Tehran is advancing the new “Soroush” instant messenger, encouraging people to abandon the Telegram network “in line with safeguarding national interests.” Among peculiar features on the new Iranian-made app are multiple emojis, featuring women wearing veils, suggesting going pray, holding a picture of Khamenei, as well as signs wishing “death” to America, Israel and freemasons.
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The Soroush app has become quite popular among the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: five “lucky” people, taking part in the competition, may receive gold coins for signing up. It was announced on the force’s Telegram channel.
Unlike Telegram, Soroush does not use end-to-end encryption, which prompted jokes on social media: users poked fun at the app’s three-tick message receipt notification, saying it confirmed that the text was read not only by sender and receiver, but also by an intelligence agent.
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Earlier this month, Ayatollah Khamenei and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani gave up Telegram to protect the country’s national interests and “remove the monopoly of the Telegram messaging network.”
