Silencing a Nation: How the United States Restricts and Censors Iranians on the Internet

Abstract

ABSTRACT Contrary to the initial expectations, censorship managed to survive through the Digital Age as far as Internet censorship is today a global issue. The present paper attempts to provide insight into some new forms of censorship through investigating the various restrictions imposed on the Iranian nation by the United States. This study has shown that the U.S. government (in collaboration with Meta, Twitter, and Google) suppresses the Iranian media, removing them from the platforms, limiting Iranians’ access to the Internet, and silencing their dissenting voices in order to preserve its monopoly on the narrative. The results of this investigation also reveal one of the most extensive cases of censorship in the history of social media, which has been practiced by Instagram against General Qasem Soleimani.