First question after Moxie Marlinspike talk at the CCC conference was: "When will Signal not base itself on a mobile phone number, I am an activist from Iran"
Not meant to be pedantic, but the question about phone numbers appears to be the last question after the talk, asked at 38:05 in the video. (The first question, at 30:50, is about post quantum security.) I also don’t think the asker mentions being from Iran.
Also, “Be kind. Don't be snarky.” (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
Also, now that we know the timestamp, we know this user spread two pieces of misinformation in 28 words: Iran was never mentioned and it was not the first question in the QA. I think some snark is well justified here.
Other networks solved this by not blocking backup.