Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has ordered authorities to begin restoring internet access, ending the shutdown which has currently entered its 88th day, becoming the longest internet blackout ever imposed by any country.
However, even as the order was announced, there was still uncertainty inside Iran if unrestricted access would actually return at all, underscoring deep divisions within the Islamic Republic as to how much access to information ordinary Iranians should be given.
Iran’s internet system is highly centralised, and controlled through a maze of powerful state bodies overseen by the Supreme Council for Cyberspace, a body created by the former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2012.
The council includes senior figures from across Iran’s security, religious, and judicial establishment, including the intelligence minister, the chief justice, and clerics who have long pushed for tighter online controls.
Some conservative figures inside the system have compared platforms like Instagram to American fighter jets, arguing that unrestricted internet access is a national security threat and a tool of Western influence.
To bypass that deadlock, Iran’s moderate reformist president formed a parallel task force this month, only to face accusations of attempting to overrule the supreme leader’s council. Even as news of his order to restore internet access emerged last night, it remains unclear whether the directive will be fully enforced, and what it would mean in practice.
Access to the wider internet in Iran has increasingly become divided along class and political lines. A section of wealthy Iranians and politically connected groups often rely on expensive VPN services or smuggled Starlink terminals to reach the open internet, while some government-approved users are granted direct unrestricted access.
For most ordinary people, however, large parts of the internet remain locked in limbo, leaving millions waiting to see whether the country’s leadership will truly reopen online access or simply loosen restrictions temporarily.
