Iranian Judge Orders Mark Zuckerberg to Appear in His Court - Facebook CEO Asked to Address Privacy Violations by Instagram, WhatsApp

An Iranian judge has summoned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to his courtroom to address complaints that two of the apps it owns — Instagram and Whatsapp — violate user privacy.

According to state news agency ISNA, a court in the southern province of Fars opened the cases against the Facebook-owned companies after some of its citizens complained their privacy had been violated.

“According to the court’s ruling, the Zionist director of the company of Facebook, or his official attorney must appear in court to defend himself and pay for possible losses,” Ruhollah Momen-Nasab, an Iranian Internet official, was quoted by the ISNA.

The “Zionist” comment refers to Zuckerberg’s Jewish background.

Zuckerberg is not actually expected to obey the summons — as a U.S. citizen that does not reside in the country in question, the 30-year-old has no legal obligation to comply — there is no extradition treaty between Iran and the U.S.

Iran’s judiciary is conservative and anti-Internet in stark contrast to the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, a moderate ruler, in favor of Internet use.

In Iran, websites and Internet applications have sometimes been reported blocked but have remained operational.

Facebook and other social websites such as Twitter and YouTube have been banned in the country, although they remain operational to users.

Country officials have unlimited access to social media while citizens must use proxy servers or other workarounds to bypass the ban.

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Iranian Judge Orders Mark Zuckerberg to Appear in His Court

Jennifer Cowan is the Managing Editor for SiteProNews.

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