What we know about Iran’s Internet shutdown
In late December 2025, wide-scale protests erupted across multiple cities in Iran. While these protests were initially fueled by frustration over inflation, food prices, and currency depreciation, they have grown into demonstrations demanding a change in the country’s leadership regime.
In the last few days, Internet traffic from Iran has effectively dropped to zero. This is evident in the data available in Cloudflare Radar, as we’ll describe in this post.
The Iranian government has a history of cutting off Internet connectivity when such protests take place. In November 2019, protests erupted following the announcement of a significant increase in fuel prices. In response, the Iranian government implemented an Internet shutdown for more than five days. In September 2022, protests and demonstrations erupted across Iran in response to the death in police custody of Mahsa/Zhina Amini, a 22-year-old woman from the Kurdistan Province of Iran. Internet services were disrupted across multiple network providers in the following days.
Amid the current protests, lower traffic volumes were already observed at the start of the year, indicating potential connectivity issues leading into the more dramatic shutdown that has followed.
Some traffic anomalies Continue reading
