{"id":76445,"date":"2026-02-21T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/21\/splinternet-online-shutdowns-are-getting-cheaper-and-easier-to-impose-iran-blackout"},"modified":"2026-02-21T14:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:00:02","slug":"the-splinternet-how-online-shutdowns-are-getting-cheaper-and-easier-to-impose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76445","title":{"rendered":"The splinternet: how online shutdowns are getting cheaper and easier to impose"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Iran has shown how plausible blackouts now are, with far-reaching consequences for the internet as we know it<\/p>\n<p>During the height of Iran\u2019s blackout in January, people could still access a platform that, in some senses, was like the internet.<\/p>\n<p>Iranians could message family members on a government-monitored app and watch clips of Manchester United on a Farsi-language video-sharing site. They could read state news and use a local navigation service.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/21\/splinternet-online-shutdowns-are-getting-cheaper-and-easier-to-impose-iran-blackout\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran has shown how plausible blackouts now are, with far-reaching consequences for the internet as we know itDuring the height of Iran\u2019s blackout in January, people could still access a platform that, in some senses, was like the internet.Iranians coul&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5052,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[458,50,457,351,448,419,58,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censorship","category-china","category-freedom-of-speech","category-internet","category-iran","category-russia","category-technology","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5052"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76446,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76445\/revisions\/76446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}