Special to WorldTribune.com

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Iranian authorities deny allegations that they have temporarily blocked a mobile messaging app popular in Iran.

Russian Internet entrepreneur Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram app, said on Oct. 20 that the service was temporarily blocked in Iran after the company refused to help the authorities “spy” on Iranian citizens.

Speaking in Tehran on Oct. 25, Iranian Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mahmud Vaezi said Telegram’s services were disrupted for several days due to “disconnections in some communications channels.”

He added that Tehran had previously called on Telegram to block “immoral content.”

Iran has one of the world’s toughest online censorship regimes, with tens of thousands of websites, including social media and news sites, being filtered over content deemed sensitive or immoral.

Vaezi said the policy of the Iranian government was that social-networking sites that conform with Iranian laws are not blocked.

According to an Oct. 20 report on RFE/RL by Golnaz Esfandiari and Carl Schreck:

A renowned Russian Internet entrepreneur who created a mobile messaging app popular in Iran said Iranian authorities temporarily blocked the app after his company refused their demands to help them “spy on their citizens.”

Pavel Durov, the enigmatic founder of Russia’s most popular social-networking site, Vkontakte, said on Twitter on Oct. 20 that Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology demanded that the app, called Telegram, provide the ministry “with spying and censorship tools.”

“We ignored the demand, they blocked us,” Durov wrote.

Late on October 20, after word of the blockage was publicized, Durov tweeted that “Telegram traffic is no longer limited in Iran after a week’s interference and…2 hours full blocking.”

  Iran’s information ministry denies blocking app after service refused to help regime ‘spy’