Iran International
Millions of Iranians who depended on social media advertising fear losing their livelihood as authorities block Internet access amid antigovernment protests.
Authorities argue that the stricter social media and internet restrictions are required due to what they call “riots” across the country over the past month. They blame protesters, who they invariably refer to as “rioters” for the perils of millions of people whose businesses, have been affected.
These small businesses, particularly those run from homes by women or small farms in rural areas, very heavily relied on Instagram for advertising and WhatsApp for communication with potential customers. The number of these businesses exponentially grew after the Covid pandemic.
Larger e-commerce companies such as online retailers, hotel and transportation bookings and food delivery services have lost large market shares.
The government has blocked access to Internet to prevent the spread of news and images about protests disrupt contact among protesters by blocking Instagram and WhatsApp. Last week they went one step further and even shut down the normal mobile messaging (SMS) services and resorted to jamming foreign-based Persian language satellite TV channels when activists called for one day of nationwide demonstrations.
These measure, many say, have largely failed as protesters persevere and post footage of protests as soon as they can connect to the internet through their mobiles or broadband.
“We have undergone the severest filtering and internet disruption over the past month but news [of the protests] have reached everyone, from the blaze at Evin Prison to the confiscation of passports of [dissident] artists,” one of the many tweets on this topic said.
“It just showed that government’s understanding of [the concepts of] media and cyberspace is very limited, and their measures have made no difference apart from damaging businesses. Moreover, Starlink is on the way too!” the tweet said.
Speaking at an event in Mazandaran Province in the north of Iran on the National E-Commerce Day on Sunday, Mahmoud Leiaei, deputy communications minister said during his visit to the province people had complained to him about the filtering of Instagram.
Leiaei added that their complaints made him realize that even in rural areas people had depended on Instagram for selling their produce. He blamed these people whose businesses are suffering because, he said, they should have heeded authorities’ warnings and migrated from foreign social media and messaging platforms to those developed in Iran.
Social media users in Iran have largely shunned domestically developed social media platforms and applications such as Wisgoon and Nazdika, designed to replace Instagram, and Rubika, a messaging application. People know that security services control the domestic apps and can spy on them.
Experts also warn that these platforms are very vulnerable to censorship and there are serious safety and privacy concerns.
For years, many in Iran have relied on VPNs and anti-filtering software to navigate through government censorship and blocked social media and websites. But authorities have been regularly shutting down mobile internet which completely stops any kind of access. The use of VPNs surged by 30-fold following the recent nationwide protests.
All Iranian mobile carriers now only offer their internet services when permitted by authorities who are imposing a curfew style control. Access to mobile internet is much more important than broadband which only 10 percent of Iranians subscribe to. The government has also cut off access to the global web and limited online activities to those allowed by a very heavily controlled intranet, called the National Information Network (NIN).
Speaking on Iran's state television in a debate with Lawmaker Abolfazl Amoui on Saturday, October 15, Majid Tafreshi, a London based researcher, claimed that Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's regime did not survive because it offered its concessions to the people too late when his power had waned after months of protests.
Nour News, a website close to Iran's Supreme Council of National Security quoted Tafreshi as having also said that many Iranians living abroad are scared to go back to Iran because they fear arrests based on fabricated charges. He also said that Iran's state-owned media have done very little to attract between 6 to 10 million Iranians living abroad.
Tafreshi’s appearance on Iran’s tightly controlled state TV is part of a recent attempt by the government to showcase some public debates to attract viewers as the large government broadcaster, with 40,000 employees has lost its audience in recent years.
Tafreshi held government posts when he lived in Iran and although he has published critical articles, he is not part of the opposition and hence his appearance on state TV.
As part of the discussion about the media in the program, Nour News quoted lawmaker Amoui as saying that social media platforms and foreign media outlets do not reflect a true image of Iran. Tafreshi responded that "We cannot ignore foreign-based Persian speaking media's errors, but at the same time, we cannot blame them for the problems that exist in Iran."
While Amoui complained about Iran's isolation in the international community, Tafreshi said: "When you do not communicate with the international community, do not accept the terms of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and want to create a new South Korea with North Korea's policies, of course you will be isolated."
In another development, former Majles Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Aderl, who is a close relative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in an interview also claimed that foreign media portray Iran as a country on the verge of collapse. However, he did not say what the right characterization is for a country where two major prisons in Tehran and Rasht were set on fire within a week and over 200 people including 23 children were killed in less than one month according to human rights watchdogs, while the country's leadership has not changed for more than 30 years while people in the street call for his removal.
In yet another similar development, as the second month of nationwide protests began, Hossein Mousavi Chalak, the chairman of the Association of Iranian Social Workers, warned that "If the people's demands as voiced in recent protests are not met, next time, similar protests will be much more violent."
Chalak said: "A national research conducted between 2015 and 2021 showed that the government's legitimacy has been on decline." He added that "coupled with the government's chronic inefficiency in meeting the people's demands will lead to more violent protests even if this round of uprising in Iran recedes."
Fararu, which is a pro-reform website, interviewed Iranian economist Vahid Shaqaqi Shahri who said if the regime fails to clinch an agreement with the West over its controversial nuclear program and revive the JCPOA, the country may experience higher inflation that might bring its economic growth to zero in 2023.
Shaqaqi told Fararu that while Iran’s neighbors including Turkey and Saudi Arabia have experienced double-digit growths in the past few years, the economy of the Islamic Republic has shrunk in the face of sanctions and skyrocketing inflation.
Iran’s economy is almost completely state-run and the decision-makers in the country show no flexibility or interest in reform even though many warn the system needs drastic changes. The average annual inflation in the sixth months of the current Iranian year reached 42.1%, the Statistical Center of Iran announced in a report in September.
As the streets of many cities have turned into scenes of antigovernment protests since mid-September in the latest wave of anger at the totalitarian approach of the clerical regime towards cultural, political, and economic issues, there seems to be no glimpse of hope for any reforms by the authorities.
The people who are currently venting anger against the Islamic Republic in the streets and demand regime change are fed up with economic pressure and see a gloomy future for themselves; however, the government keeps cracking down, showing no interest in reforms.
In his Saturday interview with the Fararu news website, Shaqaqi said that the Iranian “economy has no more capacity to tumble down further.”
This university professor also referred to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which has forecast high energy and food prices and tougher economic conditions in 2023, warning that without “economic reforms, empowering the private sector, development of non-oil exports, and increase in investments,” Iran might see a more crippled economy next year.
Earlier this week, the IMF reported that with “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic all weigh heavily on the outlook, global growth is forecast to slow from 6.0 percent in 2021 to 3.2 percent in 2022 and 2.7 percent in 2023.”
This Iranian expert further noted that there are two more possible scenarios for the Iranian economy next year. “The optimistic scenario is that the JCPOA will be revived, and with the removal of the sanctions, the inflation rate will decrease to 20 percent and an economic growth of five percent could be achieved.”
With a slight increase in oil sales, Iran's economy has gained about 40 billion dollars from non-oil exports and imported a total worth of 45 billion dollarsin goods, Shaqaqi said, adding that the country has achieved economic growth of two to three percent, as predicted by the International Monetary Fund. However, he said, “if the conditions remain the same and sanctions are not increased,” one or two percent economic growth along with a 40 percent inflation can also be seen for Iran in 2023.
Iran’s economy is mostly influenced by political power. The government believes that in case of losing control over the economy, it will lose political authority.
A notable example is the Revolutionary Guard that plays a very significant role in the economy by monopolistic practices. Several cases of corruption and mega-size embezzlements have diminished popular trust in the regime.
Thursday marked the 28th consecutive night of protests in Iran with videos on social media showing people blocking roads to stop the movement of riot police in the city of Mahabad, in West Azarbaijan province, and gunshots and teargas reported in Ahvaz in the southwestern Khuzestan province, while several neighborhoods in capital Tehran are scenes of violent skirmishes between people and government forces.
The protest rallies in Tehran were not limited to a specific area as people from the northern or southern neighborhoods were participating in the demonstrations with slogans against the regime and the Supreme Leader while many people were chanting slogans from rooftops.
The Youth of Tehran Neighborhoods, an anonymous group that helped organize rallies in the capital in the past four weeks, called for another nationwide protests on Saturday, October 15.
Sporadic clashes were also reported from Karaj, a city near Tehran known for its youths’ resistance against the security forces.
Security forces were present in huge numbers in the streets of Kermanshah and Sanandaj, which were witnessing violent clashes in the past few days, with reports of several casualties from both sides.
According to videos, protests have also been held in the cities of Arak, Ilam and Bukan in West Azarbaijan province. Baneh and Saqqez – the hometown of Mahsa Amini -- in Kordestan province were also hotbeds of protests on Thursday night with people having built up big fires on main streets, although little footage is available from due to internet disruption by the government.
While Internet access was shut off or significantly slowed down in many cities, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk – who had earlier promised to activate satellite internet system Starlink for Iranians – said “there are some active terminals” in Iran.
As the uprising -- sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, is entering its second month -- the movement, which many now refer to as a revolution, has not yet found a leader the majority would recognize. Since the early days of the Islamic Republic, the clerical leadership has consistently eliminated political parties, free media, and anyone who could possibly be in a position to lead the opposition. This has manifested itself in the biggest characteristic of the current movement which is spontaneous and has no leader.
Some pundits warn that without a leadership the movement which has chosen “Women, Life, Liberty” as its motto may fail to achieve its goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic, and to sustain its achievement if it succeeds. Others say lacking a known leader makes it much harder for the establishment to suppress the movement.
In addition to protests in Iran, there are large rallies outside the Islamic Republic’s missions around the world, with people in some cities trying to enter the consulates and embassies to remove the flag of the Islamic regime and in some cases, police were forced to intervene.
Despite reports that Tehran is sending out letters to EU diplomats, claiming that "bilateral relations may not survive" as the EU moves to penalize Iran for killing protesters, the uprising is garnering more and more support among Western government officials and politicians.
“If Europe misses taking the nuances of the current situation into consideration, the ramification will be grave and the bilateral relations may not survive it,” warned one letter — sent to a group of EU ambassadors and seen by POLITICO. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Wednesday received a similar letter from Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, the arrests and interrogations of school children accused of joining nationwide protests in Iran and their detention in so-called “psychological centers” has raised fears of more child killings while at least 28 children were reported to be killed by the Islamic Republic’s repression machine since the protests began in mid-September.