Social network will reportedly be helping Iran in its fight against pornography and prostitution.

Iranian officials are hoping to team up with Facebook in an effort to remove Pages and Groups that feature pornography or are soliciting prostitution. More broadly, the Iranian police force has announced plans to cleanse the Internet of content its country deems inappropriate.

The new tidbit comes from the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA (via the Associated Press), which interviewed Commander Kamal Hadianfar, the head of Iran’s cyber-police. He promised the country will work with Facebook for the new initiative, but did not elaborate on what the plan would entail.

“Pornography is a crime not just in Iran but also in other countries such as the United States,” Hadianfar told ISNA, according to a translation by Radiozamaneh. “In 2010, Facebook served as a free domain for criminals, but in the name of God and with the presence of the police over the past 15 months, we have made many significant moves to cleanse social networks, especially that of Facebook.”

Facebook of course doesn’t allow porn on its service. Under the Safety section of Facebook’s Terms of Service (Statement of Rights and Responsibilities), the seventh point clearly states: “You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”

Then again, Iran’s definition of porn is not the same as that of the American government. I’m pretty sure Iran is concerned with anything that could imply innappropriate content, such as the image above. If Facebook allowed ever allowed full-out porn, Iranians would be permanently denied access to Facebook before they could say “censorship” [read more].

This articlewas written by Emil Protalinski and originally published on CNET on 24 July, 2012. Image courtesy of Foter.com.