Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Larger suggestions/Explore evasion methods of state-level censorship across Wikimedia movement

This proposal is a larger suggestion that is out of scope for the Community Tech team. Participants are welcome to vote on it, but please note that regardless of popularity, there is no guarantee this proposal will be implemented. Supporting the idea helps communicate its urgency to the broader movement.

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Explore evasion methods of state-level censorship across Wikimedia movement

Problem: As WMF's HRIA suggests, censorship is a major threat to Wikimedia movement, whose goal is to provide free educational content for everyone. Some governments, like China, have blocked access to Wikipedia entirely. This has significant impact to us:
- Reading: People from censored states (especially China) have to use 3rd-party proxies or manually configurate their device to access Wikipedia normally. This discourage users from accessing Wikipedia.
- Editing: Due to Wikimedia's block of open proxies and the complexity of IPBE requesting process, newcomers may feel frustrated and discouraged from participating in Wikimedia projects.
Proposed solution: The WMF can explore methods and provide official technical support for people from censored states (e.g. China) to read and edit Wikimedia projects directly without a VPN. This can solve both problems. If it is not feasible, we can refine our no open proxy policy and make it more friendly to newcomers, which can solve the user-engagement problem.
Who would benefit: People from censored states
More comments: I know fighting with state-level censorship is a cat-and-mouse game and requires a lot of resources, but I still believe there are some actions we can take rather than simply watch all sites get blocked finally.
Phabricator tickets: phab:T327286 (probably)
Proposer: Diskdance (talk) 08:37, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

First step: What about integrating In-App domain fronting to evade censorship? Added ticket T327286.--Shinohara Chihiro (talk) 09:47, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
AFAIK WMF staff are internally working on trying to resolve the open proxy blocking issue, although this is still in early stages. See also Talk:No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking#Help_from_WMF. Thanks. SCP-2000 10:48, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note that WMF facilitating circumvention methods (e.g. phab:T327286) is probably very complex, with many legal and security ramifications. On the other hand, there're quite a few smaller things that can be done to make it easier for users facing censorship to edit (e.g. phab:T306751). MarioGom (talk) 15:34, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not complex actually. My proposal contains no use of cloud providers or CDNs, it's as simple as modifying your hosts file. And I have given example implementations which is done by even personal, amateur app developers. Shinohara Chihiro (talk) 15:24, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have updated the proposal to clearify some ambiguities.--Diskdance (talk) 08:22, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mitigate the damage caused by proxy blocks is a similar but more realistic proposal. SmallJarsWithGreenLabels (talk) 18:57, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support Xbypass (talk) 20:09, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mapatxea (talk) 21:33, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Joshbaumgartner (talk) 21:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Significa liberdade (talk) 22:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – allowing users in censoring countries to edit would also help with systemic bias. SmallJarsWithGreenLabels (talk) 23:01, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jensbest (talk) 23:42, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gohan 02:58, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lt2818 (talk) 03:29, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tgr (talk) 04:13, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Goliv04053 (talk) 06:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Arado Ar 196 (talk) 08:11, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Muted Red Tulip (talk) 09:41, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Oltrepier (talk) 10:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support SunDawn (talk) 12:39, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hehua (talk) 13:22, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Bluerasberry (talk) 15:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support JopkeB (talk) 15:16, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support JrawX (talk) 15:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Conny (talk) 18:08, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Abzeronow (talk) 19:23, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Fvtvr3r (talk) 13:49, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Firestar464 (talk) 15:23, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Pmorgan1998 (talk) 00:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libcub (talk) 05:54, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ottawajin (talk) 12:12, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Just N. (talk) 14:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support please do not target China alone. Censorship is everywhere. Bert76 (talk) 09:31, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Husky22 (talk) 19:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I agree with Bert76. Kays (talk) 01:35, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dmytro Tvardovskyi (talk) 03:16, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support —‍(ping on reply)—‍CX Zoom (A/अ/অ) (let's talk|contribs) 07:54, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support One method the Great Firewall & perhaps other censors use is a w:TCP reset attack; when they detect something they do not like, they send a reset signal to both client & server, so the connection is dropped. It would certainly be possible to make WMF servers ignore such signals, or at least those from China, but I am not certain if that would have other consequences that might be problematic. Pashley (talk) 14:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jotamide (talk) 16:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 16:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Albinfo (talk) 22:39, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Zache (talk) 05:40, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Qxyz123 (talk) 04:39, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support _hugarheimur 09:56, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support PauAmma (talk) 12:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 14:10, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support cyrfaw (talk) 18:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I absolutely love the idea of free knowledge for all. Cryorett (talk) 08:33, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support It is dangerous for Chinese users. Thingofme (talk) 01:49, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Daniel Case (talk) 05:55, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]