"Weeks after the uprising in Iran turned violent, no one has been able to count the dead. The state has yet to lift the internet shutdown it launched on January 8, making the information blackout the longest and most severe one that Iranians have ever experienced. More than 90 million citizens have no internet access, which has made it impossible to know the true extent of the government's violence against protesters."
"The few images that have leaked out, via Starlink-satellite connections or people who have left the country, reveal a brutal crackdown that has left thousands dead. "They are killing us. It's carnage," a friend in Iran wrote when she finally reached me through WhatsApp on January 17. Fellow Iranians in the diaspora tell me that they have received similar messages."
"For more than two decades, Iranians have used the internet, social media, and satellite-TV technology to build a vibrant public sphere beyond the strict regulatory parameters of the state. In everyday acts of posting and circulating non-state-aligned content, Iranians have normalized all that the regime forbids, including poetry readings, impromptu street concerts, and images of parents mourning children killed in protests."
Iran's prolonged internet shutdown, launched January 8, has cut access for more than 90 million people and produced an unprecedented information blackout. Limited images and messages that leak via satellite or migrants show a brutal crackdown that has left thousands dead, and survivors report mass killings. The communication void has immobilized people inside and outside Iran and disrupted a two-decade alternative media sphere built with internet, social media, and satellite TV. That media sphere normalized forbidden public expression through poetry readings, concerts, and images of grieving parents. Concern persists that restored services will be subject to harsher state control.
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