Iran lifts ban on WhatsApp, Google Play
The Iranian government has announced that a ban on public access to the messaging platform WhatsApp and the mobile application store Google Play has been lifted.
The official IRNA news agency said on Tuesday that members of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, which includes heads of the three branches of the government, had approved in their meeting earlier in the day to remove the ban on the two applications.
It said members of the Council also reiterated their continued support for domestic social media platforms.
Removing internet bans was among the main promises made by President Masoud Pezeshkian in his election campaign in mid-summer. He had criticized the bans as burdensome for both people and the government, saying people spend a major part of their monthly salaries on buying virtual private networks that allow bypassing the bans.
Iran’s telecoms minister Sattar Hashemi described the decision as a first step in efforts by the government to ease restrictions on access to foreign internet platforms.
Hashemi later told the state TV that the government has a robust plan to support domestic platforms as it continues with efforts to have the bans on other foreign platforms removed.
WhatsApp and Google Play, both based in the United States, were blocked during riots that broke out in Iran in late 2022 after a young woman died in police custody.
Authorities said at the time that the bans were necessary to maintain public order.
However, the decision led to a boom in the use of domestic messaging applications with some of them expanding the number of their users to tens of millions from just hundreds of thousands.
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