The Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Chairman of National Committee of Iran’s security and foreign Affairs, said that after a few weeks the country is going to launch a new native messenger to replace the telegram.
Boroujerdi stressed that the decision was made at the highest level, and the telegram will be replaced by an internal application. He said that, given the application role during last year’s protests, the decision was made “in the interests of national security” and “telegram” will be banned until the end Farvardin (the first solar month of the Hijri calendar, the official calendar of Iran. Farvardin begins March 21 and ends April 20, according to the Gregorian calendar).
Alternatively, a telegram, Boroujerdi presented domestic messenger, namely Soroush. It is worth noting that more than 40 million Iranians use the telegram.
Given that telegram MAU (monthly Active users) in February was 200 million people, Iranians make up nearly one-fifth of the total number of users.
Iranian experts interviewed by Sputnik are sure that such measures are counterproductive and make the Iranians instantly switch to an internal instant messenger would be impossible for different reasons.
Mohammad Ghazali, co-founder Techrasa, a great Iranian new startup believes that it will not be instantaneous blocking Iranian envoys to the absence of convenient service telegram. However, according to him, the concerns of the government are not groundless:
“There are two aspects deserve special attention. First, the technical capabilities of the domestic messenger fully meet the needs of over 40 million Iranian users. Now of course we can say that this is impossible. Our Domestic messengers have not so big servers to reach [such a] wide audience. As a rule, internal messengers have an audience of 100 000 to 203 million users. Iranian envoys had no such experience, so they need time to absorb technology. First, there may be glitches in the server. It is impossible to create a platform overnight,” he said.
According to him, “it’s safe to say that having 40 million Iranian users, telegram is the dominant messenger. Almost no strong competitors to it. The government on the establishment and strengthening of the Iranian software and applications exchange messages not about blocking access to telegram, but in the dismantling of monopolies. App soroush-one of the possible alternatives”.
At the same time, the Second aspect that should be mentioned is consumer confidence, he added, stating that, “unfortunately, the level of Iranian users’ confidence in domestic applications is not as high these days. This question, even ridicule, from some TV programs. Users prefer their personal information to be confident and not available to third parties. The telegram has the following encryption keys for the protection of personal data”.
He expressed the belief that it is impossible to get Iranian users a telegram to switch to any other messaging app.
“A few years ago, there was a high level of use viber in Iran. The number of Iranian users viber was about 10 million people. But when one of the servers, personal data protection has been hacked and as a result of various fraudulent actions of the users lost the credit that the messenger and began to look for an alternative”, – he reminded.
According to him, the Iranian government is also concerned with the upcoming launch of the gram, a new cryptocurrency available for use within the application telegram.
“The problem is, what could be the outflow of capital through this app. People will invest money, there may be a glitch or something, but there would be nothing that could make the government to prevent or solve the issue,” he said.
In addition, he described President Hassan Rouhani as saying that many Iranians (over 200,000 people) operate the enterprise, working through a telegram.
“In this regard, the Supreme Council of Iran on the Cyberspace was created. Messengers should have an internal platform for the center to completely control cyberspace.
Entrepreneurs and businessmen are using telegram as a credible platform to promote their products. This is important for the government that every trading Platform works, in accordance with Iranian laws. Telegram is not going to change its policy towards Iran, as it focuses on the international market.”
In addition, the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Iran on Cyberspace, said that with the launch of its cryptocurrency telegram can be dangerous.
“10 years after the launch of a gram, Iran may lose $ 50 billion. That would really undermine the economy of the country. Another reason for the hard line government to combat telegram telegram that allegedly refused to set up an office in Iran,” – said the expert.
Emad Abshenas, editor-in-chief of Iran daily newspaper, the Chairman of the NGO International and leader of the Iranian reporters without borders group also expressed skepticism about the tough measures taken by the government of Iran in respect of telegrams.
“The problem with all messengers, including the telegram, is that they sometimes pose a threat to national security. Here we are talking not only about Iran. There have been many times when I was certain circles via social networks and messaging apps to get information and were a threat to national security.”
According Emad Abshenas, “it is wrong to think that the law can have a huge amount of people are using another messenger…. We don’t have such platform or messenger to fully satisfy all the needs of Iranian consumers and trust.”
“Some time ago viber has been very popular in Iran. Then came the telegram, which offered better service, more features and could attract that many of the Iranian people. However, the process of transition to a telegram was only on a voluntary basis without any compulsion, using laws and regulations”.
He noted that currently, at least 40 million Iranians use the telegram and questioned the fact that “all these people will switch to another app in an instant. Even if the telegram is prohibited, as it happened in front of their fans use proxy servers or VPN.”
“The Iranian authorities are actively using social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s very common. These networks are censored and some are even prohibited. There is no need and use in urging people to use tools to bypass locks. All of these tools do more harm of devices and personal information of users — they open the door for our enemies to steal confidential data,” he said, adding that he did not believe that the telegram will be blocked for two weeks in the country.
“In one of the outlets of telegram is its reliability and security. That’s why she has so many Iranian users. We’re not talking about actions that affect national interests. It’s just the human factor. Two people to talk alone, and they don’t want anyone to know about their personal relationships. This is quite a common thing. So if users are aware of a special program or error messenger to read their personal correspondence and he can go out in public, they would not have to use such messengers,” said he.
Commenting on the scandal surrounding the Cambridge Analytics and Facebook, he said, “a lot of people (about 50 million people) out of the network. Facebook lost people’s credit. If there are any controlled platform will be difficult to get people or to get them to use it as an alternative to telegram”.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
