<\/p>\n
NCRI –\u00a0An Iranian regime\u2019s MP says the \u2018fact\u2019 is that people have no trust in domestically developed messaging apps, while also warning state officials that as the technology advances, internet censorship won\u2019t be possible in the not so distant future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still lack necessary infrastructures for developing domestic messaging apps\u201d says Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh in his interview with state-run ILNA news agency on Tuesday March 27, adding \u201cthat\u2019s a bitter truth, but people have no trust in domestically developed messaging apps.\u201d<\/p>\n
With some regime official commenting in the past few weeks on the necessity of replacing foreign messaging apps with domestic ones while expressing concern over continued operation of such popular messengers like Telegram, there are increased speculations about possibility of blocking such applications in the near future.<\/p>\n
Regime\u2019s MP Mahmoud Sadeghi last week quoted House Speaker \u2018Ali Larijani\u2019 as saying that according to a report submitted by Communications Minister to Supreme National Security Council, more than 30 million people used anti-censorship programs during the days –from late December to early January– when Telegram was blocked.<\/p>\n
Acknowledging failure of regime\u2019s approach towards dealing with cyberspace, Hosseinzadeh has added that \u201cevery Iranian child has now access to a smart phone equipped with Telegram and dozens of other apps, using anti-filtering programs to access all the channels that were inaccessible until yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hosseinzadeh points out that in the not too distant future, there\u2019ll be even no need for anti-censorship programs, saying \u201can obvious example of such new technologies is Facebook\u2019s attempts to provide internet access in Africa with the help of solar drones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regime\u2019s MP says that \u201ceven with a censorship system in place, others could offer techniques to circumvent the filtering,\u201c adding \u201cisolating the country is not the right approach to deal with those who are planning against us.\u201d
\nHosseinzadeh then compared blocking Telegram during the recent nationwide protests to banning video tapes and satellite receivers in the past, acknowledging that the security and judicial officials\u2019 approach towards dealing with cyberspace has failed.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid people stop watching videos when video tapes were banned?\u201d he said, adding \u201cDid destroying satellite dishes increase the number of people watching state TV, did it reduce the number of foreign-based Farsi-language satellite channels? Did people stop using anti-censorship programs when Telegram channels became inaccessible?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hosseinzadeh\u2019s comments are following the remarks made by Hamideh Zarabadi, regime\u2019s MP from Qazvin, who had recently stated that according to her sources, the country\u2019s Supreme Council of Cyberspace has approved blocking Telegram next Persian year, starting from March 21.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Secretary of regime\u2019s Supreme Council of Cyberspace \u2018Abolhassan Firouzabadi\u2019 had said that \u201cI explicitly assert that continued operation of Telegram in its present form is not within our interests. But our problem is that we have no alternative messaging app and we need to develop one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NCRI – An Iranian regime’s MP says the ‘fact’ is that people have no trust in domestically developed messaging apps, while also warning state officials that as the technology advances, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1744,5415],"class_list":{"0":"post-24538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-society","7":"tag-iran-internet","8":"tag-iran-society"},"yoast_head":"\n