The Iranian government held a meeting of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace on Tuesday, in which a majority of the council members voted to lift restrictions on access to popular overseas platforms such as WhatsApp and Google Play.

The meeting also emphasized the importance of normative governance of cyberspace and the need to support domestic platforms.

Lifting internet restrictions was one of the promises made by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during his election campaign.

Speaking at the meeting, Pezeshkian said, "Surveys show that the goals of Internet restrictions have not been achieved overall."

"While emphasizing the need to develop cyberspace governance to prevent its harm, we believe that continuing restrictions is unacceptable because it has caused a lot of dissatisfaction among the people," he added.

Iran's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Sattar Hashemi said in a social media post on the same day that "we have united and collaborated to take the first step towards lifting internet restrictions" and that "the country needs this unity more than ever."