This week on Babel, Jon speaks with Mahsa Alimardani, a scholar at the University of Oxford and a senior researcher with Article19. They talk about the recent protests in Iran and how both protestors and the regime have used social media, the cat and mouse game of online access and censorship in Iran, and what Western social media companies can be doing to better moderate their platforms. Then, Jon continues the conversation with Will Todman and Lubna Yousef about the intersection of protest movements and social media around the Middle East.

Mahsa Alimardani, Kendra Albert, and Afsaneh Rigot, "Big Tech Should Support the Iranian People, Not the Regime," The New York Times, September 30, 2022.

Mahsa Alimardani, "How Instagram is Failing Protestors in Iran," Slate, June 2, 2022.

Jon Alterman and Jason Rezaian, "What We Get Wrong About Iran," CSIS, February 1, 2022.

Jon Alterman and Karim Sadjadpour, "Iran's Future," CSIS, July 13, 2021.

Transcript, "Protest, Social Media, and Censorship in Iran," CSIS, October 18, 2022.