Slack bans users who have visited Iran, North Korea

The countries with US economic sanctions include Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea region of Ukraine

Slack, an online platform for workplace communication, recently banned accounts of users who had visited Iran or North Korea, BBC News reported.

According to Slack, this move was made in order to comply with the US export control and economic sanctions on certain countries, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea region of Ukraine.

Some people took to social media to object that they had not been warned in advance. A few of them had not even visited the countries in recent years, and believe that the bans were erroneous.



A user complained that his wife had lost access to years of work data including messages and files because of the ban. Some users also questioned whether the ban went beyond the ambit of US sanctions, which punish firms in violation of regulations.

A PhD student from Canada tweeted that he believed his account had been banned due to his Iranian ethnicity.

https://twitter.com/a_h_a/status/1075510422617219077?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1075510422617219077&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Ftechnology-46642760



Slack, in a statement to Mashable, said that they "prohibit unauthorized Slack use in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and the Crimea region of Ukraine". They further added that their systems might have detected an account and/or a workspace owner on their platform with an IP address originating from a designated embargoed country.

This article originally appeared on BBC News.