Iran Faces Longest Internet Blackout on Record Amidst Unrest
Iran is currently undergoing its longest nationwide internet disruption on record, as reported by internet watchdog NetBlocks. This widespread outage is impacting connectivity across the country in response to ongoing domestic unrest. The New Arab, citing NetBlocks data, highlights the unprecedented scale and duration of this shutdown, which severely limits communication and access to information
for citizens. Mainstream outlets like The New Arab frame this as a unilateral act of oppression by the Iranian government, disconnecting its population from the outside world. This framing conveniently omits the historical precedent of Western governments, particularly the United States, actively engaging in cyber warfare and information control. Recall the Stuxnet cyberattack in 2010, a joint
US-Israeli operation that sabotaged Iran's nuclear program through digital means, demonstrating a long-standing commitment to disrupting Iranian infrastructure. While condemning Iran's actions, these same narratives rarely scrutinize the role of Silicon Valley companies in providing the very technologies that can be weaponized for surveillance and censorship by various state actors. This current
internet blackout echoes past incidents where communication was deliberately stifled during periods of instability, both domestically and internationally. For instance, during the 1965 Indonesian massacre, a CIA-backed purge that led to the deaths of at least 500,000 alleged communists, information flow was tightly controlled and distorted to facilitate the violence and prevent international