Iran’s Other Front: The War Over the Internet

War on the Rocks published an analysis titled “Iran’s Other Front: The War Over the Internet” on the state of internet access in Iran.

Its central argument is that free internet access in Iran has for years been administered as a state privilege rather than as public infrastructure. The analysis draws an important distinction: the strikes came from the government's adversaries and were aimed at military installations and leadership, while the internet blackout was the government's own decision and was aimed at the Iranian people. The authors note that internet traffic collapsed by roughly 98 percent about four hours after the strikes began.

This analysis speaks to a less visible part of our work: reachability. During shutdowns and filtering, getting information to people is as hard as collecting it, and a large share of this project's engineering goes into exactly that problem.

Read the full analysis at War on the Rocks →

Our own guide for shutdown conditions: what to do during an internet shutdown. To install the app see Download.