Media Manipulation in Iran Today: How the Government Controls the Narrative​

By restricting communication, censoring independent voices, and shaping narratives, the Iranian government has waged an extensive campaign to control what both Iranians and the world know about the unrest sweeping the country.

In the last days of 2025, widespread protests spread across Iranian cities in response to rampant inflation, collapsing currency, and deep political discontent. The government’s response has not only been forceful on the streets but also strategic in the digital sphere, cutting off or filtering information to suppress independent reporting. One of the most dramatic demonstrations of this strategy was the near-total nationwide internet blackout that began on 8 January 2026, coinciding with a major crackdown on protests. Millions of Iranians found their access to the global internet cut off entirely for more than a week, one of the longest shutdowns in the country’s history. Human rights organizations argue that this blackout was not a technical failure but a deliberate effort to hide evidence of government abuses, including killings and arrests, by cutting off digital reporting and communication.

Not just shutting down the internet — Blocking access to all websites!

The blackout is only the most visible part of Iran’s censorship infrastructure. Long before the 2026 protests, the Iranian regime used a sophisticated filtering system to block huge portions of the internet. Freedom House reports that Iranian authorities restrict access to thousands of websites, especially news sites, human rights information, and dissenting political perspectives (which is not new!). 

Let’s take a look at the information: 

1. Thousands of URLs (over 8 million) have been blocked over the past decades due to government filtering policies.
2. About 1/3 of Iran’s most popular websites were inaccessible due to official filtering, including major international social media and communication platforms such as WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, and X.
3. Specialized reports detail the ongoing blocking of websites dedicated to women’s rights and human rights issues.

From these analyses, we can understand that the pattern is not random; authorities routinely block content they deem a threat to national security, public order, or state doctrine. 

Selective blackouts and permanent controls

The blackout during the January 2026 protests fits into a larger history of strategic shutdowns from the Mollah regime. The country has previously implemented: 

1. Full national internet blackouts in 2019 and 2022 during major protest waves.
2. Blocking of major messaging and social media apps during sustained unrest, such as bans on WhatsApp and Google Play between 2022 and 2024.
3. Shutting down national internet access as a response to the 2025 Iran-Israel conflict, where nearly all global connectivity ceased. 

Some experts warn that Tehran may pursue a long-term effort to permanently isolate the Iranian digital space by replacing global internet access with a heavily restricted “national internet” that only allows state-approved services.