The internet shutdown imposed by Iranian authorities at the start of the war is entering its fiftieth day, breaking new records, cybersecurity monitoring NGO NetBlocks reported on Saturday.
“Iran has now been cut off from the global internet for seven weeks, the digital blackout is entering its fiftieth day, or 1,176 hours,” writes the organization X. The data, she adds, “show that this measure, unprecedented for a connected society, continues to harm the livelihoods and rights of most Iranians.”
On April 5, the outage reached a country-wide record, according to Netblocks. The NGO had recorded in the past longer periods of outages but on regional scales, also noting that North Korea had never been connected to the global internet.
Although the national intranet remains operational in Iran, allowing the operation of local messaging applications and banking services in particular, access to the global internet is severely restricted.
To consult prohibited sites or social networks, some manage to use virtual private networks (VPN, hiding their address). Others, in smaller numbers, have access to Starlink or other satellite internet service providers, despite the risk of arrest.
Iranians had already suffered an 18-day internet shutdown in January, during demonstrations against the government whose repression left thousands of victims. After this wave of protest, access was partly restored but remained heavily filtered and limited, before being largely cut off again after the start of Israeli-American strikes on February 28 against Iran, which triggered a regional war.
Originally published at Almouwatin.com
