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Iranians hesitant to leave Telegram for domestic apps

The Iranian authorities’ move to ban the popular smartphone messaging app Telegram has been accompanied by a campaign to get people to use domestically developed alternatives.
A man uses his smartphone to follow election news in Tehran, Iran May 17, 2017. REUTERS/TIMA ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. - RC18C545D440

The running joke on Iranian social media right now is that three green ticks on a domestic messaging app mean that not only does the sender and receiver read the message, but an intelligence officer does too. Iranians heavily relied on Telegram as a form of censorship-free internet not only to chat, but to shop, share parody videos and read the news and official statements from Iranian officials. But ever since parliament member Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, declared on March 31 the decision to ban Telegram and replace it with domestically made apps, Iranians have been waiting for the blow.

The government enacted the ban the following month. “All internet providers in Iran must take steps to block Telegram’s website and app as of April 30,” according to a court order published on Mizan, the judiciary website. Mahsa Alimardani, who leads the digital rights project on Iran at ARTICLE 19, called the banning of Telegram a political move. “This directive came from a new entity within the judiciary, and it seems to be a way to order the Rouhani government against its position to not filter,” Alimardani told Al-Monitor. “That this comes from the hard-line judiciary instead of the multi-agency bodies that members of the Rouhani government are part of is not a surprise.”

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