June 21, 2017

Denied Due Process, Detained Telegram Channel Admins Go on Hunger Strike

Telegram channel admin Nima Keshvari was detained in mid-March 2017 by the IRGC's Intelligence ...

June 8, 2017

Rouhani Government “Closed Seven Million” Websites in First Term

A cabinet minister appointed by centrist President Hassan Rouhani has admitted that the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology filtered “seven million” websites during Rouhani’s first term (2013-17) ...

April 27, 2017

Three Young Men to Serve 12 Years in Prison For “Insulting” Social Media Posts

Three 24-year-olds have been sentenced to 12 years in prison each in Iran for posting critical commentary about politics and religion on the ...

April 24, 2017

IRGC Commander Publicly Criticizes Rouhani’s Refusal to Block Telegram Call Service Before Election

One month before Iranians head to the polls, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has ...

April 20, 2017

Iranian Judiciary Blocks Popular Telegram App’s New Voice Call Service

Iran’s judiciary has ordered internet companies to block the Telegram messaging application’s newly released “Voice Calls” ...

April 13, 2017

Social Media Emerges as Major Battlefront in Iran’s May 2017 Elections

A month before Iranians head to the polls for the presidential and council elections, a heated exchange between the judiciary and ...

March 30, 2017

Rouhani Orders Investigation Into “Suspicious” Pre-Election Arrests After MPs Ask Him for Explanation

A little over a week after reformist members of Parliament asked Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to attend to a spate of arrests ahead of the ...

March 23, 2017

MPs Demand Answers from Rouhani on Increasing Arrests Ahead of Elections

President Hassan Rouhani has yet to respond to a letter from four ...

March 21, 2017

Admins of 12 Reformist Telegram Channels Arrested in Iran Ahead of May 2017 Election

Iranian security forces arrested an unknown number of administrators of 12 reformist-aligned Telegram channels on March 14-16, 2017, deleted the channels’ content and changed their names. A number of ...

February 6, 2017

Intelligence Ministry Cracks Down on Alleged “Anti-Revolutionary” Telegram Channels

A screenshot of the heavily edited alleged ...

December 9, 2016

Iran’s Cyber Police Tries to Control Popular Social Media App Telegram with Hacking, Permits

A state crackdown on social media ahead of Iran’s 2017 presidential election has resulted in the Cyber Police...

September 14, 2016

Cartoon 154: Bandwidth

In a meeting with the Minister of Communications, conservative cleric Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi recommended allocating the bandwidth used by the popular networking ...

August 31, 2016

Hackers Exploit Android Phone Security Flaw to Target Activists

Suspected state-sponsored hackers have intensified their attempts to break into the online accounts of Iranian rights activists in recent weeks by exploiting ...

August 16, 2016

Android Phone Users in Iran Face New Threat by Hackers

Popular Telegram App Remains Main Target Hackers posing as friends are using phone numbers based in the ...

June 3, 2016

Negligence by Major Tech Companies like Google and Telegram Aiding Iran’s Cyber Army

Tech Giants’ Failure to Implement Security Measures Endangers Millions of Users Large technology firms are failing to provide sophisticated and country-specific user security measures, and as a result, are helping Iran’s state agencies target Iranian citizens ...

June 3, 2016

Hardline Council Fires New Shot against Rouhani Administration in Battle Over Social Media in Iran

Directive Forcing Messaging Apps to Store User Data in Iran Would Give Authorities Access to Accounts The directive by Iran’s Supreme Cyberspace Council ...

May 17, 2016

Iran’s Fashion Industry under Assault; Details of Arrests of Models by Revolutionary Guards Surface

Eight Arrests and Scores Interrogated in "Project Spider 2" May 17, 2016—Eight people working in Iran’s fashion industry have ...

April 26, 2016

Revolutionary Guards’ Cyber Attacks Now Directed at Rouhani Cabinet Members

IRGC Actively Recruiting Technical Experts to Staff New Hacking Team April 26, 2016—Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who have long waged cyber attacks against the country’s ...

March 14, 2016

Iranians Looking Abroad to Escape State-Controlled Internet

Data privacy and censorship concerns are driving Iranian companies and individuals to foreign Internet servers because domestic providers are powerless to protect their customers ...

February 23, 2016

Iran to Spend $36 Million on Internet “Smart Filtering,” to No Avail

The Iranian government, in a joint project with several domestic universities, is spending $36 million to develop what it calls “smart filtering” ...

January 15, 2016

Telegram CEO Rejects Iranian Government’s Claims of Censorship-on-Demand

The head of Telegram, the most popular social media network in Iran, has again categorically denied making any concessions to Tehran regarding censorship. ...

January 7, 2016