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by namos 4371 days ago
For the past 8 months we've been working on building a series of probes;

- Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.org.blocked...

- Python https://github.com/openrightsgroup/OrgProbe

- Raspberry PI images https://github.com/openrightsgroup/lepidopter)

And an open API to power them: https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Censorship_Monitoring_...

This is helping to build a picture of what the UK Governments Internet Blocking/Filtering/Censorship actually looks like.

You can submit URLs to be tested by visiting https://www.Blocked.org.uk by installing the Android app or by tweeting a URL with the hashtag #IsBlocked

Once we receive a URL it is dispatched to all probes over a period of time where it is checked against a know list of blocking methods.

The results are returned back to the API for public evaluation.

For example: https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.yc...

Please help us build a picture of UK Internet Censorship by adding URLs to be tested, by helping develop new probes (browser extensions, an iPhone client etc etc) or just by spreading the word that https://Blocked.org.uk is available.

Please also see https://www.blocked.org.uk/faq which will explain the level of filtering enabled on some of the probes which will explain why some sites may appear blocked even if you, being on the same ISP, can reach said URL.

4 comments

Whoaa why the hell is The Brights' Net being blocked by BT??!? Since when is atheism considered "censorable" content in the UK??

This is madness.

https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=http://www.the-bright...

Please consider freeing the data and make it downloadable as a simple CSV. I'd like a list of all of the sites blocked by particular ISPs...
It would seem like some classification of the blocked URLs plus a suitable extension to use willing proxies would be quite useful as an exercise in making the blocklist completely pointless.

I'd imagine a lot of people that have issues with e.g. running a Tor node would be perfectly happy to offer up proxies offering up various subsets of the blocked sites whitelisted by category.

Have you considered setting a user agent other than Python Requests default? Probably not necessary, but good practice. Also, ironically, the app is not available on any of my devices.