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Censorship on the Internet What is it, how and why is it currently applied in the digital world?

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We always imagine that online censorship refers to the fact that some users suffer a total shutdown of the Internet. While this is true (it happens in North Korea), there are also people who may be unable to access certain sites web because the government of your country has forced certain pages to delete their domains or parts of subdomains.

Fortunately, the restrictions that exist in Spain are scarce or nullbut it is always good to analyze what happens with other citizens of the world.

This post will serve us, not only to know the external situation, but it will also be useful when let’s plan a trip to countries with online censorship to know what we are going to find.

What is online censorship and how does it affect users around the world?

What is online censorship and how does it affect users around the world?



Internet censorship is the restriction or limitation of access to some (or all) websites that is imposed on some users. This can happen due to government, ideological, economic, geographic, labor issues or due to some special situation that the user is going through.

internet censorship It happens mainly because public or private organizations do not want certain people to have access to content or information posted on websites.For example, in China you cannot access social networks. But we can also see censorship on the Internet if an employee of a company cannot access certain web pages. This happens to prevent the dissemination of news and opinions that may go against the political regime or religious ideas.

But let’s not go too far, if you do not live in Spain, a user who is in a continent other than Europe will not be able to access Internet television services, such as DAZN either HBO Spain. In this case, there is online censorship for economic interests. In conclusion, we can say that users who suffer from these restrictions cannot access content considered free in other parts of the world.

The limitations that exist have different levels, since in countries like the United States the conditions are selective, but in Russia this level of reduction to websites is a little broader. In China or North Korea, these limits are practically complete.

What types of censorship exist on the Internet and how are they different?

What types of censorship exist on the Internet and how are they different?

Among the different types of censorship that currently exist, we can highlight the following:

  • Political interventions: This type of restriction is generated, especially, in those countries in which the government tries to block the points of view and opinions of those people who have ideas that detract from the government regime. These ideologies can come from the same country or from abroad, which is why they prohibit websites that expose ideas contrary to state policies. China and countries in the Middle East are examples of this type of online censorship.
  • Social restrictions: It is also related to the previous point, but it is especially aimed at censoring issues that may go against health, morals or good customs implemented in a country. On many occasions, access to pages containing gender violence, alcoholism, smoking, pornography games and other topics is limited. In addition, we can include in this section, the censorship of ideas that go against religion imposed by a government. For example, in Iraq with Islamism.
  • Security limitations: When we refer to this type of censorship, we refer to the attempt to protect the national security that a country may have. Therefore, in some governments, such as the United States, it intervenes in those sites that may have terrorist ideas or that affect the security and guarantees of citizens.
  • Economic censorship: It is one of the most hidden that exists today and is generated by economic interests that exist in different companies. Which have an oligopolistic monopoly market in a country. These companies put pressure on governments so that certain companies cannot access users from controlled countries with their websites. An example of this is not being able to access our account for an Internet television service that we have in Spain in another country in which there is a streaming service that competes with our operator.

What are the mechanisms to determine who is targeted by censorship?

What are the mechanisms to determine who is targeted by censorship?

Once the form of restriction is determined, it can be deduced towards whom the censorship is directed. According to a United Nations report a little more than 40 countries apply online censorship to their inhabitants. They do this by filtering web pages or keywords, as well as a complete and definitive closure of Internet access. There are different techniques for filtering.

From this it follows that, we can mention different mechanisms of limitationsone of them is for URL addresses. This is one of the most common filtering processes that exist today and prevents access to part of a website or all of it. In some countries there is a partial blockade of digital newspapers, especially the political and economic section.

Another way to apply online censorship is to intervene the DNS server making it possible to block or not access to certain domains. That is, when a user requests to enter sites that are on the blacklist, the DNS directly prohibits their entry. Or it will redirect the user to another site chosen by the agencies that apply the disapproval.

a restriction or More specific Internet censorship is that directed directly at the IP address of the servers that host web pages who are on a blacklist. This means that certain hostings cannot be visited in any way. It also can remove access to the Internet according to keywords. This is very common today, especially in Middle Eastern countries where religion is an important factor in the lives of these people.



Internet restriction occurs when packet traffic is blocked or modulated so that certain information may have preference and have a much higher access speed. But this is not all, since characteristic ports of emails or instant messaging can also be blocked, such as WhatsApp either Telegram.

List of the main methods to remove Internet censorship

Fortunately, we can circumvent online censorship with certain tools that we will present to you below. It is necessary to clarify that these tools can avoid censorship, but many times they will not limit them from continuing to spy on you.

Take good note of the following:

Create a virtual private network or VPN

Currently there are different sites that provide a bridge or tunnel to access Internet sites losing the geolocation of the device from which it is entered. It can be done by downloading a VPN server and accessing through this tool as if the device were thousands of kilometers.

For example, if a user lives in a country where he cannot access the best Spanish cinema, you will have to enter through a VPN so that it connects to the server where the Internet television service is hosted, in this case Flix Olé, for example. The same would happen with DAZN, Movistar + or simply Netflix from the United States.

We recommend you download “Hola Free VPN Proxy Unblocker”, which is available for any type of device:


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Change the DNS server

When the users of a place have the Internet service censored, by means of this system it is possible to modify the DNS server and break the restrictions.

You will have to enter the Windows control panel and follow these steps:

  • go to “Network connections”.
  • Click on “TCP/IP protocol properties”.
  • Look for the option “Change” and click on “To accept”.

When you have a MAC, you will do this guide:

  • Choose “Net”.
  • Click on “Advanced”.
  • Click on “DNS”.

Modify proxy server

This type of server acts as an intermediary when requests are made between the user and an Internet server. Therefore, changing the proxy You can avoid censorship.

In order to perform this task you will have to follow this process:

  • Click on “Start”.
  • Choose the option “Setting”.
  • Click on “Network and Internet”.
  • Look for the option “Proxies”.
  • When you have clicked on it, you must activate “manual configuration”. To do this, you will have to disable the option “Automatically detect settings”.
  • also disable “Use configuration script”.
  • Search “Use proxy server” and activate the selector to the right.
  • Next, you must select the data of the Proxy where you will have to write in the fields of “Address” Y “port the server” the one that works best to evade censorship.
  • Once you have entered all the data you must check the box “Do not use proxy server for local addresses (intranet)”.
  • To finish, you must click on “Save”.

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