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Characterizing Web Censorship Worldwide: Another Look at the OpenNet Initiative Data

Authors:

Masashi Crete-Nishihata,

Sharon Goldberg,

Greg WisemanAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB), Volume 9, Issue 1

Article No.: 4, Pages 1 - 29

https://doi.org/10.1145/2700339

Published: 23 January 2015 Publication History

Abstract

In this study, we take another look at 5 years of web censorship data gathered by the OpenNet Initiative in 77 countries using user-based testing with locally relevant content. Prior to our work, this data had been analyzed with little automation, focusing on what content had been blocked, rather than how blocking was carried out. In this study, we use more rigorous automation to obtain a longitudinal, global view of the technical means used for web censorship. We also identify blocking that had been missed in prior analyses. Our results point to considerable variability in the technologies used for web censorship, across countries, time, and types of content, and even across ISPs in the same country. In addition to characterizing web censorship in countries that, thus far, have eluded technical analysis, we also discuss the implications of our observations on the design of future network measurement platforms and circumvention technologies.

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Ivanović MWirz FNieto JPerrig A(2024)Charting Censorship Resilience and Global Internet Reachability: A Quantitative Approach2024 IFIP Networking Conference (IFIP Networking)10.23919/IFIPNetworking62109.2024.10619834(529-535)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.23919/IFIPNetworking62109.2024.10619834
Bhaskar APearce PLuo BLiao XXu JKirda ELie D(2024)Understanding Routing-Induced Censorship Changes GloballyProceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3658644.3670336(437-451)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2024
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Index Terms

Characterizing Web Censorship Worldwide: Another Look at the OpenNet Initiative Data
1. Networks
  1. Network services

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on the Web

ACM Transactions on the Web Volume 9, Issue 1

January 2015

178 pages

ISSN:1559-1131

EISSN:1559-114X

DOI:10.1145/2726021

Editor:
Marc Najork
Google, USA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 23 January 2015

Accepted: 01 September 2014

Revised: 01 July 2014

Received: 01 March 2014

Published in TWEB Volume 9, Issue 1

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Cited By

Ivanović MWirz FNieto JPerrig A(2024)Charting Censorship Resilience and Global Internet Reachability: A Quantitative Approach2024 IFIP Networking Conference (IFIP Networking)10.23919/IFIPNetworking62109.2024.10619834(529-535)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.23919/IFIPNetworking62109.2024.10619834
Bhaskar APearce PLuo BLiao XXu JKirda ELie D(2024)Understanding Routing-Induced Censorship Changes GloballyProceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3658644.3670336(437-451)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3658644.3670336
Zillien SSchmidbauer TKubek MKeller JWendzel SQuek TGao DZhou JCardenas A(2024)Look What’s There! Utilizing the Internet’s Existing Data for Censorship Circumvention with OPPRESSIONProceedings of the 19th ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3634737.3637676(80-95)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3634737.3637676
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Al-Zaman MShiblee Noman M(2024)Rise of Digital Authoritarianism? Exploring Global Motivations Behind Governmental Social Media CensorshipJavnost - The Public10.1080/13183222.2024.239621131:4(529-544)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2024.2396211
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