In the digital landscape of Iran, citizens find themselves trapped between a hammer and an anvil—on one side, external sanctions crush their access to the global digital economy, while on the other, their own government’s policies lock them into a controlled cyberspace. This isn’t just about a fear of information flow, but a calculated framework justified as safeguarding national interests—economic protectionism, cybersecurity, and the preservation of cultural values. The Internet here, instead of being a lifeline, has become a weapon of control, wielded by both foreign and domestic powers.
Iran’s Internet restrictions operate on a twofold logic. International sanctions are crafted under the guise of pressuring a regime while claiming to protect the rights of Iranian citizens, yet they disproportionately impact ordinary users, businesses, and students. These sanctions strip away basic digital rights, limiting access to global services and platforms, crippling the tech ecosystem, and creating severe gaps in knowledge and innovation. At the same time, the Iranian government implements its own restrictions—blocking essential websites and services—while invoking the rhetoric of protecting local markets, enhancing cybersecurity, or safeguarding “cultural values.”
The State of Iran’s Internet: Beyond Infrastructural Issues
Despite significant investments in digital infrastructure, such as fiber-optic networks and domestic data centers, the poor quality of Iran’s Internet stems primarily from internal government policies rather than technological shortcomings. The Iranian government employs extensive content filtering and deep packet inspection (DPI) tools to monitor, block, and control online activity. This deliberate censorship slows down access to global websites, restricts information flow, and isolates users from the broader Internet, even when the infrastructure could support faster and more reliable connectivity.
Additionally, the government’s creation of the National Information Network (NIN) and reliance on domestic platforms further fragments Internet access. By prioritizing local content and throttling or blocking international services, the regime creates a two-tiered system that favors state-controlled content while limiting access to global platforms. Ultimately, this internally-driven approach diminishes the potential of Iran’s otherwise capable infrastructure, leaving citizens with a slow, heavily disrupted Internet.
Sanctions as a Double-Edged Sword
Sanctions are often justified as an ethical response to regimes that trample on human rights. The sanctions targeting Iran’s digital landscape, however, represent a glaring contradiction. On one hand, the U.S. government, through its “D-2” document, claims to uphold Iranian citizens’ rights to access the Internet. On the other hand, these very sanctions suffocate the same access, with little to no distinction made between government entities and the everyday Internet user. Websites critical to education, commerce, and communication are blocked, affecting users’ ability to learn, trade, and organize.
To add insult to injury, many of the platforms banned for Iranians are the same platforms that are touted globally as tools for empowerment—Google services, Coursera, Zoom, and many others. This represents a fundamental flaw in how sanctions are deployed: instead of fulfilling their expected political impacts, they end up targeting civilians, widening the gap between Iran and the interoperable Internet.
A perfect case in point is the U.S.’s continued sanctioning of critical digital tools such as developer platforms, cloud services, and e-commerce websites. This cripples Iran’s tech industry, making it nearly impossible for young developers, businesses, and tech entrepreneurs to access tools that would otherwise help them modernize and innovate. The Tehran E-Commerce Association has recently documented the adverse impact on Iranian businesses that find themselves cut off from international markets, not just by internal restrictions but also by the very global community that purports to champion their cause.
The Intersectional Digital Discrimination
What we are witnessing is not just an attack on Internet access; it is a form of intersectional digital discrimination. The sanctions disproportionately impact marginalized communities within Iran—such as women, ethnic minorities, and rural populations—who already face systemic discrimination offline. These communities rely more heavily on the Internet for access to education, social services, and economic opportunities that are otherwise unavailable to them. By blocking access to online platforms, sanctions exacerbate these existing inequalities.
For many, simply bypassing these sanctions is becoming financially unsustainable. The increasing reliance on VPNs to access blocked or sanctioned platforms is a burden, with costs ranging from $5 to $6 USD per month—nearly double what many Iranians pay for mobile data itself. For the average citizen, these costs pile up. For marginalized communities already facing economic hardship, the burden is even greater. Women who rely on platforms like Coursera for education or on AI-based tools to run small online businesses must now factor in the steep price of VPN tools, further limiting their already constrained opportunities. The digital walls they face online are compounded by financial barriers, effectively segregating those who can afford access from those who cannot.
The very concept of intersectionality—understanding how multiple forms of oppression intersect to affect marginalized groups—remains glaringly absent from the sanctions framework imposed on Iran. Sanctions, rather than a tool of liberation, have effectively created a system of digital apartheid, where those who need access to the global digital economy the most are systematically denied it.
The Myth of “Targeted” Sanctions
Sanctions advocates often argue that these measures are “targeted” against oppressive regimes and do not impact the civilian population. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A compiled list of 600 blocked websites shows how indiscriminately these sanctions function. Platforms as essential as GitHub, Amazon Web Services, and Adobe have shut their doors to Iranians, who now have to turn to risky, less secure alternatives, often relying on underground digital markets to access basic tools.
For instance, Adobe’s Endpoints Matrix file indicates that users must navigate through 531 URLs to receive quality services. This requirement complicates the user experience significantly; not only do Iranian users face access barriers due to external sanctions, but many of these URLs are also blocked by internal governmental restrictions. Our investigation reveals that among these 531 URLs, some are inaccessible to Iranian users, and at least 40 are inaccessible specifically because of AWS sanctions, while others are not available due to internal limitations, and still others are blocked by both internal and external measures. This multilayered obstruction exemplifies the severe challenges faced by Iranian users who strive to access vital digital resources.
The outcome? Iranian tech companies and freelancers lose competitiveness, unable to deliver on international standards because they are denied access to mainstream tools. Iranian startups are starved of the very resources that could make them successful players in a global market. More troubling, this situation is not confined to Iran; it represents a precedent where digital sanctions could be used to marginalize other populations in the future.
The Case for a Human-centered Approach
If the goal of sanctions is to weaken authoritarian regimes, they must be precise, not blunt, instruments. The current framework is not just counterproductive but also morally flawed. A more nuanced approach to sanctions could ensure that vital digital infrastructure remains accessible to the population, helping citizens maintain access to the Internet without empowering the regime.
Lifting or modifying sanctions that target basic Internet services could serve as a powerful counterbalance to the Iranian government’s censorship, providing tools that empower civil society. For example, allowing access to digital tools like cloud platforms, development environments, and secure communication services would give Iranian citizens the means to innovate and push back against internal restrictions. It’s about giving power to the people—not taking it away from them.
The Digital Struggle Ahead
While past efforts to regulate the Internet aimed to uphold certain standards, they often overlooked a critical truth: Internet-based sanctions have tangled organizations like ICANN in a web of jurisdictional and operational complexities, demonstrating that such measures frequently yielded collateral damage, undermining the civil liberties and access to information they intended to protect.
Iran’s digital landscape today resembles a broken bridge—mired in sanctions and internal restrictions, with its citizens stranded. The international community must ask itself whether its actions align with its stated principles of promoting freedom and human rights. Sanctions, in their current form, deepen the chasm between Iran and the world, ensuring that its citizens remain locked in an increasingly localized Internet ecosystem.
The international community has the power to dismantle this situation, to build bridges rather than burn them. But this requires a reevaluation of the existing sanctions regime, one that recognizes the intersectional impacts of digital isolation and seeks to remedy the unintended consequences of a well-intended but misguided policy. Only then can we truly say we are fighting for the rights of Iranian citizens, not just in name, but in practice. Yet, as the UN’s Global Digital Compact approaches adoption, concerns mount that it may undermine the very foundations of multistakeholderism in Internet governance, centralizing power and sidelining diverse voices in favor of state-led processes. In this precarious landscape, we must question whether we are paving the way for an inclusive digital future or reinforcing the barriers that divide us.
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Source: Internet Governance Forum