Tehran's Own Survey Says the Filtering Lost — and a Deputy Minister Said So Out Loud

A state-commissioned ISPA survey of 4,060 internet users, fielded in mid-June for the Ministry of ICT and presented on July 23, found 74.4 percent using VPNs or filter-breakers, two-thirds of them free ones. Some 57.6 percent oppose shutdowns in a crisis, 61.1 percent oppose privileged unfiltered access for officials, and 63.7 percent called reopening the international internet after the war a very correct decision. Deputy minister Ehsan Chitsaz said that when a policy "is circumvented this widely across the entire country, it practically leaves no legitimacy for that policy," adding that the shutdown made 43 percent of Iranians aware of Starlink and put Hamrah-e Aval's market value at $400 million against $20 billion at flotation. In the same week the domestic layer bit: the sports platform Football 360 was taken offline overnight on July 21, and two outlets reported their channels blocked across Eitaa, Rubika, Bale and Soroush Plus.

Assessment: This is the tiered-internet model failing on its own terms, and being argued about publicly by the people who run it. Tehran built domestic platforms to make the global internet optional; three-quarters of users route around them, and the same week shows why — the domestic layer is a censorship instrument, so migration onto it is reversible by a single administrative act. For Gulf states weighing sovereign-platform and data-localisation strategies, Iran is the cautionary version: the more a national network is used for enforcement, the faster users leave it, and the more attractive satellite bypass becomes — which lands next on Gulf licensing and jamming policy. Read the numbers knowing the ICT ministry commissioned them in the middle of an intra-regime fight over restoring access.