Iran is likely jamming Starlink

Technical feasibility of jamming Starlink

• Multiple commenters stress that jamming satellite links is straightforward in principle: satellite signals are weak, ground transmitters can easily overpower them in a given area, and GPS signals are especially fragile.
• Others highlight that Starlink’s phased-array, beamformed antennas make broad jamming harder; you likely get local or city-scale disruption, not a nationwide blackout.
• There is debate over the reported “30–80% packet loss”:
  • Some say this would cripple most consumer apps but still allow slow exfiltration of text/media with custom or low-bandwidth protocols.
  • Others suggest Starlink could be overloaded, and the article’s conclusion of deliberate jamming is seen as speculative.
• A subthread questions Starlink’s reliance on GPS for positioning, discussing: potential fallback to the Starlink constellation itself, chip-scale atomic clocks, manual coordinate entry, and whether GNSS jamming is the primary attack vector.

Impact on protests and information control

• Commenters frame Starlink as a critical lifeline when governments shut down terrestrial networks, especially during crackdowns.
• Some argue that even degraded Starlink links are enough to get video and reports out asynchronously, not live.
• Others note that in dense urban areas, local jamming combined with physical repression may be sufficient, even if rural Starlink access remains.

Starlink’s political role and foreign influence debates

• One camp views Starlink as part of a US-led “military” or regime-change toolkit used to support opposition movements; they argue states are justified in defending against it.
• Another group counters that Iranians have deep, longstanding grievances (water, economy, repression) and reducing protests to foreign puppetry is dehumanizing.
• Several comments compare this to Cold War meddling: foreign intelligence may amplify unrest, but that doesn’t invalidate genuine domestic movements.

Geopolitics, tech companies, and free speech

• Some praise Starlink for operating in censorship-heavy countries where other US tech firms comply more readily with authoritarian demands.
• Others say Starlink only pushes boundaries where it aligns with US interests, making it effectively part of a broader US power structure rather than a neutral “freedom tech.”