JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Families in Jacksonville who fled Iran said they have been unable to reach relatives since internet service in Iran dropped sharply after fighting began Feb. 28.
Data from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis website showed that active probing — a measure of workability of network connections — fell from nearly 100% on the morning of Feb. 28 to about 4% by the end of the day.
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“There has been a complete digital blackout since the beginning of the war on Feb. 28, and they have no access to information. It’s absolutely zero,” said Heidi, a Jacksonville resident who has family in Iran.
Heidi, who asked that we not share her last name, said she left behind her mother, brother and cousins when she immigrated to Canada before moving to Jacksonville.
“My entire family is still in Iran. When I left when I was 19, I left alone,” Heidi said.
Arshia Aghdasi said he has not seen his family in Iran since he left the country at age 22. He said that since the fighting began, communication with his mother and brother has been limited.
“I don’t have any connection to them,” Aghdasi said. “I cannot call them to make sure they’re OK or not. I have to wait for them to call me.”
Heidi described her fear that an internet shutdown is used to hide government action during crackdowns.
“The first time they cut down the internet was actually in the bloody November of 2019, where they killed 2,000 people on the streets, and people were protesting. That was the first time they cut down the internet,” Heidi said. “This is the trick (of the government). We can cut down the internet. We kill people. Nobody finds out.”