Iran's internet revival unearths videos regime 'didn't want world to witness'

After 88 days of internet blackout, Iranians have logged back online — flooding social media with long-delayed posts, videos and images from the last three months.

The first videos to emerge provide new angles on the widespread anti-government protests that erupted between December 2025 and January this year.

Iran claims weeks of anti-government protests across the country have subsided, blaming the US and Israel for the violence.

Authorities in Iran initially imposed a partial internet blackout from January 8 in a crackdown on the protests, then intensified the shut down later in February when the war with the United States and Israel began.

This week, after nearly 12 weeks, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian issued an order to reopen international internet access, saying it was a step toward "free and regulated access to cyberspace".

Among the first — and most popular — posts to be shared online have been anti-regime content and videos of protests against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Videos showing people marching in streets, destroying property and, shouting "long live the Shah," and "death to Khamenei" have been going viral as Iranians slowly regain connectivity.

"Some people have only just managed to reconnect to the internet, and I think they're only now beginning to upload those videos," said Mandana, a resident of Tehran whose name has been changed for safety reasons, in a voice note sent to the ABC.

For some Iranians, it is the first time they have seen the scale of the protests.

"Watching the massive crowds that came out on January 8 and 9, honestly, even I didn't realise that so many people had gone out to protest," Mandana said.

Tehran-based Sepideh, whose name has also been changed, said it was a way for the regime to control what the world "witnessed".

"By shutting down the internet, the Islamic Republic ensured those images could not be seen at the time. It didn't want the world to witness what was happening on the ground," she said.

"They had cut off the internet so the world wouldn't see that in all the main streets of Iran, a sea of honourable and freedom-loving Iranians had taken to the streets in response to the Shah's call to reclaim their country from the occupiers," one person wrote in a post sharing a video of the protests.

After the protests, death tolls varied. Some groups, including Iran International, a group of journalists who oppose the regime, reported more than 35,000 people had been killed.

While the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had documented about 7,000 death