Iran Kills the Internet. Citizens Fight Back With Starlink and VPNs.
With connectivity at just 1% of normal levels, Iranians are routing around a government-imposed internet blackout.
Iran's government has slammed the internet kill switch again. According to NetBlocks, the country's connectivity has cratered to just 1% of ordinary levels. That's essentially digital darkness for an entire nation.
But Iranians aren't sitting in silence. Citizens are turning to Starlink satellite terminals, decentralized messaging apps, and VPNs to punch through the blackout. The workarounds are working well enough that footage of US and Israeli airstrikes is making it out of the country and circulating globally.
It's a familiar playbook at this point. Authoritarian governments shut down networks. People find gaps. Starlink in particular has become a go-to lifeline during state-imposed shutdowns, turning SpaceX's satellite constellation into an inadvertent tool of digital resistance.
The blackout underscores a hard truth: governments can throttle infrastructure, but killing connectivity entirely is getting harder every year.