As citizens around the world prepared to welcome the new year, Iranians began taking to the streets to protest their country’s deepening economic crisis. Spurred by the continued devaluation of the Iranian currency against the US dollar, as well as crippling inflation, the unrest is the latest in years of economic pain and protest.

The Iranian regime initially acknowledged the legitimacy of the protesters’ concerns, distributing hopelessly inadequate cash vouchers worth only US$7 to help with the cost of living.

But it’s since taken a much heavier hand. According to the regime’s own figures, as of today, at least 2,000 people have been killed. Protesters bravely continue to take to the streets.

Like clockwork last Thursday, the regime rolled out one of its most potent tools of population control: internet shutdowns. In the six days since, Iranians have been almost entirely cut off from the internet, with alternative means of access, such as smuggled Starlink terminals, proving unreliable because of satellite jamming.

As the world waits to see if US President Donald Trump follows through on his threats of “very strong action” if Iran hangs protesters, the truth is that even without international action, the regime can’t afford to keep Iran’s internet offline indefinitely.

Why the regime blocks the internet

The Iranian regime has used internet shutdowns since the Green Movement protests following the disputed 2009 presidential election. They’re a powerful tool that stops citizens from communicating with the outside world and each another.

This limits opposition organizing, because people can’t join protests if they don’t know where they are. It also isolates individuals, preventing them from seeing violent crackdowns outside their neighbourhood. Internet shutdowns also obscure the international gaze, allowing the regime to crack down on protesters in the dark.

Shutdowns have become so synonymous with political unrest that the non-government digital rights organisation Article 19 declared in 2020 “protests beget Internet shutdowns in Iran”.

Internet shutdowns are costly

But it would be a mistake to think the Iranian regime has an endless capacity to shut down the internet. Each shutdown comes at a high economic and political cost.

As well as blocking instant messengers and social media sites, internet shutdowns in Iran have often blocked work applications such as Slack, Skype, Google Meet and Jira. These are central to ordinary businesses’ operations.

Similarly, the regime’s efforts to block virtual private networks (VPNs) and secure HTTPS connections can wreak havoc on corporate payment systems, multi-factor authentication and even corporate email.

Global internet monitor Netblocks estimates internet shutdowns cost the Iranian economy more than US$37 million a day. That’s more than US$224 million in the past six days alone.

As I wrote in a recent journal article, we’ve already seen how bad the economic impacts of internet shutdowns can be in Iran.

During the 2022-23 protests following the death-in-custody of the Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa “Jina” Amini, internet shutdowns had far-reaching implications.

One source claimed the volume of online payments inside Iran halved in the first two weeks of the protests alone.

Iran has a vibrant e-commerce sector. An estimated 83% of its online businesses use social media platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram to generate sales. All three were blocked during the 2022-23 unrest. A report later found Instagram blocking and periodic internet disruptions in the 17 months after the protests cost the Iranian economy US$1.6 billion.

The regime has been working hard for decades to build a domestic internet that could alleviate some of this damage, but so far it has failed.

The regime’s enormous technology needs — for surveillance, but also to power a modern economy for around 92 million people — has led to the emergence of a large semi-private information and communications (ICT) sector in Iran. This includes internet service providers, cell network operators and a large IT sector.

Just six weeks into the 2022 protests, the cellphone operator RighTel’s chief executive penned an open letter to the ICT minister, Issa Zarepour, complaining the digital crackdown was crippling his business. He noted RighTel had upheld the regime’s “security priorities and requirements” during the shutdowns, and demanded compensation or RighTel may be forced to withdraw from the market.

These demands were echoed in letters privately written (but later leaked) by other communications providers.

These were not natural regime critics. Indeed, internet shutdowns were creating a dangerous dynamic in which even those close to the regime were being alienated, generating a new class of potential protesters who could one day join those marching in the streets.

Why the current shutdown can’t last forever

This is why the current internet shutdown is a risky strategy. While the regime is succeeding in concealing the worst of its bloody crackdown, it risks further provoking the country’s already struggling economic class.

In 2022-23, the shutdowns were implemented in a targeted manner, taking place for the most part in certain cities, or at specific times of day when protests were expected. In contrast, the current shutdown is countrywide.

Only 1% of internet connections in Iran are online today (which is how the supreme leader is still able to freely use X to spout propaganda). This means the economic and political impacts of this current shutdown, if it continues, could easily dwarf those of 2022-23.

Given Iran’s economic woes are the driving force of the current unrest, a sustained internet blackout could motivate more people to take to the streets. The regime is only too aware of this risk. – Rappler.com

Dara Conduit, ARC DECRA Fellow, The University of Melbourne

This article originally appeared on The Conversation.