The Great Iron Wall of Iran?

There has always been a correlation between technological advances and social and political change: Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press fueled the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the 1500s, and, from his exile in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini famously used cassette tape recordings of his sermons to mobilize the Iranian public against the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the 1970s. The internet too has revolutionary potential, which explains the Islamic Republic’s systematic efforts to curtail and control it since Iran was connected to it in 1993. In the face of ongoing protests in Iran, the regime appears inclined to impose further restrictions on the general public’s access to the internet, which, according to Iranian observers, may provoke further protests. 

• January 1: Under the headline “Are We Good at Becoming Chinese?” Saeed Arkanzadeh Yazdi, a journalist and an information technology specialist, wrote in the reformist Etemad newspaper: “Internet connectivity in Iran is getting harder by the day. Unfiltered parts of the internet are shrinking … VPNs too are no longer helpful … and connectivity appears much harder in the provinces than in Tehran.” The columnist suggested the internet in Iran is likely to follow a pattern currently seen in China: “Since the passing of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, Iran has experienced a combination of an iron wall and class-based internet … meaning certain individuals or classes of society, who possess the necessary qualifications, will have access to a state-authorized VPN through which they can connect to the internet, leaving the majority of the population cut off from the internet.” However, Arkanzadeh Yazdi also pointed at technical limitations of government restriction of the internet: “There are those who argue technology cannot be restricted … just as video tapes and satellite transmitted television were both prohibited in Iran … yet both spread to all homes in Iran.” However, should the Islamic Republic, perhaps with assistance from China, manage to effectively restrict the internet in Iran, Arkanzadeh Yazdi warned: “Access of a few chosen individuals in society to the internet, and lack of access to the rest, such as the system of privileges in China, will create a tremendous and intolerable sense of discrimination in society. This may cause an unprecedented sense of desperation and dissatisfaction, compared with which the unrest of September 2017 appears like a storm in a teacup.” 

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