What Digital Isolation and Censorship Evasion Look Like In Wartime Iran

[Laura Scherling in Tech Policy Press]

I’ve worried that the internet will become a casualty of our worsening global politics. The inherent co-operation needed to let global networks talk to each other is aligned with an open world but not so much with an authoritarian one. Walled-off national internets — often called splinternets — may become more common.

While I worry about this for the US as the authoritarian screws continue to tighten, this is the concrete reality for people in Iran and 20 other countries today. As this piece in Tech Policy Press points out:

“The cybersecurity company Surfshark recorded 81 new internet restrictions in 2025 across 21 countries, pointing to evolving patterns of repression. Out of the 81 restrictions Surfshark tracked, 51 of these restrictive measures were taken in response to political situations.”

News and information needs to be shared differently in this kind of environment: the digital distribution techniques we’ve spent the last few decades learning simply don’t apply. Last year, in Building distributed media for a democratic breakdown, I wrote about how we might learn from Cuba’s ‌El Paquete Semanal and take advantage of both sneakernets and peer-to-peer networks to overcome these kinds of blockades. In a restrictive environment, people need news and journalism more than ever.

I wrote that piece somewhat speculatively, but the reception to it in journalistic circles took me by surprise. It’s an idea and a worry that people are taking seriously. And over the last six months, in a world that has seen more conflict, more restrictions, and more attacks on free speech, there have only been reasons to take it more so.

[Link]