It takes a (Global) Village to Fight Censorship

It's World Day Against Cyber Censorship, a great occasion to remind ourselves of the early optimism surrounding the internet. Once envisioned as a force for global connection and free-flowing information, the internet has instead (d)evolved into a place where access to knowledge and privacy are increasingly under threat. Big Tech has monopolized its infrastructure, and governments all over the world are too eager to capitalize.

This unprecedented access to data on citizens has fueled societal polarization, misinformation and disinformation, and online harms. Lack of access to verified, truthful information, the targeting of journalists and their sources to impede the production of truthful news, and online censorship that blocks specific sites and stops people from accessing good information have become rampant.

Tor's community-driven model is one of the last strongholds against these threats, offering a collective defense of the open web. One of our community's most significant recent advancements in the fight against online censorship has been WebTunnel--a new bridge type that mimics ordinary web traffic to hide Tor traffic in plain sight. Today also marks the one-year anniversary of WebTunnel's official launch, and coincidentally, the end of our recent WebTunnel campaign. So, let's take a look at what we've achieved, what we've learned, and what more can be done!

Scaling WebTunnel: A year of growth and learning

In late November of last year, we called on the Tor and Internet Freedom community to help scale up WebTunnel bridges. Our goal was to deploy 200 new WebTunnel bridges. We are happy to report that we were able to surpass our goal and successfully deploy 207 new WebTunnel bridges. Exactly one year ago, we had 60 WebTunnel bridges, and we now have more than 300.

We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this campaign. This includes every relay operator who spun up a WebTunnel bridge, and those that contributed in other ways. We have received lots of invaluable feedback from operators and other volunteers, bug fixes and notes on our documentation to improve the user experience.

WebTunnel is a safe circumvention mechanism for users and has been a game-changer in many ways. Here's what we've learned so far,

• More resistance: In regions with heavy censorship like China, Iran, and Russia, WebTunnel bridges have proven to work where other circumvention methods, such as obfs4 bridges, are blocked.

• More performance: Users in these regions have reported positive experiences, with WebTunnel often outperforming other bridge types in speed and reliability, making it a preferred choice.

• More analysis: However, further research is needed to determine whether these improvements are inherent to WebTunnel itself or influenced by factors like lower concurrent user traffic.

Many operators have provided invaluable technical feedback, contributing to the successful scaling of WebTunnel bridges and helping refine deployment processes for the future. This is collective action--in action. It truly takes a village and we couldn't have done it without you!

What's next?

Over the next few days, we will respond to bridge operators who have enrolled in the campaign to send Tor t-shirts and stickers. If you have set up your bridges but haven't reached out to us, please email frontdesk@torproject.org using the same email address associated with your bridge contact information.

Get Involved: You can help fight Internet censorship with Tor

🌉 More bridges: For everyone reading this and feeling inspired, here's how you can get started today and free the internet by running WebTunnel or obfs4 bridges.

❄️ Let it snow: With Snowflake, everyday internet users can become censorship fighting allies at the speed of opening a new browser tab.

🪲 Smash those bugs: If you're interested in supporting the future of Tor Browser and our tools, consider signing up for our alpha testing program to help shape our applications and smash some bugs!