Over the past few weeks, the worsening economic crisis in Iran has caused protests to mobilise in cities and towns across the country. As the Iranian authorities have so far remained repressive, these protests have escalated into some of the largest anti-government demonstrations and riots seen in recent years. The Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, initially acknowledged the unstable economic situation in Iran and validated some of the concerns of protestors, but following increasing ferocity between protestors and authorities, the Iranian government decided to enact a nationwide blackout of all internet activity and telecommunications. But how and why would Iran do this, and what are the global implications of this blackout in terms of the power of information control?

How and Why?

Many authoritarian governments over the years have developed and implemented domestic intranet systems, allowing the state to control the information that citizens can share and receive. These include China’s ‘Great Firewall’ and Russia’s ‘Runet’. These systems are isolated from the global network, allowing these governments total control over internet access. The current blackout in Iran is definitely not its first – the internet was previously cut off in 2019 and 2022, also to suppress protests; however, not to the same level of severity or duration as the blackout beginning on January 8th. Iran is not the first country to enact an internet blackout – Russia, India, and Pakistan all have used internet blackouts as a tool to quell political unrest or protest in recent years.

There are many reasons for these governments to do this. By restricting the internet, the state can control the flow of information and dictate the narrative of events that are presented to the rest of the world. A reduction in sources means that perspectives that don’t align with propagandistic can easily be dismissed as ‘fake news’ – these might include documentation or witness accounts of human rights abuses that external organisations may use to hold the Iranian state to account. Furthermore, an internet blackout disrupts social media campaigns and communication channels between citizens, potentially making future demonstrations or the coordination of anti-government protests more difficult. Perhaps in the short term, an internet blackout would be effective in curbing civil unrest, but as one of the main routes of unrest in Iran stems from economic issues, a total restriction on online banking, small business operations, remittances, etc., is likely to do more long-term harm.

What are the implications for the rest of the world?

The Iranian blackout makes it abundantly clear that control over data infrastructure is becoming an increasingly powerful instrument of hard state power. For most of the world, access to the internet is considered a fundamental aspect of modern life. However, the current events in Iran serve as a reminder that access to global connectivity is conditional. The internet appears to be becoming more of a collection of national political spheres, rather than a shared global digital platform – especially in the cases of more authoritarian states, which develop their own localised intranets.

Human rights groups, journalists, and other NGOs increasingly rely on the internet and mobile communications to report on and take into account events happening in times of political unrest, such as this. The internet blackout has greatly restricted the information that can be accessed by these groups, and thus far, the Iranian regime has avoided a lot of international scrutiny for its crackdown. For example, the current death toll in Iran is estimated to be anywhere between 2000 and 15000 from a variety of different sources. The real number is impossible to independently verify, and the severity of the crackdown and the extent of violence being used by the Iranian authorities is so much more difficult to evidence.

The BBC reported that internet access in Iran may not be restored until the end of march around the Iranian New Year, but whether connectivity will extend to Iran in the same way again remains to be seen. It’s doubtful that any connection to Western social media apps will be restored before this blackout. It was possible to engage on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube through the use of VPNs, but the severity of this crackdown would suggest that any ways of bypassing the existing restrictions would be blocked. Whether the full extent of the government crackdown will ever be known is unlikely.