Iran’s internet is one of the worst in the world, and the culprit appears to be the increased censorship implemented by President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration.
The Tehran Electronic Commerce Association’s recent research depicts a bleak scenario of blocked websites, everyday disruptions, reduced speeds, and IP address filtering saturation.
Experts criticize the President’s and Iranian officials’ lack of information for this “self-inflicted” crisis. Iran is leading the way for global internet disruptions, forcing individuals to rely heavily on VPN services and other circumvention techniques to get critical information online.
Leader of internet restrictions
Azam Jangravi, an Information Security Analyst at Citizen Lab, commented on the findings, saying: “Iran has one of the most restrictive internet environments in the world, blocking access to many popular websites and social media platforms, as well as surveilling and filtering online content.”
According to an analysis conducted by the Tehran Electronic Commerce Association—an independent agency that monitors and evaluates the internet situation in Iran—nearly half of all Iranian websites experienced some type of disruption in the previous nine months.
Experts also documented daily internet failures, particularly “occurring between 5pm and 11pm.” These appear to be a byproduct of new filtering equipment in the domestic network, resulting in functional disturbances and CPU overload.
All of this places Iran in the bottom 50 countries for internet quality, alongside some of the poorest and least developed nations. However, in Iran’s case, experts believe the government is to blame because “these conditions are self-inflicted.”
The research underlines the President’s role in worsening internet connectivity by increasing censorship. Even worse, due to a lack of technological understanding, Iranian officials allegedly applied indiscriminate IP blocking without presenting specific justifications.
Not only have Iranian authorities been restricting websites and slowing bandwidth, but they have also been shutting down the internet, particularly during times of political unrest such as the protests in 2019 and 2022.
According to statistics collected by VPN company Surfshark, Iran was the leading cause of internet shutdowns in the first half of 2023. Since the end of 2022, there have been weekly internet interruptions during Friday prayers in the Zahedan region.
According to Jangravi, this track record illustrates “the government’s willingness to cut off the internet entirely in times of crisis, leaving citizens in the dark and vulnerable”.
