Iran's Internet Shutdown Is Now One of the Longest Ever (techcrunch.com) 121
Iran has imposed one of the longest nationwide internet shutdowns in its history, cutting more than 92 million people off from connectivity for over a week as mass anti-government protests continue. TechCrunch reports: As of this writing, Iranians have not been able to access the internet for more than 170 hours. The previous longest shutdowns in the country lasted around 163 hours in 2019, and 160 hours in 2025, according to Isik Mater, the director of research at NetBlocks, a web monitoring company that tracks internet disruptions.
Mater said that the current shutdown in Iran is the third longest on record, after the internet shutdown in Sudan in mid-2021 that lasted around 35 days, followed by the outage in Mauritania in July 2024, which lasted 22 days. "Iran's shutdowns remain among the most comprehensive and tightly enforced nationwide blackouts we've observed, particularly in terms of population affected," Mater told TechCrunch.
The exact ranking depends on how each organization measures a shutdown. Zach Rosson, a researcher who studies internet disruptions at the digital rights nonprofit Access Now, told TechCrunch that according to its data, the ongoing shutdown in Iran is on a path to crack the top 10 longest shutdowns in history. Further reading: Iran Shuts Down Musk's Starlink For First Time
Mater said that the current shutdown in Iran is the third longest on record, after the internet shutdown in Sudan in mid-2021 that lasted around 35 days, followed by the outage in Mauritania in July 2024, which lasted 22 days. "Iran's shutdowns remain among the most comprehensive and tightly enforced nationwide blackouts we've observed, particularly in terms of population affected," Mater told TechCrunch.
The exact ranking depends on how each organization measures a shutdown. Zach Rosson, a researcher who studies internet disruptions at the digital rights nonprofit Access Now, told TechCrunch that according to its data, the ongoing shutdown in Iran is on a path to crack the top 10 longest shutdowns in history. Further reading: Iran Shuts Down Musk's Starlink For First Time
They have actual water shortages (Score:2, Interesting)
The world has been trying to goad Iran into a war for some time. Large parts of the Middle East are hoping that they can draw America in and have us exterminate everyone there for them. Given that we are literally talking about invading a NATO Nation that's on the table now.
I mean Germany put trigger troops into Greenland for Pete's sakes. I don't think there's anything
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Re: They have actual water shortages (Score:4, Interesting)
you are confused.
It was USA who sponsored terrorist attacks in Iran in the 1950s; we drew first blood.
The CIA and MI6 definitely engineered the coup via a variety of the ususl methods - mostly for cold-war calculus anti-communist reasons but also for economic reasons (oil) - but the USA didn’t sponsor terrorist attacks unless you call the coup itself a “terrorist attack”, which is misleading.
Ironically, the west also, at least peripherally, helped install Khomeini - the NYT glazed him, France gave him asylum, the Carter administration engaged in secret contacts with Khomeini’s entourage to smooth the nascent coup, and prominent leftists like Foucault went to Iran to meet his socialist supporters. (Foucault, by the way, became a towering hero in the left’s Critical Theory canon, although he himself wasn’t a fan of CT.)
Of course Khomeini and more so his immediate successor Khamenei had these socialists rounded up, but such co-opting has been the inevitable fate of virtually every major socialist revolutionary movement. Socialist revolutionaries routinely reject classical liberalism (decentralized governance, blind justice, etc) so they’re pretty easily conscripted by folks that reject the same.
This goes to show meddling is just an overall bad idea.
Re: They have actual water shortages (Score:5, Interesting)
you are confused.
It was USA who sponsored terrorist attacks in Iran in the 1950s; we drew first blood.
The CIA and MI6 definitely engineered the coup via a variety of the ususl methods - mostly for cold-war calculus anti-communist reasons but also for economic reasons (oil) - but the USA didn’t sponsor terrorist attacks unless you call the coup itself a “terrorist attack”, which is misleading.
Ironically, the west also, at least peripherally, helped install Khomeini - the NYT glazed him, France gave him asylum, the Carter administration engaged in secret contacts with Khomeini’s entourage to smooth the nascent coup, and prominent leftists like Foucault went to Iran to meet his socialist supporters. (Foucault, by the way, became a towering hero in the left’s Critical Theory canon, although he himself wasn’t a fan of CT.)
Of course Khomeini and more so his immediate successor Khamenei had these socialists rounded up, but such co-opting has been the inevitable fate of virtually every major socialist revolutionary movement. Socialist revolutionaries routinely reject classical liberalism (decentralized governance, blind justice, etc) so they’re pretty easily conscripted by folks that reject the same.
This goes to show meddling is just an overall bad idea.
Taking this a step further, there’s an ongoing double irony.
First, many of the recent mass protests in Iran call for reinstatement of the deposed shah’s son - largely because they’re tired of the Khamenei government, including its domestic and foreign policy as well its brutal nature - but also because the shah’s son is a bookish fan of secular classical liberal principles.
Second, those very same secular classical liberal principles may explain a bit of the uncharacteristic relative silence of the mainstream media about how to respond to the protests - as too many in the media think classical liberalism is a problematic artifact of colonialism (these fans of the same critical theory I touched on earlier!) - some of them even call to leave Khamenei in place.
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However, the current government of Iran is not a good government for many reasons. Few people disagree.
If the people of Iran want to overthrow the government, America morally, ethically, and rationally should support the people of Iran.
Should we intervene? (Score:2)
Agreed. Though the question is should that moral, ethical and rational support translate into material support? Particularly given the burnout a major percentage of the country is feeling at foreign interventions over the last 20 years. Or should we just remain quiet about it and not say anything?
I wouldn't have faulted the president had he chosen to say nothing, beyond observing that it is an internal affair of Iran. I do note that many Iranian commentators on YouTube are faulting Obama and Biden for
Mossadegh is ancient (Score:1)
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That is about the dumbest thing I have read from you in a while, which is saying something. Not many player in the middle east want armed conflict with Iran happening or for Iran to slip into failed state status.
Not even Israel, Iran's mortal enemy want that. Even they are pumping the breaks. Why because that is a lot of weapons military hardware and bettered trained fighting men who would suddenly seeking power or simply selling the stuff to whoever to enrich themselves. It is mixture of Islamic zealots
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Not even Israel, Iran's mortal enemy want that.
i disagree here, iran descending into chaos like syria is exactly what israel wants if it can't get the better option: iran as a remote controlled puppet state, which seems highly unlikely. a fragmented failed state is manageable. the last thing they want is a stable, unified, sovereign iran they can't control. that's exactly why they did to syria what they did, iran is just the final boss.
and when i say israel i mean israel and some shady powers mostly in the uk and the us. the proverbial colonialist gang.
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i disagree here, iran descending into chaos like syria is exactly what israel wants if it can't get the better option: iran as a remote controlled puppet state, which seems highly unlikely. a fragmented failed state is manageable. the last thing they want is a stable, unified, sovereign iran they can't control. that's exactly why they did to syria what they did, iran is just the final boss.
and when i say israel i mean israel and some shady powers mostly in the uk and the us. the proverbial colonialist gang.
You have no concept of the region at all. Iran is not Syria. They aren't even Arab. And 250k people of Iranian descent live in Israel now, which is a sizable portion of a country with only 9 million people altogether. The people of Iran and the people of Israel are friendly, to the point that you often see Israeli flags and the old Iranian lion and sun flag displayed together at ex-pat events.
If Israel wanted chaos in Iran they could certainly have achieved that. They didn't have any problem at all taking
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Why stop and leave after you win if your desire is to make a mess?
because they ran out of patriots and slings and whatnot and were getting thoroughly pounded? btw, they never had "air superiority". for all israel loves to flood the media with their military prowess there is exactly one single video of an israeli jet over iranian air space ... off the coast. most of the strikes on iran came from units inside long before infiltrated, from drones and from the borders. and yes, definitely, the initial "surprise" attack was quite successful and the goal was to wreck iran and s
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btw, they never had "air superiority".
You need to turn your brain on.
The Arab problems (Score:2)
In the context of Iran, there is a problem w/ the Arabs. Not the Khuzestani Arabs, who have lived in southwest Iran forever, but the Arabs of other countries, particularly shi'a Arabs backing up this regime. Previously it used to be Hizbullah, but they got decimated by Israel 2 years ago. So now it's shi'a militias in Iraq, like Kataeb Hizbullah and the Badr Brigades of Moqtada al Sadr. A lot of Iranians point out that many IRGC members speak Arabic, not Farsi among themselves, proving that they are fro
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particularly shi'a Arabs backing up this regime.
the vast majority of the population is backing the government. from what i hear the last demonstration was about 3 million people and was pro government. from someone who was actually there, demonstrating, and is not of arab ancestry. there is no doubt a lot in their government that they don't like, and i bet they bitch about it all day long. also, iranian society appears to be slowly becoming more secular. but when other powers go to any length to wreck your country for decades, from sanctions to assasinat
The dumbest alliance (Score:2)
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As the above poster noted, that claim has no basis. If that was really the situation, there would have been huge counter-protests and riots on the streets. But the uprising has been national, in all 31 provinces, and involving all ethnic groups of Iran - Farsis, Kurds, Balochis, Azeris, Arabs and Turkmen. Not just that, they are shouting and singing Pahlavi slogans and songs
Not "slo
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As the above poster noted, that claim has no basis.
yeah because a poll sponsored by a "freedom fighting" vpn service located in california and sponsored by wapo and wsj, echoed by an "analysis group" in netherlands mentored by an academic in exile in london (no less) is surely a very credible source. on this subject no less! this is just comical. ok, it is a datapoint, pretty laughable but still a data point except ... it doesn't really suggest what you think it does.
the info i'm considering is from people actually there, on the ground, people i deem trusta
Iranian opinion (Score:2)
The poll was done by an Iranian group in Iran, and had an unusually large sample size of 30k people from all over that country. The only reason a VPN had to be used was to prevent repercussions from the regime. All of these people, be it in California or the Netherlands are Iranian exiles, who are in touch w/ relatives within Iran, so they know what they are talking about
Neither of us are trying to convince the other: we are trying to convince other people who read these. You've already shown yourself
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we are trying to convince other people who read these.
not me! that would be a rather futile endeavor. the overwhelming majority of people posting here these days has very strong preconceptions in general and in these issues in particular much more so and overwhelmingly one-sided. even about purely technical issues discussions tend to be short, antagonistic and sour. maybe that's precisely why i keep posting here. my aim is not to convince, not even lurkers. it's rather a mix of trolling, just letting out my thoughts, putting them in order and my views to test
Russia different (Score:2)
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Israel wants Khamenei gone (Score:2)
This is horsemanure. Israel very much wants this regime to fall. Only reason they're not doing it themselves is that Trump is a sanctimonious narcissist still trying to win the Nobel prize, and last time, threatened them if they went ahead w/ it
Israel has been in close touch w/ Reza Pahlavi, and know what his plans are for his country, which include normalizing relations w/ Jerusalem. There is nothing they'd want more
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Re:They have actual water shortages (Score:4, Interesting)
The last thing the stable states in the region UAE, Saudis, Kuwait, Oman, Turky want is Iran turning into a Iraq, Syria like mess.
The last thing they want is a stable prosperous wealthy Iran.
An unstable mess they can point to and blame their internal problems on. Excuse their own "badness"
None of them want a country better than them sucking up all the tourist dollars and business deals in the region.
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The last thing they want is a stable prosperous wealthy Iran.
An unstable mess they can point to and blame their internal problems on. Excuse their own "badness"
None of them want a country better than them sucking up all the tourist dollars and business deals in the region.
True, but I think what they really, really don't want is free flowing Iranian oil. The "evil regime that gets heavy sanctions" status quo is very agreeable to them because it appreciates the value of their one major asset.
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That's the simplistic and obvious version yes. I was trying to show it's much broader and deeper than just oil.
America and Venezuela have enough oil to practically set the price anyway. America is the largest producer, and Venezuela has the largest reserves.
They also don't want a much freer country on their doorsteps with their own people asking why they can't be like that.
If managed properly and a friend to the West, Iran could be literally better than them at everything. Of course they don't want that.
Arab designs on Iran (Score:2)
Yeah, the most charitable view one can take of the Arab regimes is that they want Iran to remain a pariah state, so that oil prices remain stable. Otherwise, once Iran normalizes and there is no longer a need to maintain sanctions, Iranian oil will be available to all the same markets, thereby dragging down oil prices. Incidentally, while on that topic, Iran needs to withdraw from OPEC and do its own thing, given the state of its economy
Also, if Iran normalizes, then as a de-facto non-muslim country (as
islamic republic is the failed state (Score:1)
Except that Iran risks being a failed state w/ its current leadership. If this regime fell, there is already a Pahlavi transition plan to make Iran a secular democracy, and normalize relations w/ all countries, particularly in the neighborhood. At that point, sanctions on Iran can be unanimously lifted, and the new government can use that money to solve the environmental and water crises, as well as rebuild the country. Only losers would be the Houthis: Hizbullah is already almost finished
US involvemen
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The myth arises to match the power that exists.
shi'a not Iranian (Score:2)
Actually, that's a very dated understanding of Iranians. 6 years ago, an Iranian organization called GAMAAN did a survey of religious attitudes [gamaan.org] in Iran. What they found out was that only 32% of Iranians are shi'a, while the rest have meandered to a range of alternatives, from Atheist to Zoroastrian. Note that this was then: some people estimate that today, the number of muslims in Iran are just 20%
Also, shi'a islam is not an Iranian religion. First of all, there are different sub-sects within shi'a, s
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I have seen a few Iranian commentators note that Iranians are the most islamophobic people in the world. After this regime collapses, hopefully Iran will become an islam-free zone, w/ Zoroastrianism, Atheism and Agnosticism bringing up the top 3
That would be interesting.
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Food too. That's where the revolution is coming from. You have people that are facing imminent starvation or just plain dehydration.
That's one reason the revolution is happening. There are a lot of reasons to hate the Iranian government, among them the censorship that results in shutting off the internet.
sick of islam (Score:2)
It's way more than that (Score:2)
The water & food shortages may have been the ignition point, but antipathy towards the regime has been long standing. Even before this, there were the Mahsa Amini protests throughout the country in 2022, which were crushed w/ the support of Hizbullah militias. People have been resentful about the regime spending billions to arm Hizbullah, the Houthis and Hamas, instead of working on problems like the water shortages or unemployment. People on the streets aren't demanding the solution to these problem
Bluff (Score:2)
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Trump has plenty of will to follow thru once Hegseth, Miller, or Rubio determine who/what they could drop a bomb on Trump will gleefully give the order to let fly.
The challenge for the war department right now is to support an urban uprising with an air/missile campaign.
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It's not that hard. What they have to do is
Once that's done, the Iranian people can handle it w/ minimal casualties
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> Find out in which cities massacres have been taking place by the IRGC/Basij. Bomb IRGC bases in those cities and destroy arms depots
Once those current security forces have been stopped ...
> Once that's done, the Iranian people can handle it w/ minimal casualties
Who more specifically will handle what, and how?
I'm really curious
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> Pahlavi already has a transition team to handle all that ... These are Iranians who know their turf and have thought things through
Maybe bombing some of the government forces would change their current loyalty. But overall I'm not sure you're reading the situation right.
Notwithstanding the usual biases and childishness of the channel, and though none of it may be news to you, you might find this interview with Trita Parsi interesting:
A Closer Look At The Iran Protests - https://www.youtube.com/watch?.. [youtube.com]
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I wasn't suggesting bombing the government forces themselves, since a lot of them are still trying to work out which side to support. I suggested destroying their weapons depots in places where the massacres have been at the worst
I have heard Trita Parsi's name mentioned, and those Iranian resistance channels regard him as a sock-puppet of the islamic regime, and as a traitor to Iran
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> I have heard Trita Parsi's name mentioned, and those Iranian resistance channels regard him as a sock-puppet of the islamic regime, and as a traitor to Iran
Well yeah, there are resistance groups in Iran, and while some say things like Parsi's a western mouth piece, others say he supports Khamenei because he's mostly opposed to sanctions.
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Trump bluffed without having the will to follow through. I'm not saying he should follow through, I'm saying he shouldn't have bluffed.
he probably had to, to keep his zionist friends from ripping his guts out. and he's probably not bluffing who we may think he is, but it's still a show: fill the headlines with outrageous statements or put up spectacular fireworks and proclaim victory and obliteration knowing that it isn't going anywhere, but he tried, then on to the next thing: yemen, iran, venezuela, iran again ... it's starting to look like a modus operandi now. ofc in every case there are surely more subtle motives, actors and factors a
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Quickly znrt, tell us all how it's a good thing Iran has no internet.
tell me how desperate regular iranian citizens that hardly can buy food got their hands on tens of thousands of starlink terminals, under strict sanctions?
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Let's get this straight. It's not the Iranians killing their own people by the thousands, and then blocking the Internet to cover it up who are the bad guys.
But it's the Iranians with Starlink terminals who are?
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Trump bluffed without having the will to follow through. I'm not saying he should follow through, I'm saying he shouldn't have bluffed.
We don't know if it's a bluff until the game is over. This isn't finished yet.
Trump just bought time for more assets to be put in place for a decisive result.
If Iran backs down. It's because Trump forced them to. Great optics for Trump, the only thing he really cares about.
If Iran escalates further. Well Trump gave them a chance for peace and they blew it. Good optics for Trump, the only thing he really cares about.
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How in the world did Iran "escalate"? They didn't genuflect to the senile orangutan? They didn't accept Israel as their overlord? They don't acknowledge that the only allowed currency for international transactions is the Almighty Dollar? Tell me about these "escalations" which allow the violation of their sovereignty, I'm intrigued.
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How in the world did Iran "escalate"?
You can't be serious can you?
Iran massacre [google.com]
Unless you consider Iran massacring thousands of its own people standard procedure and not an escalation?
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So I suppose in your morality that La Migra murdering people with impunity gives Canada the right to invade?
By the way, most if not all of the "massacres" are inventions of the US propaganda industry.
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By the way, most if not all of the "massacres" are inventions of the US propaganda industry.
So you're not at all serious, got it.
There are no massacres, its US propaganda. Someone tripped over and accidently unplugged the Internet.
I'm sure as soon as all the blood has been washed from the streets they'll figure out how to plug it back in and show everyone nothing at all happened. Sure is taking a long time though...must have been a lot of blood...
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Crucial missing context - why? (Score:4, Informative)
Contrary to the summary, the mass protests are not really continuing at this point. The Iranian regime has killed anywhere from several thousand to several tens of thousands of protesters - open fire with machine guns into crowds, setting markets on fire and shooting people as they tried to escape, sniping from rooftops - and that's been ruthless enough that people are now afraid to go out in most places. The streets are generally deserted. (Even groups of two have been enough to get shot in some places.)
So why is the internet still blocked?
Doubtless a number of reasons, but part of it is the Iranians have been using the internet to share videos of the massacres, of the bodies, of the armed militia patrolling the streets, and plea for help. A revealing component is that the government forces have been going door-to-door confiscating satellite equipment and arresting people in possession of Starlink. Especially given their Russian jamming equipment, those devices are not being used to effectively coordinate protests. But they *are* letting civilians fire off odd messages saying what has been happening.
In particular, the regime has upward of ten thousand additional protesters who are presently arrested, and the Iranian justice minister has declared they will be executed. Those executions were supposed to start yesterday. Allegedly, the regime is holding back after threats of outside response, but the suspicion inside Iran is that they are choosing to perform those killings more quietly.
Unfortunately the blackout strategy is highly effective. The reports of extraordinary brutality and atrocities come across as extraordinary claims, for which Western journalists therefore want significant evidence, but with rare exceptions the Iranians can only get out occasional short messages. Meanwhile the IRGC and Basij are busy doing all the things their leaders are equally busy promising that they aren't doing.
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The reports of extraordinary brutality and atrocities come across as extraordinary claims, for which Western journalists therefore want significant evidence,
The killings have been widely reported.
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By the time you shoot at your own people with machine guns, and no, sniper rifles won't kill thousands of people in so few days, the economy is about the least of your concerns. I assume, that the monsters committing these crimes are well fed and have all the water they need, even if Iranian economy shuts down completely.
The situation in Iran has moved from "murderous fascist dictatorship a la Chile" to "completely nuts like Sudan".
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How backward of them. Here in the free west, the people are so disillusioned that no amount of ability to organise, readily available guns, evidence of government malfeasance can make a dent in their desire to do nothing at all.
I mean, here in the free west - our democratically elected leaders have more respect for their citizens. Ahem.
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