Dubai: For nearly three months, millions of Iranians lived in near silence online – unable to freely message loved ones, read independent news, stream movies or run businesses that depended on the Internet.
Now, after what Internet monitors and activists describe as longer nationwide internet shutdown in modern history, parts of Iran are slowly reconnecting with the outside world, causing a mixture of relief, disbelief, anger and anxiety among ordinary people trying to regain a sense of normal life.
“I have mixed feelings, I’m happy, but at the same time, I feel kind of stupid I am happy for such a simple thing,” said Hamid, a 29-year-old tech worker in Tehran New York Times shortly after discovering that he could access the wider internet again.
“As someone who used the Internet for both private communications and work, my entire life and work had been at a standstill,” he said.
Iran imposed the comprehensive shutdown after the outbreak of war with the United States and Israel on February 28, citing national security concerns. What followed was an 88-day outage that left a country of about 90 million people mostly cut off from the global internet.
Most people could only access a tightly controlled domestic network of state-approved apps and websites, while independent news, foreign social media platforms and messaging services remained blocked.
“The worst part was reading all this news that you don’t believe, with a controlled narrative, and being in a complete black hole of information,” Maryam, a 39-year-old employee at an advertising company in Tehran, told the New York Times.
For months, she said, she struggled to understand what was happening not only globally, but also among friends and relatives outside the city.
“I feel like I just got out of jail and I’m in shock,” she said. “I have nothing to say – I’m just listening to the sounds outside.”
Partially restored
Internet monitoring organization NetBlocks said Tuesday that connectivity had been partially restored on day 88 of the outage, calling it “the longest nationwide Internet blackout in modern history,” CNN reported.
The restoration followed an order by President Masoud Pezeshkian to begin restoring internet access, according to Iranian state media cited by CNN. But the process remains partial and uncertain.
“Yes, I’m connected, but I still have to use a VPN. Don’t get too excited though – the internet isn’t completely open, it’s just not completely closed anymore,” a 46-year-old man in Tehran told CNN.
Although access was slowly restored, many Iranians responded with skepticism and sarcasm online, questioning whether the reopening would last or whether the authorities were simply easing restrictions temporarily.
An Iranian woman who had previously participated in anti-government protests wrote in X that officials were creating “all this noise over basic internet connectivity”.
Others used the moment as a quiet act of defiance, posting selfies on Instagram for the first time in months.
“There will be more people going online, posting and texting in the next 24 hours,” another Iranian resident told CNN, adding that many people were still trying to reactivate VPN services to bypass the restrictions.
Deep inequalities
Activists say the shutdown also exposed deep inequalities within Iran’s internet system.
While ordinary citizens remained disconnected, many government officials and elites reportedly maintained wider access through what internet freedom activists describe as a “whitelist” system – a model of connection levels based on political allegiance, financial means or institutional importance.
Internet freedom advocates say large swaths of the population, particularly poorer and less tech-savvy users, still remain effectively offline despite the easing of restrictions.
The restoration has also highlighted the glaring divisions within Iran’s power structure.
According to New York TimesPresident Pezeshkian formed a task force last month to develop a new Internet policy after growing public backlash against the blackout. While the group authorized the restoration process, parts of Iran’s judiciary reportedly tried to stop it through legal appeals.
“Different legal bodies are making conflicting decisions and it’s not really clear who is the ultimate decision maker,” Fereidoon Bashar, director of the Toronto-based internet freedom group ASL19, told the New York Times.
For many Iranians, however, the debate over politics feels secondary to the emotional exhaustion of months spent digitally isolated amid war, economic hardship and political uncertainty.
Some just want to watch movies again. Others want to talk freely with family members. Many simply want to feel visible again after months of silence.
Despite the partial reopening, messaging platforms like WhatsApp remain restricted in many cases and still require bypass tools to access, according to CNN and NetBlocks.
Yet in Tehran and other cities, thousands quietly returned to the Internet this week — sending messages, uploading photos and reconnecting with a world that, for weeks, had felt incredibly distant.
