Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace: Continuing Telegram's Activity is Not Advisable

The Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace of Iran announced that he does not consider the continuation of Telegram's activities in the country to be "advisable." Abolhassan Firouzabadi wrote in a note published on Sunday, March 18, on the "Khabar Online" website, stating that there is no "alternative" for Telegram in Iran and that this messaging app is "number one" in terms of engineering and technical level. He added, "It is no small feat for a network to connect all citizens in a country without having any hardware, software, or platform within the country. Achieving this with a bandwidth of 100 gigabits per second is miraculous." However, according to the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, Telegram provides a "backward service." He described channels as the most backward service due to their one-sided nature and lack of identity, stating that they do not even have a like or dislike feature. Firouzabadi mentioned that "they have cunningly led us into a corner" and that "internal hardliners have also assisted in closing Twitter and Facebook." He characterized Telegram channels as a form of promoting lumpenism in Iran, claiming that they aim for "chaos and creating sedition" through one-sided news reporting. He urged media outlets to ask why Telegram offers digital currency when it knows it can only have serious customers in Iran, questioning why this currency is produced by Telegram without any role for the people in its production. Firouzabadi noted that Telegram offers digital currency because "in Iran, which is under sanctions, people are looking for alternative currencies, and some individuals constantly convert their wealth into gold, dollars, Bitcoin, etc." He stated clearly that continuing Telegram's activities under the current circumstances is not advisable, but acknowledged the problem that there is no alternative available and that an alternative must be created. This note was published amid statements from a member of parliament and other reports indicating the Supreme Council of Cyberspace's decision to filter Telegram in 2018. Hamideh Zarabadi, a member of the Industries Commission of Parliament, reported on Saturday, March 17, that the Supreme Council of Cyberspace has approved Telegram's filtering for the coming year, and the remarks of the Deputy Attorney General are paving the way for implementing this decision. Zarabadi referred to statements made by Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, the Deputy Attorney General and Secretary of the Working Group for Determining the Instances of Criminal Content, who stated that not only will Twitter and YouTube not be unblocked, but we will soon witness a significant transformation regarding the rescue of the country's cyberspace from the dominance and influence of certain foreign social networks. Meanwhile, Mohammad Hosseinpour, the Director of Public Relations of the National Cyberspace Center of Iran, denied Zarabadi's statements, but some Telegram channels reported that a recent meeting of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace was held with the presence of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, where Ayatollah Khamenei strongly criticized the unblocking of Telegram. According to these reports, a deadline was set in this meeting to "strengthen" domestic messaging apps and filter foreign messaging apps. Previously, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the Chairman of the Assembly of Experts, reported on February 24 about a "several-hour" meeting of the Supreme Leader with a number of "experts" in cyberspace, adding that following this meeting, "an action will be taken." Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace and his deputies reported on cyberspace in a closed session of the parliament on Monday morning. According to Mohammad Ali Vakili, a member of parliament, Firouzabadi stated in his report that Iran's status in cyberspace globally is not favorable and said, "Because we have not produced an Iranian platform that is compatible with current developments, we are lagging behind in this area." Vakili added that parliament members have called for a unified understanding among the three branches regarding cyberspace and stated that "the way to deal with this growing virtual space is not through repressive actions but should be approached logically." Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Parliament, also called for the involvement of the Cultural Commission and other relevant commissions, such as Industries, in the issue of cyberspace and to address the "legal gaps" in this area. Reports about the potential filtering of Telegram in 2018 come at a time when this messaging app is considered one of the most popular social networks in Iran, with over 40 million Iranian users. As Abbas Salehi, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, previously stated, 80 percent of information production in the Persian-language virtual space occurs on this network and through 11,000 Telegram channels. Following the nationwide protests in December in Iran, some social networks, including Telegram, were blocked for a period. The unblocking of these social networks faced criticism from some judicial officials and close associates of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.