Iran’s Supreme Council of Virtual Spaces, which is a real thing and not the dystopian government from a sci-fi TV show, has announced that Pokémon Go has been banned in the country.
As the BBC reports, the ban is related to “unspecified security concerns”, and comes following a short deliberation where the Council “were waiting to see to what extent the game’s creators would co-operate with them”.
While we’ve seen other bodies take measures against people playing the game (or remind folks about existing security arrangements), ranging from local councils in Sydney to Islamic leaders in Malaysia to the US military, this is the first time that an entire country has banned the game outright.