"In today's (Tuesday) meeting of the Supreme Cyberspace Council, after discussion and review, the members, while emphasizing the importance of rule-of-law governance in cyberspace, unanimously voted in favor of removing restrictions on access to some widely used foreign platforms, including WhatsApp and Google Play," reported the state-owned IRNA.
In 2021, the Iranian parliament passed the User Protection Bill (Tarhe-Sianat) to disrupt access to international online services in Iran. The bill was initially passed but later revoked due to an unclear procedural process.
The Iranian president directed Amin Aghamiri, the secretary of SCC, to form a committee tasked with investigating the issue and presenting a solution.
The SCC was founded in 2012 with the order of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to limit access to social media and broadcast and monitor the prohibited activities of citizens.
The Iranian government frequently cracks down on the internet during periods of heightened tensions and protests, especially in the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” movement sparked by the death of Kurdish woman Zhina (Mahsa) Amini while in custody of Iran’s so-called morality police and a week-long internet crackdown in response to the 2019 protests, infamously known as Bloody November.
Iranian reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who came to power in summer, on has called for a new approach to restricted social media access following public dissatisfaction over government-imposed censorship which has intensified in recent years.
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