NetBlocks

NetBlocks is a London-based internet monitoring organisation founded in 2015 that tracks real-time network disruptions, shutdowns, and censorship events worldwide. It combines active network measurement with third-party probe data to produce near-instant connectivity assessments, publishing findings to journalists and civil society. Its core mission is making internet blackouts visible and attributable at the moment they occur.

NetBlocks became a primary source during Iran's 2026 communications crackdown, when the regime imposed a near-total internet blackout as security forces suppressed nationwide protests. NetBlocks confirmed connectivity fell to approximately 1% of normal levels and estimated the economic cost at $35.7 million per day . As the blackout entered its fifth day, NetBlocks and Georgia Tech IODA jointly assessed it as the most severe communications shutdown in Iran's recorded history .

The 2026 Iran blackout exposed the central tension in NetBlocks's work: independent measurement can document a shutdown but cannot stop it. Organisations including HRANA and Iran Human Rights relied on NetBlocks data to situate casualty counts inside a deliberate evidence blackout . That dependency raises a harder question: whether real-time attribution of state-sponsored blackouts changes government behaviour or simply makes suppression legible to the outside world.