Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – The purchase of the mobile messaging service WhatsApp by Facebook has led an Iranian censor banning the service because it is now owned by an “American Zionist,” according to reports.

The “Zionist” in question is of course Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who is Jewish. The ban was announced by the secretary of the Committee for Determining Criminal Web Content, Abdolsamad Khorramabadi.

“The reason for this is the adoption of WhatsApp by the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is an American Zionist,” he said.

But not everyone in the Iranian government seems to agree on the issue. “The government is completely against the ban on WhatsApp,” Communications Minister Mahmoud Mehr told the state news agency IRNA.

Facebook and Twitter were blocked in Iran in 2009, when protesters began using the social media outlets to spread their dissatisfaction with the government.