An analysis of Google Trends searches since 2004 for three critical terms in Iranian politics—Khamenei, “the dictator” (as critics of the regime call him), and the concept of Velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) that justifies the rule of the Ayatollahs and the Iranian theocracy— shows clearly the gradual loss of regime legitimacy and offers hope of its downfall, if not in the current round of protest, then in future rounds.

It’s always hard to analyze broad public opinion in revolutionary times based on pictures or even videos of demonstrations, mass rallies, and riots. Gauging levels of support for Muhammad Morsi, the first and only Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian president, after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in 2012 is a good example. The Morsi regime was known for being able to bring hundreds of thousands of supporters to Tahrir Square in Cairo. Nevertheless, General Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, backed by the army, was able to stage a counter-revolution without much difficulty a year after Morsi was elected. However impressive a crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters may be, and as much as they commanded media headlines, one must remember that Morsi’s supporters in the square accounted for less than half a percent of the Egyptian population. Similarly, analyses of protests against the Iranian clerical regime in 2009, 2019, 2020, and 2022-3 did not live up to the expectations of media sites that analyzed them on the basis of such visuals.

This is where the importance of Google Trends lies. Google Trends plots the relative number of Google searches for a particular term over a given period of time: in the past day, month, year, over five years, and since 2004, when the service came into being. And since over 75 percent of internet searches are Google searches (despite the growth of competing social media), Google searches capture a large swath of public opinion simply because people overwhelmingly search for what they either like, consider important, or both.

This is certainly the case when comparing searches in Farsi for three important terms in Iranian politics and society, through which it is possible to analyze the ongoing protests that commenced in the final week of December 2025: Iranian Supreme Leader and strongman, Ali Khamenei, who has ruled over Iran since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, in 1989; “the dictator,” as his opponents denounce him; and searches forVelayat-e faqih, the key ideological concept justifying Iran’s theocracy and the religious figures that rule over the country.

One can easily see from the curves that plot the searches for these three terms over the past five years that most searches are for “the dictator” rather than the Supreme Leader’s real name (See Graph 1). Searches for “the dictator” appear in blue and are consistently higher than the number of searches for Khamenei, which appear in red. (There are almost five searches for “the dictator” for every search for “Khamenei”). This gap between searches for the two terms increases radically during times of protest to nearly 20 searches at the highest point of protest in September 2022, following the arrest of Mahsa Amini. She was severely beaten for wearing the hijab in what the security forces felt to be immodest fashion while visiting Tehran from her hometown in Kurdistan province, was hospitalized, and died three days later. Her death sparked severe protests throughout Iran, to which the government responded with widespread internet interruptions, nationwide restrictions on social media usage, tear gas, and gunfire. It is obvious that searches for “the dictator” reflect the considerable discontent her death produced and who the public felt was ultimately responsible for her death—Iran’s Supreme Leader, Khamenei: searches for “the dictator” in the present wave of protest were considerably lower than after Amini’s death. 

Not only are there more relative searches for “the dictator” rather than for Khamenei by name, but there are considerably more searches for the ideological concept of Velayat-e faqih than for Ayatollah Khamenei (the yellow curve). The gap might reflect Khamenei’s lack of popularity even among the ideological adherents of the regime.

Plotting searches since 2004 (Graph 2) shows declining ideological support over time for the regime and the growing popularity of the term “dictator;” that is to say, protest against the regime. Whereas, in the first decade of the new century, more searched the ideological concept justifying the Iranian regime than the term “dictator,” in the past decade there are many more searches for the dictator than for Velayat-e faqih and, of course, for the term “Khamenei.” This loss of regime legitimacy is reflected as well in the growing recurrence of waves of protest themselves. If in the first decade, there was only one major wave of protests (in 2009), in the past decade there were four. Both the analysis of searches and the recurrence of waves of protest raise the hope that even if the present wave of protest will not achieve regime change, future protests will.

Zeroing in on searches over the past year reveals another important phenomenon (Graph 3). Interest in both “the dictator” and Khamenei increased during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025 (and the attack by the United States at its tail end). Obviously, supporters of the regime rallied around the flag to counter the internal threat as Iran was threatened externally. They rallied around the regime to a much greater degree than in the present wave, probably because the regime is not threatened externally. The difference in the pattern of searches suggests that external support (American, Israeli) for the protesters should be covert rather than brazenly up front.

This data is valid up to January 8, 10 PM, Israel time, exactly the moment the regime decided to shut down internet services in Iran. The curves of all the terms mentioned plummeted to zero. 

Analysis of the data until then means that there is room for optimism that the Islamic regime will succumb sooner rather than later. 

JISS Policy Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.