Tehran, Iran – The Iranian government decided to block Signal after the Iranians migrated to the messaging platform after Facebook’s privacy concerns with WhatsApp.
As of Monday, Iranian users reported problems connecting to the open source Signal, which has been chosen by many as a more secure form of encrypted communication since a new privacy policy issued by WhatsApp earlier this month brought more scrutiny about the data collection practices app.
In a tweet, Signal said he has “bypassed Iran’s censorship” since the app became the most downloaded content in Iranian app stores.
“Unable to interrupt registration, IR censors are now eliminating all Signal traffic,” said the tweet. “The Iranian people deserve privacy. We didn’t give up. “
On January 14, Signal was removed from Cafe Bazaar, the Iranian version of Google Play, and Myket, another well-known local app store.
“We thank you for understanding our limitations,” a message greeted Iranians who wished to download Signal.
The application was marked by a filtering committee charged with identifying “criminal content”, chaired by the country’s attorney general and composed of representatives from the judiciary, the ministry of communications, law enforcement, parliament and the ministry of education, among others. others.
However, the judiciary sought to distance itself from the ban on Tuesday.
Spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaeili said that under the new chief Ebrahim Raisi since 2019, the judiciary has not “blocked any media, media or messaging service and is not blocking cyberspace and any social messaging services”.
‘State authorities insurance’
This is not the first time that Signal has been targeted by Iranian officials.
The app was blocked sporadically between 2016 and 2017, but filtering went unnoticed, as Signal did not have a sizable user base in Iran at the time.
The messaging service was later unobtrusively unblocked and no official reason was provided by the authorities.
The signal was used by several Iranians during protests in late 2017 and early 2018 in an effort to keep communications secure, according to Mahsa Alimardani, an internet researcher at the British human rights organization ARTICLE19.
“Signal has always been heralded as the reference app for dissidents or activists to be protected from any state authority, especially the United States and its vast surveillance capabilities,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Before this migration of users dissatisfied with the new privacy changes from WhatsApp, Signal was already a tool for everyday civil society and activities,” said Alimardani, a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute.
Signal joins a large number of other social media apps that have been blocked by Iranian authorities, including Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Telegram was filtered in May 2018, following protests that broke out in dozens of cities in Iran over economic, political and social complaints.
WhatsApp and Instagram remain the only foreign social media platforms unblocked in Iran.
The fact that Signal has been blocked, but WhatsApp remains usable, has sparked speculation by Iranian users on social media that the Iranian government somehow has access to users’ information on WhatsApp.
Alimardani said the same rumor started to circulate about Telegram before his blockade ended it.
“There is no factual basis for this rumor, as it is very unlikely that Iranian authorities will have the ability to go against Facebook’s security capabilities, or that Facebook will collaborate with Iran to share data,” she said.
Instead, she said, Iranian officials are more likely to be trying to keep the number of unlocked apps limited before Signal becomes too big in Iran.
Will the ban work?
With years of experience in dealing with Internet restrictions by Iranian authorities and those imposed by international companies because of sanctions, Iranians have become familiar with evasion tools.
Many Iranians regularly use virtual private networks (VPNs) that mask users’ IP to gain access to blocked content, including social media.
Despite being banned for almost two years, Telegram is still used daily by tens of millions of Iranians. State entities, however, were legally prohibited from returning to the messaging service.
In that environment, Alimardani said that the Signal ban is likely to slow the growth of its user base and keep people on WhatsApp in the beginning.
“However, Telegram statistics showed that, although use declined directly after censorship, it did stabilize,” she said. “But the ban slowed the growth projected before censorship.”
There is currently no data on how many people use Signal in Iran, but it is believed that its base is still much smaller than that of Telegram, which has been used in the country since its launch in 2013.
More restrictions to come?
Signal filtering has renewed fears about further potential restrictions on internet freedom in Iran.
Iran’s information and communication ministry has repeatedly tried to distance itself from blocking social media, saying it has no authority to make these decisions.
After authorities cut off Internet access across Iran for almost a week during protests across the country in November 2019, ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said it was not his decision.
The minister has so far remained silent about Signal filtering.
Last week, the judiciary filed charges against Azari Jahromi, but released him on bail for allegedly refusing to block Instagram and restrict other social media.
The ministry said litigation by a group of 432 people from Ahwaz over the use of cyberspace in an attack in September 2018 and 150 religious scholars from Kerman over digital “corruption” were some of the reasons for the minister’s call.
Despite the decision, internet security and digital rights researcher Amir Rashidi says the ministry is almost entirely responsible for the technical implementation of internet blocking practices in Iran.
Rashidi explained that when an Iranian user wants to use the global internet, his command is forwarded first to the local internet service provider and then to the Telecommunication Infrastructure Company, affiliated with the ministry, which is the portal.
“Therefore, at either level, internet censorship can be implemented,” he told Al Jazeera.
Rashidi said, like Telegram, Signal’s popularity was its downfall with Iranian officials.
“Traditionally, whenever the Iranian government fails to find out what is going on or who is doing what, they fear that perhaps people are doing something against the government,” he said.