Breaking the Internet’s Boundaries
Providing millions of people uncensored access to the web
What if you couldn't read the news, communicate freely with who you want, or discuss political issues without feeling like you had Big Brother’s eyes on you? That is the reality for 4 out of 5 people around the world — 80% of the population faces some form of internet censorship. Reporters and dissidents around the world routinely get punished for voicing their opinions, and individuals aren't free to discuss what they want. Sadly, freedom of speech and expression are luxuries unavailable in many countries.
These individuals aren't able to share their stories without fear of reprimands. Citizens in highly censored countries can’t read news, discuss political issues or communicate freely with each other. We are talking about normal people like you, me, your neighbor next door, friends and your family — not necessarily political activists. Anybody should have the right to read unbiased media and find out what is actually going on in the world, those are core principles of a democracy.
More than 60 countries censor the Internet in some form. These forms include full or partial blocking at different levels as well as content manipulation, oftentimes targeting religious or minority groups. Just this past year we've seen Turkey block Twitter, Russia enforcing censorship laws on bloggers, and China clamping down on social media during the Occupy Central protests in Hong Kong. These are the stories we hear about in the news, but many more countries censor their internet and citizens — for every story we hear of, there are thousands that never reach our ears.
Green = Free | Yellow = Partly Free | Purple = Not Free
As a VPN provider we've encountered these issues right from the beginning. In March 2014 we decided to take action against government censorship when the mother of a young Azerbaijani soldier wrote us a touching letter. She needed a way to safely write about how her son was killed by the government just days before being discharged from his army service. She felt that she couldn't express herself and publish the story without reprimands from the government. In her own words:
“We are living in 2014 with high tech progress but humanity is still suffering from slavery…freedom of speech and democracy is a dream which will never come true”.
As we continued to research the topic, we were constantly shocked to hear of the atrocities going on around the world and how regimes are limiting people’s ability to express themselves freely. We believe that uncensored internet should be available to everyone. In some of the world’s most repressive countries, blocked access to specific websites is a common occurrence. Political and social activism efforts are crushed by government censorship, which targets sites we take for granted, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, YouTube, and Skype. We asked ourselves what we could do to support online freedom worldwide and came up with this idea.
Together with Movements (a platform by the NGO Advancing Human Rights) we started working on Unblock the Web, a human rights campaign to promote freedom on the internet and across borders in order to help people acquire the means to express themselves freely online. Together we are working towards crowd funding uncensored and secure internet access to individuals living in closed societies all over the world.
Our mission is to allow people from all over the world to access sites unavailable in their country by bypassing government censorship, meanwhile keeping their identities safe by browsing completely anonymously and securely. These people need tools that secure their privacy and anonymity. We support their efforts by providing them with access to virtual private networks (VPNs) in order to encrypt their internet connection and thus hide their identity. That way, they will stay safe, secure, and anonymous. In short, a VPN can be used to make you traceless on the web so that nobody can find your true identity or location — precisely the service people in oppressive regimes need for communication. The following graph shows the increased importance and demand for such anti-censorship tools in China over the past years.
How you can help to promote online freedom of expression
The Unblock The Web campaign distributes free online privacy and anonymity tools to individuals in closed societies. To support freedom of expression and help break the internet’s boundaries, please visit unblocktheweb.org. Your help will make a direct impact on another person’s life. We stand for online freedom. Do you?
I’m the co-founder of SaferVPN. Our aim is to allow people from all over the world to access websites unavailable in their country, bypass government-implemented censorship, and keep their personal information safe and encrypted by browsing completely anonymously.
Additional sources: “Freedom on the net 2013" report by Freedom House
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