Tehran: Gmail and the secure-protocol HTTPS version of Google search have been unblocked in Iran on Monday, exactly a week after they were blocked on September 24.
As for YouTube, however, additional censorship was being prepared for stopping the video website to publish blasphemous content, a government Internet filtering committee official said.
The unsecure HTTP version of Google search was never blocked, AFP reported.
“Google and Gmail will be filtered nationwide… until further notice,” Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, the secretary of an official group tasked with detecting Internet content deemed illegal, said last week.
But Mohammad Reza Miri, a member of the telecommunications ministry committee tasked with filtering the Internet in Iran, said blocking Gmail was not intended and rather “involuntary”.
“Unfortunately, we do not yet have enough technical knowhow to differentiate between these two services. We wanted to block YouTube and Gmail was also blocked, which was involuntary,” he said.
“We absolutely do not want YouTube to be accessible. That is why the telecommunications ministry is seeking a solution to fix the problem to block YouTube under the HTTPS protocol while leaving Gmail accessible. That will soon happen.”
There are 34 million Internet users in Iran, and the restrictions on Gmail and Google search were met with criticism from some quarters.
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