Iran: Are social media platforms censoring dissent?

Torched cars, street clashes, women burning their headscarves — Iran has been gripped by widespread anti-government protests since the death in detention of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Jina Amini in September. According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), as of early October at least 150 people had died in connection with the protests.

On September 13, Mahsa Jina Amini, was arrested in the Iranian capital Tehran by Iran's so-called morality police, who apparently found fault with the way she was wearing her headscarf. She collapsed while in police custody in circumstances that remain unclear and was pronounced dead three days later at an Iranian hospital.

The protests have not stopped since, despite police deploying violence to quell them. Videos and images of police brutality have gone viral on social media, especially Instagram, which is widely used in Iran. The social platform was one of the last to be publicly accessible in Iran.

Mobile internet disrupted for hours

This most likely explains why the Iranian regime blocked Instagram two weeks ago, and has heavily restricted internet access overall. Mobile networks have been largely disrupted, according to NetBlocks, a London-based global internet monitoring organization. "Iran's big three mobile providers Irancell, Rightel and MCI block internet traffic from the outside world from about 4 p.m. to midnight each day," Doug Madory of Kentik, a US-based network observability platform, told DW. Since this is the time most protests occur, it makes all live coverage difficult. Madory did add, however, that Tuesday was "first day in over two weeks that there was no mobile internet shutdown."

It has become an increasing challenge to access social media platforms and censorship circumvention tools such as Tor and Psiphon are booming, with millions of users from Iran using them. With their help, social media platforms can be accessed from home computers."Iranians have dealt with internet censorship for almost 20 years, they are incredibly resourceful [in finding workarounds], including using VPN," said Marcus Michaelsen, a media and communications researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. A VPN, or virtual private network, allows users to surf the internet anonymously. Google offers advice on using this workaround on its Farsi service.

Instagram censored?

While the Iranian regime has restricted internet access, some say that social media platforms themselves are also engaging in censorship. Opposition activists, groups and media outlets claim that Instagram has removed certain hashtags, videos and posts.

In a tweet, the Iranian-born British actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi asked why Facebook parent company Meta, which also runs Instagram, had deleted so many protest-related posts. The US-Iranian journalist Saman Arbabi accused Meta too of having recently removed a video showing protesters wishing death on the Iranian leader. On Twitter, he suggested the company had more respect for dictators than protest banners and slogans. He said that a post that had reportedly garnered 3.3 million views had also been deleted. Manoto TV, a station run by Iranian exiles, and the documentary network 1500 Tasvir have also reported deleted posts.

"I have noticed and experienced this as well," Michaelsen told DW. He and an Iranian colleague have been looking into these developments, documenting posts that are being deleted, while other similar content remains accessible. "It is difficult to explain why [Meta's] guidelines are at times being so drastically enforced; I do not have an explanation for this, but that is how it is."

Meta says no restrictions in place

Asked to comment on the allegations, a Meta spokesperson told DW: "We believe passionately in people's right to online access, including in Iran. Iranians use apps like Instagram to stay close to their loved ones, find information and shed light on important events — and we hope the Iranian authorities restore their access soon. In the meantime, our teams are following the situation closely, and are focused on only removing content that breaks our rules, while addressing any enforcement mistakes as quickly as possible."  

Meta told the German public radio station BR that the restrictions imposed on Manoto TV had been designed to curb spam and had been lifted. The company also said it had restored some previously deleted posts. 1500 Tasvir has also similarly been suspected of distributing spam, due to the high volume of protest-related content.

Starlink to the rescue?

What will happen now? SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said he wants to use Starlink satellites to provide Iranians with internet. Experts, however, say that Iran lacks the antennae to make that a reality. A smartphone or router alone would not suffice for connecting to Starlink.

A New York Times guest essay co-authored by Mahsa Alimardani of the London-based international human rights organization ARTICLE 19 said that improving the situation in Iran did not hinge on using "untested satellite networks." Instead, the authors recommended that Meta "equip moderation and engineering teams with contextual nuance, creating direct lines of communication to activists to prevent imminent harm and providing communications tools that work."  

They argued that "removed posts and blocked access" could could become "a matter of life and death in these contexts."

This article was translated from German.