New Filtering Resolution; What Are the Barriers to Lifting the Filters on Instagram and Telegram?

Lifting the filtering and discrimination in internet access is one of the important demands of citizens. This issue was also one of the advertising pillars of Masoud Pezeshkian's campaign in the presidential elections. However, since coming to power, Pezeshkian has provided different addresses for the authority of this decision-making, ranging from the National Security Council and the Supreme Council of Cyberspace to the meeting of the heads of the three branches. Finally, on December 25, 2023, when the 104th meeting of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace was held, people were waiting for the government’s final decision on "revising blocking policies" to be announced. However, when hours after the meeting, the Mehr News Agency published a text claiming it was part of the resolutions, and then several government officials, including Ali Rabiei, the President's assistant, and Setar Hashemi, the Minister of Communications, confirmed this news, negative reactions began. According to the head of the Islamic Propagation Organization, the resolution of this meeting had 32 articles. However, no official text of this resolution has been published yet. Based on what has been confirmed so far, only the lifting of the filter from WhatsApp and Google Play has been approved, and certainly no other services (especially Telegram, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter or X) are currently on the agenda for lifting the filter. It has also been approved to use "government-compliant" skins and domestic platforms (similar to Golden Telegram) for using Telegram and YouTube; an issue that is very dangerous from a security standpoint and puts citizens' privacy at the government's disposal. A 50 billion tomans support for domestic messengers, class-based internet, combating fake news, sanction-busting (platforms to circumvent technology sanctions), family security, and articles against VPNs were among other issues reflected in the news related to the resolutions of this meeting without providing further details. These issues had previously been seen in the "Protection Plan" or other resolutions of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace and are not particularly new, and they do not relate to lifting the filtering from the platforms widely used by users, while also contributing to further restrictions on the network in Iran. Filtering of WhatsApp and Google Play has been lifted; concerns about the Supreme Council of Cyberspace's plan. Saeed Reza Ameli and Reza Taghipour, two members of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, acknowledged one day before the council meeting on Iranian television that what is now being demanded by public opinion as "lifting the filtering" is, in fact, the Islamic Republic itself. In other words, the state of the internet and the method of digital governance in Iran is similar to the way the economy, culture, health, development, and other areas are managed by governments and authorities. "Censorship and smart filtering of content," "cutting off the free flow of information to suppress protesters," and "surveillance and identification in citizens' personal lives" are three anti-human rights activities that occur within the framework of the national information network. These have shaped the state of the internet in Iran and are, in fact, manifestations of the Islamic Republic's governance. In the following, while examining the effective institutions in the filtering situation, we will look at some serious barriers, especially from military and security forces, to lifting the filter on widely used applications. The basis of this research is documents and evidence leaked from hacks and cyberattacks in the past two years. 1) Ministry of Communications and the Communications Infrastructure Company Filtering an internet service means preventing the provision of that service on the "national information network." This network connects to the internet through "authorized border gateways" controlled by military institutions. Therefore, the government can use these "authorized gateways" with traffic separation technologies developed in this ministry over the past decade to make internet services inaccessible. The technical operations of filtering are carried out by the government. In fact, the infamous "internet cut" button refers to a set of software and hardware located in the "Communications Infrastructure Company" that can create conditions similar to those of November 2019, meaning completely separating the internal network from the internet. In an email related to June 2016 obtained from the hacking of the prosecutor's server, after the Mahsa movement, it is seen that the secretary of the filtering committee recommends that employees of the virtual space assistant of the prosecutor's office take a tour of the Communications Infrastructure Company so that its engineers or "if needed, engineer [Mohammad Javad Azari] Jahromi" (the then head of the infrastructure company) can familiarize them with filtering methods. One day before the recent meeting of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, Behzad Akbari, the Deputy Minister of Communications and CEO of the Communications Infrastructure Company, tweeted, "Currently, the country’s communication infrastructure is ready for any lifting of internet restrictions," which indicates that lifting the filter from some services is not that difficult and is just a matter of pressing a button. Among the stakeholders in filtering in Iran, this institution is the only part of the Islamic Republic that is entirely under government control (at least on paper). However, the Communications Infrastructure Company is only a technical executor, and the order to filter a specific service comes from other institutions. 2) Filtering Committee and the Virtual Space Assistant of the Attorney General The working group determining the instances of criminal content (filtering committee) is part of the virtual space assistant of the Attorney General, which determines what service should be filtered or what filtering should be lifted based on various inputs, including reports known as public reports (Islamic Penal Code Article 750). This committee consists of representatives from 12 agencies; six of them are ministers or vice presidents. Therefore, even assuming the cooperation of the cultural and security ministers selected by Ali Khamenei, who have a history of membership in this committee and filtering Instagram and Telegram, the government still has the lower hand in this committee. However, the Attorney General cannot tolerate this same composition and intends to make a change in the composition of this committee to reduce the government’s weight. In emails obtained from the filtering working group, a proposed text to change Article 750 of the Islamic Penal Code has been suggested to the parliament, justifying this change in the composition of members as follows: "Despite the fact that this working group has the important task of forbidding cultural vices in cyberspace, the absence of some revolutionary and cultural institutions that have a fundamental and unique role in combating cultural invasion and preserving the values of the Islamic Revolution is felt in this working group." However, these proposed institutions, which have detailed explanations in this plan, include: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Supreme Council of Islamic Seminaries, the Basij Organization, and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution. Of course, in the judicial structure of the country, the filtering committee is only part of the issue. For example, Telegram was filtered by a judge (investigator), and the order to filter Instagram was issued by the National Security Council. 3) National Security Council and National Security Council The National Security Council is under the Minister of Interior and is part of the National Security Council (Article 176 of the Constitution). In crisis situations such as December 2017, November 2019, or the Mahsa movement, this council instructs the Communications Infrastructure Company to cut off the internet or temporarily cut off a specific service like Telegram or Instagram. In a letter from Ali Shamkhani, then Secretary of the National Security Council, to Ali Khamenei and the heads of the branches on January 7, 2023, which a political hacking group obtained, it is reported from the session of the "National Imam Sadiq Headquarters" formed specifically for the protests of 2021, Shamkhani states: "Considering the appropriate trend of migration to domestic messaging platforms, the last decision made is that if WhatsApp and Instagram do not comply with domestic regulations, these platforms will remain blocked." Therefore, although on paper the President is the head of the National Security Council, in reality, military personnel make decisions in this council and report to Ali Khamenei. Another contradiction in this statement is that both WhatsApp and Instagram belong to the same company (Meta). Therefore, the issue of compliance of one of them is moot, and it is unclear why the lifting of the filter on WhatsApp has been approved but not Instagram. 4) Supreme Council of Cyberspace The President is the head of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace. This council considers itself, based on a decree from the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, the highest ICT policymaking body in Iran. This council has a research and executive arm called the "National Center for Cyberspace," whose activities' results are turned into laws and regulations governing cyberspace in this council. Therefore, the President does not have a decisive role in determining the agendas in this council. Regardless of the fact that the composition of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace is not such that it would accompany Pezeshkian's demand, the resolutions of this council are also not directly related to filtering, and the filtering institutions do not derive their authority from this council so that this council can influence them. June 2023 Report from an Internet Intelligence Group: Filtering of Social Networks Has Failed 5) Ministry of Intelligence In one of the documents obtained from the hacking of government documents, it is seen that on November 26, 2022, the Deputy Minister of Economic Intelligence and Security of the then Minister of Intelligence, in a letter to Mohammad Mokhber, the then First Vice President, regarding "diagnosing the damage caused to real and legal persons, both public and private, due to internet cuts," writes in the section "Opportunities to Reduce Internet Access": - "Disruption in the internet has led to a reduction in the activity and use of individuals causing chaos in cyberspace, especially Instagram, and has somewhat removed the public atmosphere of society from chaos." - "With the disruption of the internet and the cutting off of WhatsApp and Instagram, websites related to promoting moral corruption (sex workers) have become almost inactive." Therefore, the Ministry of Intelligence's analysis of filtering and disruption of Instagram is positive, considering it not only a means of controlling the public atmosphere of society but also claiming that thanks to it, other "corruptions" have been neutralized. 6) Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps After the suppression of the popular protests of "Women, Life, Freedom" in the autumn of 2022, when the whispers of lifting the filter on Instagram were raised, General Salami, the commander of the IRGC, in a warning letter to Raisi (not as President but as the head of the National Security Council), asks him to stop this trend. In this detailed three-page letter sent on December 21, 2022, General Salami writes: "In the first step, the entry of this poisoned stream into the clear lake of the thoughts of our dear compatriots must be blocked forever... Some see the blocking of foreign virtual networks as a tactical and temporary matter, while the recent unrest is the result of various factors, the most important of which has been the years of freedom in cyberspace." The IRGC's view on this matter is clear and decisive and shows that decision-making in this regard is largely out of the government's control and in the hands of military and security forces. These are some of the barriers to the complete fulfillment of the promise to lift the filtering, especially from Instagram and Telegram. This new resolution, which has not yet made a significant portion of its details public, also requires approval from the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic for notification, according to the procedures of other resolutions of this council.