• What we know about Iranâ s Internet shutdown 2026-01-13 David Belson In late December 2025,wide-scale protests erupted across multiple cities in Iran. • While these protests were initially fueled by frustration over inflation, food prices, and currency depreciation, they have grown into demonstrationsdemanding a changein the countryâ s leadership regime. In the last few days, Internet traffic from Iran has effectively dropped to zero. • This is evident in the data available in Cloudflare Radar, as weâ ll describe in this post. Background The Iranian government has a history of cutting off Internet connectivity when such protests take place. • In November 2019, protests erupted following the announcement of a significant increase in fuel prices. • In response, the Iranian government implemented anInternet shutdownfor more than five days. • In September 2022,protests and demonstrations erupted across Iranin response to the deathin police custodyof Mahsa/Zhina Amini, a 22-year-old woman from the Kurdistan Province of Iran.

Article Summaries:

  • In late December 2025, wide-scale protests erupted across multiple cities in Iran. While these protests were initially fueled by frustration over inflation, food prices, and currency depreciation, they have grown into demonstrations demanding a change in the countryâs leadership regime. In the last few days, Internet traffic from Iran has effectively dropped to zero. This is evident in the data available in Cloudflare Radar, as weâll describe in this post. The Iranian government has a history of cutting off Internet connectivity when such protests take place. In November 2019, protests erupt
  • In late December 2025, Iran saw widespread protests that evolved from economic grievances into demands for regime change. In early January 2026, Iranian internet traffic collapsed to near zero, as shown by Cloudflare Radar data. The shutdown began with a sharp 98.5 % drop in IPv6 address announcements on January 8, followed by a near‑complete loss of IPv6 traffic and a 90 % decline in overall traffic by 16:30 UTC. Major local ISPs (MCCI, IranCell, TCI) ceased announcing routes, effectively isolating Iran from the global internet. Brief, minimal connectivity appeared on January 9 but did not sustain. This mirrors past shutdowns in 2019 and 2022 during protests.

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