11 hours ago
Iran's leaders cut internet access to outside world
Sanaz, a teacher living in Paris whose name has been changed at her request, has not heard from her family in Iran since Wednesday, June 18. "The messages I sent them on WhatsApp still haven't been delivered," she said on the morning of Friday, June 20. "I've tried calling their mobiles about 50 times, but the calls don't go through either."
On Wednesday, Iranian authorities announced a nationwide internet blackout, severely restricting communication with the rest of the world. According to several monitoring groups, the country's internet traffic dropped to nearly zero. Digital rights activists described the blackout as the worst in the history of internet censorship in Iran.
Since it began, Iranians have not been able to access websites or services hosted abroad, including messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram, which are vital for communicating with the outside world. Even workarounds like VPNs (virtual private networks) have become unusable. Only websites and applications hosted within Iran remained accessible, making for a national intranet almost completely disconnected from the global web.
