Digital Siege: How Iranians Are Using Technology to Survive Inside the Blackout

Iran’s internet collapsed to 1% of normal capacity within hours of the first US-Israeli strikes on February 28, plunging 90 million people into one of the most severe communications blackouts ever recorded – yet fragments of video, voice notes, and encrypted messages continue to escape through a digital underground built on satellite terminals, proxy networks, and decades of circumvention expertise.

The blackout began minutes after warplanes bombed downtown Tehran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior military commanders, according to Al Jazeera. Connectivity fell below 1% within hours and has remained there for over a week, creating what Human Rights Watch called a near-complete information void during a period of daily missile strikes and civilian casualties.

But the regime’s attempt at total digital isolation is failing at the margins. Iranians are using SpaceX Starlink terminals, decentralized messaging networks and virtual private networks to distribute videos and photos of missiles hitting targets, including military buildings, police stations and intelligence offices, according to The Japan Times. The footage – often grainy, shot from apartment windows, transmitted in bursts when connections flicker online – represents the informational battlefield running parallel to the kinetic one.

The WhatsApp Lifeline

In Los Angeles’s “Tehrangeles” district, Iranian diaspora members told the Los Angeles Times they are relying on apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp to get messages from family and friends in Tehran, while many are turning to Fox News for the latest updates. The communication runs through VPNs – what Iranians call “filter shekan” (filter breakers) – that route traffic through servers outside the country.

One influencer in LA said her cousins in Tehran sometimes call through WhatsApp when the internet is stable, though they prefer Telegram because its encrypted messages can be easily deleted – a necessary precaution after authorities recently broke into a home in her cousin’s neighborhood, confiscated a man’s phone, and accused him of being an American spy.

The architecture Iranians are navigating is not simply censorship but a deliberately engineered shutdown. Digital censorship researchers agree that the breadth and timing of the blackout strongly point to a state-engineered shutdown to limit information flow during a critical moment of conflict and unrest, according to analysis published by Mindcron. Unlike previous Iranian blackouts where the domestic National Information Network remained functional for banking and administrative services, this shutdown severed even internal infrastructure.

Starlink’s Brief Window

For a narrow slice of Iranians with technical resources, Starlink terminals offered a workaround – until they didn’t. During the January blackout, some Iranians turned to satellite internet services such as Starlink for connection, but authorities rapidly moved to jam or disable such links, and satellite terminals were disrupted. Since 2026 under Iranian legislation, personal SpaceX Starlink terminal users and owners are jailed 6 months to 10 years or executed, with all electronic devices confiscated.

The regime’s capacity to identify and neutralize Starlink users reflects a sophisticated digital surveillance apparatus built over years. In about 2019, the government created a centralized digital identity that links a citizen’s personal identity and digital behaviour – for access to national mobile networks, people must register their phone and SIM card identification numbers, according to reporting by the Irish Times.

Another program, called Siam, lets authorities log user behaviour, track movements, and slow down a target’s mobile data connection. People who posted on social media about protests have had their phone SIM cards suspended, while others received warning phone calls and faced banking service interruptions.

The Platform Ecosystem

Before the war, Iran had developed one of the world’s most sophisticated circumvention cultures. Telegram stood out for its robust privacy features and public channels, serving as a hub for news and political discourse, with many Iranians relying on it for real-time updates – ironically, many Iranian news agencies and government pages use Telegram as their main distribution channel despite it officially being blocked.

Instagram remained the most widely used platform, while Eitaa, an Iranian cloud-based messaging app, has more than 40 million users and is the largest messaging app based in Western Asia. Eitaa is connected to Iran’s Message Exchange Bus, which links major Iranian platforms like Bale, Soroush, Rubika, Gap and iGap, enabling cross-platform communication for over 100 million users without needing separate accounts.

That ecosystem is now functionally offline for most users. NetBlocks said on Thursday that “an increasingly Orwellian environment is emerging as telcos threaten users who try to connect to the global internet with legal action,” referring to reports that users have received threatening text messages from telecommunications authorities after trying or sharing VPNs.

The Sanctions Dimension

As the war enters its second week, a new layer of technology restrictions is emerging. The US State Department announced Sanctions on February 25 targeting weapons procurement networks in Iran, Turkey, and the UAE supporting ballistic missile development.

These sanctions build on existing frameworks that already restricted technology flows to Iran. EU sanctions include a ban on providing telecommunications or internet monitoring or interception services to Iran, as well as restrictions on equipment that might be used for internal repression. The challenge now is whether expanded sanctions will further degrade Iran’s digital infrastructure or whether the regime’s National Information Network – built with Chinese assistance – can sustain isolation indefinitely.

Kentik data shows internet traffic into Iran collapsed on February 28 and has remained near-zero ever since, with the three largest Iranian networks – MCCI, MTN Irancell, and TIC – all dropping to negligible levels, suggesting a deliberate government shutdown rather than infrastructure damage, according to Rest of World.

The Economic Toll

The Iranian Minister of Communications acknowledged the shutdown is costing the economy $35.7 million a day, while online sales fell by 80% during the shutdown and the Tehran Stock Exchange overall index lost 450,000 points over a four-day period. In January alone, financial transactions dropped by 185 million.

Beyond the immediate economic damage, the blackout compounds an already dire humanitarian situation. The Statistical Centre of Iran put annual inflation in late February at 68.1%, while the Central Bank put it at 62.2% – some of the highest rates recorded since the 1979 revolution, with food inflation at 105%.

Medicine shortages are worsening. Antidepressants are scarce in Tehran and other cities, with only Iranian-made versions available as foreign-made counterparts disappear from the market.

What to Watch

The Iranian government has signaled this blackout may be permanent. Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani confirmed that at least until Nowruz (March 20, 2026), there should be no expectation of reopening international internet access, and even afterward, access will never return to its previous form, according to intelligence obtained by Filterwatch.

A January 15 Filterwatch report detailed a confidential government plan for “Absolute Digital Isolation,” transforming Iran’s internet infrastructure into a “Barracks Internet” that allows access to the outside world only to individuals and organizations with security clearance through a strictly monitored whitelist.

Three data points will determine whether Iran’s digital siege becomes the new normal: whether foreign telecom providers complete their withdrawal from the country (already reportedly underway), whether Starlink jamming technology proves scalable, and whether the National Information Network can sustain critical business functions without international connectivity.

The human cost is already measurable. More than 1,300 people in Iran have been killed as a result of the ongoing fighting, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, with at least 1,332 civilians killed since the launch of the war on February 28. Most of those deaths occurred in an information void, documented only in fragments by citizens using tools the regime is systematically eliminating.

What emerges from Iran’s blackout is a blueprint for authoritarian information control in wartime – and a reminder that even the most sophisticated surveillance states cannot fully seal their borders in a networked age. The videos still leaking out, frame by grainy frame, prove that much.