How Iran shut down the internet and built a sophisticated system of digital control
Published: January 29, 2026 3.58pm GMT
Author
- Gemma WareHost, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Interviewed
- Amin NaeniPhD Candidate in International Relations, Deakin University; Dublin City University
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Amin Naeni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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On January 8, as thousands of Iranians took to the streets in nationwide protests, the government cut off the internet.
Under cover of digital darkness, the Iranian regime launched a brutal and deadly crackdown against anti-government protesters. What information has got out, including testimony from morgues, graveyards and doctors who treated the injured, suggests thousands of people have been killed.
Iran has shutdown the global internet before, but never for this long. Without the internet, trading has slumped. Many entrepreneurs who rely on Instagram to do business can’t post. Lorry drivers are struggling to cross borders because they can’t access digital documents. By some estimates, internet shutdown can cost more than US$37 million a day.
Read more: Iran’s latest internet blackout extends to phones and Starlink
After three weeks of internet blackout, reports from web traffic monitor Netblocks suggest that the internet is slowly coming back online but the connection is predominantly for government-approved users.
Our mission is to share knowledge and inform decisions.
Yet for most of the shutdown, banks and some local government websites and apps still worked. And that’s because Iran is developing its own, national internet, cut off from the rest of the world.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Amin Naeni, a PhD candidate researching digital authoritarianism at Deakin University in Australia, about how Iran built one of the world’s most sophisticated systems of digital control.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer.
Newsclips in this episode from The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, DW News, CNA, CBS News, CNN, CBC News and BBC News.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.
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