{"id":669023,"date":"2026-03-20T11:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/669023\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T11:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:30:14","slug":"iran-internet-blackout-leaves-jacksonville-families-waiting-for-word-from-loved-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/669023\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran internet blackout leaves Jacksonville families waiting for word from loved ones"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. <\/strong> \u2013 Families in Jacksonville who fled Iran said they have been unable to reach relatives since internet service in Iran dropped sharply after fighting began Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

Data from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis website showed that active probing \u2014 a measure of workability of network connections \u2014 fell from nearly 100% on the morning of Feb. 28 to about 4% by the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a complete digital blackout since the beginning of the war on Feb. 28, and they have no access to information. It\u2019s absolutely zero,\u201d said Heidi, a Jacksonville resident who has family in Iran. <\/p>\n

Heidi, who asked that we not share her last name, said she left behind her mother, brother and cousins when she immigrated to Canada before moving to Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy entire family is still in Iran. When I left when I was 19, I left alone,\u201d Heidi said.<\/p>\n

Arshia Aghdasi said he has not seen his family in Iran since he left the country at age 22. He said that since the fighting began, communication with his mother and brother has been limited. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have any connection to them,\u201d Aghdasi said. \u201cI cannot call them to make sure they\u2019re OK or not. I have to wait for them to call me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Heidi described her fear that an internet shutdown is used to hide government action during crackdowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time they cut down the internet was actually in the bloody November of 2019, where they killed 2,000 people on the streets, and people were protesting. That was the first time they cut down the internet,\u201d Heidi said. \u201cThis is the trick (of the government). We can cut down the internet. We kill people. Nobody finds out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Families in Jacksonville who fled Iran said they have been unable to reach relatives since…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":669024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,97255,83,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-669023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-internet-blackout","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116261278780602057","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}