After three days of blocking the most popular social networking site in the world, the Iranian government has decided to once again allow its citizens to access Facebook.
While President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vigorously denied that he was behind this latest effort to censor the web in Iran, political activists contend that the decision was directly aimed at stemming the popularity of his rival, Reformist challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who has used Facebook to rally his supporters in the run-up to the June 12 election in Iran.
According to Reuters, more than 150,000 Iranians are Facebook members and one Facebook page for Mousavi has more than 5,200 members. Young voters, once again a crucial voting bloc in this year’s election, helped propel reformist president Mohammad Khatami into office in 1997 and 2001.
For more on how the web is being used by campaigns in this year’s Iranian election, see http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54Q2WS20090527
While most recent polls have put President Ahmadinejad ahead, his lead appears to be narrowing, at least according to a report today by China’s Xinhua. Intrade, the popular online political prediction market where armchair pundits can invest in the outcomes of campaigns, currently gives Ahmadinejad a 65% chance of winning reelection.
