Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Ordered To Court In Iran Over Privacy Complaint

Iran Orders Zuckerberg To Court

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been ordered to appear in court in Iran after a judge in the south of the country declared that both WhatsApp and Instagram were violating users' privacy.

It's highly unlikely (almost impossible) that Zuckerberg will choose to appear in court, not least because the US has no extradition laws with Iran.

This isn't the first time that the Iranian legal system has taken issue with Zuckerberg's collection of apps with another court reportedly ordering that Instagram be banned over 'privacy concerns'.

Then of course there's the small matter of Iranian censors banning WhatsApp on the grounds of Zuckerberg's Jewish ubringing.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Iran's head of the Committee on Internet Crimes, Abdolsamad Khorramabadi was quoted as saying: "The reason for this is the assumption of WhatsApp by the Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is an American Zionist".

If WhatsApp and Instagram are both successfully banned they'll join an elite group of banned websites and services including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Conversly though Iran's new moderate government actually supports the idea of using social media, and has openly opposed censors who wish to block sites like Facebook and Twitter.

As with the censorship issues in Turkey, Iranians are reportedly already finding ways around the block by using proxy servers to get past the governmental restrictions.

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