Nationalizing the Internet to Break a Protest Movement: Internet Shutdown and Counter-Appropriation in Iran of Late 2019

• Published in: Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction 2022-11, Vol.6 (CSCW2), p.1-21, Article 314
• Main Authors: Grinko, Margarita, Qalandar, Sarvin, Randall, Dave, Wulf, Volker
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Human and societal aspects of security and privacy; Information systems; Security and privacy; Social aspects of security and privacy; Social networks; Web applications; World Wide Web
• ISSN: 2573-0142; 2573-0142
• DOI: 10.1145/3555205

To deal with a spontaneous civil uprising following a substantial rise in gas prices, the Iranian security apparatus imposed in late 2019 techno-political measures and blocked access to international websites and services. To analyze these measures, we conducted 19 interviews with Iranians living inside and outside the country. We argue that the concept of the shutdown, as portrayed in Western media, is not perfectly suitable to describe the infrastructural restrictions and propose the concept of an internet nationalization. This paper offers an in-depth analysis of what the nationalization meant and how it affected the lives of Iranians participating or not participating in the protests. We also report on a variety of creative measures, both technical and non-technical, Iranians took to counter-appropriate the government-imposed shutdown of international connectivity. Based on these data, we elaborate on the concept of counter-appropriation.