Iranians emerge online with skepticism and defiance after months of blackout

(CNN) — Iranians reacted with a mix of skepticism, caution and sarcasm on Tuesday after internet monitors reported a partial restoration of online access following months of near-total isolation under a nationwide shutdown imposed by Iranian authorities.

“Yes, I’m connected, but I still have to use a VPN. Don’t get too excited though — the internet isn’t fully open, it’s just no longer completely shut down,” a 46-year-old man in Tehran told CNN on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

A VPN (virtual private network) essentially creates a private, digital tunnel that shields your online activity from hackers, advertisers and trackers.

Others voiced frustration online, casting the limited return of access as too little, too late.

An Iranian woman who previously took part in anti-government protests said in a post on X that the regime wants “to bring back the ‘filternet’ and they’re making such a huge spectacle out of it.” South Korea and Japan, “with all their internet speed, don’t lecture their people this much,” she wrote, adding that Iranian officials were “creating all this hype over basic internet connection.”

Some Iranians, meanwhile, appeared to use the moment as a symbolic show of resilience, posting selfies on Instagram for the first time in months.

“There will be more people getting online, posting and messaging in the next 24 hours. They probably need time to get their VPNs ready,” another Iranian resident told CNN who also asked not to be named or give their location due to security concerns, adding that they were helping others reconnect via VPN.

Internet activity in Iran has been partially restored, monitoring group NetBlocks said on Tuesday, after President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered authorities to restore access, according to Iranian official media citing the country’s Ministry of Communications.

NetBlocks said the restoration came on Day 88 of the blackout, calling it “the longest nationwide internet shutdown in modern history.”

The move could mark the beginning of the end of the longest blackout imposed in any country in modern history, according to NetBlocks, though it remains unclear how far the restoration will go or whether the order will be fully enforced.

Iran began restricting internet access in late December 2025, according to NetBlocks and other monitoring groups, after mass anti-government demonstrations driven by surging inflation, currency collapse and a deepening economic crisis.

As protests widened into broader calls for political change, Tehran intensified the restrictions. By the end of February, amid US and Israeli military strikes, authorities had imposed a near-total disconnection.

In a later post on X on Tuesday, NetBlocks said that internet filtering systems, known in Iran as the “filternet,” were still active but could be bypassed in some cases. The group added that WhatsApp remained restricted and required circumvention tools to access, while some users were still offline.

The delayed restoration also highlights how tightly internet access is controlled in Iran.

The country’s internet governance is highly centralized, with multiple layers of state institutions ultimately accountable to the supreme leader. At the center is the Supreme Council for Cyberspace, a body established by then supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in 2012, whose members include senior political, judicial, intelligence and religious figures with differing views on how much access Iranians should have to the outside world.

That has helped entrench deep inequalities in access. A small number of Iranians use smuggled Starlink terminals for direct connections, others rely on costly VPNs to bypass restrictions, and some government-approved users retain access to the open internet.

For most ordinary people, however, internet access remains limited and uncertain as the government weighs how much connectivity to allow.

Despite that, some Iranians in Tehran and other cities marked the return of limited access with a quiet but powerful act of defiance, posting selfies on Instagram for the first time in months — a small sign that after weeks of enforced silence, they were determined to be seen again.

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CNN’s Mostafa Salem contributed to this report.