Iran's internet goes dark amid mass protests

""Live metrics show Iran is now in the midst of a nationwide internet blackout; the incident follows a series of escalating digital censorship measures targeting protests across the country and hinders the public's right to communicate at a critical moment," the organization wrote, later updating its analysis to suggest the outage has persisted for at least twelve hours and saw "connectivity flatlining at ~1% of ordinary levels.""

"Numerous news reports assert Iran's government imposed the outages to make it harder for citizens to communicate, amid massive anti-government protests across the country. Cutting off internet access also means it will be harder for Iranians to share footage of the reportedly violent government response to protests. Iran's government has cut off the internet before. In 2019 it imposed a ban to quell protests, and in 2025 the purpose of a country-wide outage was preventing cyber-attacks a few days before joint US/Israeli missile strikes on Iran."

Iran's internet connectivity dropped to almost zero beginning January 8th, with NetBlocks reporting connectivity flatlining at ~1% of ordinary levels. Cloudflare's Radar recorded traffic falling nearly 90% within 30 minutes and classified the outage as government-directed. The blackout follows escalating digital censorship measures targeting widespread anti-government protests. Cutting internet access has hindered citizens' ability to communicate and to share footage of the reportedly violent government response. Iran previously implemented nationwide outages in 2019 and 2025 for protest control and alleged cyber-attack prevention. NetBlocks also reported major disruptions in Belgorod, and declines in connectivity in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Read at Theregister