The Impact of Internet Outages on Businesses
It might not be possible to precisely determine the damage caused by internet outages to businesses because there are many conflicting statistics about the number of online businesses in the country. For example, Firouzabadi, the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, previously stated that according to statistics, there are 2.4 million virtual business units operating on Instagram in the country, which is more than the number of actual business units.
The Minister of Communications believes that currently, the share of the digital economy in Iran’s GDP is about 7 percent.
Additionally, according to the Chamber of Commerce report, about 9 million people use Instagram directly. Moreover, the Director General of the Business Services Office at the Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade also stated that 90 percent of businesses in the advertising sector on Instagram have encountered problems.