The first thing I look at each morning is not the headlines; it’s two check marks on my phone. They sit under the message I sent hours earlier to my family in Tehran. If they are blue, my shoulders drop. If they are gray, something in me tightens. My body prepares for a scenario my mind has not yet named. Maybe it is nothing. Maybe the internet is slow. Maybe they are asleep. Maybe it is something else. I refresh anyway.
This is how many of us in the Iranian diaspora live now. After the long communication shutdowns during recent protests, Iranian authorities have once again imposed blackouts amid U.S.-Israel strikes that have killed hundreds in the country.
Staying in touch with family in Iran has never been simple. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it meant handwritten letters that took weeks or months to arrive. The envelopes were often slit open and resealed. Sometimes sections were missing. We learned to write carefully, knowing someone else would read our words first. You learned to say a great deal without saying very much.
Phone calls were brief and expensive. We rehearsed so we would not waste seconds. Sometimes we called just to hear each other breathe, to anchor the memory of a voice. If we were lucky, someone traveling from Tehran would bring cassette tapes recorded at family gatherings. We would sit around a tape player to hear relatives as they passed the recorder from hand to hand. Dishes clinked. Children shouted. Laughter drifted in from another room. We replayed those tapes for months. On rare occasions, a VHS cassette would arrive. A wedding. A holiday dinner. The footage was shaky, the colors slightly off, but seeing familiar faces felt almost unbearable and miraculous at the same time. I still have those tapes in a drawer.
For decades, communication between those inside Iran and those outside has unfolded under the shadow of monitoring.”
Then came email, chat rooms, then social media. Technology shrank the distance. Satellite television became another fragile bridge. Persian-language networks carried news, debate, and sometimes the voices of people calling from inside the country. The channels sometimes disappeared suddenly, and reappeared on a different frequency after authorities blocked them.
Communication tools multiplied: WhatsApp for family groups, Signal for sensitive conversations, Telegram for updates, Instagram for glimpses of daily life. Virtual private networks when connections stalled. But these tools are not constant. VPNs are constantly blocked. Families traded tips on which ones were faster, which ones lasted longer. They budgeted for them the way others budget for utilities, knowing each one will eventually stop working. A cousin rotates SIM cards: One for everyday use, one for tense periods, and one kept aside. It’s not paranoia; it’s preparation.
For decades, communication between those inside Iran and those outside has unfolded under the shadow of monitoring. My relatives no longer write long sentences. “We are okay. Situation normal. Will write later.” Sometimes messages disappear minutes after arriving. “So if they take the phone, there won’t be anything on it.”
There is no drama in these messages, just exhaustion. When the phone rings unexpectedly, my heart drops. Sometimes I hesitate to ask the question I want to ask; it is easier to ask about internet speed than to ask who has been hurt. Satellite internet devices like Starlink have allowed limited uploads during blackouts. For a few people, this has meant the difference between silence and visibility. But it is expensive, difficult to obtain, and dangerous to possess.
Savvy volunteers have downloaded tools such as Psiphon Conduit, Lantern, Outline, Tor bridges, and the Snowflake browser extension. These tools allow internet users outside Iran to act as temporary relays, helping people inside the country access the global internet. The systems are imperfect and constantly disrupted; as soon as one pathway stabilizes, another is blocked. The infrastructure of censorship evolves alongside the infrastructure designed to evade it.
When a message finally appears, just two words, “we are fine,” the relief is physical. When we talk, we talk quickly because the connection might vanish mid-sentence. Every call feels like goodbye. Sometimes it feels like we are trying to reach a distant planet through a fragile signal, hoping the transmission holds.
My cousin Bita once wrote to me, “In some ways you worry more than we do. It’s like when someone is sick, sometimes the caregiver suffers more than the patient.”
In diaspora group chats, someone is always fact-checking. Verifying information has become part of our life.”
Lately, my feeds are filled with dramatic clips. Explosions that turn out to be from another country and another time. Audio recordings claiming mass arrests that no credible outlet can confirm. Images that look authentic until someone notices a warped shadow or a license plate that does not belong. We check time stamps in Persian. We listen for regional accents. We look at the angle of sunlight and compare it to the reported hour. We zoom into the background, searching for a street sign we recognize. We reverse image search.
In diaspora group chats, someone is always fact-checking. Verifying information has become part of our life. A friend in Chicago scans Telegram channels. Another in Australia compares news broadcasts. A relative in Stockholm reads the European news coverage. Together we assemble a version of reality from the fragments.
Still, when videos of wounded protesters circulate through personal networks, people hesitate. They squint at the screen and say it is probably AI. Even when you explain that the footage came from someone you know, someone who risked arrest to film it. Doubt lingers, and in that moment something disappears. The suffering, the violence, the grief never enter the conversation. They dissolve into speculation.
Then there are days when the internet goes completely dark. Families from Tehran to Chicago stare at frozen screens. During the last blackout, I replayed the last voice note my aunt had sent, just to hear the sound of water running in her kitchen. An ordinary sound that offered proof of existence.
So every morning, before my coffee, before the headlines, I look for those check marks. In a world where connection can disappear without warning, they steady the ground beneath me. When they turn blue, it means someone I love is still alive. It means they made it through another night.
