Internet connectivity collapsed in Iran on Thursday amid nationwide protests, according to a web monitoring company.
“I think now we have almost no connection with the outside world,” Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity researcher who works for the nonprofit Miaan Group, told TechCrunch.
Doug Madory, director of internet analytics at Kentik, a company that monitors internet traffic worldwide, agreed, telling TechCrunch that Iran’s internet had been “close to a total shutdown” since around 11:30 a.m. on the US east coast Thursday, or 8 p.m. local time in Tehran.
Internet traffic monitor NetBlocks, an internet infrastructure company Cloudflareand internet connectivity tracking sites IODall registered sudden drops in the right connection of Iran at the same time.
“We continue to see a little bit of traffic, but the country is effectively offline,” David Belson, head of data insights at Cloudflare, told TechCrunch.
At the end of December, protest erupted in some cities in Iran, after a sharp drop in the value of the country’s currency, prompting lack of goods and a dramatic increase in prices. Some shops in Tehran’s traditional markets have been closed for eleven days, according to The New York Times.
The Iranian government has responded with violent attacks on protesters.
The Iranian government, which maintains tight control over the country’s internet access, is behind the internet outage, according to Rashidi.
A representative for the Iranian government in the United States did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. Iran’s Foreign Ministry website was down at the time of publication.