According to latest measurements carried out by OONI, access to a number of key news sites remains blocked in Azerbaijan. In its latest report that covers the period from January through April, OONI concludes, there is “a strong signal that specific censorship techniques are adopted to block access to these specific media websites.” One noteworthy development is that the video streaming platform Vimeo, previously showing signs of blocking, appears to be accessible according to the most recent measurement report.
OONI measurements indicate that, “several circumvention tool websites continued to present signs of blocking in Azerbaijan during the testing period.”
One particular circumvention platform NordVPN, “presented HTTP failures every time it was tested — providing a stronger signal of potential blocking. Similarly, other circumvention tool websites (such as protonvpn.com, psiphon.ca, and strongvpn.com) presented signs of blocking in recent measurements.”
Communication apps blocked during the 46days of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia indicated no anomalies. “WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Psiphon seemed to work in Azerbaijan during the testing period,” indicates the report.
Among several tested tools, Tor, was the only one which presented a significantly larger volume of anomalies (in comparison to the other tests). “In Tor anomalous measurements, we see that on some networks, attempted connections to Tor directory authorities failed. However, we also see that many connections to both Tor directory authorities and Tor bridges were successful (on many networks), indicating that it may have been possible to use Tor in Azerbaijan.”
In its overall conclusions, OONI indicates “the ongoing blocking of media websites and circumvention tool websites in Azerbaijan.”
For those interested to assist in conduct further testing in Azerbaijan, you may follow the steps indicated below:
1. Open the following OONI Run link with your OONI Probe mobile app:
2. Tap “Run” (to test the media websites with OONI Probe).
To run all OONI Probe tests automatically on a daily basis, you have the following options:
1. Install the OONI Probe Desktop App (for Windows and macOS).
a. Enable the Run tests automatically option in the app settings (see the user guide for step-by-step instructions).
2. Install the OONI Probe Command Line Interface (for power users on Debian/Linux and macOS). It will run automatically upon installation.