Iran’s internet blackout: slow messages, broken VPNs, and digital dread| Cybernews

The Iranian flag next to a VPN sign and exclamation mark. — Image by Cybernews

Iran’s internet blackout has left over 90 million people cut off from digital communication, as protests escalate and the government throttles connectivity. Messages fail, VPNs break, and citizens are forced to scramble for fleeting ways to stay in touch.

“Standing next to my phone, refreshing over and over… just to say ‘I’m okay’ or ‘are you there?” is one account of how a complete blackout of the internet feels in Tehran right now, as passionate protests had digital civil liberty thunderously cut by the oppressive regime.

Cybernews spoke to an Iranian tech worker based outside the country, who remains in regular, day-to-day contact with people in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran experiencing the current blackout in real time.

On January 8th, a complete digital blackout was experienced by the country's population of over 90 million. As the protest death toll surpassed 500 on Monday, the populace is still undergoing a digital severing. But what are the true implications of an internet blackout?

Communication crippled

Unlike with an electrical power cut, the connection doesn’t just suddenly switch off. There were ominous signs in Tehran, however.

As protestors desperately scrambled to post safety updates and reach out, they noticed their “messages stuck on ‘sending,’ voice notes failing, images not loading, and apps that usually work with VPNs suddenly timing out,” our source explained.

“It felt spongy before it disappeared completely.”

This subtle throttling of the digital channels at the start by the government makes for a psychologically frustrating time for the protestors. Following Israel’s airstrikes on Iran in June last year, the digitally proficient were able to seek workarounds like VPNs.

However, in a situation as dire as the current one, Iranians are facing a culling of their communication channels, with “voice notes failing, images not loading, and apps that usually work with VPNs suddenly timing out,” adding to their woes.

Facing a strangulation of sorts, insurgents desperately scrambled for a solution through “mostly short, unpredictable bursts of connectivity and hidden tools… people prepare messages in advance and try sending them when something briefly connects.”

Protestors with smoke and Iranian flags. — Anadolu via Getty Images

Same as it ever was

The term “blackout” can be misleading, as it implies that the connection was up to the mark in the first place.

The Iranian people were on the receiving end of enforced outages in 2019, in response to horrendous fuel-price increases, which, according to Amnesty International, means a veil to hide the numbers of unlawful killings.

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Then, in autumn 2022, following a protest against the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested and beaten for not wearing a hijab, an internet curfew was enforced, in which internet shutdowns happened in the afternoons and evenings, particularly in the Kurdistan region in western Iran.

“The overall experience is that nothing is stable or trustworthy, and hasn’t been for years and years,” explained our informant.

People standing on the Iranian flag out of solidarity. — Nurphoto via Getty Images

Blackout’s human cost

Despite the persistence of internet crackdowns, the weight of the current communication blockade feels much weightier.

This shutdown feels heavier: more fatigue, more resignation mixed with anger, and a deeper sense that isolation itself is being used as pressure.
an unnamed source told Cybernews.

And it’s the fine-grained targeting of isolating the protesters that has become more advanced at this stage.

“The shutdown feels more granular and more sophisticated; not just 'on/off,' but selectively choking, slowing, or destabilizing connections in ways that are harder to work around.”