Demonstrators gather in Berlin to protest Iran's Guidance Patrols who enforce dress codes. Photo courtesy of Ladsgroup via Wikimedia Commons.
By Sophie Frank ’26
Staff Writer
Content warning: This article discusses gendered violence, murder, state-sanctioned violence against women and police brutality.
The pattern might look familiar to social media users — an event occurs, social media protests consisting of visually-pleasing infographics begin circulating and the issue takes over social media feeds for a few days. After the initial buzz, it largely disappears from collective consciousness. However, this time the event is a nationwide outcry that’s been decades in the making. The catalyst for the protests was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini — but the anger of some Iranian people toward their government goes back decades.
In 2005, Iran established an organization of “morality police” called the Guidance Patrols. They are one arm of the Law Enforcement Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran, described by The Washington Post as “officers who target women they deem to be improperly dressed in public.” Iranian women — who have been required to wear head coverings since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the BBC reported — are most affected by this theocracy. However, there are dress code laws for men as well as transgender and gender non-conforming people. Many LGBTQ+ people have reported police violence since the introduction of these dress codes.
The current protests call for bodily autonomy for all and for the end of the mandatory hijab. Many women choose to wear head coverings, and the protesters support personal choice. They oppose the current regime, which has become stricter about dress code laws, harsher with their punishments and increasingly wealthy. In 2021, Forbes wrote that, “In 2020, the number of high net worth individuals in Iran grew by 21.6 percent, way above the global average of 6.3 percent.” TikTok user @iconicduck said that the protests oppose a regime that ignores the will of the people. “It’s not just one demographic that’s affected by this,” they said.
Vincent Ferraro, professor emeritus of politics and founder of the Department of International Relations at Mount Holyoke before his retirement, said that “Amini’s death crystallized many … long-term issues in an easily identifiable manner.” Iran’s previous protests surrounding a “sputtering economy” now meet “the outpouring of anger … against the so-called 'morality police’” and have led to resentment, anger and action.
While visiting family in Tehran, Mahsa Amini was arrested on Sept. 13 by the Guidance Patrols, who accused her of violating dress code, MSNBC reported. On Sept. 16, she was declared dead in a hospital after falling into a coma.
After Amini’s arrest, she was taken to a detention center intended to educate detainees on the dress code, though Iranians have accused these centers of abuse before, according to Human Rights Watch. In an interview with The New Yorker, Iranian scholar Fatemeh Shams said of Amini’s death, “A collective trauma was basically activated.” The situation rings familiar because Iranians have seen women harmed for violating these laws before, especially during the political tensions of the late 19780s. An article from the CBC explains how the current events reflect protests that occurred in 1979, when women took to the streets to protest a government decree that made veiling mandatory for women.
The police said Amini collapsed due to a heart attack while receiving training on proper headscarf rules, but her family opposed their claims to the media. A Time Magazine article shared facts that contradict the official report: Amini’s father said witnesses saw police beating her in the patrol car. He was not allowed to see her in the hospital, but caught glimpses of injuries on her body. Reports indicate that her death was due to a head injury, and that she had no pre-existing heart conditions.
Protests broke out after Amini’s funeral on Sept. 17. Videos posted online show women dancing in the streets and burning their head coverings, as well as protesters being assaulted by police, The Washington Post reported.
Many viral videos have revealed that protesters have limited access to the internet. Many people are worried about their friends and family members who are protesting and have been cut off from the outside world. In a TikTok that has 18.6 million views as of Oct. 6, @tytysplanett asked the platform, “Can you even see us?” Social media users, such as @gal_lynette on TikTok, who said in a video from Sept. 22 that TikTok users should “duet” the content of Iranians before the government can erase it, have said that others sharing messages of protest on social media will help make sure the movement stays alive.
Western, young people involving themselves in online global politics can create problems. Sometimes, content they share contains misinformation or features a skewed Western interpretation, The Repository reported. An NBC News article from March 2022 discusses how easy it is for misinformation to spread on TikTok, and said Generation Z “can sometimes feel as though digital natives are impervious to misinformation.” Other times, a viral social media campaign is simply ineffective, Divya Shanmugam wrote in an article for The Repository. “While spreading awareness is important, … mindlessly reposting the same trite artwork doesn’t contribute to meaningful change.”
Ferraro stated, “Generally speaking, social media has not been a constructive instrument in U.S.-Iranian relations.” Indeed, media publications in the U.S. have been accused of manipulating news around Iran to support American foreign policy and presenting warped views of Iranians that paint them as dangerously anti-American, Penn State University reported. In a 2018 article for The Intercept, Robert Wright writes about the “asymmetry” of U.S. reporting that causes fear around other countries without empathy or balance. But, social media plays a key role in the current coverage of the protests, CBC Radio Canada reported. As reported by a CBC News article discussing previous protests in Iran, Mahsa Alimardani, an Iranian-Canadian internet researcher, wrote, “Technology really is playing a central role in allowing people to organize, share information with each other.”
Tiko Dolidze ’26 sees online activism as capable of inspiring in-person action. She recounted stories of people in her home country, Georgia, creating Facebook groups to share information. The groups soon began hosting rallies. As a result, Dolidze believes that social media activism is “not just tweeting and writing posts. It can lead to actual action.”
Both perspectives can coexist. According to experts like Ferraro, historically, social media has been a harmful force in U.S.-Iran relations. But, it is also one of the ways Iranians have been able to share their stories with the world. While online activism movements struggle to maintain momentum, in the short term social media has brought the protests to a global audience, something that other protests have not achieved. For example, Ferraro pointed to previous protests in Iran against economic struggles that “have [not] received much international attention.”
Social media is one tool — a tool that Dolidze said must be used responsibly. “Be informed, … be responsible. What are [your] goals of doing a specific post … or action on social media?”
Revolutions change as technology does. As the story in Iran develops, the way people use social media and fight for justice will continue to evolve.