Internet connectivity collapsed across Iran on Thursday amid nationwide protests, according to web monitoring firms. Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity researcher, stated that the country is at a near-total disconnection from the outside world.
Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis at Kentik, concurred, noting that Iran’s internet has been in a near-total blackout since around 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, which is 8 p.m. local time in Tehran. A chart from the firm illustrated the sudden drop in internet traffic at that hour.
Other monitoring organizations, including NetBlocks, Cloudflare, and the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis project, all registered sudden and severe drops in connectivity across Iran simultaneously. David Belson of Cloudflare reported that while a small amount of traffic remains, the country is effectively completely offline.
These protests follow earlier unrest that erupted at the end of December in several Iranian cities. That wave of demonstrations was triggered by a sharp drop in the value of the country’s currency, which prompted shortages of goods and dramatic price spikes. Some shops in Tehran’s traditional bazaar have reportedly been closed for eleven days.
The Iranian government has responded to the protests with a violent crackdown. According to researcher Amir Rashidi, the government, which maintains tight control over internet access, is behind the current internet blackout. Representatives for the Iranian government in the United States did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Iranian Foreign Ministry’s website was also down at the time of publication.