RFERL:

Iran's authorities wasted little time squelching their citizens' favorite social media as protests multiplied in December -- including slapping "temporary" blocks on encrypted international apps like Telegram and Instagram, in addition to existing obstacles to Internet access.

Such steps paled in comparison to reports of protester deaths in the streets and in custody, thousands of arrests, and official denunciations of demonstrators as puppets of foreign "enemies."

There is a fresh push by officials to promote homegrown social-media apps as an alternative to the wildly popular digital tools that helped fuel the unrest in December and January, the country's biggest in nearly a decade.

This week, President Hassan Rohani reportedly instructed his communications minister to seriously pursue possible investment and support for domestic apps.

“It’s not acceptable for people to use a monopolized social media," Rohani’s chief of staff, Mahmud Vaezi, told reporterson January 17, after the president issued the instruction at a cabinet meeting. "It is, of course, people’s right to use social-media networks. But with regard to [Iran’s] national security, there can’t be only one network."

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