Holly Dagris

the internet monitor net blocks and so for people like me who obviously can't travel back to Iran and relies on Iranian like monitoring Persian language social media or even texting on messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram with people inside Iran

I effectively, and not just me, but roughly 4 to 10 million members of the Iranian diaspora were cut off from contact with their friends and loved ones in Iran, and that was really gutting.

And that being said, I should probably go back in time and explain what the other ones were.

We first saw this happen during the bloody November 2019 protests, which security forces killed 1,500 protesters and used the dark cover of an internet shutdown to cover it up.

And then we saw again during the 2022 Women Life Freedom Uprising,

And then it was these two wars, one being the 12-day war in June 2025 and, of course, this recent war.

And then the one I would say was the worst of it in terms of communications blackout was in January.

And that was during the unprecedented massacre of thousands of protesters at the hands of security forces in a span of 48 hours.

Well, there's several things happening there.

I think coping is a hard word to use.

Just imagine your phone stops working, like as any American who can't message their family or friends that are maybe living in other countries.

They can't go on Twitter or Instagram.

Like, maybe you can't watch Netflix anymore.

No, but I'm just trying to give you a sense of, like, how it feels to not have access.

And believe it or not, that was the sentiment Iranians felt.

So one of the big impacts of the Internet shutdown started with...

really having deep ramifications for the Iranian economy.

The internet blackout during the war cost, according to an Iranian businessman, $80 million daily.

And 20% of Iran's workforce lost their jobs during the blackout.

So it came to an end on May 26th.