- Tuesday, June 17, 2025, Iran calls on the authorities of all citizens to remove whatsapp from their devices
- Wednesday, Netblocks reported an almost total Internet darkening across the country
- Authorities Restored Access to WhatsApp in December 2024 after over 2 years of Ban
Iran has called on its citizens to delete WhatsApp from their smartphones with fear that the Messaging service has become a source of strategic information for its opponent in its current conflict.
As reported by the Associated Press, the Iranian state -TV shared the warning on Tuesday, June 17, “claimed without specific evidence that the messaging app collected user information to be sent to Israel”.
Meta, the company behind WhatsApp, has strongly rejected these claims and said it is “concerned that these fake reports will be an excuse for our services being blocked at a time when people need them the most,” AP reported.
Iran recently recovered recently access to WhatsApp, in December 2024, following a two-year ban that followed the country’s mass protests over Mahsa Jhina Amini’s death in the hands of Iran’s moral police.
Now, Internet restrictions have once again intensified across the country since Friday after the first Israeli air strikes, with many citizens going to VPN apps to keep in touch.
On Wednesday, June 18, Internet Watchdog NetBlocks recorded “an almost total internet blackout” across the country.
Iran’s shrinking internet space
When the conflict is elaborated, people in Iran have found themselves increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Government -related restrictions began last Friday (June 13) following threats of litigation by Iran’s Prosecutor’s Office against media and social media users that “disrupt society’s psychological security” Iranwire reported.
This has given rise to an increase in the VPN demand over Iran, which reached the tops of an over 700% increase on Sunday.
There have also been reports of VPN -Throttling with users who find out that their VPN apps have only worked sporadically. When he spoke with Techradar, Proton VPN confirmed the use of the use next to a significant VPN crash in the region.
⚠ Confirmed: Live Network data shows #iran is now in the midst of an almost total national internet blackout; The incident follows a number of previously partial disturbances and comes in the midst of escalating military tensions with Israel after days of back and forth Missile strikes 📉 pic.twitter.com/iu598AIMRJJune 18, 2025
The events come after a series of partial disruptions that Netblocks has recorded since Friday.
Major DNS provider Cloudflare also confirmed power cuts and reported a 90% decrease in connection from 1 p.m. 16.00 local time on Wednesday. These events do not appear to be due to infrastructure damage.
On Monday, a government spokesman, Fatemeh Mohajerani, reportedly explained internet restrictions as “temporary, targeted and controlled to avert cyber attacks”, but it also prevents citizens from communicating and accessing information at the most critical times.
In a comment on this, Proton VPN’s General Manager, David Peterson, said: “In Iran, the Internet -Blackouts as well as VPN and Social Media Block have been normalized and is now another tool that the regime can turn to.”
While censorship-resistant VPNs like Proton VPN can work to bypass targeted online disorders, they cannot help in times of Total Internet Blackout.
