[siculars]

Here's an idea. Every organization that believes in freedom may consider repurposing their websites to allow access to censored sites.

Let's say you're in Russia and instead of configuring a proxy you simply go to eff.org or nyt.com or columbia.edu and you go to a special page there that then lets you go to all the sites that are censored in that country. The net result is that that country would then need to censor an ever growing list of sites to the extent that they either give up or blackhole the entire country. You could design a system that had distributed rate limiting, crowd sourced censorship lists and all you would have to do is drop some javascript lib in your site and some proxy on your backend. Ya, it's some work, but hey, it's time for the free world to put its money where its mouth is.

[raquo]

They'll just blacklist every single one of these sites for enabling access to illegal materials and you won't even be able to read EFF from Russia. And if a Russian citizen creates a public proxy, they'll convict him on anti-terrorist charges. That'll deter the rest.

I am not convinced that pushing Putin to exercise his dictatorial abilities is a good idea when his approval ratings among the general population are so high. I mean, if people already hated him, that might have pushed them over the edge. But as it stands now, general population is more likely to rationalize blocking than admit that Putin is evil.

[aric]

> "They'll just blacklist every single one of these sites..."

That's the point: pressure. Outside sites willing to expose themselves to an 'iron curtain' is a true form of solidarity in this era where a world is more connected. Push-back is exactly how successful, peaceful movements are waged.

[avmich]

One can just wait - dictatorial approach always becomes clear, as the people's life suffer, but it takes time to distinguish propaganda from reality.

The hope is this time it wouldn't take that long. However there should be reasons to change the society faster - and that requires efforts.

[aric]

That's a smart, strategic idea. Mainstream sites -- outside of Russia but that Russians still use often -- that are willing to stand in solidarity and risk being blocked would be dramatically important. Without outside support, the overwhelming majority of a Russian public will continue to become even more acculturated to censorship and a state's chilling effects. This is already the case. However, it will only get worse unless complacency reaches a tipping point of jolting awareness.

Needless to say, several organizations would be willing to maintain updated blocked (accepted) lists. The important part is not allowing a proxy to be abstracted from the main site; otherwise, isolated javascript would be the blocking target, which would defeat the effects ever being noticed.