Here’s something we need a lot more of. Reporters Without Borders is helping users in China and Russia suffocated by the pervasive censorship of these countries to view outlawed websites (“Operation Collateral Freedom unblocks nearly 50 censored news sites for citizens in Russia and China,” September 27, 20024).
Mirrored
RSF.org says: “To combat censorship and guarantee that citizens worldwide have access to diverse, reliable sources of information, Operation Collateral Freedom—a project by Reporters Without Borders (RSF)—has unblocked nearly 50 media outlets censored by China and Russia by creating mirror websites….
“Developed by RSF, the technology behind the mirror sites is continually updated and has proven its ability to dent the efforts of two notoriously repressive states who seek to erase all journalistic information from their online networks, whether it comes from national or foreign media.”
RSF has “created mirror sites for ten Chinese, Tibetan, and Hong Kongese media censored within mainland China. Less than two years later, this number has more than doubled: Twenty-five news sites currently use Operation Collateral Freedom’s technology to overcome the Great Firewall of China, one of the most sophisticated systems of digital censorship and control in the world, which was strengthened when President Xi Jinping came to power. Through these mirror sites, Chinese citizens can now access multimedia content covering increasingly taboo topics in China, such as political news, social conflicts, and the human rights violations carried out by the Beijing regime.”
You can get to the most recently updated list of original sites and RSF’s mirrored sites by visiting a github page.
Many of the sites have more than one mirror. These include chinamediaproject.org, tibettimes.net, tibetpost.net, uyghurtimes.com, dasheng.media, zhongxuncn.blogspot.com, wqw2010.blogspot.com, shahit.biz/eng (an English-language Xinjiang victims database), and vot.org.
VPNs for China
If you’re living in China or Russia or another communication-curdling country, you also need a robust VPN to get around censorship of websites. RestorePrivacy and TechRadar are among the websites trying to keep track of the virtual private networks (VPNs) that still function well in China, where the government has stepped up its targeting of VPNs.
RestorePrivacy lists NordVPN, Surfshark, VyprVPN, VPN.ac, ExpressVPN, and Astrill VPN.
TechRadar lists NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, and Astrill VPN.
The TechRadar report stresses the importance of a kill switch and says that Surfshark, despite its other virtues, “is prone to leaking under extreme pressure.” In general, “if the VPN doesn’t have a kill switch to protect you from leaking data (if the VPN connection drops), we won’t recommend it.”
