I just chaired a session at the FOCI conference earlier today, where people were talking about Internet censorship circumvention technologies and how to prevent governments from blocking them. I'd like to remind everyone that the U.S. government has been one the largest funders of that research for decades. Some of it is under USAGM (formerly BBG, the parent of RFE/RL)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Globa...

and some of it has been under the State Department, partly pursuant to the global Internet freedom program introduced by Hillary Clinton in 2010 when she was Secretary of State.

I'm sure the political and diplomatic valence is very different here, but the concept of "the U.S. government paying to stop foreign governments from censoring the Internet" is a longstanding one.

Can someone ELI5 how it actually works?

Say I'm a UK citizen with advanced glioblastoma (implying loss of faculties, seizures, and pain; no cure, and things to worsen before eventually passing away, possibly some time from now). Suppose I wish to view websites on euthanasia options, but am blocked from doing so by the UK's Online Safety Act.

How does/will Freedom.gov help? (is it essentially a free VPN?)

Also, as others have pointed out, couldn't the censoring government simply block access to freedom.gov?

It's forbidden (1), but the last news copy from Freedom.Gov is a Victory in Iraq (2) according to the Web Archive.

1. https://connect.freedom.gov

2. https://web.archive.org/web/20050209024923/http://freedom.go...

Won't those other nations just ban freedom.gov?

If something looks like MITM, chances are it is MITM.

A state sponsored vpn is probably not (only) gonna do what you think it's doing.

Sad that western Europe is pushing so hard for limits to free speech & privacy. I'm not surprised given their history, but it's sad nonetheless.

Fun hypothetical question - will it be restricted to users in sanctioned locations (where it's most needed) because of, well, sanctions?

So it'll have porn?

Is that going to accelerate copyright violations for AI training? https://cuiiliste.de/domains contains just a lot of piracy sites.

So going forward all countries will be providing citizens of other countries free access to the internet whilst censoring their own citizens?

Previous discussion: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-plans-online-portal-bypass-...

Weird title, but worthy of discussion. From the little info available so far this appears to be little more than political posturing. If you want to fight censorship, an "online portal" to access all the censored content is the wrongest possible way to go about it. But we'll see.

Can it be used to help people in the Bible Belt watch porn?

Until you have to validate your id/age to continue...

Seriously though... we have one segment undermining foreign lockdowns while the same and other segments are literally doing the same here.

Do they plan to allow residents of various US states to access sites that are now required to have documented ID evidence?

Can I use freedom.gov to bypass age verification though? :)

Maybe they can redirect from stupid.gov

Cool, maybe I'll be able to access www.census.gov from outside the US now

The irony is big in this one.

Or they could just make a donation to Tor and similar projects, and get way more mileage for their money.

Fantastic! Now EU just needs to setup freedomgov.eu that bounces off freedom.gov so americans also can browse whatever with no restrictions.

But will they put the complete Epstein files on there?

Why? Seriously, why do we care so much about this?

Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.

I would have loved to be in the meeting where they were wondering how to replace the highly costly and complex influence tool that was USAID, and then someone said:

- Why don't we just make a website?

- Yes let's just do that.

After the Trump checks and the Trump jabs ....the Trump porn?

I'd rather not...

What even is this? It looks to technically be Next JS with a single canvas element. But what does in protend...?

visuals with the only text on screen being...

---

"Freedom is Coming"

Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.

How long until Europe says, "fuck your copyright claims then?"

Wow, it's actually real:

https://freedom.gov/

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The world will be exposed to hardcore pornography, child endangerment, AI CSAM, and militant algorithms by force, if needed!

Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine (2018) directly claims the internet is “the most effective weapon the government has ever built,” tracing its roots to Pentagon counterinsurgency projects like ARPA’s efforts in Vietnam-era surveillance.

The book argues surveillance was “woven into the fabric” from the start, linking early ARPANET development to intelligence goals, and extends to modern tech giants like Google as part of a military-digital complex.

"Portal team includes former DOGE member Coristine"

"...user activity on the site will not be tracked."

Ok, stopped reading right there.

The joke that I saw online was "Does it have Colbert on it?"

Great! I sure hope it means Americans will stop censoring pro-Palestinian and pro-workers movements!