August 08, 2016

Iran bans Pokemon Go, and other significant trends

editor:	Gurmeet Singh

Pokemon Go, the latest app craze to sweep the world (I can't actually think of a preceding 'app craze', btw), has been banned in Iran. Now, before you take that as a surefire sign that Iran has nominated itself as the most boring, the most critical, the most subjected-to-a-national-super-ego country in the world (which it may have done), you might think about considering why it's done such a thing.

Immediate, vague, atavistic reasons spring to mind: Pokemon are kinds of unnatural forms, Iran is probably against idolatry, etc - things which don't really make too much sense. No, the reason is fairly simple: Pokemon Go represents two things: A technology-based use of the public space, and a game featuring a popular global brand that is known to have had strong social impacts, particularly among young people.

The official reason from Iran is that: “Any game that wants to operate nationwide in Iran needs to obtain permission from the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance, and the Pokémon Go app has not yet requested such a permission,” the semi-official Isna news agency quoted Abolhasan Firouzabadi, the head of Iran’s supreme council of virtual space, as saying.

But that's just the public reason. The real reason is probably much more, paradoxically, old sounding. it's because Iran, like all governments shaped by totalitarian tendencies, is frightened by popular movements, and new ways of using its public spaces. Pokemon Go, it seems, might just be an existential threat to the government, because, as ridiculous as it sounds, it encourages users to go outside, to use the city in ways which don't recognise traditionally established boundaries, such as the private/ public distinction. There might be a Pikachu hanging out by a graveyard, or a government building, and the ease with which a Pokemon Go-er might approach that space in a way they wouldn't normally is difficult for the government to handle.

Obviously, Pokemon is not going to encourage the development of a new kind of urban citizenship, but it is just another example of how countries can shut down technology when it is perceived to challenge some central nerve of power; In this sense, Pokemon Go isn't so far from Wikileaks.