“The relevant” Meta spokesman from Iran tells citizens to stop using WhatsApp

Correspondent platform WhatsApp He said on Tuesday that the company “is concerned” that the demand will not be available to people in Iran after government television in the country urged users to delete the application.

Iranian officials have warned people against stopping the use of WhatsApp, Telegram and other “applications based on the site”, accusing them of “the main methods of Israel to identify and target individuals,” according to a report issued by the broadcaster in the country earlier on Tuesday.

“We are concerned that these wrong reports are an excuse for our services at a time when people need more than others. All the messages you send to family and friends on WhatsApp are a comprehensive encrypted, which is no one except the sender and the recipient can access these messages, not WhatsApp”, “said a spokesman for WhatsApp in a statement to CBS News.

“We do not follow your exact location, and we do not keep the records of everyone to the correspondence, and we do not follow the personal messages that people send each other.” “We do not provide great information to any government. For more than a decade, Meta has made consistent transparency reports that include limited conditions when ordering WhatsApp information.”

The claim submitted by the Iranian state broadcasters comes at a time when the Islamic system of the country is turning against the public’s access to the Internet, as Israel’s conflict increases with Iran.

On Friday, Israel launched air strikes Targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, scientists and senior military leaders, which Iran responded with dozens of ballistic missiles. Countries exchanged waves of missile attacks in the days after that. At least twenty people were killed in Israel, according to the Israeli army, and dozens were wounded. Tehran said at least 224 people have been killed in Iran since Friday.

NetBlocks said analysis It showed a 75 % decrease in the use of the Internet throughout the country on Tuesday, and the data says, “It comes amid an escalating conflict with Israel and is likely to limit the public’s ability to access information at a critical time.”

WhatsApp is owned by Meta, the parent company for Facebook, Instagram and Threads. The Meta platforms have already targeted the Iranian authoritarian government during turmoil in the country. In 2022, the Iranian government faced widespread protests against the death of a 22 -year -old student What is my faithful While in the Iranian police custody, Mita said The Iranian authorities have cut the use of Instagram in the country in an attempt to suppress the protesters’ ability to share information.

While WhatsApp is an encrypted application from end to tip, it cannot be penetrated. Only last month, the Israeli software company NSO GROUP was ordered to pay $ 167 million to 1400 people, including activists and journalists, in 2019. The penetration included the use of a harmful program called Pegasus, which can be installed from a distance on mobile phones to reach, among other things, individuals microphones and GPS.