Frederic Jacobs. Ellery Roberts Biddle contributed writing and editing for this report. Iran is widely known for censoring all kinds of websites and social networks, but this year it is attempting to revamp filtering with a new technical approach to social media censorship known as “intelligent” filtering. Its first target is Instagram. Why Instagram? Because its technical features make it possible. Since the 2009 protest movement, the Iranian government has seen the Internet as a space of chronic vulnerability for national security. The unrest that ensued in 2009, with the aid of communication technology devices such as Facebook, active blogs, and online TV streams of opposition candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, resulted in a mandate for heavy centralization of the online space and subsequent shutdowns and censorship of many websites, including Facebook and Twitter. Iranian government statistics show that 70% of Iran’s youth, the largest demographic in the country, are bypassing these filters through circumvention tools. Saddled with a censorship regime that is both exhaustive and ineffective, Iranian authorities are now trying to regain control of the Internet through “intelligent” filtering, a process whereby they filter select content on a social media platform, rather than the entire site. The first known instance of intelligent filtering on social media platforms in Iran was recently implemented over the Instagram API. For this small-scale research project, we studied the technical layers of this process as best we could, observing the techniques implemented by Iranian censors to block individual pages and particular types of content on the platform. We also sought to determine where this filtering was happening within the broader framework of Iran’s filtering system. And we compared the blocking of Instagram pages with associated or similar webpages, in order to better understand how threats are perceived across different forms of Internet media. Contrary to popular western human rights narratives, we found that very few political figures or activists had their pages blocked. Individuals such as Kambiz Hosseini, who is well known for his satirical talk shows Parazit and Poletik, which are viewed on illegal satellites or blocked platforms such as youtube.com or radiofarda.com inside the country, are accessible on Instagram. Pages deemed politically sensitive such as the US White House, or the page belonging to jailed dissident blogger Hossein Ronaghi, are also open on Instagram, while pages for celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber are not. This suggests that Iranian authorities do not see Instagram as a platform for political dissent. Imprisoned activist Hossein Ronaghi's Instagram page is accessible, while his website is filtered. Screenshot of his Instagram page. Iran is experiencing a new wave of Internet control where authorities embed themselves in social platforms in order to effectively monitor and censor their content piece-by-piece, rather than wholesale. The case of Instagram does well to illustrate this shift, as it is the first and only known application of intelligent filtering on social media in Iran. In December of 2014, ICT Minister Mahmoud Vaezi declared that the intelligent filtering program was in its pilot phase, blocking immoral and criminal content. Iran’s cyber police, Gerdab, however did state that the intelligent filtering program is not functional on websites that use SSL protocol Hyperlink to definition . In other words, this approach only works when users access a site through HTTP — if they are using HTTPS, which encrypts data as it is sent through the network, the system cannot see what is being sent, and therefore cannot identify problematic content. The government has indicated that they want to build a stronger national Internet infrastructure and to implement sophisticated technology in the practices of both surveillance and censorship online. One example is a project called Ankaboot – a locally-developed “spider” or crawler tool used to monitor and collect information from the web. Tools like Ankaboot suggest that authorities are resigned to the likelihood that Iranian Internet users will continue to rely on US corporate platforms through circumvention tools, even when local alternatives are available. In announcing Ankaboot's launch, the Revolutionary Guards explained that the program would identify activities that spread “corruption” and western-inspired lifestyles. Officials say it will extend to Instagram, Viber and WhatsApp, where it will reportedly collect data on “likes” to identify potential offenders.