I just chaired a session at the FOCI conference earlier today, where people were talking about Internet censorship circumvention technologies and how to prevent governments from blocking them. I'd like to remind everyone that the U.S. government has been one the largest funders of that research for decades. Some of it is under USAGM (formerly BBG, the parent of RFE/RL)
and some of it has been under the State Department, partly pursuant to the global Internet freedom program introduced by Hillary Clinton in 2010 when she was Secretary of State.
I'm sure the political and diplomatic valence is very different here, but the concept of "the U.S. government paying to stop foreign governments from censoring the Internet" is a longstanding one.
It goes deeper than that. The U.S. Government funds it, discourages other nations from using it, and spies on all web traffic as a result of it.
Almost 80% of communications go through a data center in Northern VA. Within a quick drive to Langley, Quantico, DC, and other places that house three letter agencies I’m not authorized to disclose.
This is exactly right. TikTok is a great example. Rather than let the CCP take control over people and remove freedom from the internet, we have taken over and opened the platform up to free expression without communist strictures or interference. The are numerous examples, from Apple to Microsoft.
Shortly after the American version of TikTok was established in January of 2026, users began reporting that certain content was creating error messages, including using words like "Epstein" in direct messages, which news outlet CNBC was able to replicate and confirm, with the error message reading: "This message may be in violation of our Community Guidelines, and has not been sent to protect our community." Other users reported similar messages for content critical of U.S. President Donald Trump or other topics.
Amusingly, there typically are various exceptions made for those. All technical and whatnot, but for example, Iran is heavily sanctioned, but has all sorts of exceptions for stuff like that precisely because of the impact it can have.
I wonder if American citizens from states which requires age verification to access porn (25 US states today) will be fine with it or these states will start demanding ID to access freedom.gov. It would be delicious irony.
There is a lot more blocked than porn and neo-nazis. This will also allow access to sites that block access because of laws: Imgur is not accessible from the uk, nor are a lot of smaller US news sites. Ofcom are after 4 chan too.
Government mandated uncensored free porn access. I wonder if this will this also apply in US states requiring age verification to legally access such content?
I was in Paris the other week and my girlfriend was having issues connecting to reddit from a Google search. Mine was working fine. She was using a local SIM while I roamed on my US carrier that gives me an American IP address.
That's how I learned that Reddit is currently blocked nationwide in France. Say what you want about the porn restrictions some states are doing but blocking reddit and crippling most google searches is a bit ridiculous.
EDIT: Yes it was blocked. It even included a message about it being blocked by "your provider". She wasn't on WiFi and IIRC she was using Saily for her SIM.
I theorize it might have to do with user age verification of some kind that maybe others here did, but it was definitely blocked for us during our visit.
And it worked again once we crossed the border to Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and it worked when we were in Germany before France. Only France was an issue.
French courts /love/ to do blocking orders. Of all the Western European nations, they have the most expansive use of DNS blocking, and other technical orders from courts. Sometimes related to the mundane things you might imagine like counter-terrorism, anti-piracy, and obscenity, but sometimes for absolutely bonkers reasons nobody agrees with.
Knowing what I know about French blocking orders, I wouldn't be surprised if all of Reddit got blocked because of an order related to a single comment, instead of some larger reason that might make sense in the meta.
It is like ultimate throwing stones in a glass house. Americans are dependent on other countries following IP and copyright protections and yet they will go great lengths to undermine it because it is short term beneficial for their companies.
Weird title, but worthy of discussion. From the little info available so far this appears to be little more than political posturing. If you want to fight censorship, an "online portal" to access all the censored content is the wrongest possible way to go about it. But we'll see.
Why? Seriously, why do we care so much about this?
Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
> Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
Well you've got plenty of countries doing it, including France, Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Brasil, Australia, you name it. Not that it's good, but a criticism for the goose is a criticism for the gander, as a manner of speaking.
As to which, why or why do we care so much about this? Idk, same reason our government funds tens of thousands of initiatives and cares about lots of different things that people find equally important or unimportant.
Historically the US did care a lot, in a way it reminds me of the Crusade for Freedom [1] and Radio Free Europe [2].
So I find this in line with the behavior of many American administration, the weird thing being that this time the target is not the just usual suspects (China, Iran, etc.) but also European allies.
(not saying this is a good thing btw, just trying to put it in perspective)
No, the Trump administration is an enormous supporter of propaganda outlets, just not the ones that already existed. They don't care about maintaining the rules based world order. Their propaganda is much more inward-focused.
These things have been going on forever. Since WWII and until right now, there has been radio stations broadcasting into enemy territory, to bypass censorship.
I would have loved to be in the meeting where they were wondering how to replace the highly costly and complex influence tool that was USAID, and then someone said:
The world will be exposed to hardcore pornography, child endangerment, AI CSAM, and militant algorithms by force, if needed!
Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine (2018) directly claims the internet is “the most effective weapon the government has ever built,” tracing its roots to Pentagon counterinsurgency projects like ARPA’s efforts in Vietnam-era surveillance.
The book argues surveillance was “woven into the fabric” from the start, linking early ARPANET development to intelligence goals, and extends to modern tech giants like Google as part of a military-digital complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Globa...
and some of it has been under the State Department, partly pursuant to the global Internet freedom program introduced by Hillary Clinton in 2010 when she was Secretary of State.
I'm sure the political and diplomatic valence is very different here, but the concept of "the U.S. government paying to stop foreign governments from censoring the Internet" is a longstanding one.
Almost 80% of communications go through a data center in Northern VA. Within a quick drive to Langley, Quantico, DC, and other places that house three letter agencies I’m not authorized to disclose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_TikTok
That's how I learned that Reddit is currently blocked nationwide in France. Say what you want about the porn restrictions some states are doing but blocking reddit and crippling most google searches is a bit ridiculous.
EDIT: Yes it was blocked. It even included a message about it being blocked by "your provider". She wasn't on WiFi and IIRC she was using Saily for her SIM.
I theorize it might have to do with user age verification of some kind that maybe others here did, but it was definitely blocked for us during our visit.
And it worked again once we crossed the border to Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and it worked when we were in Germany before France. Only France was an issue.
Knowing what I know about French blocking orders, I wouldn't be surprised if all of Reddit got blocked because of an order related to a single comment, instead of some larger reason that might make sense in the meta.
Seriously though... we have one segment undermining foreign lockdowns while the same and other segments are literally doing the same here.
Weird title, but worthy of discussion. From the little info available so far this appears to be little more than political posturing. If you want to fight censorship, an "online portal" to access all the censored content is the wrongest possible way to go about it. But we'll see.
Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
Well you've got plenty of countries doing it, including France, Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Brasil, Australia, you name it. Not that it's good, but a criticism for the goose is a criticism for the gander, as a manner of speaking.
As to which, why or why do we care so much about this? Idk, same reason our government funds tens of thousands of initiatives and cares about lots of different things that people find equally important or unimportant.
So I find this in line with the behavior of many American administration, the weird thing being that this time the target is not the just usual suspects (China, Iran, etc.) but also European allies.
(not saying this is a good thing btw, just trying to put it in perspective)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_for_Freedom
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert...
[0]: https://www.torproject.org/about/supporters/
- Why don't we just make a website?
- Yes let's just do that.
I'd rather not...
visuals with the only text on screen being...
---
"Freedom is Coming"
Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.
They also gutted the prior org that helped people do this in other countries on the ground
https://freedom.gov/
you're too kind
Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine (2018) directly claims the internet is “the most effective weapon the government has ever built,” tracing its roots to Pentagon counterinsurgency projects like ARPA’s efforts in Vietnam-era surveillance.
The book argues surveillance was “woven into the fabric” from the start, linking early ARPANET development to intelligence goals, and extends to modern tech giants like Google as part of a military-digital complex.
"...user activity on the site will not be tracked."
Ok, stopped reading right there.