How to Get Involved With OONI's Internet Censorship Measurement Community

Updated

The most direct way to contribute is to install OONI Probe and run tests on your own network, then let the measurements flow into OONI's open dataset. OONI (Open Observatory of Network Interference) describes itself as a global community measuring internet censorship around the world, and its site organizes participation around three entry points: running OONI Probe, exploring OONI data, and following research. If you want to do more than observe, start with Probe and build outward from there.

Run OONI Probe to contribute measurements

OONI Probe is the tool the project positions as the front door for contributors. According to the site, it lets you:

  • Test the blocking of websites and apps
  • Measure the speed and performance of your network

Each test run produces measurements that feed into what OONI calls "the world's largest open dataset on internet censorship," with millions of measurements collected from more than 200 countries since 2012. That dataset is the reason individual test runs matter — your network becomes one more observation point.

Practical steps:

  1. Install OONI Probe on a device connected to the network you want to test.
  2. Run the built-in tests (website and app blocking, plus network performance).
  3. Let the results upload so they join the public dataset.
  4. Re-run tests periodically, since censorship conditions change over time.

A useful habit: test the same set of sites or apps across different networks (home, mobile data, work) and compare. Differences between networks in the same country are often where the interesting findings are.

Explore and reuse OONI data

If you'd rather analyze than measure, OONI Explorer is the site's interface to the open dataset. The homepage frames it as a way to "explore the world's largest open dataset on internet censorship" and to track censorship worldwide in near real-time.

This path suits you if you want to:

  • Check whether a specific site or service is blocked in a given country
  • Follow censorship events as they develop
  • Pull data into your own research or reporting

The site also links to a glossary and a FAQ, which are worth reading before interpreting measurements — knowing what a measurement does and doesn't show prevents overclaiming.

Follow OONI's research and blog

OONI publishes findings and methodology through its Research and Blog sections. Recent examples from the site show the range of topics:

Date Topic
28 Jul 2026 Italy blocks reproductive health websites (Women on Web, Women Help Women)
30 Jun 2026 Collateral damage of IP-based blocking during LALIGA football streaming in Spain
11 Jun 2026 Global censorship of Women on Web
18 Dec 2025 Internet censorship and the women's rights movement in Iran
20 Nov 2025 Throttling of social media in Türkiye during protests

Reading these gives you a sense of what OONI data can support — and the site's testing methodologies page explains how measurements are produced, which is useful if you plan to cite or build on them.

Reach the community through Get Involved and Contact

The site has dedicated Get Involved and Contact sections. These are the channels for asking about contribution paths, research collaboration, or community work that isn't covered by simply running Probe. If your interest is organizing, translating, or partnering rather than measuring, that's where to start.

A realistic path

A practical sequence for a new contributor:

  1. Run OONI Probe on your own network and let results upload.
  2. Read the FAQ and glossary so you understand what you're contributing.
  3. Use OONI Explorer to see how your measurements sit alongside others.
  4. Follow Research and Blog to learn what the community does with the data.
  5. Use Get Involved or Contact when you want to go beyond testing.

The measurement itself is the contribution — everything else builds on having that data in the open dataset.