Can geopolitical conflict break the internet?
One of the invisible casualties of modern war is the loss of internet access.
On the night of June 17th, 2025, virtually everyone in Iran lost access to the web in what was described as a “near-total national internet blackout.”
At first, it was unclear if Israeli drones or missiles had destroyed Iran’s internet infrastructure in a targeted strike. But it was the Iranian government that shut down its own internet.
“Many of the enemy’s drones are managed and controlled via the internet, and a large amount of information is exchanged this way,” Fatemeh Mohajerani, Iran’s government spokesperson, said. “A cryptocurrency exchange was also hacked, and considering all these issues, we have decided to impose internet restrictions.”
2024 was the worst year on record for government-imposed internet shutdowns, with 296 outages across 54 countries. Seventy percent of the global total of internet shutdowns came from four countries: India, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Russia. The primary cause of internet shutdowns was internal or geopolitical conflict.
This week’s newsletter explores how geopolitical conflicts and domestic unrest are disrupting the digital world—from internet blackouts and cyberattacks to propaganda wars and AI-driven disinformation.
// What happens to the internet when conflict starts?
Geopolitical conflicts now have sweeping consequences for the digital landscape.
Sanctioning the internet to protect national security
There is a long history of countries shutting down the internet in the name of national security. In 2023, the Indian government shut down the internet in the state of Punjab during a manhunt for a Sikh separatist. In the search for one man, roughly 27 million people lost access to mobile data and SMS services for four days.
Censoring the digital media
Countries engaged in geopolitical conflict have often restricted journalists from freely reporting. As Iran launched missiles at Israel last month, the Israeli government imposed restrictions on how the media covers the war. Journalists were under strict guidelines to avoid unintentionally aiding Iran by reporting on locations of missile strikes or positions of Israeli air defense systems. In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, it imposed similar media censorship measures, blocking access to Facebook, the BBC, and other foreign news outlets. It also punished anyone who spread “false information” with up to 15 years in prison.
Hacking “civilian tech” to gain on-the-ground intelligence
Civilian technology tools, such as phones, tablets, and home cameras, represent an expanded, omnipresent frontier of technology that geopolitical actors can leverage during moments of conflict (as Russia attempted to do by hacking into Ukrainian tablets in 2023). Civilian tools also represent critical technology that researchers, investigators, and citizen journalists can use to expose abuses of power (for more, check out the work of Bellingcat, a global, independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators, and citizen journalists).
Restricting internet access as a tool of geopolitical control
Regulating internet access is a new form of government control. The Tigray War, an armed conflict between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government from 2020 to 2022, led to the world’s longest internet blackout. For those two years, Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia that is home to over 5 million people, was without internet and telecommunications services, leading to challenges in delivering humanitarian aid to the region.
Quelling internal protests
Facing widespread internal protests, governments restrict internet access to regain control. In 2019, Iran imposed a six-day internet blackout after widespread protests erupted across the country in response to the government’s introduction of gasoline rationing and fuel taxes. Internet usage across the country was down 96%. In 2021, after the Myanmar military seized power in a coup, one of the first actions they took was to cut internet access across the country. Cuba is another example; in 2021, it shut down access to its internet in response to protests. And Bangladesh shut down its internet last year for similar reasons.
Distributing disinformation and propaganda campaigns
State actors rely on digital channels to disseminate AI-powered disinformation campaigns and propaganda. In 2024, Taiwan was rated the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year, according to V-Dem, a group that measures global democracies. Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said the number of pieces of false or biased information distributed by China increased by 60% from 2023 to 2024.
// A decentralized internet
And yet, despite state-backed efforts to control information, suppress independent media, and manipulate digital channels for political and geopolitical gain, the internet’s decentralized foundation—one designed to empower individuals over central authorities—continues to serve as a powerful tool for civic agency and digital resilience.
Here are three ways people are circumventing internet restrictions and state-backed campaigns to control digital spaces.
- Circumventing censorship and internet shutdowns
To navigate around censorship, citizens are resorting to a wide range of circumvention measures, including encrypted messaging platforms such as Signal and Telegram, VPNs, mesh networks (which allow users to maintain communication with one another without relying on the internet), private servers, and peer-to-peer platforms like Briar. During the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, protestors relied on the mesh network Bridgefy to facilitate peer-to-peer communications.
- Maintaining and restoring connectivity
Switching to satellite internet, like Starlink, is another way citizens are accessing the internet during periods of limited or no connectivity. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, SpaceX, the company behind Starlink, activated satellite internet service throughout the country. Today, everyone from Ukrainian civilians to the military uses the network of 47,000 Starlink terminals. In Myanmar, as many as 3,000 Starlink units have been smuggled into the country.
- Countering disinformation and propaganda
AI-powered disinformation is more difficult to detect, which means addressing it requires a comprehensive “whole of society” response. Under the influence of Chinese propaganda and disinformation campaigns, Taiwan has adopted a multifaceted approach, relying on government institutions, independent fact-checking groups, and private citizens to identify and call out disinformation. Fact-checking groups UkraineFacts and VoxCheck have provided a similar service during the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Bellingcat has also helped expose authoritarianism through open-source investigations.
// An internet for the people, by the people
As geopolitical tensions escalate, the internet has become both a weapon and a shield in times of conflict. From encrypted messaging to satellite networks, citizens are proving that the internet's decentralized spirit cannot be easily extinguished by authoritarian control or geopolitical conflict.
