After being blocked in Russia last month, Telegram now finds its encrypted messaging service banned in Iran.
The country’s judiciary arm has ordered Telegram’s site and app to be blocked by internet service providers across the country, citing national security concerns. That’ll affect some 40 million users in Iran.
According to Reuters, officials believe that the app has been used to organize protests over economic woes – a number of which took place in more than 80 Iranian cities back in January.
Judiciary website Mizan quoted a court order which pointed to the use of Telegram to spread “propaganda against the establishment, terrorist activities, spreading lies to incite public opinion, anti-government protests, and pornography.”
The news follows Russia’s ban on Telegram, which went into effect last month after the company refused to hand over encryption keys to national authorities which claimed they needed them for surveillance in counterterrorism efforts.
So what’s a former Telegram user in Iran to do when they need to text? Use a state-run alternative, of course. Last week, the government launched Soroush, which offers a similar mobile messaging experience, including stickers that read ‘Death to America.’
It isn’t clear if the app grants backdoor access for local authorities to monitor conversations, but that’s probably the case, given the government’s reasons for banning Telegram in the first place.
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sinwithme_ on May 1st, 2018 at 09:43 UTC »
Why is there a war on this app?
Schtrudel on May 1st, 2018 at 09:09 UTC »
Russian authorities tried to block Telegram and failed spectacularly. In their attempt to do it they blocked IP addresses of Amazon, Microsoft, Google etc which lead to multiple online services and websites that had nothing to do with Telegram either to not work or have technical difficulties. The messanger on the other hand continued to work without any VPNs or proxies as if nothing happened, because the creator knew this would happen and built Telegram so that it would find ways around potential block automatically.
The incompetent attempts of the authorities to block Telegram and the fact that it caused millions of dollars in losses to Russian businesses pissed a lot of people off and yesterday 12k went to a protest demanding removing Telegram from the list of banned online services as well as against laws that allow people to be put in jail for likes and comments in social media.
Telegram still works perfectly well and I think it will work in Iran as well.
Edit: Articles on the subject:
Reuters
Aljazeera
New York Times
Nineand5 on May 1st, 2018 at 06:55 UTC »
Can they just download the apk and install it? Then use a vpn?