Iran’s internet shutdown becomes longest in history as protests continue

As of Thursday, 92 million Iranians had been completely cut off from internet access for more than a week, making this nationwide internet shutdown one of the longest in history, according to experts.

Last Thursday, Iranian leaders shut down internet and phone access across the country in response to massive anti-government protests that began late last year and sparked a brutal and deadly crackdown by authorities.

As of this writing, Iranians have been without internet access for over 170 hours. The longest previous shutdown in the country was about 163 hours in 2019 and about 160 hours in 2025, said Isik Mehta, research director at NetBlocks, a web monitoring company that tracks internet disruptions.

Mehta said the current shutdown in Iran is the third longest on record, after an internet shutdown in Sudan that lasted about 35 days in mid-2021 and an internet shutdown in Mauritania that lasted 22 days in July 2024.

“Iran’s government shutdown is one of the most comprehensive and strictly enforced nationwide power outages we have ever observed, especially in terms of the population affected,” Mehta told TechCrunch.

The exact ranking depends on how each organization measures shutdowns.

Zach Rosson, a researcher who studies internet disruptions at the digital rights nonprofit Access Now, told TechCrunch that his data shows that Iran’s ongoing shutdown is on track to become one of the top 10 longest shutdowns in history.

The Iranian government has a long record of blocking internet access during protests and civil unrest, often making it difficult to monitor protests from outside the country.

A U.S.-based human rights group estimates more than 600 protests have taken place in cities across Iran, and by some estimates at least 2,000 people have been killed in the Iranian government’s violent crackdown.

Iran’s government shutdown on January 8 was sudden, with government agencies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cut off from the internet. As this week’s Financial Times reported, access has since been restored to some government agencies and parts of the economy, including bank transfers and gas station payment processors.

According to the Guardian, a relatively small but unknown number of Iranians are using Starlink devices smuggled into the country to connect to the internet. In 2022, the Biden administration, in an effort to “increase support for internet freedom,” created an exemption from U.S. government sanctions against Iran, allowing U.S. tech companies to provide free connectivity to Iranians and paving the way for Starlink to operate in Iran.

Since then, authorities have cracked down on Starlink users by making it illegal to own Starlink devices, broadcasting signals throughout neighborhoods, and confiscating devices.

President Donald Trump this week threatened to intervene militarily if Iran’s military continues its violence, while reducing personnel at military bases in neighboring Qatar amid concerns about possible retaliatory attacks. The US military has also reportedly changed command of its naval strike group from the South China Sea to the Middle East.

But on Wednesday, President Trump said he had information that “the killings will stop and the death penalty will not be carried out,” but acknowledged that “no one knows that.”

Meanwhile, Britain closed its embassy in Iran’s capital Tehran and evacuated its staff. Iran temporarily closed its airspace on Wednesday.