Now for Iran it was control theory, FPGA design, chemical engineering, etc.. I suspect only weapons designers had internet access. Maybe universities, but no porn? Not likely..
So Google trends no longer shows porn or Iran.
As soon as Goodreads was launched in 2007, it swiftly attracted an enormous number of Iranian university students: they are one of the most active demographics on the site and they review all kinds of books since (with lax copyright laws and high literacy) translation of foreign literature flourishes in Iran. Does that sound like a people bereft of web access?
They were are/are prolific Iranian hacking groups too. I had the misfortune of having my small site defaced (in a drive-by) and Googled a string from the usual shout-out and found a lot of matches on similarly defaced sites. I counted that as evidence towards a robust Iranian underground hacking scene. This was way before APT & state-level actors were in the public consciousness.
Well done sir.
The cause: Iran has free government run universities, so education is a big thing here. Go to Stanford EE department, you would be surprised by seeing that many Iranians.