Information Center

Iran requires social media websites to transfer data centers to its territory

  

Concerned about the privacy and security of social media, Iran ordered foreign news applications to transfer their stored Iranian user data to servers in the country within one year.

According to the report published by the Iranian news agency last Sunday, American VPS Iran's Supreme Council for Cyberspace said in a statement: "In order to ensure continued operation, foreign news companies active in Iran must transfer all data and activities related to Iranian citizens to China."

The members of the committee were selected by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader. According to Iran News Agency, relevant social media companies must comply with the above regulations within one year. They also specifically emphasized that the measure was formulated according to the instructions and concerns of the Supreme Leader.

This requirement has a particularly significant impact on the message application Telegram. Due to its extremely high security, this cloud computing instant messaging service has become very popular, attracting about 20 million users in Iran, a country with a total population of about 80 million.

The Iranian government arrested the administrators of more than 20 Telegram teams in November last year for spreading "immoral content".

Social media users expressed concern about this change. A Twitter user named @ Mehrdxd said, "If Telegram transfers its data center to Iran, they can delete content or arrest anyone at will."

The user with the net name @ Gonahkar wrote in his tweet: "If the database is transferred to Iran, I will stop using Telegram because it is no longer safe."