by At the beginning of the second week of war between Israel and Iran, access to information about the conflict has become more difficult in several ways.
Last week Iran throttled the internet speed for the first time and finally closed its internet. The Iranian government claimed that Israeli drones had worked on the internet connections of SIM card and the Internet shutdown is necessary to limit Israel’s ability to lead cyber war management.
As a result, websites, mobile apps and online messengers in Iran are inaccessible. This means that news in the war, the number of fatalities, destruction or the US strikes received last weekend, only from the Iranian government and its state-run media.
⚠️ Update: #IranDill down the internet goes to its fourth day, although the country remains largely offline despite a slight restoration of connectivity. After 72 hours, reduced telecommunications continue to have the ability of the public to stay up to date and to stay in contact with relatives. pic.twitter.com/h1zyzpfwmm
– netblocks (@netblocks) June 22, 2025
The Iranian authorities have also banned international media correspondents such as DW journalists to report on reporting on the conflict on site.
“My mother asked me to tell her what happened,” said an Iranian man who lives in Germany and was able to call his mother in Tehran for a few minutes at the weekend. He asked that his name was not published for fear of reprisals.
“She had no idea which parts of Tehran were hit.”
While it became possible to maintain news about the ongoing conflict from Israel, the Israeli censorship guidelines were updated last week. At the time of this publication, the discussion about further tightening the rules. These guidelines are legally binding for local journalists and international correspondents.
The new regulations concern Tania Krämer, the head of the Jerusalem studio of DW. “So far, all film materials of military installations or troops had to be approved by the military scensor,” she said from Jerusalem. “In addition, the faces of the soldiers had to be blurred.”
Such a film material must be presented to the military scensor before publication. “Average, [the military censor office] Publishes the videos pretty quickly, “she said.
Rules have been updated from this week. “Now it seems that we are not allowed to show live locations where rockets are hit,” said Krämer.
According to the Israeli newspaper Hair netItamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Communication Shlomo Karhi have enabled the police to make new guidelines to remove or even arrest journalists if they believe that media that document websites or locations near them have enabled new guidelines.
Israel’s shrinking freedom of the press
“In Israel, all media transactions are legally forced to submit an article or report on security problems to the military scensor,” said Martin Roux, head of the crisis switch at reporters without limits (RSF), an international NGO that defends the freedom of the press, pluralism and independence of journalism.
“However, media transactions must not disclose the intervention of military censorship to the public,” he told DW.
He added that this has been in practice for many years that censorship has increased since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
“Members of the Israeli government have used aggressive rhetoric against media that report on these wars that they violate the official story,” said Roux.
According to Haggai Matar, Managing Director of Independent Israeli Online Outlet +972 magazineThe military censors of Israel banned 1,635 articles from publication in 2024. “This has been the most extreme censorship since 2011,” he recently wrote in an article on the website.
While he repeated Roux ‘view that this is driven by various conflicts in the region, the military scene have not announced any official reasons.
The latest press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders classified Israel in 2025 with 112 out of 180 countries. This is a decline of 11 ranks compared to 2024 after a earlier decline of 2023.
Further incidents, such as the ban on the Al Jazeera TV network, have increasingly contained the otherwise different media landscape of Israel. Al Jazera TV was broadcast in Israel in May 2024, and her studio Ramallah was closed, according to Israeli military, due to a “threat to national security”. Israel claimed that an employee of the broadcaster was a Hamas commander who is widely classified as a terrorist organization. Since then, Al Jazera – financed by Qatar, who maintains relationships with Hamas – has been prohibited from reporting in Israel.
The state -funded Israeli public broadcasting corporation Kan Kan was also under state pressure in 2024. The ministers had asked for privatization and there was no need or space for public broadcasting. However, this decision was postponed in early 2025.
In February, all state -funded institutions of Israel had to break off relationships with the established of the country Hair net Newspaper after Hair net The publisher Amo’s shocks criticized the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the same time, tax -friendly sales outlets are becoming increasingly bank scooters, said, said, said, said, said, said +972 magazine Editor Matar.
And yet the technically experienced Israeli population can access information on the Internet. In addition, all apps and messengers work, including warnings on incoming rockets from Iran.
Israel also regularly announces online in which areas in Tehran and in other cities. However, the internet clamp in Iran has largely not aware of this warnings.
Internet subsequent part of the broader censorship
“Censorship has long been a central pillar of the strategy of the Islamic regime for oppression of different voices,” Damon Golriz, strategic analyst at the Hague Institute for Geopolitics, told DW.
“Social media is a crucial source of information for the Iranians, but also serves the regime as a powerful tool in his war against independent stories through misinformation, disinformation and repression itself anonymous user,” said Golriz.
In the middle of the current Internet shutdown, several prominent activists were warned or arrested, and in one case the family of an Iranian journalist based in London was harassed, he added.
For Mahtab Gholizadeh, an Iranian journalist based in Berlin, the increasing censorship of Iran does not work by preventing Israeli cyber infiltration or compliance with information about damage or the increasing number of the population.
“It’s afraid of inner unrest,” she said to DW. “The Internet is a strong catalyst for public mobilization, and the regime knows that in crisis times, digital connectivity can serve as a spark for collective measures against an authoritarian regime.”
In your opinion, however, the Internet clamp will not take long.
“The Iranian regime knows that it will not be able to maintain a complete closure, since technical and economic restrictions will ultimately force itself to connect again,” she said, adding that last weekend some selected journalists and loyal media have already been granted access to what Iran is called “White Internet” IRANS state-controlled Internet.
Published by: Martin Kuebler
