​WhatsApp has announced the launch of a feature that will allow users to use the app in countries where it is censored or where access is blocked temporarily or for a very long time. Among the countries with the most problems are Iran and Syria.

WhatsApp, which is used by more than 2 billion people worldwide, is banned in several countries where authorities block access to its servers, preventing users from sending and receiving messages.

The company announced that to combat this, in a few days, it will launch the ability for users to manually select a proxy server (intermediate server) that will forward data to the company’s servers.

These intermediate servers have different addresses than the company’s regular servers and are more difficult for censorship authorities to identify and block.

Company representatives say that even through these proxies, a high level of data privacy will be maintained. End-to-end encryption will also apply to messages sent this way.

Iran and Syria are the countries most aggressively blocking internet users, but countries like Myanmar and Ethiopia are also faring badly.

India is the country with the largest number of WhatsApp users at around 500 million, Brazil has more than 120 million, and the US, Indonesia, Russia and Mexico have more than 50 million. Other countries with high figures are Germany, Italy, Spain and Argentina.

Sources: BBC, bfmtv.com

Photo source: Dreamstime.com