Iran’s presidential chief of staff said the government has begun revoking all forms of unfiltered internet access granted to select users – including senior officials – as scrutiny intensifies over privileged connections unavailable to the general public.
The change is already underway and applies to “everyone who uses such lines,” Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei told reporters on Thursday. Any revision of national filtering policy, he added, lies exclusively with the Supreme Cyberspace Council, not the Supreme National Security Council. “The council decided on filtering, and the council must decide on changes,” he said.
Unequal access exposed by platform updates
Iran maintains some of the world’s strictest online controls, blocking X, Facebook, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp for ordinary users, who rely on unstable VPNs frequently disrupted by authorities.
But recent updates on X revealed that several lawmakers, government spokespeople and pro-government media figures were posting from inside Iran without VPNs. The disclosures pointed to their use of government-issued unrestricted mobile lines, often referred to domestically as “white SIMs,” which bypass national filtering and throttling systems.
The revelations triggered widespread public anger, highlighting a stark digital divide between citizens and officials at a time when President Masoud Pezeshkian had campaigned on restoring open access.
His administration has yet to lift filtering; in his first meeting of the Supreme Cyberspace Council, Pezeshkian instead stressed implementing the Supreme Leader’s directives on internet governance and ordered action against the thriving VPN market.
Limited room for reform
Asked whether cabinet members would also lose their privileged access, Haji-Mirzaei replied: “Anyone who has such a line.” The council, he said, had set conditions for reconsidering filtering and that preparatory work was underway.
The shift follows weeks of public backlash over unequal access, showing how the administration has so far failed to deliver on its pledge to ease restrictions within Iran’s tightly controlled online system.
The current strain shows unusual transmissibility and reduced vaccine effectiveness, driving a surge in clinic visits, health ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour said. He noted that elderly people, those with underlying conditions and several children were among the dead. Officials expect the wave to continue into January.
Schools shut as infections climb
Rapid spread among students prompted school closures in late November across several provinces. Authorities in Isfahan said the move was driven by rising infections rather than air pollution.
Concern grew further on December 4 after the confirmed death of a 26-year-old man with no pre-existing conditions. He developed 70-percent lung involvement and acute respiratory distress syndrome within 24 hours. Health officials in the southern Hormozgan province described the case as evidence of “intense viral circulation” and aggressive disease even in low-risk groups.
Authorities in the central Yazd province have reported 1,138 positive tests and 13 deaths, mostly among older adults and vulnerable patients.
Pollution amplifies the crisis
The outbreak coincides with severe air pollution in major cities. Specialists say pollutants such as PM2.5 weaken the lungs and suppress immune responses, making people “far more vulnerable” to influenza. Global studies show dirty air can increase hospitalization and mortality from flu by 15 to 30 percent.
Infectious-disease expert Minoo Mohraz warned that influenza is “gradually becoming a pandemic” and could worsen death rates, adding that air pollution has “no immediate solution except staying indoors as much as possible.”
Daily burials in Tehran’s main cemetery have risen from 180 to about 220, Mehdi Babaei of Tehran’s city council said, linking the increase to soaring pollution levels.
“In the F-35 fighter jet crash case, an official informed us it had happened, and we reported it exactly as given,” Peyman Jebeli, head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), said in a speech at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran on Tuesday.
“Were we in the sky to know an F-35 had crashed? Were we behind the air defenses to know we hit an F-35? An official military authority informed us that it had happened, and we reflected it exactly as given. Later, for some reasons, they realized the information was not reliable,” he added.
On June 13, news spread in Iranian media that Iran had targeted an Israeli F-35 fighter jet and captured the Israeli female pilot. Locations such as Varamin, Tabriz and Kermanshah were cited as crash sites. Israel swiftly denied the reports.
“Yes, the media should not tie its credibility to other institutions, but when vital information is held by them, we have no choice but to operate within that framework,” Jebeli said.
On June 14, state TV aired the news, saying, “The Air Defense Force successfully struck and destroyed two F-35 fighter jets of the Zionist regime.” More than four days later, IRIB confirmed the report was not correct, offering no further explanation.
Asked about official polls on alleging the buoyant popularity of state TV inside Iran, Jebeli said that no polls had been fabricated but viewership is steadily declining.
“We never claimed our audience surged. The downward trend in viewership has continued since the early 2010s, though its slope has slowed,” he added.