Tehran, Iran – The Iranian government blocked Signal after Iranians flocked to the messaging platform following privacy issues of WhatsApp owned by Facebook.
As of Monday, Iran-based users have reported problems connecting to the open source Signal, which has been hailed by many as a more secure way of encrypted communication as a new privacy policy released by WhatsApp earlier this month draws more attention to the app’s data collection practices.
In a tweet, Signal said it was censoring Iran “since the app is the best content downloaded in Iranian app stores.
“The registration can not stop, but the IR sensors are now abandoning all Signal traffic,” the tweet said. “Iranian people deserve privacy. We did not give up. ”
On January 14, Signal was ordered to remove from Cafe Bazaar, Iran’s version of Google Play, and Myket, another local app store.
“We thank you for understanding our restrictions,” greeted the Iranians who wanted to download Signal.
The app was tagged by a filter committee tasked with identifying ‘criminal content’ that is under the country’s prosecutor general and consists of representatives from the judiciary, the ministry of communications, law enforcement, parliament and the Ministry of Education.
However, the court tried to distance itself from the ban on Tuesday.
Spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaeili said that since 2019, the judiciary under the new head, Ebrahim Raisi, “has not blocked any media, news or messaging service nor has it blocked cyberspace and any social messaging services”.
‘Secure from state authorities’
This is not the first time that Signal has been targeted by Iranian authorities.
The app was previously sporadically blocked between 2016 and 2017, but the filter largely flew under the radar, as Signal did not have a significant user base in Iran at the time.
The messaging service was later quietly exposed and the authorities never provided official reasons for it.
According to Mahsa Alimardani, an internet researcher at the British human rights organization ARTICLE19, signal was used by 2017 by a number of Iranians during protests in late 2017 and early 2018 to maintain secure communications.
“Signal has always been advertised as the appropriate application for dissidents or activists to stay safe from any state authority, especially the United States and its great oversight capability,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Before this migration by users who were not affected by WhatsApp’s new privacy changes, Signal was already a daily tool for civil society and activities,” said Alimardani, a PhD candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute.
Signal joins a large number of other social media applications blocked by Iranian authorities, including Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Telegram was filtered in May 2018, shortly after protests erupted in dozens of cities in Iran over economic, political and social grievances.
WhatsApp and Instagram remain the only leading unblocked foreign social media platforms in Iran.
The fact that Signal has been blocked but WhatsApp remains usable has prompted speculation from Iranian users on social media that the Iranian government may somehow have access to users’ information on WhatsApp.
Alimardani said the same rumor started spreading over Telegram before it brought him to rest.
“There is no factual basis for this rumor, as it is very unlikely that the Iranian authorities have the ability to go against Facebook’s security capability, or that Facebook will cooperate with Iran to share data,” she said.
Instead, she said, it is more likely that Iranian authorities are trying to limit the number of unblocked programs before Signal in Iran becomes too large.
Will the ban work?
With years of experience in dealing with Internet restrictions by Iranian authorities and those imposed by international companies due to sanctions, Iranians have become familiar with circumvention tools.
Many Iranians regularly use virtual private networks (VPNs) that mask users’ IPs to gain access to blocked content, including social media.
Despite being banned for almost two years, Telegram is still used daily by tens of millions of Iranians. However, state entities are legally prohibited from returning to the messaging service.
In this environment, Alimardani said that the Signal ban is likely to slow down the growth of its user base and keep people on WhatsApp first.
“However, statistics from Telegram showed that although use declined directly after censorship, it eventually stabilized,” she said. “But the ban slows the predicted growth before censorship.”
There are currently no data on how many people use Signal in Iran, but it is believed that its base is still much smaller than that of Telegram, which has been used in the country since its 2013 release.
More restrictions to come?
The Signal filter has renewed fears about more possible restrictions on internet freedom in Iran.
The Ministry of Information and Communications in Iran has repeatedly tried to block social media, saying it does not have the authority to make these decisions.
After the authorities cut off internet access in Iran for almost one week during nationwide protests in November 2019, ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said it was not his decision.
The minister has so far remained silent on Signal’s filter.
Last week, the court filed charges against Azari Jahromi, but released him on bail for allegedly refusing to block Instagram and otherwise restrict other social media.
According to the ministry, lawsuits by a group of 432 people from Ahwaz over the use of cyberspace in an attack in September 2018 and 150 religious scientists from Kerman on digital “corruption” are among others for the minister’s subpoena.
Despite decision-making, Internet security and digital rights researcher Amir Rashidi says the ministry is almost entirely responsible for the technical implementation of Internet blocking practices in Iran.
Rashidi explained that when an Iranian user wants to use the global internet, their command is first sent to their local internet service provider, and then to the Telecommunications Infrastructure Company, affiliated with the ministry, which is the gateway.
“So, at either level, internet censorship can be applied,” he told Al Jazeera.
Rashidi said, like Telegram, it undermined Signal’s popularity with Iranian authorities.
“Traditionally, when the Iranian government cannot figure out what is going on or who is doing what, they may fear that people will do something against the government,” he said.