Censorship Measurement

Censorship measurement is the process of measuring the extent to which a government or other entity is censoring, manipulating, or blocking access to content. There are many approaches to perform censorship measurement, including both active measurement of these websites, as well as passive measurement of access to websites and services.

In this activity, you will explore some publicly available censorship measurement data to better understand the type of data that is often collected to measure censorship, as well as what can (and cannot) be inferred from these measurements.

Background: Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI)

The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a free software project that collects and analyzes data on Internet censorship, surveillance, and traffic manipulation. OONI is designed to detect and measure censorship, surveillance, and traffic manipulation on the Internet. It does this by running tests on networks to measure the performance of websites, services, and applications. OONI also collects data on network interference, such as blocking of websites, services, and applications. This data is then used to create reports and visualizations that can be used to identify trends in Internet censorship, surveillance, and traffic manipulation. OONI is used by researchers, journalists, and activists to investigate and report on Internet censorship and surveillance around the world.

In this activity, you will explore data that is collected by OONI to measure different types of censorship.

Part 1: Censorship Measurement

Explore the OONI Explorer to see what types of data OONI collects.

1. Visit the OONI Explorer and select a country from the map. You can also select a country from the list of countries below the map.
2. Select a test from the list of tests on the left side of the page. You can select any test. The tests include the following; you may wish to start with one of these first.
   • HTTP Request
   • HTTP Header Field Manipulation
   • Web Connectivity
   • HTTP Invalid Request Line
   • NDT
   • Facebook Messenger
   • WhatsApp
   • Telegram
   • Signal
   • HTTP Host
   • DNS Check
3. Select a date from the calendar on the right side of the page.
4. Click on the “View” button to view the results of the test.
5. Explore the results of the test. What can you learn from the results of the test? What can you infer about the censorship that is taking place in that country?
6. Repeat steps 2-5 for different tests and dates.

Part 2: Country Reports

Next, see what types of conclusions can be drawn from this data, in the form of reports.

1. Visit the OONI Country Reports and select a country from the list of countries.
2. Explore the report for the country that you selected. What can you learn from the report? What can you learn about censorship that is taking place in that country?

Part 3: Circumvention Tool Measurement

Finally, explore the data about the use of circumvention tools.

1. Visit the Circumvention Charts page.
2. What is this data telling you?