The White House convened a meeting with representatives of Amazon, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft, Cloudflare and civil society activists on Thursday in a bid to encourage US tech giants to offer more digital bandwidth for government-funded internet censorship evasion tools.
The tools, supported by the US-backed Open Technology Fund (OTF), have seen a surge of usage in Russia, Iran, Myanmar and authoritarian states that heavily censor the internet.
OTF's pitch to tech companies at the meeting was to help offer discounted or subsidized server bandwidth to meet the fast-growing demand for virtual private network (VPN) applications that OTF funds, the organization’s president, Laura Cunningham, told Reuters.
“Over the last few years, we have seen an explosion in demand for VPNs, largely driven by users in Russia and Iran,” Cunningham said. “For a decade, we routinely supported around nine million VPN users each month, and now that number has more than quadrupled.”
VPNs help users hide their identity and change their online location, often to bypass geographic restrictions on content or to evade government censorship technology, by routing internet traffic through external servers outside of that government’s control.
The US government launched its first Internet blockage circumvention tool in 2009 when the Iranian government expanded its censorship during anti-government protests. Later, the OTF was created to oversee and coordinate the US government’s Internet anti-censorship effort, annually receiving around $15 million in mid-2010s.
Iranians have long been the biggest users of the US-provided and other VPNs, since thousands of websites and all major social media applications are blocked by the government both for political and religious purposes.
The OTF specifically backs VPNs that are designed to work in states that restrict access to the internet. The U.S. injected increased funding into VPNs supported by the OTF following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Reuters reported at the time.
The organization has since received a boost to its budget from the US State Department via its “Surge and Sustain Fund for Anti-Censorship Technology”, an initiative created at the Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy.
But it has struggled to meet increased demand in countries like Russia, Myanmar, and Iran, where internet censorship heavily restricts access to outside information.
Around 46 million people a month now use US-backed VPNs, Cunningham said, but added that a sizeable chunk of the budget was taken up by the cost of hosting all that network traffic on private sector servers.
“We want to support these additional users, but we don't have the resources to keep up with this surging demand,” she said.
Representatives of Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.
A Cloudflare spokesperson said the firm was working with researchers to "better document internet shutdowns and censorship."
With reporting by Reuters
Senator Chuck Grassley released whistleblower information from FBI records amid Trump’s latest presidential bid and in the wake of a failed assassination attempt against Trump just weeks ago, which Iran denied links to.
In a statement, Grassley said: ”Bad actors are determined to wreak havoc on our country, and American political leaders across both parties are sitting squarely in the crosshairs.
“In this extraordinarily heightened threat environment, federal agencies ought to be laser focused on building up public trust and reassuring the American people of their efforts to carry out their protective missions."
He vowed he will not "stop pressing for answers until Congress and the American people are afforded the transparency they deserve.”
Asif Merchant, a Pakistani with known ties to Iran, has been charged for his involvement and according to the FBI documentation, provided evidence to the FBI in a plea deal. He was arrested just one day before the July assassination attempt.
According to the FBI records, Merchant believed he was in for a kill-for-hire scheme that would offer him a cut of $50,000 for successful completion. He had told FBI interrogators that there were options for shooting former President Trump at both indoor and outdoor speaking engagements.
The Pakistani, 46, told investigators that he could hit a target up close or from further away, that a pistol would be best for indoors, but a rifle was necessary otherwise. He is said to have believed he had about a 50% chance of success.
English language notes were smuggled by Merchant’s family members to communicate with his handlers in Iran.
While the FBI has still not commented on the July assassination attempt on Trump by Thomas Matthew Crooks, while investigations continue, the option of it having been an Iranian plot has not been ruled out.
Security had been increased in June based on intelligence suggesting plots to kill him as Iran continues to vow revenge for Soleimani, killed in a drone strike in Iraq in 2020, ordered by Trump for his involvement in terror targeting US troops.
According to the justice department's indictment, Merchant arrived in the US from Pakistan in April after having spent time in Iran, when he contacted someone he thought would help him enact the plot. The unnamed contact reported him to the authorities.
Merchant had apparently told the contact he would leave the US before the killings, staying in contact only through code words.
FBI director Christopher Wray called the scheme a "dangerous murder-for-hire plot... straight out of the Iranian playbook".
Last year, the US listed Iran as the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism while plots to kill dissidents, Israeli and Jewish targets around the world have become increasingly more common.
Demanding transparency from security agencies, Grassley said that a DHS-FBI briefing from earlier this week "yet again failed to provide full transparency, necessitating this letter and the public disclosure of the unclassified proffer.”
Baku has been demanding a corridor through southern Armenia to connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan enclave separated by Armenian territory.
As commentators and pundits in Tehran were criticizing Russian policy this week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi issued a post on X on Thursday saying, "Regional peace, security and stability is not merely a preference, but a pillar of our national security. Any threat from North, South, East, or West to territorial integrity of our neighbors or redrawing of boundaries is totally unacceptable and a red line for Iran."
Moscow and Baku want Russia to monitor and control the corridor which can serve as a significant route for trade and energy transport between Asia and Europe, but Yerevan and Tehran are opposed to such a scheme and argue that even if a transport route were to be established, Armenia should have control over it.
Former chairman of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, claimed in a Thursday X post that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s push for the establishment of the Zangezur corridor is a “preemptive move” to pressure Iran. According to Falahatpisheh, this is intended to deter Pezeshkian's government from opening "communication channels" with Washington.
Putin is aware that, despite Iran’s failed pro-Russia and pro-China policy, the key message of the recent presidential election was a call for de-escalation in relations with the West and a move away from dependence on Eastern powers, he argued.
Similarly, Iranian journalist Maryam Salari argues that Moscow's disregard for Tehran’s opposition to the Zangezur corridor must be understood in the context of Masoud Pezeshkian's election and his emphasis on negotiating with the West to lift U.S. sanctions.
“Raisi's Eastward-focused foreign policy had reassured Putin about Iran’s stance, but Pezeshkian's candidacy and his pledge to prioritize negotiations with the West to lift sanctions have unsettled Russia's regional plans,” Salari posted on X.
Russia’s prolonged delay in signing a 20-year comprehensive cooperation agreement with Iran, despite the support Iran has provided in the Ukraine conflict, has increasingly frustrated the Islamic Republic. This hesitation from Moscow has sparked irritation in Tehran, especially given the significant assistance Iran has offered.
“Russia has never cared about Iran's interests … This corridor blocks Iran's access to Europe through Armenia,” the conservative former lawmaker Ali Motahari tweeted Thursday and urged the government of Masoud Pezeshkian to be “perceptive” regarding the establishment of Zangezur corridor.
Tehran recently summoned the Russian Ambassador, Alexi Dedov, to the foreign ministry over the matter and congratulated Ukraine last month on its independence day. The move could be interpreted as an overture to Ukraine and an affront to Russia, according to some pundits.
In an editorial Thursday entitled “Russia’s Geopolitical Coup Against Iran”, the reformist Arman-e Emrooz daily criticized the foreign ministry’s reaction to Russia’s insistence on establishing the corridor.
“The foreign ministry’s reaction has not been sufficiently decisive and deterrent despite the irreparable damage caused by Russia's position which practically leads to the geopolitical suffocation of Iran at its the northern borders,” Arman-e Emrouz contended.
Not only reformists but also the media linked with the Revolutionary Guard have been criticizing the shift in Moscow’s policy.
“Russia has been also advised to avoid taking measures that may impair the strategic relations between Moscow and Tehran, because the idea of the Zangezur corridor will create a new flashpoint near the very delicate boundaries of northwestern Iran,” the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) linked Tasnim news agency warned Wednesday in an editorial on its English portal.
The Persian version of Tasnim’s editorial on the subject was stronger in tone, stressing that “Iran will not accept any changes in its borders and its security peripheries” and underlines that “confronting international bullies is a fundamental strategy” of the Islamic Republic. The editorial also called the corridor “imaginary” and reminded the summoning of the Russian ambassador.
Iranian journalist Mohammad Parsi also took to X to protest that the Islamic Republic still considers Russia as a “friend and strategic ally” althoughMoscow sided with Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, stood alongside the United States when the UN Security Council passed resolutions against Iran, supported European sanctions, and supports Azerbaijan’s demand regarding Zangezur. “What does this mean?” he asked.
“Russia’s illusions and problems should not distract our country from its own national interests,” Hadi Mohammadi, another Iranian journalist, posted on X.