That’s some lazy FUD. But even if that were true and the contacts weren’t encrypted and PIN entry not rate limited: What do you propose as an alternative?
It's true. I've provided some relevant links elsewhere in this discussion.
As for alternatives, I really don't know enough about the situation in Iran to say what would be safe. After they stated collecting data I personally switched to Jami for secure communications, but I'm not a whistleblower or a journalist or a freedom fighter or anything and to be honest, I haven't found anything as polished as Signal that handles both secure messaging and plain old SMS/MMS. I was a fan. It's been years and I'm still hugely disappointed.
As for alternatives, I really don't know enough about the situation in Iran to say what would be safe. After they stated collecting data I personally switched to Jami for secure communications, but I'm not a whistleblower or a journalist or a freedom fighter or anything and to be honest, I haven't found anything as polished as Signal that handles both secure messaging and plain old SMS/MMS. I was a fan. It's been years and I'm still hugely disappointed.