Aisha Down

What Iran has, a splinternet, is becoming reality for many millions of people. It is likely to get far worse. More than half of Russia’s regions are able to access only a limited, government-approved version of the internet through their mobile phones. The “great firewall of China” blocks most of the global internet, including sites such as Google and the Guardian.

For nearly two decades, the US quietly funded a global effort to keep the internet from splintering into fiefdoms run by authoritarian governments. Now that money is seriously threatened, and a large part of it is already gone, putting internet freedoms around the world at risk. Managed by the US state department and the US Agency for Global Media, the program—broadly called Internet Freedom—funds small groups all over the world, from Iran to China to the Philippines, who built grassroots technologies to evade internet controls imposed by governments.

For most of Iran, the internet was shut off on January 8—the most severe blackout the country has seen in years of internet shutdowns, coming after days of escalating anti-government protests. For a very small sliver of the country, it is still possible to get photos and videos to the outside world, and even to make calls. The Telegram channel Vahid Online posted photos of dead bodies lying next to a street in Kahrizak, on the southern outskirts of Tehran; it also shared a video of Iranians chanting “death to Khamenei” at a funeral.

Iran's internet shutdown represents a “new high-water mark” in terms of its sophistication and severity—and could last a long time. As the blackout kicked in, 90 percent of internet traffic to Iran evaporated. International calls to the country appeared blocked, and domestic mobile phones had no service, said Amir Rashidi, an Iranian digital rights expert. This is far from the first time a country has blocked the internet for political reasons.