A group of rights defenders ask the British foreign Secretary Liz Truss to sanction ten Iranians involved in imprisonment of dual nationals, including Nazanin-Ratcliff.
19 Sep 2021
Are Iranian Authorities Filtering Clubhouse Ahead Of Elections?
Telecommunications minister Mohammad-Javad Azari-Jahromi denied on Thursday [April 8] that Iran is blocking access to the Clubhouse application, although members of the invitation-only audio chat platform have since Thursday evening reported difficulties with access.
Subscribers to the country's most popular mobile network Hamrah Avval, operated by the Mobile Communications Company of Iran (MCI), were the first to report problems with Clubhouse access.
Azari-Jahromi, one of the first Iranian politicians to join Clubhouse, on the same evening claimed − in a 6000-strong Clubhouse session attended by Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati − these resulted from technical problems faced by one mobile operator. Later subscribers to two other major networks, Irancell and RighTel, reported they were unable to join Clubhouse ‘rooms.’
According to internet security expert Nariman Gharib(link is external), the access issues may relate to a filtering system update implemented on Thursday. Another internet security expert, Amir Rashidi(link is external) in a series of tweets Friday said mobile network operators had been ordered by security forces to tweak their DNS services to stop users accessing Clubhouse. Rashidi alleged mobile operators were enforcing filtering on orders from security forces to avoid criticism of bodies responsible for filtering.
Some principlists use Clubhouse. Others including Kayhan newspaper, perhaps wary of the opportunities Clubhouse might offer to June 2021 presidential candidates not prominent on state broadcasting, have demanded it be filtered.
Rasoul Jalili, a member of the Supreme Cyberspace Council, the regulatory body on internet content, on Friday effectively called for stopped access to Clubhouse, which is United States-owned. According to Jalili, Clubhouse and all other foreign-owned messaging and social-media platforms required permits to operate legally.
Using the fast-growing audio chat application requires having an iPhone but many discussions in Clubhouse rooms such as a March 31 session attended by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are quickly reported, or recorded and re-broadcasted by participants on other social-media platforms such as Telegram, Twitter and Instagram. A pirated version of Clubhouse, providing access to Android mobile phone users, is available in Iranian app stores.
While Telegram, Facebook and Twitter are all filtered, millions of Iranians access social media and messaging applications with readily available anti-filtering software and virtual private networks (VPN) such as ProtonVPN and UltraVPN. Instagram is the only social-media platform freely accessed
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