OONI: Open Observatory of Network Interference

The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a free software project that aims to empower decentralized efforts in increasing transparency of internet censorship around the world. OONI is the leading open source censorship detection platform collecting data from over 200 countries on a monthly basis. This project significantly advances both the capabilities and proliferation of the platform enabling members of the internet freedom community to rapidly respond to such events in promotion and protection of human rights and democracy.

To this end, OONI:

• Creates censorship measurement tools and methodologies (OONI Probe);
• Analyzes and openly publishes censorship measurements from around the world;
• Publishes research reports on internet censorship events around the world;
• Supports global community participation in censorship measurement research.

Since 2012, millions of OONI measurements have been collected from thousands of networks in more than 200 countries, shedding light on multiple cases of internet censorship around the world.

As of 2022, OONI publishes network measurements from around the world within minutes on OONI Explorer and the OONI API. It is therefore now possible to track global censorship events in near real-time.

Over the years, OTF support enabled OONI to create and improve its censorship measurement tools, expand its global coverage of censorship events, provide timely evidence and promote rapid response to emergent censorship events. OTF support also enabled OONI to create a global censorship measurement community.