# Sustained censorship in IR (2023-01)

**Country:** 🇮🇷 Iran (IR)
**Date:** 2023-01-16
**Type:** Censorship
**Severity:** CRITICAL
**Status:** confirmed

## Summary

OONI detected 3 days of elevated network interference averaging 98.3% anomaly rate.

## Metrics

- Confidence: 75%
- Measurements: 3
- Anomaly Rate: 98.3%

## Evidence

- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-18
  - Confidence: 78%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-18&until=2023-01-18)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-17
  - Confidence: 78%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-17&until=2023-01-17)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-16
  - Confidence: 79%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-16&until=2023-01-16)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-15
  - Confidence: 79%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-15&until=2023-01-15)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-14
  - Confidence: 78%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-14&until=2023-01-14)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-13
  - Confidence: 78%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-13&until=2023-01-13)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-12
  - Confidence: 77%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-12&until=2023-01-12)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-11
  - Confidence: 78%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-11&until=2023-01-11)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-10
  - Confidence: 78%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-10&until=2023-01-10)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-09
  - Confidence: 80%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-09&until=2023-01-09)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-08
  - Confidence: 79%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-08&until=2023-01-08)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-07
  - Confidence: 80%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-07&until=2023-01-07)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-06
  - Confidence: 80%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-06&until=2023-01-06)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-05
  - Confidence: 79%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-05&until=2023-01-05)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-04
  - Confidence: 80%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-04&until=2023-01-04)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-03
  - Confidence: 80%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-03&until=2023-01-03)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-02
  - Confidence: 79%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-02&until=2023-01-02)
- **OONI** (measurement): Post-protest continued blocks
  - Observed: 2023-01-01
  - Confidence: 79%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=IR&since=2023-01-01&until=2023-01-01)

## What we cannot say

- **Who caused it** — measurement data alone does not attribute the interference to any government, ISP, or other actor.
- **Intent** — anomalous or unreachable measurements indicate interference, not a stated motive or a deliberate-vs-incidental determination.
- **Which networks** — no specific ASN/ISP is identified for this incident.
- **The mechanism** — we cannot state whether this was DNS tampering, TLS/SNI reset, HTTP blockpage, throttling, or an infrastructure outage.
- **Sub-national scope** — measurement is aggregated at the country level; we cannot localize to a province, city, or network segment.
- **Independent corroboration** — this rests on a single source; treat it as a single-source signal, not a multi-source confirmation.

## Data Sources

ooni

## Citation

Voidly Research. (2026). Sustained censorship in IR (2023-01) [IR-2023-0007]. Retrieved from https://voidly.ai/incident/IR-2023-0007

---
*Report generated by Voidly Research on 2026-06-21*
*Data licensed under CC BY 4.0*
*Incident ID: IR-2023-0007*
*Permalink: https://voidly.ai/incident/IR-2023-0007*