Dissidents in Iran are reportedly using Parler despite the Islamist regime’s social media restrictions.
Parler senior advisor, Erik Finman, told Fox Business that dissidents were benefiting from what the platform learned after “Insurrection at the Capitol” Democrats banned the app on January 6, 2021.
Finman said Parler was still active in Iran because of a post-J6 “censorship-resilient” protocol they built called Optio Blockchain.
As a blockchain platform, Optio, he added, “prevents people from trying to censor and ban information on the internet.”
“This Iran example,” he added, “has been the first major test, and Parler is still up.
“We’re noticing many protesters coming on our site to organise, share content and communicate.”
Desperate to stop the flow of information, the Islamist regime is “now trying to shut off electricity,” Finman claimed.
To counter this, he said, “We’re sending in solar panels with battery backs to help people charge their phones.”
Finman then added, “They just can’t get around Optio B on a website level, which is why it is so important that we build censorship-resilient technology because you never know when Big Tech censorship may happen again.”
According to IBM, blockchain is a decentralised distribution database, that stores data across multiple CPUs in order to make tampering extremely difficult.
Further explaining Bitcoin millionaire, Erik Finman’s connection to the technology, IBM said blockchain was introduced with Bitcoin.
The blockchain platform is how Bitcoin stays afloat.
Based on Finman’s remarks, the technology has just evolved to accommodate Parler, allowing the social media site to operate in an environment free of censorship controls.
Such as Islamist-controlled Iran, and its quest for state-owned media to be the “single source of truth.”
Optio Blockchain, Finman remarked, is, in sum, a “free speech firewall.”
Parler is apparently only operating because of Starlink.
Under the Biden administration, the SpaceX satcom network was granted a waiver allowing the company to expand its service to Iran in 2022.
Iranians petitioned Musk during mass protests and internet shutdowns to increase Starlink’s availability in the country, Iranwire said at the time.
Musk, in turn, petitioned Biden for an exemption.
An archived X post from Musk records 100 Starlink devices were up and running by December that year.
It’s unclear whether or not Starlink was deactivated after 2022, and then reactivated in early June 2025.
A vague reply from Elon Musk stating “the beams are on” fuelled speculation the Trump administration had relit Iranian access to the network.
Musk was answering a request reshared by Mark Levin to ensure Starlink is free (for now) and remains active.
Over 100,000 black-marketed Starlink devices are said to now be in Iran, professed Fox Business anchor Elizabeth McDonald on X.
Additionally, Starlink’s future direct-to-cell capabilities would light up even more of Iran, allowing dissidents to connect without a satellite dish.
This, McDonald exclaimed, “could dramatically expand reach and avoid visibility issues, fortifying free expression, protest coordination, and access to global information.”
Adding context, Comm Tech blog, Tehrani, said Starlink was bypassing government lockdowns.
“These terminals allow individuals, businesses, and journalists to remain online even during network lockdowns.”
“While government agencies can try to block the use of terminals, the service itself is effectively outside their jurisdiction,” Comm Tech wrote.
Less optimistic than Finman and McDonald, Comm Tech warned that censorship-resilient technology raised geopolitical challenges “around sovereignty, national security, and internet governance.”
Regardless of the caveats, Iran’s dissidents are utilising anti-lockdown tech in revolutionary ways.
With governments trending towards digital ID and information centralisation, backed by eSafety regulators turning the state into a single source of truth, censorship-resilient technology carries enormous potential.
Dissident tools used to resist Iran’s Islamist dictators today could very well be the tools needed to resist bloated bureaucracies in countries like Australia tomorrow.
Here, the quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson rings true: “Information isn’t just the currency of democracy,” it’s a lifeline for life, Light, freedom and responsibility.
