Are you under the impression that the starlink terminals in Iran are for US military?

Yeah but then Hesam died [1] ... yesterday in jail before having a trial. He was 40, wasn't an activist and had two daughters.

EDIT: To provide more context: Let's say that "John" is arrested for having had "illegal internet access" (not even owning a starlink). Even if he has a trial, the prosecutor can, and will, argue that he could have used his a secure channel to collaborate with the Mossad and CIA. If they find any unfavorable social media posts on his phone (and believe me, they will) they will say that he has endangered the national security by encouraging unrest and violent protests. This would then amount to waging war against God and death penalty.

If his phone is so clean that they don't find anything, it must be the fact that he is an agent, a mercenary. They will torture him until he confesses to having collaborated with Mossad. They will then air a forced confession on TV.

John might get lucky and have a caring family member from IRGC. In that case you might be right, he will only receive a prison sentence. If he had had a higher ranking IRGC family member he could even go further and start selling his starlink VPN for around $5 / GB. It's not even a hypothetical situation, I had to buy one of these (and it indeed was a starlink connection) four weeks ago ...

[1] https://x.com/indypersian/status/2050088043118211341

Shocking, but it may soon be (or is currently) true:

"Iran Prepares Death Penalty Law for Starlink Internet Use"

https://iranwire.com/en/news/145471-iran-prepares-death-pena...

The regime has killed 40k of their own citizens; they don’t seem to be going through due process and sentencing in court…

Per reports as of a few days ago, yes there are very much murdering people with starlink. Last year was before the current crisis. People are being murdered in the streets daily by the regime, and ordinary people are desperate for it to end.

The point being that we need to not incriminate these people.

Through social gatherings that mostly don't exist anymore.

They could easily just censor that, especially since a dictatorship has far more control over the media compared to democracies.

Chinas level of internet filtration and censorship nowhere near Iran or Russia. You just buy tourist eSIM and you're golden in China and literally everyone who wants do it.

Chinese government don't care about small percent of population accessing open internet.

I wonder why BYD is banned in the US. Are we afraid they'll be used to transport people to gatherings?

Iranians are not Arabs and thousands of them got gunned down earlier this year protesting the regime. "America bad" doesn't change the fact that the Iranian people deserve a better future.

FYI it’s not an Arab country

If they could credibly threaten your infrastructure then it makes sense. If they have no real organized hacking capabilities then no. But the US has already attacked Iran through computers before with Stuxnet and is the world leader in software and networking knowledge so it does make perfect sense for Iran to disconnect its networks from outside.

You might also have to consider the propaganda campaigns the US could run against an Iranian population with web access. If the population isn't more discontent now than it already was, "secretly" replacing commercial ad placements on western websites with US propaganda when the requests come from Iranian sources could make them discontent or inflame them further, which is bad for the Iranian government.

The government of Lebanon is cooperating with Israel - it's only the southerners/Hezbollah in conflict, at least for now. The people of Gaza are cut off for the most part. The strict censorship inside Israel is what you should compare to - not as strict as a total access ban, but if you say the wrong things or take pictures of the wrong stuff you're going to prison.

My point is that the people of Iran aren’t the target of the disruption.

Remember when Ukraine used the Russian cellular internet to operate drones that destroyed numerous Russian heavy bomber aircraft? That’s what the US/Israel would logically be expected to do if there were wide open internet access in Iran.

This is obvious game theory playing out militarily, people only see political suppression but warfare is a totally different ballgame.

If China were waging large scale war on the US I’d expect the exact same countermeasures to happen.