WhatsApp application is one of the most popular applications in the world; However, its use is blocked in some countries for various reasons that are against their policies. According to the Internet Shutdown Tracker tool, which tracks restricted social networks, many places in Asia and the Middle East are on the list.
There are many countries in the world that ban the application, in some cases for political and security reasons. Also companies that want to promote their own telecommunications services.
According to the Internet Shutdown Tracker tool, “Governments may restrict social media or messaging apps during times of unrest to prevent people from communicating with each other and spreading news. Cases are mostly recorded from Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, Telegram and WhatsApp“.
(Our advice: WhatsApp will no longer work on some mobile phones since March: is yours on the list too?).
The list includes Asian and Middle Eastern countries that do not allow the use of this application. One of them, ChineseThe government of this country has blocked the ‘app’ and has absolute control over Internet services.
An alternative was created in 1998 to restrict access to any site that the government does not accept. This was the case of the social network Meta in 2017. Since then, there has been an app called WeChat to replace the messaging system.
(Interesting: WhatsApp may be compatible with Telegram and Signal for chatting between ‘apps’).
Wisdom Sablah, a VPN expert with extensive experience in evaluating private networks, explained to the ‘Cloudwards’ portal that there are also countries that have temporarily blocked their services. For example, during protests Brazil, Cuba, Iran and Venezuela.
According to the portal mentioned above, this is the list of places that have completely restricted their activities.
(Next: Android 14’s latest beta reveals which apps want biometric recognition).
– North Korea.
– Chinese.
– Syria.
– Taste.
– United Arab Emirates.
– Guinea.
Aleksandar Kochovski, a cybersecurity expert specializing in virtual private networks, shared with ‘Cloudwards’ that “audio and video calls are prohibited on WhatsApp” in the city of Dubai.
There are two reasons for this: First, authorities fear that terrorists and extremist groups “could exploit the app’s encryption for their own benefit and find important information.”
Second, like China, they are committed to producing their own telecommunications services.
Sablah shared that more than 180 countries allow the use of the network as an alternative to instant messaging. Moreover, according to figures, it has more than 2 billion users.
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Source: Exame
