Iran has ordered network providers to stop hosting the popular social messaging app Telegram, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Thursday. The report comes after the head of the parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi last month said Iran would block Telegram for reasons of national security. Telegram allows users to send text messages, pictures and video over the internet. In 2017, Telegram said it rented nodes for its content delivery network in Iran, which allowed servers to provide fast content delivery in Iran and other countries in the region. The app, which at one point had some 40 million users in Iran, was temporarily shut down during the protests in early January.

Source: ABC News April 26, 2018 07:45 UTC