Written by Dejan Hinic and Gabriël Moens
Media censorship has always been a barometer of political power. From the earliest empires to today’s digitally networked states, governments have sought to shape narratives, suppress dissent, and control the flow of information. But in the Middle East’s current geopolitical crisis, where Israel, the United States, and Iran are locked in a volatile triangle of war, propaganda, and information warfare, censorship has reached a new level of intensity and sophistication. The moral and legal implications of these practices raise urgent questions about democracy, human rights, and the future of truth itself. So, the question as to whether there is a case for media censorship during wartime cannot be avoided.
Censorship during wartime is often framed in terms of protecting national security. Governments argue that restricting information protects civilians, prevents panic, and denies adversaries tactical intelligence. Yet the moral paradox is unavoidably clear: the same censorship that protects can also become institutionalised during peacetime to control a nation’s population.
It is common knowledge that censorship has a long history. In Nazi Germany, Hitler censored the media by combining legal repression, state-controlled propaganda, cultural purges, and terror, creating a system where independent thought became impossible, and the Nazi worldview provided the only permitted reality. Nazi Germany created one of the most extreme censorship systems in history, but modern authoritarian regimes have adapted these methods to the digital age. The goals remain the same: control, obedience, and ideological conformity, but the tools have become more complex and far-reaching. Where the Nazis used radio, film, the print media, and terror, today’s regimes use algorithms, surveillance technology, and digital propaganda. The continuity is chilling, but the evolution is even more concerning.
During World War I and World War II, the governments tightly controlled war reporting to maintain morale and hide losses. Later, during the Cold War, both the U.S. and USSR used propaganda and media control as ideological weapons. More recently, during the Arab Spring, regimes across the Middle East shut down internet access to suppress protests.[1] What’s new today are the tools, speed and scale of information and the corresponding scale and speed of censorship. Censorship has thus evolved dramatically since the 1930s, but the underlying goals remain strikingly similar: control information, eliminate dissent, and manufacture a single “official reality”.
In the current United States/Israel/Iran conflict, this worrying evolution is on full display.
Israel’s censorship regime is built on legal structures inherited from the British Mandate of 1945, later incorporated into Israeli law. These laws give the military censor sweeping authority to block publication of anything deemed harmful to state security.[2] Israel restricts reporting on missile impact sites, air‑defence operations, and even prohibits journalists from filming certain locations, claiming such information could “assist the enemy”.[3] During the current conflict, these powers have expanded dramatically. Journalists must now submit material for pre‑publication review. Filming impact sites, using drones, or broadcasting missile interceptions is prohibited, and even reposting social‑media videos requires approval.[4]This legal framework creates a system where the state, not the press, decides what constitutes truth.
Iran’s legal environment is even more restrictive than Israel’s censorship regime. Iran has imposed nationwide internet blackouts, cutting off citizens from news, emergency alerts, and the outside world.[5] The government routinely shuts down the internet during crises. It criminalises dissent, including tweets critical of the Supreme Leader and arrests journalists’ family members to exert pressure.[6] During the current war, Iran reduced internet connectivity to 1% of normal levels, effectively plunging the country into an information blackout.[7]
Legally, the United States has the strongest free‑speech protections of the three combatants. While constitutionally committed to, or constrained by, its freedom of speech provision in the Constitution, America has seen officials threaten broadcasters with license revocation for “distortions” in war coverage, an unmistakable pressure tactic.[8] For example, in 2026, the FCC chairman warned that broadcasters airing “distortions” about the war with Iran could lose their licenses, an implicit threat that critics described as censorship incompatible with the First Amendment.[9] While the U.S. does not impose pre‑publication censorship, political pressure can create a chilling effect, especially when combined with accusations of disloyalty or fake news.
Each government frames its actions as necessary to protect its population and to successfully prosecute the war. Yet each also uses censorship to shape political narratives, suppress criticism, and maintain legitimacy.
Authoritarian states like Iran and the UAE impose criminal penalties, including imprisonment, fines, and surveillance, for violating censorship laws. Israel uses a military‑security censorship regime with fines, publication bans, and criminal charges in extreme cases. The United States, by contrast, does not criminalise violations of its censorship measures because the First Amendment prohibits government censorship, though national‑security leaks and classified disclosures carry severe penalties.
Governments are no longer focused solely on traditional journalists. Influencers, live streamers, and citizen reporters now shape global narratives in real-time. Israel has arrested photographers and restricted live skyline broadcasts to prevent revealing missile interception sites.[10] Iran searches civilians’ phones at checkpoints and criminalises anti-war posts.[11] U.S. officials publicly pressure media figures to adopt a “patriotic” framing of the war.[12] Influencers, once dismissed as entertainers, have become unregulated journalists and thus new targets for state control.
The evolution of war reporting started with the introduction of television, and the Vietnam War was the first conflict that was broadcast to a wider audience. During the first Gulf War, television audiences were introduced to real-time coverage, spearheaded by CNN journalist Peter Gregg Arnett, who reported live from Baghdad during the allied bombing campaign. Today, the live reporting from conflict zones is under pressure due to the overload of fake news and misinformation. From the start of the US/Israel/Iran war, all sides have claimed that they have killed their leaders during the first days of missile attacks. After a few days of the first claims, Iran confirmed that their Supreme Leader had been killed, but at the same time incorrectly claimed that the same fate has struck the opposing side.
Censorship may protect military operations, but it also obscures civilian casualties, prevents accountability for war crimes, distorts democratic debate and creates information vacuums filled by propaganda. As one foreign media manager in Israel admitted, “Our coverage of the war is not truthful”.[13] In Iran, citizens were left without emergency alerts during missile strikes because the internet was shut down.[14] In the U.S., political leaders accuse the press of wanting the country to “lose the war,” framing journalism itself as unpatriotic.[15] When truth becomes a battlefield, civilians pay the price.
Common global censorship tactics are internet shutdowns, criminalisation of online speech, blocking of social‑media platforms, state control of broadcasters, harassment or detention of journalists and restrictions on war reporting. These patterns are most visible in the Middle East, Russia, China, and parts of Africa, but the Middle East is currently the most extreme case, according to rights groups. A Jordanian journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for a Facebook post.[16] The UAE recently blocked several X (formerly Twitter) accounts, including journalists and regional broadcasters. Numerous individuals were detained across Gulf countries for posting videos or information related to attacks.
The Middle East’s current crisis reveals a troubling trend: democracies, theocracies, and hybrid regimes alike are converging on similar censorship tactics, even if their legal justifications differ. The moral question is no longer whether censorship exists (it clearly does), but whether societies can maintain democratic legitimacy, human rights, and informed citizenship when governments increasingly control what people see, hear, and know.
History shows that censorship may win battles, but it rarely wins peace. Hence, the case for media censorship during wartime is tenuous at best, and dangerous at worst. Eventually, transparency, not suppression, is what builds resilient societies where robust debates are not only tolerated but celebrated.
About the authors
Dejan Hinic is a financial and investment expert operating from Belgrade, Serbia. He received his law degrees from the University of Belgrade and the University of Queensland.
Professor Gabriël A. Moens AM, JD (Leuven), LLM (Northwestern), PhD (Sydney), GCEd (Queensland), MBA (Murdoch), MAppL (COL), FCIArb, CIArb, FAIM, FCL, FAAL is an Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Queensland and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Curtin University, and several other universities in Asia. He served as Pro Vice Chancellor (Law, Business and Information Technology) and as a long-serving Dean and Professor of Law at Murdoch University. He also served as Professor of Law and Head, Graduate School of Law, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Garrick Professor of Law and Director, The Australian Institute of Foreign and Comparative Law, The University of Queensland, and as Professor of Law, Curtin University. In 2003, the Prime Minister of Australia awarded him the Australian Centenary Medal for services to education. In 1999, Professor Moens received the Australian Award for University Teaching in Law and Legal Studies. In June 2019, he received the Order of Australia Medal (AM) for services to law and higher education. Also in 2019, he was named the “International Alumnus of the Year” by the Pritzker Law School of Northwestern University, Chicago. He is the Founder and Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of International Trade and Business Law Review. In 1995-1996 he was a Visiting Professor of Law at J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, Utah. He served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Loyola University, New Orleans School of Law in 2002-2003. He taught at the University of Notre Dame, London Law Centre Summer Program from 1991 to 2014. He is a Fellow (FCIArb) and Chartered Arbitrator (CIArb) of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, London and Fellow, Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA). Professor Moens is a Membre Titulaire, International Academy of Comparative Law, Paris, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management (AIM WA), a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (FAAL), and a Fellow of the College of Law (FCL). He has taught extensively in the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, P R China, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States. He is author/co-author/editor/co-editor of The Battle for the Soul of Western Civilisation, Connor Court Publishing, 2025; Foundations of the Australian Legal System: History, Theory and Practice, LexisNexis 2023; Law of International Business in Australasia (2nd ed), The Federation Press, 2019; The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia Annotated (9th ed), LexisNexis Butterworths, 2016; Arbitration and Dispute Resolution in the Resources Sector: An Australian Perspective, Springer, 2015; Jurisprudence of Liberty (2nd ed), LexisNexis, 2011; Commercial Law of the European Union, Springer, 2010; and International Trade and Business: Law, Policy and Ethics (2nd ed), Routledge/Cavendish, 2006. His debut novel A Twisted Choice, a thriller exploring the origins of COVID-19, was published in 2020 by Boolarong Press, which also published three short stories, The Greedy Prospector, The Assistant Librarian’s Ambition, and The Country Prowler in an anthology of short stories in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Two other short stories, The Grumpy Old Man and the Brush Turkey, and The Redundancy were published by Spur N Eight Publishing in 2024 and 2025. His second novel, The Coincidence, was published by Connor Court Publishing in 2021. He writes opinion pieces and commentaries for various magazines and newspapers.
[1] Brian Osgood, ‘Trump administration threatens news outlets over critical coverage of Iran’, Aljazeera, 14 March 2026, AT https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/14/trump-administration-threatens-news-outlets-over-critical-coverage-of-iran.
[2] Simon Speakman Cordall, ‘How does Israel restrict its media from reporting on the Iran conflict?’, Aljazeera,19 June 2025, at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/19/how-does-israel-restrict-its-media-from-reporting-on-the-iran-conflict.
[3] Oren Ziv, ‘‘Our coverage is not truthful’: How Israel is censoring reporting on the war’, +972 Magazine, 13 March 2026, at https://www.972mag.com/israel-media-censorship-iran-war/.
[4] Ibid.
[5] ‘Press freedom violations in the Middle East during the Iran war’,Committee to Protect Journalists, 10 March 2026, at https://cpj.org/2026/03/press-freedom-violations-in-the-middle-east-during-the-iran-war/.
[6] Fatemeh Jamalpour and David Schutz, ‘How Iran and Israel control information, Index on Censorship’, 15 July 2025, at https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2025/07/how-iran-israel-control-information/.
[7] See fn. 2.
[8] Brian Osgood, ‘Trump administration threatens news outlets over critical coverage of Iran’, Aljazeera, 14 March 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/14/trump-administration-threatens-news-outlets-over-critical-coverage-of-iran
[9] See fn. 3.
[10] Oren Ziv, ‘‘Our coverage is not truthful’: How Israel is censoring reporting on the war’, +972 Magazine, 13 March 2026, at https://www.972mag.com/israel-media-censorship-iran-war/at.
[11] Fatemeh Jamalpour and David Schutz, ‘How Iran and Israel control information, Index on Censorship,’ 15 July 2025, at https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2025/07/how-iran-israel-control-information/.
[12] See fn. 9.
[13] See fn. 1.
[14] ‘Press freedom violations in the Middle East during the Iran war’,Committee to Protect Journalists, 10 March 2026, at https://cpj.org/2026/03/press-freedom-violations-in-the-middle-east-during-the-iran-war/
[15] See fn. 9.
[16] ‘MENA: Media freedom still under attack across the region, Article 19, ‘4 May 2025, at https://www.article19.org/resources/mena-media-freedom-still-under-attack-across-the-region/.
