An Iranian court has ordered the appearance of Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to answer allegations that Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp have been violating the privacy of Iranian users.
According to complaints made to the Iranian court, Facebook-owned applications such as Instagram and WhatApp have violated the privacy of its users. Since the US and Iran currently do not have an extradition treaty, it is highly unlikely for Zuckerberg to appear at the court and respond to the complaints made against him and Facebook.
To settle concerns regarding users' privacy, another Iranian court has approved the nationwide blocking of Instagram and WhatsApp. This has not stopped several Iranian users, however, from accessing the applications. It is not known whether the blocking has indeed been implemented since WhatsApp and Instagram are still accessible as of Tuesday.
In Iran, several websites and applications reported blocked tend to be still accessible and operational. Other websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are considered blocked by the Committee on Internet Crimes but it has also been reported that President Rouhani and his moderate government have not actually approved any of the websites' blocking. For many younger Iranians and tech-savvy internet users in the country, proxy servers are often used to work around the blocking.
