The Iraqi government on Sunday decisively shut down the country's immensely popular Telegram messaging service, citing "grave threats to National Security and social peace" as the impetus. 

By midday, the application had been blocked completely in Baghdad, with users unable to send or load any messages. Though some managed to use a VPN to bypass the government's restrictions, everybody else was cut off from this powerful communication tool. The ministry also charged that Telegram had failed to respond to their repeated requests to rectify data leakage issues, leading them to take this severe measure.