Nowadays, it takes the government nothing to ban social networks from being accessed by citizens. We've seen reports of several countries whose internet access was totally blocked - for safety and (sometimes) just ridiculous reasons. Few weeks ago, Telegram was banned in Russia for refusing to provide users' data to government authorities. Now, Iran has also kicked out the popular instant messenger from it country.
Iran's ban on Telegram is reportedly aimed at safeguarding the national security, as the country has witnessed massive anti-government protests in recent times and officials believe that the popular messaging service has been extensively used by organizers of these rallies.
In addition, all network carriers in Iran blocked access to Telegram so as to confront any criminal activities that is being carried out in the Middle East country. The judiciary who ruled this ban went on to suggest an alternative indeginous app called Soroush, for Iranians to use, as they claim it boasts of similar features with Telegram.
As at last month, Telegram announced that it now has 200 million monthly users, and the Co-Founder, Pavel Durov used the medium to reassure users that their data is safe with them. He said “...We don’t do deals with marketers, data miners or government agencies.”
This is really sad because Telegram has an estimated 40 million users in Iran, but it is clear why the government banned them. And it seems it will last for a very long time since they are not willing to cooperate by providing users data and chat history to the Iranian authorities.