When The Law Becomes Criminal

If you live in Iran, you will deal with this sort of advertisement daily. An ever-increasing number of websites are banned in the country and to be able to function online, one needs a reliable VPN. Almost all social media platforms are banned, for example, and so are a lot of other websites. And no, I don’t necessarily mean that kind of websites. World Bank and IMF are banned too. Unapproved statistics, probably. How dare they!

In any case, there is a vast underground market, and most Iranians visit that market now and again. In effect, it makes almost everybody a criminal at some point. If you try to keep in touch with your family on social media, you need a VPN and use the banned platforms.

If you want to watch a fight on UFC, you need a VPN, and you need to buy an account. If you’re going to pirate UFC, you need a VPN, and you need to use certain unregistered websites. In both cases, you have to engage in criminal activity. The same is true if you want to listen to Spotify. You even have to break the law in order to buy an antivirus.

Now, what happens if everyone is a criminal and many things you do on a regular basis are criminal acts? The law loses its potency. People begin to ignore it (as they have). And eventually, it is the law that becomes criminal.