Balatarin

Balatarin (Persian: بالاترین, lit., highest) is a Persian language social and political link-sharing website aimed primarily at Iranian audiences. Balatarin does not generate news in-house but provides a hub where users can post links to webpages of their choice, vote on their relevance or significance, and post comments. New links initially go to the "recently posted" page; as they collect positive votes, they gain a higher rank and move to the front page, which increases their visibility. Combining the technical attributes of reddit, digg, newsvine, and del.icio.us, Balatarin is a mission-oriented platform dedicated to enabling and fostering freedom of expression and information for the benefit of Iranian society. Balatarin was named the editors' pick in 1386 (March 2007 to March 2008) in 7-Sang, a Persian Internet magazine, and was voted the second most popular Persian website in the same year. Balatarin was also voted the best "News Website" in 1385 by readers of the same magazine. Balatarin proved to be a very effective social network during and after the Iranian presidential elections in June 2009. Many Iranians used Balatarin to get the latest news about the opposition Green Movement that claimed the election was fraudulent. Meanwhile, the government methodically censored all sources of news about the unprecedented national grassroots protest movement. Balatarin was also used as a platform for coordinating protests against the regime. The effectiveness of such actions was proved during the Quds [Jerusalem] Day demonstrations on September 18, 2009. Tens of thousands of Iranians demonstrated in Tehran and subverted the government-sanctioned anti-Israeli demonstration into a rally against the Iranian regime. In 2011, Balatarin was nominated by the jury for Deutsche Welle's The BOBs award for "Best use of technology for social good".