On September 30, Iran’s Deputy Minister of Communications, Mohammad Hafez Hakami, said if Starlink spreads, the state loses the ability to cut the internet in a crisis. It would have to cut the electricity instead. Iran Digital Pulse, September 2026: digimpactlab.substack.com/p/…

Iran's internet came back in May, but it came back different. A government official says nobody can trace 12 trillion Tomans in VPN revenue, even though every purchase ran through bank cards on a state-run network. That's not a mystery. It's a choice. digimpactlab.substack.com/p/…

Sensor Tower's data shows what attention did to it. @balemessenger sat quietly around rank 150 to 200 in Social Networking for two weeks after it appeared, then climbed into the top ten the same days its presence went public. Apple pulled it days later.

Bank Melli Iran has been on the US Treasury's sanctions list since 2007. Its messenger spent eighteen days on Apple's App Store anyway. Not because Apple missed the tie. Because the filing left nothing to find. digimpactlab.substack.com/p/…

The regional picture, mapped: social commerce spending per person across seven markets in 2025. Saudi Arabia and the UAE run more than sixty times Iran's figure. Qatar clears $1,100 per person.

Iran's social commerce market generates $6.98 per person a year. Egypt, poorer by every conventional economic measure, generates $31.95, nearly six times as much. Income is not the reason. open.substack.com/pub/digimp…

Iran's own communications minister gave the clearest account of why restrictions eased. On May 25, roughly half the country's internet traffic was passing outside official gateways entirely, volume comparable to what remained inside them. He named Starlink as the source.

Iran has been trying to build a sealed, North Korea style internet since 2006. In 2026 it got closer than ever: an 88 day blackout, the longest national shutdown ever measured. It still could not hold. digimpactlab.substack.com/p/…

When @USTreasury wants to exclude Iranian users from a service, it does. When it authorizes a civilian carve-out, it names it. GL D-2 Annex, Item 11 is that instrument for @letsencrypt:

A Let's Encrypt v1.7 subscriber clause circulated with claims ranging from confused to factually wrong. The legal framework is precise. So is our record of how Iranian state actors use the same service. open.substack.com/pub/digimp…