The Iraqi government has recently blocked people in the country from opening several sites. Activists in Iraq are not standing down, however, and are using top VPNs and other unblocking tools to regain access.
Online Activists Use VPNs
A Canadian company that offers unblocking technology says that the recent surge in signups from Iraq is so big that they are having difficulty keeping pace with them. Luckily there are so many other unblocking tools available to users in Iraq, so no one will be left without access to a good service.
The surge began in June after Iraq decided to block several websites after the Sunni takeover of some territory in the country. The government wanted to disrupt communications of these Muslim extremists and this is why they blocked access. Several social media and messaging services were the first to be affected in the move to stop the Sunni from using them to keep in touch and organize. Among the sites and services are Facebook, Skype, Twitter, Viber, WhatsApp and YouTube.
The government confirmed that they blocked these sites to stop the Sunni extremists, known as IS, from using these platforms to disseminate what they call rumors and propaganda. They also said that the social media sites were being used to reveal military positions and had to be stopped for security reasons.
Iraqi Internet users are not happy with the blocks regardless of the reasons given. They have been turning to unblocking services to help them. Just one week after the blocks, over 500,000 began to download censorship bypassing technology. They realized that the blocks would not soon be lifted and they decided to take action. By the end of the month, almost 2 million had downloaded just one unblocking app. This number likely represents 2 million households as most families in Iraq use just one computer or device to access the Internet. This is half of all households that are Internet users in the country.
