Cartoon by Mana Neyestani

Iran Internet Ban: The Islamic Republic Filters for Millions of People, Not for Its Own

ATA MOHAMED TABRIZ

IranWire: When X activated its location display feature this week, the social media platform said it wanted to increase transparency and identify fake accounts.

In Iran, it exposed something far more consequential: a sweeping system of internet privilege that has quietly divided the nation into digital haves and have-nots.

Within hours of the feature's activation, Iranian users noticed something striking.

While the country's 90 million citizens must use virtual private networks to access X and other blocked platforms and must show foreign locations on their profiles, a select group of accounts displayed "Iran" as their location.

They were accessing the platform directly, without VPNs, from inside a country where such access is officially forbidden.

The revelation ignited one of Iran's most visible controversies over digital inequality, pulling back the curtain on a years-long system of so-called "white SIM cards" that grant unrestricted internet access to government-approved individuals. At the same time, ordinary citizens use illegal VPNs that can fail at any time.

"This is the same class-based internet, and using class-based internet is not only dirty and shameful but is also obvious discrimination in public rights," one user wrote on X.

The scope of the revelation extended far beyond a few government officials.

Among those whose "Iran" locations were exposed were the current communications minister, prominent journalists, political figures across the spectrum, and perhaps most surprisingly, accounts that had positioned themselves as opponents of the Islamic Republic, including monarchist and separatist pages.

The term "White SIM cards," which Iranians use for mobile lines exempt from internet filtering, first emerged around the 2013 presidential election.

Initially presented as a tool to help foreign journalists cover the election without technical obstacles, the system quickly expanded.

Mohammad Jafar Mohammadzadeh, then deputy for press affairs at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, said at the time that high-speed, unfiltered internet was provided to foreign journalists so they could send reports without restrictions.

But the program soon extended to domestic journalists. In 2017, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, then communications minister, formalized the arrangement.

"We had a resolution in the working group for determining instances of criminal content for journalists' access to unfiltered internet," he announced. "We believe the media should have access to the internet that allows them to use information sources without restrictions."

That year, the working group approved unfiltered access for 100 journalists, all vetted by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

The program continued to expand during Hassan Rouhani's presidency, with estimates suggesting that some 3,500 people had such access by the end of his term in 2021.

The distribution of white SIM cards created immediate divisions within Iran's journalism community. Some defended the privilege as a professional necessity.

Mohammad Mohajeri, a member of Khabar Online's editorial board, argued in 2018 that journalists' "professional distinction" justified the access, framing it as essential for their duty of "intellectual guidance of society."

Mohammad Mobin, then CEO of Borna news agency, went further, calling the unfiltered internet a "minimum possibility" for journalists that should have been provided much earlier.

But critics saw something darker.

Fatemeh Mahdiani, editor-in-chief of the Ilna news agency, said even among journalists, access was distributed in a "class-based" manner, reaching only certain people.

Mira Ghorbanfar, deputy editor of Qanoon newspaper, connected the program to the government's efforts to advance media system legislation that would make journalists dependent on government licenses.

"Giving internet only to 100 'approved' journalists indicates that the main goal is controlling and restraining independent journalism, not supporting it," she said.

Mohammad Mosaed, a journalist with Shargh newspaper, rejected the privilege outright.

"This plan is an insult to journalists and people for me, and I won't use it," he wrote. "If we're going to lose, let's lose together."

The controversy deepened in 2019 when Azari Jahromi gave thousands of journalists free one-year internet packages, branded as the "President's Internet Gift to Journalists."

Many media professionals protested, arguing that free internet should be a universal right, not a privilege that compromises journalistic independence.

The white SIM card system accelerated during key political moments.

In the 2021 presidential election, 350 new cards were issued. By 2024, distribution intensified again, particularly during the conflict with Israel.

The 12-day war period marked the peak of distribution. Some recipients say their SIM cards were activated without their knowledge. Others describe more direct recruitment efforts.

A detainee from the 2022 protests told IranWire that during the war, his interrogator contacted him, requesting that he defend Iran online.

When he said he did not have internet access, the interrogator responded, "If you want, we'll whitelist it for you."

The expansion revealed that white SIM cards served purposes beyond journalistic access.

Among the exposed accounts were eulogists, the Islamic Republic's propaganda figures, and accounts engaged in destroying critics.

The geographic diversity of supposedly opposition accounts - monarchist pages, separatist groups, and accounts attacking activists - all operating from inside Iran with government-approved access.

Digital rights activists say this demonstrates that white SIM cards function as tools for engineering political space and controlling narratives, creating what some call "controlled opposition" to shape online discourse while maintaining the appearance of debate.

Public anger intensified as the names behind "Iran" locations emerged.

They included not just journalists like Abbas Abdi, Sina Rahimpour, and Fereshteh Sadeghi, but politicians, including Abbas Akhundi, Mohammad Mehdi Mirbagheri, and Javad Zarif, Iran's former foreign minister.

Media figures such as Mehdi Kharatian, Reza Rashidpour, and Farhad Fathi also appeared on the list.

So did Saeed Jalili, who has publicly defended internet filtering while apparently accessing the internet without filters himself.

The contradictions extended to the current government >>>