The country is going to expand the so-called “smart filtering” of the web. At the moment, Iran has a policy of censoring undesirable materials published online without banning them completely, as it used to.

Iran is known in the online world for some of the strictest controls on Internet access. However, the blocks of the government on the western social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can be easily bypassed by tech-savvy Iranians through VPNs.

However, under the new scheme, the government could lift its blanket ban on those social media and instead filter what is published there. The new policy was developed thanks to President Hassan Rouhani’s push to loosen some social restrictions. However, it was unclear whether it would mean more or less online freedom. The Internet users in the country expressed concern that the government may try to block VPN access to social media services under the new policy.

The Iran’s Communications Minister revealed that the smart-filtering plan is currently implemented only on one social network, but this is just the beginning. Apparently, he is referring to Instagram, which is now being filtered, but not blocked. Before, the photo sharing service was available uncensored in the Islamic republic, but its authorities did block some user accounts, like @RichKidsofTehran – a page full of photos of young, rich Iranians flaunting their wealth.

The Communications Minister explained that by implementing the smart filtering plan, the government is trying to block the criminal and unethical materials published on the websites, but the general contents of those sites will remain available. He also said that the new policy would be fully in place in a few months.

Apparently, the local authorities are concerned about the politically damaging content, aside from the morally dubious material – in Iran this could be anything from porn to innocuous images of women not wearing the mandatory Islamic dress. They could be understood, as social media portals were widely used in the anti-government protests five years ago in order to organize and spread news about a movement. Security forces eventually crushed the latter, but the government then decided that it has to do something with the Internet.

The former Iran’s president even floated the idea of replacing the worldwide web with a national intranet, which would not be connected to the Internet.