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Internet Shutdowns and the spread of #mahsaamini tweets

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*I would like to acknowledge Zoe Loh and Andrea Montano for their work on the Lifecycle of a Protest project, which inspired me to pursue my own project on #mahsaamini tweets

Protests aren’t new to Iran, but the scale of current protests seems quite substantial. The recent protests in Iran started following the death of 22- year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the Islamic Republic’s “morality police,” sparking outrage among Iranians who took to the streets to demand more freedoms. The Islamic Republic has imposed a near-total blackout of independent information coming out of the country. A fierce battle to control the narrative is now being fought online, where supporters and opponents of the government alike are taking to social media to tell their version of the truth.

In 2021, Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition documented at least 182 internet shutdowns in 34 countries. The #KeepItOn and #IranProtests2022 datasets are used to create the animation and the following graphs.

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\[\\[1in]\] Resources:

Iran protests 2022 tweets
CNN
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