Censorship

Understanding how online censorship and content moderation work in practice is essential to examining its impact on freedom of expression, democracy, and civil society.

Censorship can be dynamic, responding to political events such as civil unrest and sensitive anniversaries. Tech companies may moderate the content they make available on their platforms, often facing pressure from governments in the various jurisdictions in which they operate. Censors can rely on automated methods of identifying and blocking content, which may result in information being blocked inadvertently.  

As a founding member of the OpenNet Initiative (2002-2013), the Lab pioneered  studies on internet censorship worldwide, and continues research into this topic, including the most extensive systematic investigations into censorship and surveillance on popular China-based social media apps, like WeChat and Weibo.

Our work examines how state actors and private companies censor information online at the network level (e.g. ISPs censoring access to websites) and platform level (e.g. social media platforms removing content). We use technical methods to measure network disruptions, to identify the vendors and equipment used to implement censorship, and to understand how content moderation is applied in practice.