OONI: Getting to Know Their Work on Global Internet Censorship Measurement
The Community Series features stories of the people and projects behind the digital rights community.
Maria Xynou, OONI’s Director of Strategic Engagement.
The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a free software and non-profit organization that empowers decentralized efforts to document internet censorship worldwide. They have collected more than two billion network measurements in over 200 countries.
We talked with their Director of Strategic Engagement, Maria Xynou, to learn more about the OONI Probe app, which measures the blocking of websites and apps worldwide, as well as their real-time analysis and reports shedding light on internet censorship and other forms of network interference.
How OONI Started
The founders of OONI were originally developers with the Tor Project. In order to understand how internet censorship was technically implemented, they developed a set of measurement methods.
In 2014, they first released OONI Probe, free software for measuring various forms of internet censorship. Initially, it was mainly run by technologists. To enable researchers and human rights defenders to use it, they released OONI Probe 2.0.0 with a web-based user interface in 2016. That same year, they also established the OONI Partnership Program to collaborate with digital rights organizations on measuring internet censorship worldwide.
They launched the OONI Probe mobile app for Android, F-Droid, and iOS in 2017, bringing censorship measurement to hundreds of thousands of people. Since then, anyone with a smartphone has been able to measure and contribute data on internet censorship with the tap of a button! Additionally, to support community-driven censorship measurement efforts, OONI created the OONI Run tool in 2017.
To enable researchers and human rights defenders to investigate internet censorship worldwide based on OONI data, they launched OONI Explorer in 2016. Subsequently, they launched a Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) to help users to generate charts based on aggregate views of OONI data, as well as a Censorship Findings platform and many other new features and pages.
As OONI’s mission and community grew, they spun off from the Tor Project to establish a nonprofit legal entity. Since May 2024, OONI has been a nonprofit foundation legally registered in Rome, Italy. Maria, their Director of Strategic Engagement highlights: “Our tools monitor network censorship, where internet providers block access to websites and apps. Our goal is to increase transparency in censorship around the world and make it possible to publicly know what is blocked, when it is blocked, and how it is blocked.”
OONI Probe - Community Testing of Websites and Apps Blocking
Internet service providers (ISPs) can block access to websites and apps, usually following guidelines or requests from government authorities. Maria explains that these interferences often occur in correlation with protests or political crises in the affected countries. The blocks often occur without public warning, and users may sometimes perceive them as 'technical' issues with access.
“When people install OONI Probe on their mobile phone or laptop they are basically running a series of experiments on their network to check whether specific websites or apps are blocked. Doing so you are collecting data about this which is sent automatically to us. We analyze the information and publish it as open data in real time,” she summarizes.
OONI Probe requires internet connectivity to detect if people’s internet providers are blocking specific websites or apps in their country. The tool doesn’t collect people's private information, and informs users about the risks through a quiz during their onboarding process.
“In the past, the main challenge associated with censorship measurement was that it required technical knowledge and the use of the terminal. OONI broke this barrier with the launch of the OONI Probe mobile app, which presented a user-friendly way to run censorship measurements. It is a major milestone because suddenly anyone could easily measure internet censorship by installing an app and tapping ‘Run’ without technical knowledge required,” Maria shares.
Since 2016, OONI is also part of the #KeepitOn campaign, which unites the efforts of activists and organizations to end internet shutdowns globally. These shutdowns include cases such as those the Open Observatory monitors, but also the complete shutdowns of the Internet with outages.
OONI Run Evolution: Simplifying Censorship Testing
Another tool developed by the organization is OONI Run which is a web platform that generates links to coordinate OONI Probe website testing.
In 2024, they launched OONI Run v2, a revamp that addressed community feedback and needs. OONI Run v2 includes features like shortened links, dynamic updates, automated testing, and easy access to measurements on OONI Explorer from an OONI Run link.
Real-Time Open Data on Internet Censorship from Around the World
Discover blocked websites around the world. Check whether WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and Signal are blocked.
OONI Explorer is one of the largest open datasets on internet censorship around the world. This data is provided by OONI Probe users worldwide, who run censorship measurement tests on their local networks, contributing test results as open data in real-time.
Since 2012, OONI Probe users have contributed more than two billion measurements from 28 thousand networks in 242 countries and territories, all of which is publicly available on OONI Explorer. Every day, new measurements are openly published in real-time.
Explore OONI measurements with a powerful search tool.
OONI Explorer offers an overview of how censorship is implemented in specific countries. Additionally, the app allows users to use search filtering by period of time, test result, domain, and country on its website. This platform has made possible the creation of several reports, such as their Censorship Findings. In their latest dispatches, for example, data suggested that Russia blocked Discord, Israel blocked Al-Jazeera, and Malaysia blocked Grinder.
Additionally, people can use their Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) to generate charts based on aggregate views of data, to help with the challenging tasks of interpreting information and confirming blocks. Maria explains that some situations may appear as censorship but are not. To help users, they have published relevant documentation and a tutorial that provide guidance on how to interpret and analyze OONI data.
Enhancing Case Studies With OONI Data
OONI releases research reports featuring stories and case studies regularly. For example, their Censorship Chronicles: The systematic suppression of independent media in Russia report, covers the blocking of news media websites in Russia in 2023, and insights on how these blocks impacted independent Russian news media organizations.
They also encourage and support third parties in using OONI data in support of their research, advocacy efforts, or other initiatives. OONI’s long-term partners, for example, published their iMAP 2024: State of Internet Censorship in 9 countries, a collection of 9 research reports based on OONI data from July 2023 to June 2024 collected in Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Each year, OONI data and tools support research and advocacy efforts around the world, and highlights from 2024 are featured in their latest Year in Review report.
The Internet Censorship Measurement Future
The OONI’s Director of Strategic Engagement shares that more and more governments around the world are using advanced technology to implement internet censorship faster and more effectively.
“Implementation of internet censorship is increasingly becoming less transparent, enabling governments to seek plausible deniability. In the past when access to a website was blocked, a user would often see a block page which would inform them that access to that site was intentionally blocked. Now blocks are often implemented by means of Transport Layer Security (TLS) interference, which means that the user just sees a ‘connection reset error’ or a ‘timeout error’, but such errors can also occur due to connectivity issues. Therefore it is not transparent that access is intentionally being blocked,” she explains.
Maria also highlights that OONI’s tools are becoming increasingly user-friendly - they provide community training on how to use them and are now available in more languages thanks to Localization Lab. She envisions that in the future more and more people from around the world will actively measure internet censorship and participate in censorship measurement research and advocacy.
If you're interested in supporting OONI’s mission, visit their website to learn how you can get involved or contribute to the cause through donations.