As of Thursday, 92 million Iranians have been utterly blocked from accessing the web for greater than per week, in what’s now one of many longest nationwide web shutdowns ever, in accordance with specialists.
Final Thursday, Iran’s management blocked web and cellphone entry throughout the entire nation in response to large anti-government protests, which started on the finish of final yr and have prompted a brutal and lethal crackdown from authorities.
As of this writing, Iranians haven’t been capable of entry the web for greater than 170 hours. The earlier longest shutdowns within the nation lasted round 163 hours in 2019, and 160 hours in 2025, in accordance with Isik Mater, the director of analysis at NetBlocks, an online monitoring firm that tracks web disruptions.
Mater stated that the present shutdown in Iran is the third longest on report, after the web shutdown in Sudan in mid-2021 that lasted round 35 days, adopted by the outage in Mauritania in July 2024, which lasted 22 days.
“Iran’s shutdowns stay among the many most complete and tightly enforced nationwide blackouts we’ve noticed, significantly when it comes to inhabitants affected,” Mater advised information.killnetswitch.
The precise rating depends upon how every group measures a shutdown.
Zach Rosson, a researcher who research web disruptions on the digital rights nonprofit AccessNow, advised information.killnetswitch that in accordance with its knowledge, the continuing shutdown in Iran is on a path to crack the highest ten longest shutdowns in historical past.
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Iran’s authorities has an extended monitor report of shutting down entry to the web at occasions of protest and civil unrest, typically making it harder to observe the protests from outdoors of the nation.
A U.S.-based human rights group estimates that there have been greater than 600 protests in cities throughout Iran, and in accordance with one estimate, the Iranian authorities’s violent crackdown has led to the deaths of not less than 2,000 folks.
The shutdown in Iran on January 8 was sudden, reducing authorities establishments just like the international ministry from the web. Since then, some authorities departments, and a few elements of the economic system, comparable to financial institution transfers and fee processors at fuel stations, had their entry restored, as The Monetary Occasions reported this week.
Based on The Guardian, a comparatively small however unknown variety of Iranians have been utilizing Starlink terminals smuggled into the nation to hook up with the web. In 2022, the Biden administration carved an exemption to the U.S. authorities’s sanctions towards Iran to “improve assist for web freedom,” and permit U.S. tech firms to supply connectivity to Iranians without spending a dime, paving the way in which for Starlink to function in Iran.
Authorities have since cracked down on Starlink customers by making it unlawful to personal a Starlink terminal, jamming total neighborhoods, and confiscating the gadgets.
This week, President Donald Trump threatened army intervention if Iranian forces proceed to make use of violence, all of the whereas lowering personnel at a army base in neighboring Qatar, amid considerations of a attainable retaliatory strike. The U.S. army additionally reportedly redirected a naval strike group from the South China Sea to the Center East.
On Wednesday, nonetheless, Trump stated he had data that “the killing has stopped and the executions received’t happen,” however conceded that, “who is aware of?”
In the meantime, the UK shuttered its embassy in Iran’s capital Tehran and evacuated its workers. Iran quickly closed off its airspace on Wednesday.
