An Iranian court ordered Iran’s Ministry of Telecommunications to block Instagram due to privacy concerns on Friday, according to the “semiofficial” Iranian news agency Mehr.
The order stemmed from a private lawsuit, but Iranian netizens reportedly still had access to the photo-sharing app at the time of publication. The Iranian government blocked Instagram for 12 hours on Dec. 29, 2013, and Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are also officially inaccessible throughout the nation. This latest censorship comes just a week after the government in Iranblocked access to the hosting platform Google Sites and several Wikipedia pages.
At this point, it’s unclear whether the Ministry of Telecommunications will follow the court order and block Instagram, a social network that is extremely popular in Iran. Over the past few days, however, Iranians already reporting disruptions in the service, with many complaining that they couldn’t view pictures on the platform.
Instagram declined to comment on the matter.
Source: Mashable