Slack, which is one of the most popular teams messaging app has started banning accounts with links to Iran and other nations, as per reports.
Based on the reports, Users who have hardly any contact with Iran, living in Finland, Canada or US, are awakened to see their slack accounts are deactivated. The latest shift, which the firm says is to follow the US regulations is considered to be affecting users who have visited nations like Iran and North Korea.
One user stated that she had been banned just for ‘legally visiting’ Cuba a long time ago. Also, one of the Ph.D. students in Canada said that he has lost his account as he has “ethically linked with Iran”. A large number of users have suddenly lost their accounts without getting any warning. This is a hostile execution of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Slack closed my account today!
I’m a PhD student in Canada with no teammates from Iran!
Is Slack shutting down accounts of those ethnically associated with Iran?!
And what’s their source of info on my ethnicity?#slack #UsSanctions pic.twitter.com/mY8Ltczq8v
— Amir (@a_h_a) December 19, 2018
Replying to Amir’s Tweet. Antoine Dejonckheere, tweeted
Slack closed my account today!
I’m a PhD student in Canada with no teammates from Iran!
Is Slack shutting down accounts of those ethnically associated with Iran?!
And what’s their source of info on my ethnicity?#slack #UsSanctions pic.twitter.com/mY8Ltczq8v
— Amir (@a_h_a) December 19, 2018
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All the users whose accounts are being deactivated are getting the message as below:
“In order to comply with export control and economic sanctions laws and regulations promulgated by the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Treasury, Slack prohibits unauthorized use of its products and services in certain sanctioned countries,” said the notice. “We’ve identified your team/account as originating from one of these countries and are closing the account effective immediately.”
The popular business messaging software is being used by more than 8 million users every day in thousands of companies, including big firms such as Airbnb and Ticketmaster.
A lot of users are sharing their experience on Twitter with #slackban. As per the reports, slack will be banning accounts of users who have visited Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria or the Crimea region.
Slack also mentioned in a statement to Mashable that “our systems might have detected an account and/or a workforce owner on our platform with an IP address originating from a designated embargoed country.” Later added that if anyone thinks any actions we took were done in error, we will review further.
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