Hannah Jaffe-Walt

Arta is supporting his extended family.

He had staff depending on him.

They're an IT company that couldn't work without the Internet.

So he did it.

He signed up.

This was a guy who, before the war, would not even use the domestic messaging apps in the state-run intranet.

He did not want to be surveilled.

Now, to get InternetPro, Arto was required to provide his national ID number, phone number, and the names and details of everyone he works with who would be using the internet.

He handed all of that in.

Surveillance and submission are the price of access.

The blackout wasn't lifted when the ceasefire was declared, and it hasn't been lifted since.

It now seems more and more possible that Iran will not return the internet back to the way it was before the war, ever.

And instead, there's a new plan.

Tiered internet access.

Internet as a privilege, granted by the state for people who support the state, or are at least willing and able to pay a state-sanctioned company for access.

It turns the internet from a public place where anyone can show up and speak, listen, argue, spread conspiracy theories, find the best tweezers, to an internet that is more like an airport lounge, a silver elite, gold-plated, platinum loyalty program.

This is more and more common around the world, governments limiting internet access and sometimes going a full blackout.

The whole thing has a real coming-to-a-country-near-you vibe.

When I first listened to these voice memos from Iran, they felt to me like a rare document of a rare time.

People living their lives in this temporary moment through a war and a blackout.