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The National
a day ago
- Politics
- The National
Iran internet disrupted as country imposes restrictions
There has been significant decline in internet traffic within Iran as a result of temporary restrictions issued by the country's Ministry of Information and Communications following Israeli strikes, according to NetBlocks, which tracks cyber security and digital governance around the world. It is not yet clear how severe the restrictions will be and what impact they will have. "We inform the honourable people of Iran that, in view of the country's special conditions and with the measures of the competent authorities, temporary restrictions have been imposed on the country's internet," a message from the ministry read. On Thursday evening, the ministry indicated that the limits would be lifted once the situation returns to normal. Since the announcement of the restrictions, data from NetBlocks showed internet traffic in Iran dropping by almost 50 per cent. Virtual internet service providers within the country, which rely on ISPs outside Iran, have also been affected. Internet disruptions imposed by the government in Iran are not unusual. It's not clear if low-earth-orbit satellite based internet services like Starlink, which have been blocked by Iran in past, are usable. Mr Musk was allowed to activate Starlink over Iran during the 2022 nationwide protests, amid the Iranian government's severe internet restrictions. Starlink's current service map shows Iran as being blacked out, meaning that the service is not officially available, though there are workarounds that have been used in the past.
The National
2 days ago
- Politics
- The National
Gaza offline after fibre optic link severed amid Israeli bombardment
Gaza plunged into a complete internet blackout on Thursday after the last main fibre optic cable connecting the enclave was severed during Israeli bombardment. The territory's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said all of Gaza's internet and landline communications were cut off after attacks on vital infrastructure networks, official Palestinian media reported. Internet watchdog NetBlocks said its data showed disruption to internet connectivity across Gaza, which was likely to affect search, rescue and aid efforts. The regulatory authority blamed "the systematic targeting of communications infrastructure, despite numerous previous attempts to repair several severed links", the official Wafa news agency said. Gaza city and the northern Gaza Strip had been struggling with internet cuts for two days but the latest blackout has isolated the entire enclave, preventing Palestinians from accessing essential services, Wafa added. The regulatory authority called on the international community to intervene to ensure access for technical crews to safely carry out infrastructure repairs. It said Israel was preventing such teams from fixing cables and was obstructing access to back-up and alternative network routes. Repeated efforts over several months to reach and repair network connections have been consistently blocked by Israel, the authority said. On Wednesday, civil defence authorities in northern Gaza said internet blackouts were hindering efforts to identify and reach sites bombed by the Israeli military. 'We are facing extreme difficulty in locating bombing sites due to signal outages and the inability of residents to contact us,' they said. Several media organisations have apologised for an inability to cover the news in the territory, citing the lack of internet access and difficulty in making phone calls. Some citizens have been relying on eSIM connections but these can require great effort to secure a signal such as by climbing to higher ground or moving closer to the eastern border of Gaza near Israel. Since the start of the war, telecoms and internet networks in the enclave have suffered continuous disruption due to Israeli attacks or depletion of fuel used to operate electricity generators.
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Express Tribune
25-05-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Social media platform 'X' faces global outage
'X' logo is seen on the top of the headquarters of the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, in downtown San Francisco, California, US., July 30, 2023. PHOTO:REUTERS Listen to article Users of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, were left grappling with a widespread outage on Saturday, leaving both the website and app inaccessible. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) confirmed the outage, clarifying that the issue was not rooted in the country's internet infrastructure. "This disruption follows a similar global outage faced by the platform on Thursday, May 22, which lasted for several hours before being resolved by the platform itself," the PTA stated. The telecom regulator said its investigation found no faults within Pakistan's internet gateways and noted that all other online services in the country were operating normally. "The PTA's investigation into the matter has confirmed that there are no technical issues at Pakistan's internet gateways. All other internet services across the country remain fully functional," it said. The PTA also cited findings from the global internet observatory, NetBlocks, which attributed the disruption to a broader international issue rather than any specific national restriction. "The PTA continues to monitor the situation and will keep the public informed of any significant updates," the authority said. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that tens of thousands of users in the United States also faced disruptions on Saturday. The Elon Musk-owned social network began experiencing issues around 1:30pm on Saturday. According to user complaints surged from just 66 to over 11,000 within minutes, peaking at 1:39pm. This marks the second major disruption in a matter of days. On Thursday evening, May 22, millions were affected by another outage that disrupted key features, including direct messages, login pages, and access to various parts of the platform across both mobile and desktop.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
X platform running again after thousands of users report outages
The social media platform X experienced international disruption on Saturday. Thousands of German users reported problems on platforms such as allestö with more than 2,500 outages recorded on the network by around 3 pm (1300 GMT). The number of reports levelled off again in the course of the afternoon, with X returning to normal operation. The analysis company NetBlocks reported outages for some X users for the second time in a week. The outages were not related to internet interruptions or filtering in specific countries. The cause of the disruption was initially unclear. X, formerly known as Twitter, was bought by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022.
The Verge
24-05-2025
- The Verge
X is back after an apparent widespread outage
X is back up for most users after what appeared to be a significant outage that spiked early this morning around 9AM ET. Global internet monitor NetBlocks posted this morning that X 'has been experiencing international outages for some users for a second time in a week,' adding that the issue isn't 'related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering.' Downdetector showed complaints of an outage rose sharply after 8AM ET before beginning to fall about 45 minutes later. As of this writing, those reports have dropped from tens of thousands of reports to only hundreds. Elsewhere on social media, people had been complaining about issues with the network for a couple of days — one of the top posts on the r/Twitter Reddit community is a screenshot of an error message on the X login screen, with many replies complaining about login issues. The X developer platform site's incident history log shows that a sitewide outage started Thursday and lasted roughly a day. At the moment, there's still an error message on the platform status page that reads, 'Login with X (OAuth) and other X platform login flows are experiencing degraded performance.' The issue comes after a fire reportedly broke out in an Oregon data center owned by X on Thursday morning. Wired writes that multiple unnamed sources told it that the fire, which forced 'an extended response from emergency crews,' involved batteries in one of the data center's rooms. Following reports of the fire, there were complaints that X was down, but the outage then seemed comparatively small.
