It’s easy to store and share large files-like videos-on the platform it works well with Persian’s left-to-right script and it offers the ability to develop Persian-language bots and stickers (fun memes and images shared in chats) on top of a simple interface.

And Telegram, available outside Iran’s “fitlernet” and with its high performance at low internet speeds, has become a uniquely potent and ubiquitous agent of communication and information dissemination in the cat-and-mouse game between the people and those trying to control them.

Since 2009, Iranians have become experts in avoiding censorship and circumventing government controls. Few Iranians had Twitter back then-but that’s how the rest of the world experienced the protests, so the uprising was misleadingly dubbed the world’s first “Twitter revolution.” But now, as thousands of Iranians march against the regime in cities all over the country, chanting radical slogans that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, it’s no exaggeration to say that this time, technology really is playing a central role in allowing people to organize, share information with each other and alert the outside world. It’s easy to overstate, as many did in 2009, the impact of technology on mass mobilizations like the Green Movement. In the days leading up to the election, they blocked Facebook and Twitter, which had helped gain momentum for reformist faction, and in the lead-up to the following 2013 election, throttling Internet traffic became the preferred method to ensure that any political excitement remained in check.īut Iranians’ desire to connect with one another never went away, and the government did allow another platform to flourish: Telegram, an instant messaging service tied to people’s phones that allows the easy upload of videos, photos and other files. Mahsa Alimardani is an Internet researcher focusing on human rights and technology in Iran, working with the UK-based freedom of expression NGO ARTICLE19 and a DPhil student at the University of Oxford’s Oxford Internet Institute.Īfter the 2009 Green Movement-a failed attempt to overturn a stolen presidential election through street protests-the Iranian political establishment took away one searing lesson: Never lose control of social media.

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