The Washington Post – January 13, 2026
By: Eva Dou and Faiz Siddiqui
“President Donald Trump has appealed to Elon Musk to help Iranian protesters circumvent a government-imposed internet blackout, underscoring the frontline role Musk’s satellite company Starlink is playing in U.S. foreign policy.
“Iran’s government disconnected its 90 million people from the internet on Thursday, in a drastic effort to quell massive nationwide protests against the regime. The internet blackout extended to a partial jamming of the Starlink satellite service, which people in Iran have been using to circumvent official internet censorship, organize protests and communicate with the outside world.
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“Starlink is pretty much the only way to connect, to send news out of the country,’ said Mehdi Yahyanejad, co-founder of NetFreedom Pioneers, of the technology’s role for protesters in Iran. ‘It’s been very critical. All these videos and pictures that have come out in the past few days have been sent out through Starlink.”
Read the full article at The Washington Post