Year in Review: OONI in 2022
As the end of 2022 approaches, we publish this post to share some OONI highlights from the last year. We also share some of the things we’ll be working on in 2023!
OONI Team
2022 was an exciting year for the OONI team, as we hired 5 new people!
During this year, we had the opportunity to welcome:
Norbel Ambanumben: OONI Mobile Developer
Maja Komel: OONI Frontend Engineer
Roberta Giassetti: OONI Finance and Administration Advisor
Elizaveta Yachmeneva: OONI Community Coordinator
Kathrin Elmenhorst: OONI Research Engineer
We are excited to have grown and diversified our team, improving our capacity to support the internet freedom community in investigating internet censorship over the next years.
In 2022, we had the opportunity to serve as the host organization for three OTF Information Controls Research Fellows: Ain Ghazal, Gurshabad Grover, and Kathrin Elmenhorst. Throughout their 1-year research fellowships with OONI, Ain designed methods for measuring VPN blocking, while Gurshabad studied the legal and technical infrastructure of censorship in Asia. During her 3-month research fellowship with OONI, Kathrin investigated HTTP/3 censorship and published a blog post sharing her findings.
During the summer of 2022, we also had the opportunity to host two Google Summer of Code (GSoC) students: Germa Vinsmoke and Mehul Gulati. Germa worked on OONI Explorer and Design System improvements, while Mehul worked on OONI Probe network experiments.
In early November 2022, we hosted the first in-person OONI Team Meeting (in Rome, Italy) since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this 3-day meeting, we improved our roadmaps and discussed strategic priorities and implementation details for many new systems we’ll be building over the next few years.
OONI Probe
New OONI Probe experiments
In 2022, we shipped the following new experiments:
You can run these experiments through the OONI Probe apps. The Tor Snowflake experiment provides an automated way of measuring whether the Tor Snowflake pluggable transport works on a tested network, while the Vanilla Tor experiment measures the reachability of the Tor network. Our DNS Check experiment measures the reachability of encrypted DNS (DoH/DoT) services, and has been used to support research on DoH/DoT blocking in Kazakhstan, Iran, and China.
We also designed several other experiments (including DNS Ping, TCP Ping, TLS Ping, and simple QUIC Ping) and we made numerous, significant data quality improvements.
Notably, we designed new methods to improve how we measure website blocking. Our new methods enumerate all forms of website blocking, including support for HTTP/3, enabling the collection of richer data. We aim to incrementally ship these new methods as part of our Web Connectivity experiment over the next year.
New Test Lists Editor
In July 2022, we launched a new Test Lists Editor! This platform enables the public to review and contribute to the lists of websites (“test lists”) that are tested for censorship by OONI Probe users around the world.
Through this web platform, community members can add websites for OONI Probe testing, edit existing entries (for example, to change a website’s categorization or to update a URL), or propose the deletion of URLs. By enabling community members to dynamically contribute to and update the test lists, we aim to improve the quality of website censorship testing, supporting rapid response efforts to emergent censorship events.
OONI Run improvements
Based on community feedback, we made a series of improvements to OONI Run: a platform that you can use to generate mobile deep links and widget code to coordinate OONI Probe testing. We limited the OONI Run platform to website testing and we made improvements to the user interface.
To meet the needs of researchers performing custom testing, we designed and implemented a minimal version of the next generation version of OONI Run (“OONI Run v2”) that enables community members to run OONI Run links without backend support. We made this functionality available to miniooni users with the goal of enabling community members to start experimenting with this new OONI Run version and collect feedback that can support further development and design decisions. We also introduced a command line flag which enables users to repeat a measurement every given number of seconds.
We aim to continue to make improvements to OONI Run over the next year to further address community feedback.
OONI Probe Web prototype
In response to community requests, we built a browser-based version of OONI Probe (“OONI Probe Web”). Given that OONI Probe Web does not require the installation of software and can be run from a web browser, we hope that it can help support rapid response efforts.
We plan to launch OONI Probe Web in 2023. Stay tuned!
OONI data
1 billion measurements
On 6th October 2022, OONI published the 1 billionth measurement!
Since 2012, the OONI community has contributed more than 1 billion measurements from 25 thousand networks in 241 countries and territories. All such measurements are published as open data in real-time, shedding light on censorship events worldwide.
In 2022, we completed the migration of our infrastructure to the ClickHouse database, which enables the real-time processing and publication of OONI Probe measurements collected from around the world.
New OONI Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT)
In April 2022, we launched the OONI Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT)! This tool enables you to track internet censorship worldwide in real-time and create charts based on aggregate views of OONI data.
Through the MAT, you can plot charts to compare censorship between countries and networks, you can check the blocking of websites and apps globally or in specific countries, and you can check which categories of websites (e.g. news media, LGBTIQ, environmental, human rights) are blocked in each country.
Earlier this year, for example, the MAT showed that Iran started blocking Instagram on 21st September 2022, during the ongoing protests.
Over the past year, the MAT has enabled OONI and other internet freedom community members to monitor and rapidly respond to many other censorship events. Examples include the blocking of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp in Sri Lanka (April 2022), as well as the blocking of PayPal, Yahoo, Steam, Origin, Epic Games, and Dota2 in Indonesia (July 2022).
New Circumvention Tool Reachability Dashboard
In 2022, we launched a new Circumvention Tool Reachability Dashboard! This tool provides charts with aggregate views of real-time OONI data from the reachability testing of Psiphon, Tor, and Tor Snowflake. Through this platform, you can easily discover whether these circumvention tools work around the world, or whether they’re presenting signs of potential blocking.
Advancing OONI data analysis
In 2022, we created a new data analysis tool for exposing anomaly details of website measurements and characterizing website blocking. Some of the building blocks for designing this tool were applied in practice as part of our investigation into emergent website blocks in Russia, where we were able to characterize the blocking methods across ISPs.
The high level architecture of this new data analysis tool is that of transforming the raw network measurements coming from OONI Probes into normalized and post-processed “Observations”. These Observations are “time stamped” statements about some network condition that was observed by a particular vantage point. These observations are then in turn post-processed to generate what we call an “Experiment result”, which attributes to a set of observations from an individual test run a series of outcomes with an associated level of confidence.
In order to reach a design that would be flexible enough to be expanded, but also performant enough to run in a reasonable amount of time, we implemented several prototype iterations of this design. Throughout the process we carried out benchmarks of key components to identify any performance bottlenecks, working to resolve them. The last iteration, based on some cursory benchmarks, should be able to generate observations from raw OONI measurements in less than a week and re-generate all experiment results in about a day, running on a single machine.
Through this data analysis tool (which anyone can run on their own computer pointing it at the raw public OONI dataset), it’s possible to gain a much deeper understanding about the root cause of a blocking event, and to carry out more advanced research that might not be captured by the existing analysis.
The new design is an important shift in how we view results from OONI measurements and we are confident that it will allow us to characterize blocks in a much richer way. It also opens the door for empowering researchers to carry out more advanced censorship investigations using our datasets.
Research
In 2022, we published the following research reports based on the analysis of OONI data:
Technical multi-stakeholder report on Internet shutdowns: The case of Iran amid autumn 2022 protests
Iran blocks social media, app stores and encrypted DNS amid Mahsa Amini protests
New blocks emerge in Russia amid war in Ukraine: An OONI network measurement analysis
We also published the following blog posts to share our findings from research papers:
Measuring DoT/DoH Blocking Using OONI Probe: A Preliminary Study
Measuring Encrypted-DNS Censorship Using OONI Probe (published by RIPE Labs)
In response to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’s call for submissions in support of the OHCHR report on internet shutdowns and human rights to the 50th session of the Human Rights Council in June 2022, we provided a submission with relevant information on the occurrence of mandated disruptions of access to social media and messaging platforms over the past 5 years based on empirical OONI network measurement data.
Through our submission, we shared OONI data and information on social media blocks that occurred during elections in Uganda, Tanzania, Mali, Benin, Togo, Burundi, and Zambia over the last 5 years. We also shared information on social media blocks that occurred during protests in Pakistan, Jordan, Iran, Zimbabwe, and Cuba. Moreover, we shared OONI data and information on social media blocks that emerged during sensitive political time periods in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Venezuela.
Community
New online OONI training course
To support OONI community engagement efforts worldwide, we created an online OONI training course which was launched on Small Media’s Advocacy Assembly platform.
This 90-minute free, online training course provides a deep-dive into measuring internet censorship with OONI Probe, and using OONI Explorer to access and interpret real-time OONI data collected from around the world. Designed for human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and researchers, the course includes a mix of videos, screencasts, slides, quizzes and hands-on exercises. It also features case study videos from OONI community members, and the course is available in English, Arabic, Spanish, and Farsi.
New community resources
In 2022, we created several new resources to support OONI community engagement efforts around the world.
We published new screencasts for:
We published new user guides and documentation for:
Tutorial: Analyzing OONI data (using Russia as a case study)
We also updated the user guides for OONI Probe Mobile, OONI Probe Desktop, and OONI Probe CLI, and we updated our general test list documentation.
To better meet community needs (particularly around OONI community engagement), we created educational materials and resources for a new OONI Outreach Kit. We plan to publish this Outreach Kit in 2023.
To help ensure a safe and inclusive environment for the global OONI community, we created a new Incident Response Committee with the goal of improving OONI’s Code of Conduct (CoC) and addressing any CoC violations when they occur. In collaboration with the Committee and based on community feedback collected from several meetings, we re-wrote and published a new version of OONI’s Code of Conduct (CoC).
Localization
Thanks to the Localization Lab community, OONI Probe has been translated to numerous languages, including Farsi, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Thai, Indonesian, Swahili, Spanish, and French – among many other languages. Throughout 2022, the community continued to improve upon OONI Probe translations, updating 47 languages. We updated our OONI Probe localization guidelines to support translation efforts.
In 2022, OONI Explorer copy was uploaded to Transifex to enable its translation by the Localization Lab community, who worked towards translating the platform in 21 languages. OONI Explorer has already been translated to Farsi, Turkish, Russian, Burmese, Spanish, and Chinese, among other languages. To support translation efforts, we published new OONI Explorer localization guidelines.
We also uploaded the OONI Probe Mobile and OONI Probe Desktop user guides to Transifex, both of which have already been fully translated to Farsi and Russian.
We thank the Localization Lab for bringing OONI censorship measurement to communities worldwide!
OONI’s 10th Anniversary
On 5th December 2022, we celebrated OONI’s 10th Anniversary!
Ten years ago, on 5th December 2012, we published the first OONI measurement. Thanks to our global community, we have now published more than a billion measurements collected from 25 thousand networks in 241 countries and territories, shedding light on internet censorship around the world.
As the OONI community has always been at the heart of our work, we consider it essential that community needs continue to inform OONI’s future goals and priorities. We therefore circulated a survey to collect community feedback that can help shape OONI’s strategic priorities for the future. We thank all community members for their valuable feedback!
In celebration of OONI’s 10th anniversary, we hosted two live-streamed events:
10th Ooniversary: OONI Highlights (5th December 2022): Presentation of OONI’s history, highlights from the past 10 years, and our plans for the future.
10th Ooniversary: OONI Community (6th December 2022): Presentations by 5 OONI community members, discussing how they have used OONI tools and data as part of their research and advocacy efforts.
To mark the 10-year milestone, we also published:
Animation: 10 Years of OONI, an animated timeline.
OONI Community Video: Featuring 11 OONI community members, discussing how OONI has been useful to their work, and what they’d like to see OONI do in the future.
“Highlights: 10 Years of OONI”: A blog post sharing key OONI highlights from the past 10 years, as well as our future plans.
Huge thanks to everyone who has supported OONI over the past decade!
OONI workshops and presentations
In 2022, we attended our first in-person conferences and events since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the conferences, workshops, and events that we attended though were hosted entirely online.
Throughout 2022, we presented OONI as part of the following conferences, events, and workshops:
OONI workshop for journalists in Kyrgyzstan. On 20th December 2022, we facilitated an online OONI workshop for journalists in Kyrgyzstan.
Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2022. On 1st December 2022, we presented OONI on the panel “Help! The Kill switch is taking away my limited agency” (remote participation) at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2022.
OONI workshops in Kyrgyzstan. In November 2022, we traveled to Kyrgyzstan to facilitate multiple in-person OONI workshops for local journalists, students, and civil society organizations.
Internet Without Borders (Paris). On 18th November 2022, we traveled to Paris to present OONI as part of the Internet Without Borders conference. On 19th November 2022, we facilitated an OONI hackathon as part of the event.
DataFest 2022 (Tbilisi). On 17th November 2022, we presented OONI at DataFest 2022 in Tbilisi, where we explained how journalists can use OONI’s Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) to investigate internet censorship around the world. On 19th November 2022, we facilitated an OONI datathon at DataFest 2022, where participants worked on analyzing OONI data collected from Russia.
State of the Onion 2022. During the Tor Project’s annual State of the Onion 2022 event, we shared OONI highlights from 2022, as well as upcoming OONI projects for 2023.
OONI workshop for journalists in Central Asia. On 10th November 2022, we facilitated an online OONI workshop for journalists in Central Asia.
IETF 115 PEARG. On 9th November 2022, we presented our strategies for measuring the blocking and throttling of encrypted protocols as part of the Privacy Enhancements and Assessments Research Group (PEARG) meeting during IETF 115.
IETF 115 IAB Open. On 8th November 2022, we presented our censorship measurements in Iran as part of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) open meeting during IETF 115.
OONI workshop for civil society in Kazakhstan. On 3rd November 2022, we facilitated an online OONI workshop for civil society groups in Kazakhstan.
RIPE85. On 27th October 2022, we presented our research on measuring the blocking of encrypted DNS services (and how this experiment is now part of OONI Probe) at RIPE85.
FIFAfrica 2022. Between 26th-29th September 2022, we traveled to Lusaka, Zambia, to participate in the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica) 2022 conference. As part of our participation, we facilitated an OONI workshop (“Investigating Internet censorship in Africa through OONI tools and open data”) and co-facilitated a workshop with Access Now (“Strengthening Advocacy to Fight Internet Shutdowns in Africa”).
DEMHACK 2022. On 24th and 25th September 2022, we organized an OONI hackathon as part of Roskomsvoboda’s DEMHACK 2022 hackathon in Russia. We also provided a live demo on using OONI’s Measurement Aggregation Toolkit, encouraging participants to use the tool as a starting point for further analyzing OONI data.
OONI training session for researchers in Egypt. On 10th August 2022, we facilitated a 3-hour, online OONI training session for researchers in Egypt. This workshop provided an introduction to internet censorship, as well as to OONI tools and data for measuring internet censorship.
OONI training session for election observers. On 4th August 2022, we facilitated an online OONI training session for election observers. This training introduced participants to OONI Probe and OONI data, particularly with the goal of monitoring emerging censorship events during elections around the world.
OONI training session for journalists in Kenya. On 28th July 2022, we facilitated an online OONI training session for journalists in Kenya. The workshop involved introducing participants to OONI tools and data for investigating internet censorship in Kenya and around the world.
Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2022. On 19th June 2022, we traveled to Bonn, Germany, to attend Deutsche Welle’s (DW) Global Media Forum 2022, where we spoke on a panel discussion on documenting internet shutdowns.
Internet Without Borders (Berlin). On 17th June 2022, we traveled to Berlin, Germany, to attend the Internet Without Borders conference for the Russian diaspora. As part of our participation, we presented OONI and facilitated a day-long OONI hackathon.
Internet Without Borders (Vilnius). On 10th June 2022, we traveled to Vilnius, Lithuania, to attend the Internet Without Borders conference for the Russian diaspora. As part of our participation, we presented OONI, we facilitated a workshop on using OONI’s Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) for investigating internet censorship in Russia, and we facilitated a day-long OONI hackathon.
RightsCon 2022. As part of our participation at RightsCon 2022, we co-facilitated/spoke at the following sessions:
Workshop on “Building capacity to document and circumvent internet shutdowns” co-hosted with SFLC.in and Top10VPN (6th June 2022)
Community lab on “Monitoring internet censorship in South and Southeast Asia” co-hosted with Sinar Project (7th June 2022)
Panel on “Internet splintering due to server-side blocking and embargo sanction”, hosted by Censored Planet (8th June 2022)
Social hour on “A light in the dark: learning about internet shutdowns and the #KeepItOn campaign” co-hosted with organizations from the #KeepItOn campaign (9th June 2022)
OONI training session for civil society groups in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa. On 1st June 2022, we facilitated an online OONI training session for civil society groups from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa. This was organized by our partner, Digital Society of Africa.
OONI presentation for journalists. On 25th May 2022, we presented OONI’s tools, methods, research, and dataset to a group of journalists from Russia and Belarus.
OONI workshop for civil society groups in Latin America. On 19th May 2022, we facilitated a 2-hour online OONI workshop for civil society groups in Latin America.
OONI data analysis lecture for Georgia Tech students. On 12th April 2022, we were invited by IODA to give an online lecture to Georgia Tech computer science students on analyzing OONI data to investigate internet censorship.
Mozilla Twitter Space on Network Outages. On 5th April 2022, we participated as a speaker on Mozilla’s Twitter Space discussion on network outages. We explained OONI’s methods and discussed how OONI previously analyzed Mozilla telemetry to investigate internet shutdowns.
Spacemesh Meetup. On 8th March 2022, we presented OONI at a Spacemesh meetup.
OONI training for UN peacekeeping missions. On 25th January 2022, we facilitated an OONI training (“OONI - Practical exercise measuring Internet censorship”) for UN peacekeeping missions as part of an online course (“Technologies and Digital Tools for Peacekeeping and Political Missions: Data, Research, Analysis, & Communication”) organized by Conflux Center. As part of the training, we introduced participants to OONI censorship measurement tools, provided a live demo of using OONI Probe for measuring internet censorship, and facilitated hands-on exercises for using OONI Probe based on real-world scenarios.
OONI Probe workshop for partners in Southeast Asia. On 28th January 2022, we facilitated an OONI Probe workshop for Sinar Project partners in Southeast Asia participating in the iMap Regional Workshop.
OONI-verse
2022 was a particularly challenging year for many community members in countries like Ukraine, Russia, and Iran, and our hearts go out to them.
We thank the global OONI community for continuing to contribute many measurements from most countries and territories around the world.
Some highlights of OONI activities by our community in 2022 include:
8 research reports on internet censorship in Southeast Asia. Our long-term partner, Sinar Project, published 8 research reports in collaboration with their partners in Southeast Asia. Based on the analysis of OONI data, these research reports investigate internet censorship in Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.
OONI workshop for election observers in Kazakhstan. Access Now facilitated an OONI workshop for election observers in Kazakhstan.
OONI censorship measurement campaign during Malaysia’s 2022 general elections. Leading up to and during Malaysia’s 2022 elections, Sinar Project coordinated an OONI Probe measurement campaign to monitor potential censorship events.
Blog post on the blocking of a website that digitizes books in Mexico. Global Voices published a blog post documenting the blocking of a website run by a Mexican collective that digitizes books as a political position. This post cites OONI data on the block.
Freedom on the Net 2022 reports. Freedom House published their annual Freedom on the Net country reports. OONI data was cited in (at least) the Freedom on the Net reports for the following countries: Iran, Myanmar, Malaysia, Cuba, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Ethiopia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE, Uzbekistan, and Zambia.
Ranking Digital Rights Research Lab. Ranking Digital Rights launched a new Research Lab which discusses how researchers can make use of OONI tools and data (among other resources).
The OPTIMA Internet Shutdowns Resource Library. Internews published the OPTIMA Library, a compilation of new and existing resources, guides, and methodologies to assist individuals and activists before, during, and after an Internet shutdown. The library includes OONI resources.
Research report on the impact of internet shutdowns on women in Uganda. Sandra Aceng published a research report (as part of Internews’ OPTIMA project) which documents the impact of internet shutdowns on women in Uganda. This study makes use of OONI data collected from Uganda around the country’s 2021 elections.
Digital Defenders Partnership guide. Digital Defenders Partnership published a guide (in Spanish) describing how to document internet blockages and circumvent internet censorship. This publication cites OONI and describes OONI tools.
Access Now paper on taxonomy of internet shutdowns. Access Now published a paper providing a taxonomy of internet shutdowns, citing OONI data, OON research reports, and the OONI Glossary.
Report on the blocking of a NFT fundraising campaign website in Malaysia. Sinar Project published a report on the blocking of a NFT fundraising campaign website (of graphics designer and political activist Fahmi Reza), which makes use of OONI Probe and OONI data.
Access Now’s 2021 Annual KeepItOn Report. Access Now published their 2021 Annual #KeepItOn campaign Report (“The Return Of Digital Authoritarianism: Internet shutdowns in 2021”), which makes use of OONI data.
VEsinFiltro’s 2021 Annual Report. Our Venezuelan partner, VEsinFiltro, published their 2021 Annual Report on digital rights and internet censorship in Venezuela. In the Methodology section of their report, VEsinFiltro describe that they measured internet blocks in Venezuela through the use of OONI Probe and OONI data.
ISOC blog posts on blocks in Russia. As part of their “Internet Perspectives: Ukraine and Russia” blog series, Internet Society (ISOC) published 2 blog posts based on OONI data: “OONI Data: Looking For Anomalies and Blocks” and “Top Categories for New Russian Internet blocks (OONI Anomalies)”.
Article on network congestion and blocks in Iran. Digiato (an Iranian technology news portal) published an article discussing network congestion in Iran, where Iranian experts discuss intermittent blocks in the country, citing OONI data. The article also features a screenshot of a chart generated from OONI’s Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (to demonstrate the intermittent blocks).
OONI workshop in Tanzania by Zaina Foundation. On 28th February 2022, our partner, Zaina Foundation, facilitated an OONI workshop as part of their broader Digital Security Training for women journalists in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
OONI FAQ translated to Khmer by DigitalHub101. Cambodian civil society group, DigitalHub101, published a version of the OONI Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) documentation in Khmer. This new page features information in Khmer about OONI, OONI Probe, OONI Explorer, and OONI research reports.
Report on the blocking of news media websites in Venezuela. VEsinFiltro published a report documenting the blocking of news media websites in Venezuela. Their report makes use of OONI data, as well as network measurement data collected from their own custom tools.
Report on the blocking of circumvention tools in Venezuela. VEsinFiltro published a report documenting the blocking of circumvention tools in Venezuela. Their report makes use of OONI data, involving the analysis of measurements collected from the OONI Probe Tor and Web Connectivity experiments.
ECOWAS court ruling on internet shutdowns in Togo. Togo’s internet shutdown amid protests in September 2017 was challenged in the “Amnesty International Togo and Ors v. The Togolese Republic” case that was brought to the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In preparation for this case, the OONI team was asked to share relevant technical expertise, along with other experts. We analyzed the internet shutdown and shared a technical analysis in support of the court case. As an outcome, the Community Court of Justice of ECOWAS held that the Togolese government violated the applicants’ right to freedom of expression by shutting down the internet during protests in September 2017, and ordered the Respondent State of Togo to take measures to guarantee the “non-occurrence” of a future similar situation. The ECOWAS court ruling on the September 2017 internet shutdown in Togo won the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression 2022 Significant Legal Ruling Award.
We thank our community for their amazing efforts!
2023
We have many exciting projects lined up for 2023!
Some highlights include:
Automating censorship detection and characterization based on OONI measurements. We will expand our ability to automatically confirm blocks based on fingerprints, and we will develop new metrics for the automatic characterization of more forms of internet censorship. This will build upon our work on our new data analysis tool.
New Social Media Censorship Alert System. We are building a system that the public can refer to in order to learn when and where access to social media platforms is being blocked around the world based on OONI data.
New Censorship Incident Reporting Platform. This platform will provide short reports with summary information on emergent censorship events based on OONI data and charts, enabling journalists and human rights defenders to more easily learn about and respond to censorship events.
New OONI Explorer pages. In 2023, we will publish new OONI Explorer pages that provide domain-centric and network-centric views of OONI data. We will also continue to make a series of improvements to OONI Explorer and the Measurement Aggregation Toolkit (MAT) based on community feedback. Our goal is to enable the internet freedom community to more easily discover censorship findings based on OONI data.
New browser-based censorship measurement tool. In 2022, we created OONI Probe Web to simplify the process of testing websites during urgent censorship events. We aim to publicly launch OONI Probe Web in 2023.
New censorship measurement methodologies. We will continue to expand OONI’s censorship measurement methodologies. This will include working towards creating an open methodology for measuring throttling, and expanding OONI’s testing model to support richer testing input. We also aim to ship our new methods that advance how we measure website blocking.
Improved version of OONI Run. We aim to release an improved version of OONI Run (“OONI Run v2”), addressing key community feedback and needs. This will enable the internet freedom community to more effectively coordinate censorship measurement campaigns and use OONI data in support of their research and advocacy efforts.
New and strengthened partnerships. Collaboration is key to measuring and fighting internet censorship. In 2023, we aim to strengthen our existing partnerships, and form new partnerships with digital rights organizations around the world.
New OONI Outreach Kit. To support OONI community engagement efforts around the world, we aim to publish an OONI Outreach Kit in 2023.
New community resources. We aim to publish new documentation and resources that can support OONI community engagement efforts around the world. We also aim to publish translated versions of our documents, and to strengthen our localization efforts.
More research reports, workshops, and training. We will continue to collaborate with community members on investigating censorship events worldwide and documenting them through the publication of research reports. We will also continue to engage communities through OONI workshops and training.
Our above priorities for 2023 have been informed by community feedback collected over the years (as well as in response to the dynamic censorship environment worldwide). If there are additional areas that you think we should prioritize, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
If you would like to support our work, please consider donating to OONI.
Warm thanks to the global OONI community for supporting our work throughout 2022!
We are grateful to every OONI Probe user out there, and we’re excited for 2023. Stay tuned!