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Comment by fguerraz | Hacker News Reader

Excepts the internet blackout has nothing to do with censorship at all. This is just Iran protecting itself from cyber attacks, if they had kept Internet running, they would have been completely pwned.

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Come now, let's not be naïve. If protestors or dissenters are organizing over social media, or app-based Internet communications, shutting down the Internet is a great way to keep them in the dark and prevent the majority of them from either keeping up with local demonstrations or exfiltrating recordings of civil unrest.

It is true that shutting off your Internet prevents cyber-attacks, but imagine if it happened in the USA: it would effectively shut down much of our commerce and everyday living activities. In the West, Internet access is becoming more of an essential utility than the icing on the cake, or a recreational forum for malcontents and ne'er-do-wells. Or perhaps it's both at once.

There is no naivety on my part, the USA has publicly admitted that it orchestrated and even armed the protests [1]

[1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/6/has-trump-confirmed-...

Perhaps you are, instead, disingenuous, because the article you linked says nothing about the effects of an Internet blackout nor its motivations and now you're blathering about orchestration and arming, which likewise have nothing to do with an Internet blackout.

You’re correct, the article doesn’t say anything about that, I’m using my own judgement given the facts that I have.

All I know is, if I was at war with the USA, I would definitely cut the internet in my country. Not doing it is like being at war with a big maritime power, and not protecting your coastline.

> if they had kept Internet running, they would have been completely pwned.

Can you elaborate how such thing plays out?

Like this: https://archive.is/2026.03.03-070033/https://www.nytimes.com...

But this article is about cyber attacks, radar interference, etc. on military and strategic targets. The US/Israel can still do these even with total internet blackout. We saw this in the war! Israel/US still bombed who and whatever they wanted! What does this have to do with internet censorship?

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