URL testing lists intended for discovering website censorship
Contained are URL testing lists intended to help in testing URL censorship,
divided by country codes. In addition to these local lists, the global
list consists of a wide range of internationally relevant and popular websites,
including sites with content that is perceived to be provocative or
objectionable. Most of the websites on the global list are in English. In
contrast, the local lists are designed individually for each country by regional
experts. They have content representing a wide range of categories at the local
and regional levels, and content in local languages. In countries where
Internet censorship has been reported, the local lists also include many of the
sites that are alleged to have been blocked.
Categories
are divided among four broad themes:
Political (This category is focused primarily on Web sites that express views
in opposition to those of the current government. Content more broadly related
to human rights, freedom of expression, minority rights, and religious
movements is also considered here.)
Social (This group covers material related
to sexuality, gambling, and illegal drugs and alcohol, as well as other topics
that may be socially sensitive or perceived as offensive).
Conflict/Security
(Content related to armed conflicts, border disputes, separatist movements, and
militant groups is included in this category).
Internet Tools (Web sites that
provide e-mail, Internet hosting, search, translation, Voice-over Internet
Protocol (VoIP) telephone service, and circumvention methods are grouped in
this category.)
More information about testing methodology can be found
here.
The only testing list that applies regionally (more than one or more country) is the
CIS testing list which is intended for testing former Commonwealth of
Independent States nations.
Lists are available in both CSV and JSON format.
Please note that these lists are not the entirety of testing lists but rather just
the newest list for every unique country code.
To learn how to contribute URLs for testing see: https://ooni.org/get-involved/contribute-test-lists/
If using this dataset in a publication, please see the following BibTeX File format.
@misc{testlist,title={URL testing lists intended for discovering website censorship},author={Citizen Lab and Others},year={2014},url={https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists},note={\href{https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists}{https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists}}}
An example Chicago Style citation is included below:
Citizen Lab and Others. 2014. URL Testing Lists Intended for Discovering Website Censorship. https://github.com/citizenlab/test-lists.
All data is provided under Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International and available in full
here and summarized
here