It is not surprising to see oppressed nations embracing Tor as a solution to bypass censorship. Turkey has recently been dealing with a massive ban wave of popular sites and platforms. By using Tor and VPN services, users can still access these platforms and enjoy free speech. It is evident the consumers are well ahead of the government in this cyber arms race.
Tor Becomes A Fan Favorite In Turkey
The situation in Turkey is far more severe than most people anticipate. Over 100,000 websites have been banned by the government, including social media platforms and Youtube. Since all of these websites can be used for free speech and openly complaining about the Turkish regime, the government decided to censor everyone in the country as a result.
Bypassing these artificial blockades is proving to be quite easy, though. In fact, a lot of global Internet users sees merit in Tor, the browser software often associated with the darknet. However, since this tool reroutes internet traffic, it is an effective way to bypass ISP or government blockades on the World Wide Web.
Tor offers many exciting features, although its primary use case in Turkey is to regain access to traditional services. Even social messaging tools, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Skype, are officially banned in the country. With Tor or a VPN, accessing these services is a breeze. Moreover, users can retain some degree of anonymity while using this software, which is an extra bonus.
Although Tor adoption in Turkey is still relatively small, the software is actively being used by over 25,000 people right now. A lot of consumers will either not bother with bypassing the censorship blockades or find other solutions to do so. These numbers are expected to increase in the coming months unless the Turkish government does an 180 and unblocks these platforms.
While the usage of Tor sees significant appreciation, the government is well aware of these developments. In fact, they are – allegedly – developing countermeasures to prevent users from accessing Tor and traditional VPN services. Doing so will only lead to more civil unrest moving forward, and is not the best course of action by any means.
Even though the government may eventually be successful in preventing direct connections through Tor, a solution is widely available. So-called Tor bridge relayss provide an alternative connection route. Even ISPs will be none the wiser as to how users are effectively accessing the Internet.This also means they can’t block that particular traffic, as they risk cutting off people from the Internet altogether.
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