[1][2][3][4] The Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have blocked access to 70 percent of the internet,[5] including many popular websites and online services such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram.
[11] The government is now targeting Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in an effort to completely block citizens' access to foreign media and online content.
[20] Following the establishment of a theocratic government in 1979, religious authorities used a mix of bombastic propaganda and brutal censorship to consolidate their political power and demonize potential opponents.
In January 1993 Dr. Larijani, director of the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics (IPM), sent Iran's first e-mail message (a greeting to administrators at the University of Vienna).
[37][38] The business of selling virtual private networks (VPNs), SOCKS, and proxy servers in Iran is worth millions of dollars due to their large demand.
"[40] Reporters Without Borders sent a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to share its deep concern and ask for her intervention in the case of two netizens and free speech defenders, Vahid Asghari and Hossein Derakhshan.
[42] In April 2011, Ali Agha-Mohammadi, a senior official, announced the government had plans to launch a halal internet that would conform to Islamic values and provide government-approved services.
In 2012, Iran's ministry of information and communication technology began testing a countrywide "national internet" network as a substitute for services run through the World Wide Web.
One Iranian IT expert defended the program as aimed not "primarily" at curbing the global internet but at securing Iran's military, banking, and sensitive data from outside cyber-attacks such as Stuxnet.
This effort was partially in response to Western actions such as the Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran's main uranium enrichment facility, which fueled suspicions against foreign technologies.
[50] The government and Islamic Revolutionary Guard's response has been to mandate the use of Iranian email systems, block popular web-mail services, inhibit encryption use by disabling VPNs and HTTPS, and ban externally developed security software.
Khamenei alluded to bans on Nazi-related or anti-gay sites in some countries, asking, "How there is no room for freedom of expression in these cases, but insulting Islam and its sanctities is free?".
[61] During the nationwide 2019 fuel protests in Iran, the Iranian authorities deliberately shut down the internet, hiding the true scale of unlawful killings by security forces.
Iran’s domestic internet remained online, allowing activities such as government services and banking to continue, which minimized financial losses in the country’s economy.
"The authorities deliberately blocked internet access inside Iran, hiding the true extent of the horrendous human rights violations that they were carrying out across the country" said Iranian expert Diana Eltahawy.
[64] Restrictions were put in place for LTE networks such as Irancell, Hamrahe-Aval And Rightel completely blocking access to all website excluding those hosted in Iran.
[65][66][67] On December 4, a news article was published in the media quoting Ahmad Vahidi, the Minister of Interior of the 13th government, citing a “complete filtering of cyberspace” and it was denied a few hours later.
On December 18, Mohsen Taeb, the former head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, said, “[t]here will come a day on the platforms where we will determine whose photo will be published and who will not.” In the last 3 months, the Ministry of Communications of the Ebrahim Raisi government has made contradictory statements on this matter.
[80][81][82][83][84][85] The Iranian cyber police began purging social media and websites,[86] while the Minister of Science Research, Technology and ICT discussed cutting the internet for university entry exam tests.
[97] However, according to the newspaper Resalat, as of June 2023, a branch of Islamic Republic military are pro-denial of free internet access and are actively working towards it, even obstructing others efforts to achieve it.
[104] In August, a cyberspace services system bill commission member claimed the government had decided to lower internet access, make it unaffordable, and reduce speed.
[120] On 11 June 2023, the Minister of Tourism and Cultural Heritage demanded that foreign tourists should be allowed unfiltered internet access whilst visiting Iran, via 'tourist' SIM cards.
[125][126] A member of the Islamic Council's supervisory committee, part of a working group tasked with identifying instances of criminal online content, responded by nothing fluctuations in website accessibility, mentioning that some sites were intermittently blocked or unfiltered based on the government's preferences.
Additionally, it was noted that various filtered websites remained accessible to specific groups such as students, university professors, and professionals in need of them for government-approved purposes.
[127] A member of the Islamic Council's supervisory committee in the working group to determine examples of criminal computer content stated that some websites at some times were blocked and unfiltered according to requirements and that the opinion of the Minister of Communications was that action would be taken to remove the filter in some places.
[155] In 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported that Nokia may have sold DPI software to Iran for monitoring and altering the content of internet voice and e-mail communications.
[156] Andrew Lighten, an employee of Nokia, claimed that it sold software to Iran for lawful interception, but that the company does not sell any products with deep packet inspection.
[158][159] There is also state awareness that domestically produced content considered undesirable can pervade the internet, highlighted by the 2006 controversy over the appearance of a celebrity sex tape featuring a popular Iranian soap opera actress (or a convincing look-alike).
"[150] In 2003, Voice of America began to operate a proxy server for Iranian citizens, free of charge, along with internet privacy company Anonymizer and the International Broadcasting Bureau.
[169] These suspensions continue despite a General License D-1, first issued by the Office of Foreign Asset Controls (ORAC) in 2014, which authorizes private companies to provide certain "personal communications" technologies to users in Iran.