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After the Iranian authorities banned Twitter and Facebook in 2009, and Telegram in 2018, the Iranians had no outlet in the world except the Instagram application, through which they communicate freely, without the need to use VPN software to encrypt. and circumvent the ban.
But this application is not as safe as it seems, there are tens of thousands of “electronic informants” who roam its pages looking for violators of the strict rules of behavior applied in Iran, which appear to have increased in intensity after the spread of the Corona virus. , and large numbers of Iranians have turned to the most popular application in the country.
The Rest of the World website, which cares about human stories, transmitted testimonies from Iranians and women who spoke of the strict censorship exercised by the Iranian authorities on them during the publication of photos and news on this application.
The site said that “Instagram offers a rare glimpse into the daily internal life of Iranians,” but “the regime’s concern about it began to escalate, especially after the anti-government protests,” which Instagram has used extensively to promote. .
In 2018, the Iranian authorities announced a “social” police initiative, through which they recruited 42,000 volunteers to spy on Iranians’ social media accounts.
In November of the same year, authorities had arrested 7,000 protesters and practically shut down the Internet for more than 20 days.
Iranian authorities appear to have renewed focus on Instagram following the issuance of stay-at-home orders, when the Corona virus spread widely in the country last March.
And the government censorship imposed the use of the veil even on social networks, “The issue was similar to the fact that the authorities said that we try to control the lives of people on the Internet as long as they remain indoors under curfew”, according to a witness interviewed by Rest of the World.
The application’s use as a means of organization developed during the Corona epidemic, and in Iran political messages flooded user pages after protests that broke out last year.
Instagram Live has also become a way for politically motivated bloggers and influencers to connect with hundreds of thousands of viewers inside and outside of Iran.
But in Iran, this carries the risk of arrest and imprisonment, and several activists have been arrested for sharing videos and photos of the protests.
Muhammad Qumi, head of the Islamic Development Organization, launched a campaign in the new Iranian parliament against Instagram, claiming that the site is “the source of immorality and a third of cybercrime in the country.”
The Iranian government may consider shutting down the site, but the fact that there are millions of Iranians attached could trigger the kind of backlash the authorities want to avoid, at least for the moment.
