Iran bans popular social networking service

Tehran: An Iranian state-owned news website is saying authorities have banned a popular cell-phone based social networking service. The Thursday report by yjc.ir said a decision by a governmental monitoring body on communications led to the ban of VChat. Many users complained on twitter and in messages that they do not have access to the cell-phone based social networking service. [caption id=“attachment_1297817” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech to members of the paramilitary Basij force. AP[/caption] VChat is a product of Chinese company Tencent, and is highly used by young people as well as retail businesses in Iran. It allows file sharing and communication with others connected to the same local area network. Iran blocked many social networking services like Facebook and Twitter after opposition members widely used them during 2009 post-election turmoil to organize gatherings. People still reach the banned sites through proxy and VPNs. AP