The Failure of the Filtering Project in Iran
Instagram, since its launch in 2010, has been an attractive social network for people everywhere in the world, but its special appeal in Iran was due to one thing: Facebook, which was one of the largest virtual social spaces for Iranians, was filtered. The fact that Instagram was not blocked quickly drew Iranian users away from Facebook. Although Instagram was also filtered years later, by then the rules of the game had changed. Instagram had become so ingrained in the daily lives of Iranians that even with its filtering, no one left; they stayed and reclaimed it.
Unofficial reports say that more than 40 million Iranians are Instagram users, making it the most popular social network in Iran. Data findings show that in 2022, from 6 million public Iranian accounts on Instagram, 450 million posts were published, and Iranian users view Instagram posts more than 25,000 times per second.