Conflicting Reports on the Filtering of 'Line, WhatsApp, and Tango' in Iran

Iranian news agencies reported, citing 'a source' from the Committee for Determining Instances of Criminal Content in Cyberspace, that a judicial order has been issued to filter three mobile communication applications: 'Line', 'WhatsApp', and 'Tango'. On Wednesday, January 7, news agencies IRNA and Fars reported that this 'source' stated: 'A judicial order has been issued for the filtering of mobile communication applications including Line, WhatsApp, and Tango.' He added: 'This plan is not related to smart filtering, and the mentioned applications will be completely filtered.' Moments after these statements were published, Ramadanali Sobhanifar, a member of the Committee for Determining Instances of Criminal Content in Cyberspace, said that nothing has been reported to this committee regarding this matter. According to IRNA, this parliament member clarified: 'The committee meetings are held every two weeks according to the regulations, and cases that have private complainants and cases with criminal violations or criminal instances are reviewed in the usual manner, while nothing has been reported to the committee in this regard so far.' In recent months, the issue of filtering social networks, including mobile social networks such as 'WhatsApp, Viber, and Tango', has been a topic of discussion among government officials and the judiciary. While some judiciary officials have called for the blocking of these networks, government officials defend the 'smart filtering' plan. In this context, Fars news agency reported on December 23 that with the start of 'smart filtering' in Iran, 'immoral' pages of the Instagram social network have been blocked in Iran. Two days after this news was published, Mahmoud Vaezi, Iran's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, confirmed the 'experimental start of the smart filtering plan for one of the internet social networks' and stated that 'the first phase of smart filtering was successfully implemented on the network that was under the most pressure.' In smart filtering, access to no website is completely restricted; rather, part of the 'problematic content' of the site identified by this software will be inaccessible to Iranian users. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Iran's First Deputy of the Judiciary, had sent a letter to the Minister of Communications at the end of September, requesting that within a maximum of one month, social networks including 'WhatsApp, Viber, and Tango' be blocked or 'effectively' controlled; otherwise, the judiciary would take action regarding this matter. After the one-month deadline expired, he stated: 'We have had discussions with the relevant authorities regarding cyberspace, who have indicated that they will make every effort to maintain social networks while preventing criminal and corruption-inducing cases.' The decision to block websites in Iran is usually made by the Committee for Determining Instances of Criminal Content in Cyberspace, which is headed by the Attorney General of the country. On Tuesday, January 9, the U.S. Treasury Department placed the company 'Doran Software Technologies' on its sanctions list for assisting this committee. In this context, a two-month deadline was given to the Ministry of Communications to 'control Instagram data.' Rouhani's media advisor stated that Viber will not be filtered, and Rouhani opposed the filtering of 'popular' social networks. Fars reported that 'immoral' pages of Instagram have been blocked in Iran. Instagram; smart and non-smart filtering. Iran's Minister of Communications confirmed the start of 'smart filtering.'