Council on Foreign Relations:

Article by Mariel Ferragamo
Mariel Ferragamo covers Africa, the Middle East, and global health, and previously was the main editor of the Daily News Brief

When President Donald Trump announced on June 21 that the U.S. military had dropped bunker buster bombs on Iran’s nuclear sites, Iranians were left—quite literally—in the dark.

Iran’s authoritarian regime had cut the power—a move in its playbook that it frequently relies upon—in response to the U.S. and Israeli military operations. The blackout left Iranians without the ability to obtain vital information, such as safety warnings and the whereabouts of their family members.

In Iran, it is common for information to be restricted, and the regime also closely monitors what narratives leave its borders. While the United States and Israel sustained some damage to Iran’s nuclear program, the regime’s control on information appears to be as rigid as ever.

Iranians have been posting footage in the aftermath of the U.S. and Israeli strikes in June. Reports from Tehran and other cities told of empty shelves in grocery stores, long lines for staple supplies like bread, smoke curling from bombs that had recently fallen, and eerily quiet streets dotted with shuttered storefronts.

Despite the government’s shackles on the news, Iranians have found ways to circumvent the information blockade. Television is a common way for Iranians to access news from both state-backed news and external outlets, such as BBC Persian (historically the biggest presence) or the Saudi-funded Iran International. The new travel ban Trump imposed on Iran and the administration’s effort to cut U.S.-funded news outlets like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, which have Iranian services, have caused further friction and stymied the spread of information.

The Information Landscape Under the Regime

By some metrics, life in Iran is more modern than many outside the country might expect. Life expectancy is seventy-eight years, equal to that of the United States. The literacy rate is pushing 90 percent, there’s universal access to electricity (when the government keeps the power on), and the UN Human Development Index ranks Iran higher than the global average.

But strict government rule casts a long shadow over Iranians’ lives and access to information. Leading watchdogs including Freedom House and Amnesty International highlight the lack of personal freedoms, as the regime has stifled expression and demonstration—including public singing and dancing—restricted women’s rights, and imposed a ban on LGBTQ+ activities.

The majority of the country’s news comes from Farsi-language outlets based outside Iran. “There’s not free media,” said CFR expert Ray Takeyh. “The landscape has become much more barren over the last twenty years as the regime clamped down more.” Any outside reporter that crosses Iran’s borders is saddled with a government minder, limiting the places they can go and who they can talk to.

Many international outlets do not have reporters stationed in Iran for safety reasons, but the regime can attempt to affect the journalists covering Iran even when they are outside the country.

“They can’t reach us, so they go after our families,” Bahman Kalbasi, reporter for BBC Persian, told CFR. The regime has arrested and harassed his family members and taken away their passports. This has happened to many other Iranian journalists’ families as more foreign outlets seek to cover Iran.

The government initially imposed a strict ban on foreign outlets as digital media grew more popular around the rest of the world. It deployed satellite jammers to intercept the signals of those who had illegally set up television dishes. But the dishes have become so ubiquitous across rooftops—at least 70 percent of houses have them as of 2024—the regime has struggled to keep up, experts said.

Social media is another avenue Iranians get their information. News accounts on platforms like Instagram are banned in Iran, but many Iranians use VPNs to stay connected—the BBC Persian’s 22 million followers among them. Traffic to Radio Farda’s Instagram shot up 344 percent, and web traffic 77 percent, in the days following Israel’s strikes. (In normal times, Radio Farda sees about 6.5 million Iranians, about 10 percent of the population, visit its website in a year.) 

Telegram channels and other alternatives are also a substantial source of news. In the aftermath of the Israeli strikes, data from Google Trends showed soaring interest for these messaging apps, as well as traffic for VPNs and the banned satellite service Starlink.

“Iran is not a country where you could cut people off from what’s going on outside,” Kalbasi said. “People find out everything. Information arrives in one way or another.” 

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