Twitter chairman challenges Iranian president

Dorsey on Tuesday asked whether Iranian citizens are able to read the tweets the new president has been sending. Rouhani’s Twitter account has gained increased attention over the last few weeks as he increased his outreach to the United States during a visit to the United Nations. 

@HassanRouhani Good evening, President. Are citizens of Iran able to read your tweets?

— Jack Dorsey (@jack) October 1, 2013

Rouhani reiterated a point he made in an interview with CNN last week. 

Evening, @Jack. As I told @camanpour, my efforts geared 2 ensure my ppl’ll comfortably b able 2 access all info globally as is their #right.

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) October 1, 2013

Last month, the Internet firewall on Twitter and Facebook in Iran came down for a day, briefly opening the two sites up to users. The two social media sites have remained blocked in the country since the disputed presidential elections in 2009 caused a brief uprising, aided in large part by social media. 

{mosads}Iranian officials blamed the incident on a glitch, but others speculated it could be a test run or first step toward removing the firewall. 

In his CNN interview last week, Rouhani said there are certain restrictions to social media in Iran that have to do with “ethical and moral concern.” But he also vowed to work to open up the networks. 

“So one of my plans is to reduce the problems that people face currently on these issues, so that within those sort of moral frameworks that we have for ourselves, that we are able to access these social network sites,” he said.