Iran’s Web is still on lockdown after sanctions are lifted, despite Twitter claims

After the US and Iran came to a historic deal to end economic sanctions against the Middle Eastern country, some excited Twitter users started reporting that Web services were resuming without the need for secure networks.

https://twitter.com/AlborzHabibi/status/688814471649857536

Although this wasn’t across the board, for users or services.

YouTube does seem to have been unblocked in #Iran not so Twitter or Facebook

— Arthur MacMillan (@arthurmacmillan) January 17, 2016

And now an Iranian official, Mohammad Reza Farnaqizadeh, has been quoted by Azerbaijani publication Trend denying any official lifting of the ban on YouTube. He does not mention Twitter or Facebook.

Some Twitter users were already pointing to a glitch in the country’s Web-blocking infrastructure, rather than a resumption of service.

Possible filtering failure, Twitter and Youtube still blocked MT @AlborzHabibi …tweeting without having to use VPN pic.twitter.com/fWY1FRJYQR

— Collin Anderson (@CDA) January 17, 2016

According to Google’s analysis of the country, Iran still has ongoing service disruption.

Iran is among five countries, along with China, Tajikistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Pakistan, that Google has measured traffic disruption for already in 2016.

Governments like these use a range of measures to limit access to the Web, many for political reasons, including blocking domain names, keywords or IP addresses.

➤ Twitter and YouTube unblocked in Iran for some users after sanctions lifted [The Telegraph]