Topic: Net Neutrality
Country: Iran
Delegate Name: Mitchell Cole
School: Forest Hills Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Iran position papers GLIMUN 2016 committees
Inside of my glorious, Islamic nation of Iran, there is a national internet program, where a ‘clean’/censored version of the common internet is created and accessible only to citizens inside the country. We would disagree with net neutrality so we can control what our citizens see, for their own good.
Net neutrality is not currently practiced in Iran, where examples of service providers being ‘bought out’ by websites or companies. A website called Aparat benefited from what could be termed a zero rating arrangement it made with a mobile carrier called RighTel, which until last year was the _italic_ only _italic_ provider with a license to offer 3G in Iran.
It seems clear that Iranian services generally, especially Aparat, benefit from filtering and content prioritization agreements that could be said to violate net neutrality principles. From a particular standpoint, many individuals do not understand the importance of net neutrality, making it much easier to ignore from a legal standpoint in a place like Iran. Our government needs to be able to help and support its viewpoints through the Iranian national internet. Being able to boost websites that share some of the same views and goals as the government needs to be kept lawful and constitutional.
The main stance that most countries will be taking this conference will be that of freedom: one that supports net neutrality. The delegation from Iran will be taking the opposite stance from the one previously listed. We will work to fight net neutrality and to allow companies to do as they please with their services.
