The law of unintended consequences... When a company as large and as important as Google makes changes, seemingly minor tweaks can have massive repercussions. While most people in the West may have to deal with a slightly different interface (for better or for worse), the consequences elsewhere may be far more profound.
Tech Crunch writer Sarah Perez writes that in Iran, new changes to Google's RSS reader may cut Iranian dissidents off from a major line of communication, one that the government of Iran has yet to shut down.
Last week, Google announced an impending update to its neglected online RSS reader, Google Reader. The service is soon getting a cosmetic overhaul and will see its current social features removed in favor of deeper integration with Google+. Although many TechCrunch commenters lamented alongside me about the forthcoming disappearance of our favorite “human curators,” when I asked the same question on Google+, the outcome was decidedly different: no one really cares.
Except, it appears, Iranians. According to a blog post now making its way around the Web, Google Reader served the Iranian community as a way to get uncensored, unfiltered news outside of government control. And now, that may be over.