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Cannabis.com, GayEgypt.com, Circumcision.org, WhitePower.com, and yes, HardSexTube.com are all sites that the Tor Projects new app pointed my iPhone towards this morning. Dont worry, its all for a good cause.

The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) has been around for the last five years or so, but its software suite, Ooniprobe, only existed as command line-installable a desktop software package. Sponsored by the Tor Projectbest known for its mostly secure Tor web browserOoniprobe seeks to map where internet censorship is taking place via a live map. Unsurprisingly, the US is largely unaffected while Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia arent so lucky.

As of today, Ooniprobe is available as an Android or iOS app that even the least computer savvy but censorship-concerned internet user can easily install. That is, if the warnings in the markedly easier installation process dont scare you half to death.

The mere use of ooniprobe might be viewed as a form of espionage, regardless of the laws in your country, the welcome screen warns, we encourage you to consult with a lawyer prior to installing and running ooniprobe. New York is in the middle of a snowstorm, and I dont exactly keep legal counsel on retainer, so that didnt happen. The same screen warns potential users that the app will download data from provocative or objectionable sites (e.g. pornography) as you may already have guessed.

Ooniprobes risks page describes the possibility of severe civil, criminal, or extra-judicial penalties such as being assaulted or targeted for surveillance. Caveating the whole thing is the disclaimer: The risks described below are quite speculative. To our knowledge, no ooniprobe user has ever faced consequences from the risks described below. Hmm.

As to the app itself, the web connectivity test is the meat of its functionality. Essentially it attempts to visit a slew of sites which range from mundane email portals (hotmail.msn.com) to the Air Forces F-35 Lightning II page (jsf.mil). At the same time, a server tries to get to those same pages and if they load differently its flagged in red as potentially censored. Ooniprobes test sites are, as The Atlantic points out, a list built collaboratively between OONI and Citizen Project and aim to catalog crucial services or controversial content most likely to be censored. (Flatteringly, our sister site Jezebel made the cut.)

The app seems to give plenty of false positives. Among the supposedly censored sites were sex toy site realdoll.com, kids.yahoo.com, myspace.com, and metacrawler.com, all of which worked just fine on desktop. Ooniprobes helpful suggestions to avoid being denied the full scope of Real Dolls online retail website are to use open DNS (check), force HTTPS (which most browsers now do by default), or to use the Tor browser (Tor is not presently available on iOS).

Currently, the only other two tests included in this mobile build of Ooniprobe are an HTTP Invalid request test and a standard speed test. The former showed no anomaly and the latter gave me upload, download, and ping times comparable to Ooklas industry-standard speed test.

So what have we learned from this experience? Internet censorship isnt really happening on an infrastructural level in the USat least not in a way this app can detect it. And even though youre unlikely to be sent to a gulag for installing Ooniprobe, pinging WhitePower.com has definitely landed me on some sort of watchlist.

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Why Did an Internet Censorship App Send My Phone to ... - Gizmodo - Gizmodo

Open Letter to the International Socialist Organization By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality 10 February 2017

In its decision barring the International Youth and Students for Social Equality from club status at New York University, the schools Student Activities Board claimed the IYSSE was too similar to the International Socialist Organization to merit club status. The SAB cited the existence of the ISOs club to justify its decision denying the IYSSEs application.

Hundreds of students and professors have signed petitions supporting the IYSSEs application, with many expressing their opposition to the SABs act of political censorship. The IYSSE submitted a new application for club status earlier this month.

The International Socialist Organization, however, has refused multiple IYSSE requests for support. By refusing to support the IYSSEs democratic right to free speech, the ISO is solidarizing itself with the NYU administration and its allies on Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.

On February 7, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality wrote the following letter to the leadership of the International Socialist Organization asking them to reverse their support for the administrations anti-democratic political censorship of the IYSSE. The ISO has yet to respond.

* * *

To the International Socialist Organization:

Last semester, New York Universitys Student Activities Board (SAB) rejected the International Youth and Students for Social Equalitys (IYSSE) application for club status. The SAB justified this anti-democratic decision by claiming that the International Socialist Organization already had established a club at NYU, and that the IYSSE was insufficiently dissimilar to accept its application to establish a second socialist-oriented club. In effect, the Student Activities Board is using the ISOs club status to keep the IYSSE off campus.

Opposing this pretext, a leader of the IYSSE at NYU wrote to the SAB on November 19, 2016:

The ISO and the Socialist Equality Party, the parent organization of the IYSSE, are completely different tendencies with different histories and opposed positions on fundamental political questions. One could say that the differences between the ISO and IYSSE are more significant than those that separate the Democratic and Republican parties.

On December 6, 2016, I sent an email to the ISO, asking you to support our efforts to establish a club on campus. I wrote, The IYSSE would appreciate your clubs support in our fight for free speech and to democratize the club application process.

The ISO has not responded to this letter. Last week, on February 1, I personally asked ISO at NYU Vice President Paul Heideman to sign a petition supporting our application for club status. He refused.

Regardless of the ISOs political differences with the IYSSE and its parent organization, the Socialist Equality Party, your refusal to oppose the SABs act of political censorship and to forthrightly endorse our application for club status is a clear violation of the elementary democratic principles of free speech. The ISOs failure to uphold the IYSSEs right to form a club is all the more unprincipled in light of the fact that the SAB is using your official status to keep us off campus. Your action can only be explained as a calculated decision to block the IYSSE so that NYU students will not be exposed to the politics of a socialist organization whose views are different from and critical of the ISO.

The SAB has stated that it will decide at any time within the next two weeks whether to accept the IYSSEs new application for club status. As this deadline is rapidly approaching, we ask that you reverse your present anti-democratic position, and that you immediately issue a public statement supporting our application. Please inform us of your decision on this matter without unnecessary delay.

Isaac Finn

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Reverse ISO position supporting political censorship at NYU - World Socialist Web Site

A new report on artistic freedom by the Danish free speech advocacy group Freemuse has recorded a sharp rise in attacks and censorship.

In its annual report, titled Art Under Threat, Freemuse documented 1,028 violations of artistic freedom throughout 78 countries in 2016. According to the group, the increase in registered cases between 2015 and 2016 amounts to a spike of 119 percent, rising from 469 violations.

The non-profit dividesits findings into categories, includingserious violations, for killings, attacks, abductions, imprisonments, and threats; and acts of censorship. In 2016 the organization counted 840 incidents of censorship and 188 serious violations.

Categorized amongst the serious violations are three killings, two abductions, 16 attacks, 84 imprisonments and detentions, 43 prosecutions, and 40 persecutions and threats.

Violations of artistic freedom in 2016. Graphic: courtesy of Freemuse.

Musicians were targeted most frequently, accounting for 86 cases of serious violations, followed by theatre with 32 serious violations, and visual arts with 27 serious violations. Meanwhile film was the most censored art form, amounting to 79 percent of censorship cases.

Iran, responsible for 30 cases, was once again the worst offender for serious violations of artistic freedom, making it the worst violator of artistic expression since Freemuse began recording data in 2012. Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, China, Malaysia, Syria, Tanzania, and Uzbekistan also recorded dismal artistic freedom records, collectively making up 67 percent of globally recorded serious violations.

Top 10 serious violators of artistic freedom. Graphic: courtesy of Freemuse.

The worst practitioner of censorship in 2016 was Ukraine, responsible for a staggering 577 registered acts of censorship. Freemuse attributes this to a blacklist of 544 Russian films banned in the wake of the ongoing conflict between the two countries.

Other offenders making up the top 10 for recorded cases of censorship were Kuwait,China, Egypt, India, Russia, Turkey, USA, Pakistan, and Iran. Together these countries accounted for 88 percent of global censorship cases.

Top 10 practitioners of censorship. Graphic: courtesy of Freemuse.

Summarizing its findings, Freemuse explained that the drastic increase may be a consequence of rising global populism and nationalistic political views, resulting in a greater number of reported cases of artists being censored or persecuted. The organization also said that improvements in its own data collection and documentation methodologies, as well as its expanding network, resulted in a greater number of incidents being accounted for.

However the advocacy group stressed that the actual frequency and number of artistic freedom violations is almost certainly far higher. Factors including lack of public awareness, ability, political will, intimidation, cultural or social pressure, and the threat of punishment often prevent people from reporting serious violations and censorship.

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Artists Faced Sharp Rise in Attacks and Censorship in 2016, Report Says - artnet News

Photo illustration by Jeff Boyer / Times Union

Photo illustration by Jeff Boyer / Times Union

Editorial: Censorship in the Senate

THE ISSUE:

The Senate majority leader shuts down criticism of a Cabinet nominee.

THE STAKES:

Where do such heavy-handed tactics end at a time of one-party rule?

---

An extraordinary moment came Tuesday in the U.S. Senate when Sen. Elizabeth Warren was told to sit down. She'd gone too far, it seems, in criticizing a Cabinet nominee.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shut down Ms. Warren on the grounds that Jeff Sessions of Alabama, President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, is a senator himself, and as such should not be "impugned."

Whatever your political loyalty, this censoring of an elected representative marks a dangerous development for our democracy.

Ms. Warren, D-Mass., was speaking against Mr. Sessions' nomination Tuesday when the chair interrupted to remind her of Senate Rule 19, which states "no Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator." Ms. Warren had been voicing a host of concerns about Mr. Sessions' record on civil rights, abortion, women and immigration. She quoted harsh criticism he had drawn in 1986, when Mr. Sessions was being considered for a federal judgeship, from then-Sen. Edward Kennedy and civil rights icon Coretta Scott King. She continued until Mr. McConnell and his GOP colleagues cut her off, a ruling sustained by a party-line vote.

Put aside that it's absurd to argue Mr. Sessions merits more tender treatment than any other nominee. Let's call this for what it is: The majority leader of what's called the world's most deliberative body stifling deliberation he disagrees with.

Mr. McConnell has employed this sort of partisan heavy-handedness in various ways before, notably in snubbing the Constitution by refusing to even consider former President Barack Obama's nominee for Supreme Court last year. That capped a long campaign of partisan obstructionism.

What we are witnessing what should matter to all Americans is nothing less than a breakdown of the norms of democratic government. Republican stonewalling of Mr. Obama's lower-level judicial appointments led Democrats to eliminate filibusters for those posts when they ran the Senate. Now Republicans may do the same on Supreme Court nominations. So much for a long-standing check on unbridled majority rule.

And now Mr. McConnell has introduced a new prospect: shut down whatever speech the majority doesn't like. What's next?

It's all the more alarming at a time of one-party rule in Congress and the presidency, and with Mr. Trump promising to pack the Supreme Court with ideologues. A top adviser to the president tells the free press to "keep its mouth shut" even as the Senate's leader says as much to one of the foremost women in the opposition party.

If they care nothing for the legacy this behavior is leaving our republic, Mr. McConnell and Republicans should at least weigh their own self-interest. Every bad precedent they enjoy setting today they will surely regret tomorrow.

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Editorial: Censorship in the Senate - Albany Times Union

The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), which monitors networks for censorship and surveillance, is launching Ooniprobe, a mobile app to test network connectivity and let you know when a website is censored in your area.

The app tests over 1,200 websites, including Facebook (FB, Tech30), Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) and WhatsApp. You can decide how long to run the test, but the default is 90 seconds and would test between 10 and 20 websites depending on bandwidth. Links to blocked websites are listed in red, while available sites are green.

Service providers, sometimes controlled by the government, don't always shutdown the internet entirely -- for instance, Facebook.com might be inaccessible while CNN.com still works.

"Not only we will be able to gather more data and more evidence, but we will be able to engage and bring the issue of censorship to the attention of more people," Arturo Filast, chief developer for the Ooniprobe app, told CNNTech.

To test connectivity, Ooniprobe mimics what a browser does when you connect to a website. It tries to establish a connection to a site's IP address and download the webpage. OONI compares the activity to the same test on an uncensored network. If it doesn't match, the site is likely being censored.

Created in 2012 under the Tor Project, OONI monitors networks in more than 90 countries through its desktop and hardware trackers, which are available to anyone. It publishes censorship data on its site. The organization has confirmed censorship cases in a number of countries, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Ethiopia and Sudan.

By introducing a mobile app, OONI can reach more people potentially affected by internet outages, especially in emerging markets where smartphones are more common than computers.

Related: This African country is taking an unprecedented step in internet censorship

In just the last week, at least two countries have experienced outages. Iraq shut down the internet while students took exams to prevent cheating, and in Cameroon, protests and unrest have led to ongoing outages in the country's English-speaking regions.

Ooniprobe tests web connectivity to not only figure out whether sites are blocked, but how they are being censored. For instance, an internet service provider can initiate a DNS-based block, so when you try to connect to a specific website, the page will say the domain is unknown or blocked. Ooniprobe can also check whether IP addresses are blocked, and looks for "middleboxes" or network devices that manipulate web traffic.

If the app detects a site is censored, it will list ways of getting around it. For instance, Ooniprobe might tell you to visit "HTTPS" versions of sites to circumvent "HTTP" blocking, or to download the Tor browser or the Orbot Android app. (Ooniprobe is used to find specific instances of censorship -- if the entire internet was blacked out, you would know.)

Ooniprobe is rolling out this week for iOS and Android.

Filast says Ooniprobe can help people see how censorship and surveillance impact them.

"They can better understand that this is something that isn't so abstract and so distant from them, but it's something they can actually understand how it's working," Filast said. "And maybe be less scared about it."

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Ooniprobe app helps people track internet censorship - Feb. 8, 2017 - CNNMoney