Starlink is waiving monthly subscription fees for users in Iran after the Iranian government reportedly shut down the internet last Thursday, cutting off millions of people’s homes, livelihoods and access to information amid a deadly crackdown on protests.

Satellite technology has become a vital communications lifeline for some in the country trying to tell the outside world what has been happening on the ground in recent days.

Two people in Iran told BBC Persian that their equipment was still running on Tuesday night, even though they had not paid their subscriptions in time. The head of an organization that helps Iranians get online also told BBC Persian that Starlink is already free.

The satellite technology, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, provides internet service to tens of thousands of people in Iran, even though it is illegal in the country. Since the internet was shut down, it has become one of the last, if not the last, channels for Iranians to communicate with the outside world.

The BBC has contacted SpaceX to confirm it has waived the fee, but they have yet to respond.

Using the service in Iran is punishable by up to two years in prison, and authorities have reportedly been looking for Starlink antennas to prevent people from connecting to the internet.

“They were on the roof checking the surrounding buildings,” said Parsa (pseudonym), who spoke to BBC Persian via a Starlink connection.

“What people need to know is that the government is searching areas where a lot of footage has been leaked, so they need to be more cautious,” he said.

The device operates like a cellphone mast in space, using a constellation of satellites to communicate with small antennas on the ground via a built-in WiFi router.

But the device is expensive and beyond the reach of many people in Iran, so making it free could lead to its wider use.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera on Monday that the internet had been cut off “after we faced terrorist actions and realized that orders came from abroad.”

Iran’s Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed that the internet restrictions were imposed to prevent foreign social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram from being used to “organize violence and riots.”

Rights groups condemned the sweeping blackouts as an abuse of power, with a spokesman for the United Nations human rights office telling the BBC that the outages “affected the work of those documenting human rights violations”.

So far, a human rights group has confirmed that more than 2,400 protesters and nearly 150 security force personnel were killed during the unrest, although the numbers are believed to be much higher.

It’s difficult to gauge the true scale of the bloodshed because, like other international news organizations, the BBC is unable to report from within the country.

Internet shutdowns also make it difficult to collect and verify evidence of what is happening on the ground.

“I think a lot of people are connected, but very few are willing to take the risk of sending a message,” Pasa explained.

According to human rights group Witness, at least 50,000 people are using Starlink to access the Internet.

Mahsa Alimardani, deputy director for technology, threats and opportunities, said Iranian authorities had tried to “actively disrupt” Starlink to prevent people from accessing the internet, but were unsuccessful. “That’s why they resorted to actual confiscation,” she added.

But those who take the risk will go to great lengths. One man interviewed by BBC Persian said he traveled nearly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to the border area in order to use the neighboring country’s mobile network to send the video he recorded.

He told the BBC that the scene he witnessed – a mass of bodies lying on the ground at Tehran’s forensic center – was so distressing that he felt compelled to share it.

The Iranian government has a long history of spying on its citizens, including through digital surveillance, in an effort to tighten its control over society.

Phishing techniques have reportedly been used to hack into phones and access people’s data, while access to the internet in Iran is largely limited to domestic services that mimic private intranets.

Access to Western social media platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram is blocked, meaning Iranians must use a virtual private network (VPN) to access them.

But despite this, Instagram remains one of the most popular platforms in Iran, with an estimated 50 million users.

While some news is being shared online, experts say the Iranian government aims to control speech by limiting the leakage of information.

Anna Diamond, a research associate at the Oxford Disinformation and Extremism Lab, said governments are weaponizing information through careful planning.

“The purpose of this material is not so much to inform but to condition; to almost normalize casualties, especially as the Iranian government calls them thugs, to weaken collective resistance and to prepare the public in Iran and abroad for the potential for escalation in violence if the protests continue,” Diamond said.

Despite the dangers, Starlink has become integral to many Iranians communicating to the rest of the world what is happening within the country.

“I’d rather not think about (getting caught). It could be very scary,” Passa said.

On Tuesday, Iranian intelligence forces said they had seized a batch of Starlink kits they said were used to conduct “espionage and sabotage” inside the country.

However, BBC Farsi confirmed through multiple sources in Iran that these kits are used by many people who want to go without censorship.

Passa warned that getting caught using the device isn’t the only danger.

If Iranians want to send videos that are shared online or intercepted, “they need to understand that their risk increases if they record these videos at home or where their devices are kept, and the government can identify the location,” he said.

Additional reporting by BBC technology reporter Hadi Nili