Of course this network structure can be used to keep citizens in as well as aliens out. Of course it is being used right now to cover up state violence.
But the lesson should not be that digital borders are inherently bad, any more than the 'Iron Curtain' showed that physical borders are bad. States must have borders to exist. And states which do not implement digital borders effectively are just #DigitalColonies of US tech.
(Thanks to @Mehrad for teaching me about the #IranianIntranet)
Look, if you are interested in #DigitalSovereignty it is important to realise that the #Iran #InternetBlackout is not really that. It is not the sort of damaging loss of services we have seen recently with #Crowdstrike or #Cloudflare.
The National Information Network of Iran or #IranianIntranet is structured so that they can cut the cables to the outside world and (most) Iranian digital services continue to function. (1/3)
Tom Stoneham