The Iranian Liberation Revolution and Putin’s aggressive war are each accompanied by powerful national internet censorship. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are already blocked, more services are likely to follow. Since all critical media are now banned in Russia and none existed in Iran, internet services are a last way to get independent information, to organize and also to report on the local situation to the rest of the world. Only in this way is an effective opposition and active civil society still possible.
For a period of time, people in Iran and Russia were able to use digital tools to bypass internet censorship. They used so-called VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) or anti-censorship software called Tor Browser. Unfortunately, the respective dictators have upgraded the Internet censorship systems since the beginning of the war or since the beginning of the revolution, so that these digital “tools of freedom” no longer work easily. But now there is a new approach to circumvent internet censorship. Everyone here in Germany can help with this, without great technical skills. A web browser with internet access is sufficient.
To consume anti-censorship infrastructure, you can use the original Tor Browser on your workstation, or Orbot on your mobile phone. Provided by the Guardian Project, it brings trusted connections for Tor to Android and iOS.
A note about the World Day Against Cyber Censorship.
April 2025
The Tor project starts providing user support in Farsi.
June 2025
Recent updates on Iran reveal that the Tor project is looking for more instances of Snowflake proxies to sustain coverage and avoid shortage, i.e. more volunteers are needed.
