Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 18
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
More than 75 percent of users in the popular messaging app Telegram are Iranian, an expert on Iranian cyberspace said.
Rouhollah Momennasb accused Pavel Durov, the head of Telegram, of having close ties with Israel and said that Russia is also reviewing a proposal to block Telegram, Mehr news agency reported Nov 18.
However on Nov. 17 in a televised interview Secretary of the Internet criminal content control committee Abdul Samad Khoramabadi, said that he is against blocking Telegram.
This is while earlier the head of the Public Relations Office at Iran's ICT ministry, Mohammad Reza Farnaghizadeh, told Trend that the mobile messaging app Telegram must prevent the publishing of "immoral" content in order to continue operating in Iran.
Farnaghizadeh further said that the ministry was reviewing Telegram's activity in Iran, and added that Telegram has responded that it will monitor and close down pages with inappropriate content.
Telegram, which functions as a messaging and content sharing application, has become popular in recent months among Iranians, who use it to communicate with each other and also share materials like pornography and political satire. Many of Iran 's government-controlled news agencies have also embraced the platform, using it to advertise their stories.
Currently, at least 13 million Iranians use Telegram, according to the Islamic Republic's communications and information technology ministry.