Iran’s internet goes dark amid mass protests, reports of violent government response

The authors of a hypothetical manual containing procedures repressive governments can use to stay in power despite restive populations would surely devote its first chapter to turning off the internet, an action the government of Iran appears to have taken in the last 24 hours.

According to NetBlocks, network connectivity in Iran dropped to almost zero on January 8th.

“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.”

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