
Three-minutes read
As the war enters its second week, the clerical dictatorship Iran is waging a simultaneous war on truth, choking off its citizens from the outside world while flooding the internet with choreographed messaging from regime loyalists.
The country has been under a near-total internet blackout since June 18, in what experts say is one of the most extensive digital shutdowns since the November 2019 protests. According to the watchdog group NetBlocks, the current disruption has lasted more than 48 hours and is “the most severe” since those earlier demonstrations, when the regime cut connectivity to suppress mass dissent.
But this time, the blackout has coincided with a dramatic spike in coordinated online activity—from inside Iran.
ملت عزیز ایران!
همه وزارتخانه ها و دستگاه های دولتی مأموریت یافته اند با تمام توان و امکانات پابه پای صبوری و همراهی شما #برای_ایران از هیچ خدمتی دریغ نورزند.
به لطف خدا و به مدد همدلی و انسجام از این روزهای سخت و دشوار عبور خواهیم کرد.— Masoud Pezeshkian (@drpezeshkian) June 19, 2025
On platforms that have long been banned in Iran, including X (formerly Twitter), thousands of state-linked users have been active in recent days, posting rally footage, slogans, and speeches by the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who declared in one video, “The Zionist regime made a grave mistake and will suffer the consequences.”
One account shows a state-organized crowd at Tehran Friday prayers, chanting slogans while air raid sirens blare in the distance. Another, from IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency, shows three young women with loosely worn hijabs at a regime rally chanting “Death to traitors.”
Another post by a Tehran-based user mocks Israelis for seeking shelter from airstrikes: “You go crawl into your bunkers. We’re standing tall in the heart of Tehran for Seyyed Ali.”
این سند جنایات صهیونیستهاست pic.twitter.com/VKBqpxlYOz
— خبرگزاری فارس (@FarsNews_Agency) June 20, 2025
While everyday Iranians struggle with food shortages, rising prices, and total information isolation, these state-favored users operate freely. Despite the regime’s public ban on X, their access is uninterrupted—and unrestricted.
This digital double standard is nothing new. Regime officials and affiliates have long used platforms banned to the public to push their message abroad, without facing the same surveillance, throttling, or legal penalties. In contrast, ordinary users caught using VPNs face prosecution or worse.
Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokesperson, claimed the internet restrictions were in response to Israeli cyberattacks. However, the asymmetric nature of the blackout—silencing the public while allowing propaganda to flourish—suggests a more calculated motive.
این فقط یه نماز جمعه و راهپیمایی نبود
این سوخت اصلی موشکهای ایران به قلب اسرائیل بود pic.twitter.com/Xt9T1tghGb— عبـدالمـجید خرقـانی 🇮🇷 (@Abdul_Majid33) June 20, 2025
One notable example is a so-called entrepreneur urging Iranians abroad (many of whom are cut off from their families and news) to use the domestic Baleh app. The platform is widely known to operate on infrastructure under the control of Iranian intelligence services. Such posts illustrate how tightly coordinated the regime’s digital campaign is.
These messaging efforts aim to show that the regime remains in control, even as its people face airstrikes, power outages, and lack of access to basic information. But the accounts doing this work do not represent the general public. Many use anonymous handles, stock or AI-generated avatars, and suspiciously identical bios claiming to be “from Tehran” or other Iranian cities. Experts and exiled digital rights activists believe many of these are part of the regime’s so-called “cyber army”—a vast network of accounts deployed to simulate popular support and suppress dissent.
In the complex ecosystem of the regime’s security web, another tactic is increasingly visible: coordinated comment campaigns from anonymous accounts claiming to be monarchists or supporters of the son of Iran’s deposed Shah. Despite having no avatars and declaring themselves located inside Iran—a country under tight surveillance—these users brazenly attack regime officials or state media figures. But their goal is not dissent; rather, it is to create a false image of widespread royalist sentiment, divert attention from genuine opposition forces, and fracture civil society.
ماشاالله به این مردم که راهپیمایی تمام شده و همچنان پای کار هستند. pic.twitter.com/pGvx1xtLKX
— علی بهادری جهرمی (@alibahaadori) June 20, 2025
The distinction between “us” and “them” in the regime’s worldview is stark. Loyalists are protected, privileged, and well-fed, with uninterrupted digital access even in wartime. They are the intended audience of Khamenei’s speeches and the participants in his rallies.
But for the overwhelming majority—those who are not regime insiders—life means crackdowns, economic deprivation, discrimination, and now, complete digital darkness. It is a system designed not to govern a nation, but to preserve a fortress.
The war may be new. The censorship is not.
لُطف آنچه تو اندیشی
حُکم آنچه تو فرمایی pic.twitter.com/3kTfFiMEYF— S.Abbas Mousavi | سیدعباس موسوی (@SAMOUSAVI9) June 18, 2025
In Tehran and across the country, internet cafés are shuttered, app stores are inaccessible, and mobile data is virtually nonexistent. Exiled Iranians report being unable to reach family members. Livestreams of strikes, explosions, or protests are absent not because they aren’t happening—but because no one is able to post them.
This isn’t just a digital divide—it’s a digital apartheid. A system built to separate regime insiders from the rest of society, granting one group full access to information, security, and mobility while locking the majority into silence and fear. In doing so, the regime reveals who it truly sees as the primary threat—not Israel, not the United States, but the Iranian people themselves.