How Iran Used War With Israel To Stress Test Its Chinese-Style Internet Controls

-Analysis-

When rockets began raining down on Tehran the night of June 13, and open military conflict between Israel and Iran erupted, it wasn’t just the skies that went dark. Almost immediately, internet speeds in Iran dropped sharply. Access to already-blocked platforms and websites became even more restricted. Then, on June 18, the government cut off nearly all connections to the outside world. For 72 hours, 91 million people were plunged into a digital void: no WhatsApp, no Google, no email, no VPN, no way to reach beyond the country’s borders.

It was the most severe internet blackout in the history of the Islamic Republic, and full access still hasn’t been restored. At present, network connectivity remains at just 20% of normal levels. NetBlocks, the organization that tracks global internet disruptions, reported almost no data traffic flowing between Iran and other countries between June 18 and June 21. Not even during past crackdowns, like the November 2019 protests or the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, was the digital shutdown so complete. Back then, at least some inbound data traffic still trickled through.

Officially, Iran’s Ministry of Communications claimed the blackout was a defensive move, designed to shield the population from Israeli cyberattacks. And there had indeed been attacks in the days leading up to it, targeting banks, government servers, and military infrastructure.

The cyber war between Iran and Israel, however, didn’t start last week. It goes back much further.

A “National Internet” megaproject

One early turning point came in 2010, when the Stuxnet virus sabotaged Iranian centrifuges in the Natanz nuclear facility, setting back the country’s atomic program by years. In response, Tehran’s leadership began working to safeguard its digital infrastructure from outside attacks.

That’s when the so-called “National Internet” megaproject was born. At its core, the plan is to build a nationwide intranet, cut off from the rest of the world. The idea is that the government can flip the switch whenever it sees fit. Some observers now fear that what was meant to be an emergency measure could become the new normal. The system was first deployed during the 2019 protests, not just to block demonstrators from organizing but also to stop videos and photos from spreading. The blackout ended up lasting longer than the unrest itself, likely to stress-test the system and find weak spots.

Worldcrunch 🗞 Extra!

Know more • Iran’s digital crackdown is just one part of a broader surge in repression in recent days by the authorities in Tehran. Since the onset of the war with Israel on June 13, Iranian authorities have intensified internal security measures, carrying out mass arrests, executions, and military deployments — especially in the Kurdish regions.

On Wednesday, the Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA) news agency, reported that at least 823 people had been arrested on political or security charges in the previous 12 days alone — 286 of them for online activity related to the Israeli attack on Iran.

The Times of Israel, citing slightly lower figures from Fars News — a media outlet affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — reported 700 people in the same time span, over alleged ties to Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran’s judiciary-run Mizan news agency announced on Wednesday that three individuals accused of collaborating with Israel had been executed by hanging. — Bertrand Hauger (read more about the Worldcrunch method here).

“Since 2019, all international traffic has been routed through a single hub,” says Azadeh Akbari, Assistant Professor of Digital Transformation at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. “The state has completely centralized the infrastructure. It makes surveillance easier and serves as a show of authoritarian power.”

Three checkmarks: one for the sender, one for the recipient, and one for the guy reading over your shoulder.

The National Internet was largely developed under former Communications Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, a one-time intelligence officer. The idea was to create a self-contained infrastructure, complete with domestic search engines, messaging apps, email services, and online banking, modeled on China’s system.

This network has now been reactivated. For the most part, it’s still running. Iran has homegrown alternatives to nearly every major online service, from a ride-hailing app to its own version of Amazon. But one thing is notably absent: social media and messaging platforms. Iranian alternatives do exist, but hardly anyone trusts them.

As a common joke goes: “Iranian messengers have three checkmarks: one for the sender, one for the recipient, and one for the guy reading over your shoulder.” Many Iranians would rather stay out of touch for days than risk using those apps. Even when the government announced on June 19 that foreign numbers could now be registered, supposedly to let people abroad contact loved ones inside Iran, few people took the offer seriously.

A 72-hour blackout

While the government pitches the shutdown as a protective measure, many people experience it as a terrifying loss of control. In brief conversations with those who’ve managed to get online, one word keeps coming up: “powerlessness.” For Iranians abroad, the 72-hour blackout meant total silence from family members, just as bombs were falling.

For the first time, even telephone lines were restricted. Calls from foreign numbers to Iranian phones were blocked, cutting off what was often the last reliable line of communication. While the Israeli bombs and missiles were striking, that silence caused widespread panic.

From a strategic standpoint, shutting off the internet may have made sense. Reports suggest that high-ranking officers were located and killed using the GPS data from their phones. Akbari, who specializes in digital surveillance, suspects the regime may have used the total blackout to move Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to a safe location. Israel’s Defense Minister had openly threatened to target him.

Trust in state media is virtually nonexistent.

But this digital blackout didn’t just sever family ties. It stripped civil society of its most vital tools in an instant. Despite years of war rhetoric, the government had no warning system in place for missile attacks, something that was standard even during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. In the early days of the conflict, it was civil society that stepped in, using Telegram channels and Twitter accounts to share air raid alerts. That too disappeared when the shutdown took full effect.

Iran ranks near the bottom (176 out of 180) in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index. Trust in state media is virtually nonexistent, and the national broadcaster is seen as a mouthpiece for propaganda. The war was barely covered, with most airtime dedicated to boasting about supposed victories over Israel. In that vacuum, independent news outlets and social media often serve as the only real sources of information. Without access to them, the public is left completely in the dark.

Some government offices, however, managed to stay online. This was discovered by internet activist Mark Pashmforoush and his team, who have been working on digital freedom tools since the 2019 shutdown. He developed a VPN service called Oblivion. According to his findings, some government agencies began selling VPNs at inflated prices during the blackout. But these connections were under state control. Anyone who used them became traceable, and therefore, vulnerable. A double win for the surveillance state.

False hope in Starlink

Many have pinned their hopes on Elon Musk’s satellite internet system, Starlink. But this, too, has proven misleading. “Starlink is not legally authorized in Iran,” says Pashmforoush. “Right now, about 30,000 receivers are active in the country, but the price has shot up to around $3,000 per device.” Before the war, they went for about $850. On top of that comes a monthly fee of roughly $100, a steep price for most Iranians.

The risks are just as high. Starlink hardware must be smuggled in, dodging countless checkpoints along the way. Using it can lead to espionage charges in kangaroo courts. In the worst cases, it could result in the death penalty. Even forgetting to turn on a VPN when logging into a government website could make a user identifiable. The fear of being tracked is real.

And yet, the need to connect to the outside world is stronger. Pashmforoush, who monitors Telegram groups dedicated to Starlink sales, has seen demand steadily rising.

The so-called war-related shutdown, along with the entire National Internet project, is being marketed by the state as a show of “digital sovereignty.” In reality, it targets the very digital spaces that hold society together, says Azadeh Akbari. Having once been a women’s rights activist in Iran, she is intimately familiar with the government’s methods. What she sees now is a shift from digital authoritarianism to full-blown digital totalitarianism.

“The digital sphere is just an extension of social life,” Akbari says. “Cutting it off destroys support networks, neighborhood bonds, grassroots organizing: everything that keeps a society functioning during a crisis.”