About 26.5 hours after the gradual restoration of internet connectivity began in Iran (around 3:30 PM on May 27), Cloudflare data reveals a notable pattern: The number of HTTP requests has increased significantly more than the actual volume of exchanged data (Total/HTTP bytes). This pattern may suggest that users and applications have regained the ability to send requests and test connectivity, but the quality and stability of the connection have not yet improved enough to produce a proportional rise in actual data usage. Such behavior is commonly associated with unstable connectivity, repeated attempts to establish connections, or continued restrictions affecting access to certain services. 📌 The orange line represents the number of requests, which remains noticeably above the blue line.

Iran’s gradual internet restoration may be more than a technical shift; it appears to reflect a deeper political struggle over who controls access to the digital space. According to Filterwatch, while limited connectivity has begun to return, the sales page for “Internet Pro” has been removed from the website of Iran’s largest mobile operator. Internet Pro represented a move away from traditional filtering toward a model of differentiated access — where connectivity is not equally available, but distributed through approved access tiers and whitelists. But it is still too early to draw conclusions: Is this the beginning of a retreat from tiered internet policies or simply a pause in a broader experiment? #DigitalBlackoutIran #InternetFreedom filter.watch/english/2026/05…

After 88 days, it finally appears that internet connectivity is returning to Iran’s borders.

Based on 20 in-depth interviews across Iran, the Filterwatch new report finds that internet shutdowns and restrictions are no longer just a technical disruption; they have become a social, economic, and psychological crisis. • Access to the global internet is increasingly becoming a class privilege rather than a universal right. • Stable VPN access has become prohibitively expensive, with reported costs reaching up to ~$17.65 per GB while Iran’s minimum hourly wage is estimated at ~$0.48. • Many lower-income and less digitally dependent users have effectively abandoned the global internet altogether and shifted to domestic platforms, SMS, or satellite TV. • Users repeatedly described feelings of anger, humiliation, exclusion, and loss of dignity linked to forced migration toward domestic platforms. • Teenagers described losing access not only to entertainment, but to spaces for learning, identity formation, creativity, and opportunity. • Migration emerged across interviews as a recurring response; not because of internet restrictions alone, but because restrictions increasingly shape people’s broader life choices. The report warns that Iran’s trajectory may be producing a form of class-based digital exclusion, where access to the open internet increasingly depends on income, social position, and ability to pay. Internet access is no longer experienced as infrastructure alone, but as a question of rights, dignity, and participation in modern life. filter.watch/english/2026/05…

Doug Madory, Internet Analysis Manager at the Kentik Institute, describes the recent state of the internet in Iran as one of the most severe and unprecedented instances of communication disruptions in history, in an interview with Filterbaan. According to Mr. Madory, in the traffic charts of the Kentik Institute, the data related to Iran—which always exhibited a regular and wave-like (sinusoidal) pattern—has, following the current internet outage in Iran, taken on a highly jagged, unstable, and irregular behavior. These uneven lines and NetFlow records indicate repeated disconnections and reconnections, along with the creation of a deliberate, structured disruption in the main internet routing paths.

The Guardian reported on Monday that the Islamic Republic’s plan to charge fees for undersea internet cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz is “highly unlikely” to materialize. Quoting a former U.S. State Department official, The Guardian wrote that the Islamic Republic lacks the technology required to covertly cut subsea cables, and that its only real leverage would be through “threats.” Nevertheless, Iranian authorities have launched extensive propaganda campaigns around the issue and Tehran’s supposed ability to impose such tolls. Pooyesh Azizaldin, an information technology expert from Filterwatch, spoke with Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Kentik, about the possibility and likelihood of Iran being capable of disrupting global internet cables crossing the Persian Gulf.

در هشتادمین روز قطعی اینترنت در ایران، پویش‌ عزیزالدین پژوهشگر فناوری اطلاعات از فیلتربان در گفتگو با ماگ مادوری مدیر تحلیل اینترنت از موسسه kentkit از او درباره مقایسه این خاموشی با دیگر خاموشی‌های اینترنت در عمر کوتاه تاریخ اینترنت در جهان می‌پرسد . ماگ مادوری با مقایسه نمونه ایران با نمونه‌هایی چون لیبی، مصر و سودان ، قطعی اینترنت در ایران را شدیدترین خاموشی در تاریخ می‌داند. #DigitalBlackOutIran‌ @DougMadory @kentikinc

See my analysis of the rise of whitelisted traffic during Iran's shutdown here: kentik.com/blog/irans-intern…

Iran's ongoing internet shutdown has been going for more than 66 days. It's been 117 days since the Jan 8 blackout first cut off broad internet access — meaning Iranians have had widespread connectivity for just ~6.4% of 2026. #DigitalBlackOutIran‌

It is 67 days that the internet has been blacked out in Iran by the Islamic Republic. instagram.com/reel/DV6-2hMSe…

Now, in the Islamic Republic, even owning Starlink can cost citizens their lives. Hesam Aladdin (on the left) resisted when agents tried to confiscate his Starlink device, and was brutally beaten to death. #DigitalBlackoutIran #Starlin @elonmusk

🚨New research reveals how two sophisticated surveillance actors exploited the global telecom ecosystem and, for the first time, directly links combined 3G and 4G network attacks to mobile operator infrastructure. Full report 👇 citizenlab.ca/research/uncov…

🚨 URGENT: If you use an iPhone, update your device now. Recent reports show that the FBI was able to recover deleted messages from the encrypted app Signal not by breaking encryption, but by exploiting a weakness in iOS. iPhones sometimes store notification previews (message snippets shown on the lock screen). These previews can remain in an internal databaseeven after messages are deleted or set to disappear.Investigators accessed this database using forensic tools and recovered message content from the stored previews, not from Signal itself. 🍎 Apple’s response: Apple has released iOS 26.4.2 to fix the issue. This update: **Stops notifications from being improperly stored **Improves automatic removal of sensitive data 🔒 Update your device now to protect your privacy.

Iran has been experiencing an internet shutdown for over 50 days, and no authority within the government has been held accountable to the public.

Iran is no longer just censoring the internet — it’s redesigning it. Public access to the global internet is being replaced by a system in which only approved users (businesses, institutions, licensed individuals) can connect, while millions are kept within a restricted, state-controlled network. This isn’t a shutdown. It’s a shift: from the open internet to a permission-based system where access is no longer a right, but a privilege. #DigitalBlackOutIran‌ filter.watch/english/2026/04…

Iran’s Internet Blackout: Peering into The World’s Worst Internet Shutdown Some are calling it Digital Apartheid. Our latest post uses traffic data to show how expanded whitelisting is reshaping internet access in Iran. kentik.com/blog/irans-intern…