Iran Shuts Down Messaging Apps Telegram and Instagram in the Wake of Civil Unrest

In the light of the ongoing civil unrest in Iran the Iranian authorities have reportedly blocked some popular messaging apps; Telegram and Instagram.

Officials noted that the censorship is meant to “maintain peace,”  an argument which does not appear plausible to observers.

The CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov tweeted on Sunday that Iranian authorities were blocking access to the popular messaging app “for the majority of Iranians after our public refusal to shut down … peacefully protesting channels.” plus Instagram is primarily being used to document protests. However, Iran clearly doesn’t want to reveal the extent of the demonstrations.

Reports also abound of Iran blocking mobile internet access in several cities, although the full extent isn’t clear. The Iran Student News Agency noted that desktop access to Telegram was working, so this appears to be more of an attempt to disrupt on-the-ground protest coordination and citizen journalism than a blanket ban.

It is noteworthy that protests began Thursday in Iran over economic problems ravaging the country and people were using Telegram and Instagram to share information and images of the demonstrations. So far, two people have reportedly been killed in the ongoing protests.

Telegram disclosed that it did suspend an account on Saturday that was calling for violence against police in Iran during the protests. In a post on Sunday, Durov wrote that the channel has been allowed to reassemble after its admins pledged not to promote violence.

“Yesterday we had to suspend @amadnews, a public channel that started calling its subscribers to use Molotov cocktails and firearms against police,” wrote Durov in a post Sunday.

“The admins of the channel reached out to us after the fact, apologizing for breaking our rules and pledging not to promote violence in the future.”

Durov said  it was unclear whether the block on Telegram in Iran was permanent or temporary. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

Instagram has also reportedly been blocked in the country. The Facebook-owned photo-sharing app didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.