Sponsor 96 - Objective 4: Surge by deploying region-specific and varied outreach, and distribution localized efforts.

changed milestone to %Sponsor 96: Rapid Expansion of Access to the Uncensored Internet through Tor in China, Hong Kong, & Tibet

added Sponsor 96 label

changed due date to August 31, 2023

added Backlog label

The situations in Hong Kong, China, and Tibet are different.

Hong Kong

In the past, Hong Kongers had free access to the uncensored Internet. The Great Firewall (GFW) of China did not encompass Hong Kong. The 2020 National Security Law changed the whole picture. Already some political websites have been censored.[1] It's possible that the technical and legal environment for HK Internet users will change drastically in the course of this project.

China

China's GFW is well known.[2] Chinese users employ a wide range of circumvention technologies.[3] Free and easy-to-use options include Freegate, Ultrasurf, Psiphon, and Lantern. Encrypted proxy tunnels include Shadowsocks, V2Ray, and Trojan. Westerners in China often use VPNs. Tor and I2P work to some extent. Tor bridge users number 1,500 per day.[4] Since there are 900 million Internet users in China,[5] this amounts to 1 in every 600,000. DuckDuckGo turns up a handful of Chinese-language blog posts on how to use Tor.[6],[7],[8].

Tibet

Repression is particularly harsh in Tibet.[9] Spyware has even been found on the phones of Tibetans outside Tibet.[10] In December 2020 China announced plans to prosecute Tibetan Internet users who are a threat to the CCP.[11] A monk in Tibet was subsequently jailed for 4.5 years due to his Internet activity.[12] Outreach to Tibet would be difficult due to language difficulties, quite apart from the extreme surveillance, censorship, and persecution.

References

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Hong_Kong

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall#Circumvention

[4] https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-country.html?start=2021-05-20&end=2021-08-18&country=cn

[5] https://daxueconsulting.com/netizen-internet-users-in-china/

[6] A 2013 introduction to Tor https://program-think.blogspot.com/2013/11/tor-faq.html

[7] A 2016 set of basic instructions https://2xiangzi.blogspot.com/2016/11/tor-browser-user-manual.html

[8] A 2020 article on using Tor in China https://111111.online/posts/tor_obfs4_proxy.html

[9] https://www.dailydot.com/debug/china-tibet-xinjiang-censorship/

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/22/dalai-lama-inner-circle-listed-pegasus-project-data

[11] https://tibet.net/china-warns-tibetan-internet-users-of-strike-hard-campaign-for-dissenting-acts/