The app is now prominently featured on the front pages of major Iranian news sites, which are using it to spread their articles.īut Pavel Durov, the Russian expat who founded Telegram, has repeatedly said that they have no special agreement with the Iranian government. Activists, however, are wary of Telegram's rise, noting that initially the Iranian government threatened to block it, but then backed down, raising suspicions that Telegram accepted the government's surveillance and censorship requests. According to estimates, as many as 20 million Iranians use Telegram, and the app is expected to play an important role in the upcoming elections. Telegram has quickly become one of the most popular apps in Iran, a country where major messaging and social media services, such as Twitter and Viber, are blocked by the government. Telegram has quickly become one of the most popular apps in Iran "If so, that would get the person in some serious problem They can easily label that person as 'spy' for attempting to wipe the info and assume the worst." "Would it be obvious that they've used that feature?" he told me. It'd be better to give a trusted contact the option to nuke the account in case his or her friend gets arrested, Rashidi said.įatemi is worried about what happens after the user inserts the self-destruct code. Ra didn't say exactly when the new feature will be pushed out, but said it'd be included in an upcoming update.įor activists, this is good idea but it might not be enough in cases such as Daroshafaei's. The code, according to Ra, needs to be input locally, but can be done on the same screen as the regular, and also optional, unlocking passcode. To give users a tool to protect themselves in case of arrest, Ra revealed to Motherboard that Telegram is going to release a new feature, which will allow users to set up an optional "self-destruct" passcode that will delete and disable the account.
In any case, "the point is that not all Iranians who get arrested have such contacts," Rashidi told me, so Telegram should be prepared to act when others, such as Iranian activists abroad, report suspicious activities or impersonating attempts. "Disabling the account now is not helping anyone."
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