In the midst of trying to balance the moderate policies adopted by President Hassan Rouhani, the conservative court has turned its attention to complaints on Facebook-owned entities violating the privacy of its Iranian users following which it has summoned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to defend himself.
The court has opened cases against WhatsApp and Instagram for privacy violation as a part of its efforts to rein in the increased Internet freedom permitted by the Iranian President. Though the judge has stated that the court has been receiving complaints from people, there has been no information as to who these complainants are.
Ruhollah Momen-Nasab, an Iranian internet official said, “According to the court’s ruling, the Zionist director of the company of Facebook, or his official attorney must appear in court to defend himself and pay for possible losses.”
Iran has been imposing strict regulations to stop US citizens from obtaining a visa to visit the country and on the other hand, Iran’s nuclear activities are still disputed. Critics believe Zuckerberg would not show up for the court session.
Rouhani has stated that Iran should be more liberal in its views on the internet and should promote its use rather than shy away from it because of probable threats.
An administration official said that the country would introduce a smart filtering tool which would filter out only those sites which the Iranian government considers immoral while all other sites and social networks will be made available for its citizens.
According to sources, Iranian youth are increasingly bypassing the bans to get access to Western cultural products despite the activities of Tehran to filter popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
