VPN Usage Surges Amid Protests, Conflict, & War In 2022
Mon 4:41 pm +01:00, 3 Oct 2022By Tyler Durden
Iran has shut down WhatsApp and Instagram in an attempt to stifle the discontent growing across the nation, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in custody after being arrested by morality police.
Internet shutdowns are fairly commonplace in authoritarian societies on the eve of change, where governments may seek to gain control of the narrative by trying to stop communication and the sharing of information which can fuel protests and uprisings. After all, the internet can be a powerful tool for social mobilization, as shown by the Arab Spring movement of uprisings which began in the early 2010s.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, citizens tend to circumnavigate such crackdowns by downloading virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allows them to get around restrictions to certain blocked sites.





