Fact Check: Claim Linking Iran Blackout to Global Elites Is False

January 25, 2026 | 02:16 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A post claiming that the internet blackout in Iran was caused by the global elite was shared on Facebook [archive] on January 17, 2026. The narrative was attributed to former Jakarta gubernatorial candidate Dharma Pongrekun.

The account owner quoted Dharma Pongrekun's statement urging citizens to prepare for the loss of internet and electricity within seven days. The shutdown in Iran, which was preceded by other incidents, is cited as a real-world example of a “cyber polygon,” a movement by the global elite to demonstrate their power to the world.

So, is it true that the internet and power outages in Iran were caused by cyberattacks from global elites, as claimed by Porengkun?

FACT CHECK

Tempo verified this content by comparing it with reliable sources. The result is that the internet outage in Iran was not caused by attacks from global elites, as claimed by Dharma Pongrekun.

Who cut off internet and electricity access in Iran?

The Guardian website reported that the Iranian government completely cut off internet and communication access on Thursday, January 8, 2026, when protests had spread to 31 provinces. This internet blackout was considered the most extreme in Iranian history because it caused 92 million citizens to be cut off from all internet services and even experienced disruptions to telephone and text messaging services.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that the internet shutdown was a response to the protests, which they labeled as a “terrorist operation” controlled from abroad.

According to digital rights monitoring organizations Access Now and the #KeepItOn Coalition, based on the Filter Watch Report, on December 29, 2025, Iranian authorities began throttling internet speeds by around 35% and blocking censorship circumvention tools in protest areas to silence communication.

These partial restrictions then led to a total national internet blackout, including mobile connectivity and international calls, on the evening of January 8, 2026, just as violence against protesters escalated. Cloudflare data shows that internet traffic in Iran plummeted to near zero at 18:45 UTC, confirming a total blackout.

The Iranian government only eased internet and communication restrictions on Saturday, January 17, after the wave of protests subsided. Based on monitoring by the #KeepItOn coalition, internet blackouts in Iran have been consistently implemented during mass violence and brutal crackdowns on protesters, as was the case during the national protests in September 2022 and November 2019.

The protests in Iran were sparked by rising living costs after the Iranian currency, the rial, plummeted to an all-time low against the US dollar in late December 2025. The currency's decline has fueled inflation, with food prices surging an average of 72 percent compared to last year.

Iranian state television reported that the death toll from anti-government protests had reached 3,117 since December 2025. Meanwhile, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that 4,519 people had been killed during the wave of demonstrations.

What was the content of Dharma Pongrekun's podcast?

Dharma Pongrekun's controversial statement linking the internet blackout in Iran to a global elite movement was made in a podcast on January 14, 2026. A video clip of his statement, in which he said that the global elite would target Indonesia, spread across various social media platforms.

Pongrekun urged the public to prepare for emergencies such as power outages, ATM malfunctions, air conditioner and refrigerator failures, and clean water shortages.

Three years ago, Pongrekun also made similar statements about the global elite's control over the power grid on Akbar Faisal Uncensored podcast. Several of his previous statements have also been quite misleading, such as his claim that Covid-19 is part of the global elite's agenda.

CONCLUSION

Based on the results of fact-checking, Tempo's Fact-Checking Team concludes that the claim that the internet and power outages in Iran were caused by cyberattacks from global elites, as stated by Dharma Pongrekun, is false.

TEMPO FACT-CHECK TEAM

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