Iranian citizens are regularly denied the ability to access information on political issues and freely express their opinions online. Their government actively creates barriers to civic engagement and denies their citizens the ability to debate issues and share a plurality of thoughts in digital spaces.
Political Process Monitoring in Iran
Rouhani Meter was the first promise-tracking platform for Iran. The platform enabled Iranians to follow and crowdsource information on President Hassan Rouhani’s progress in keeping his campaign promises.
Cause
Political Accountability & Transparency
Locations
Iran
Status
Online
Rouhani Meter connects citizens with research and fact-checking on the commitments of President Hassan Rouhani, with verification via crowd-sourcing from inside Iran – helping users freely access information on campaign promises.
In 2013, citizens were able to access the project directly through Psiphon’s VPN and access the latest data over the first 100 days of President Rouhani’s term in office.
This work was grown further in 2014-2015 to include 200+ members of Iran’s Parliament - Majlis Monitor.
One month after launch Rouhani Meter was blocked inside Iran. Despite this, over the coming months Iran's citizens would access the site using VPNs (virtual private networks) to circumvent censorship and track the progress of their country's political leadership.
2.3M
Users from inside Iran
13M
Visits from inside Iran
17M
Total page views
Since 2016, the project has grown to be independent from Digital Public Square and is solely managed by an external Iranian research team.