Lead/lag cross-correlation: which countries’ censorship precedes others’

Where /atlas/correlation-matrix shows simultaneous co-movement and /atlas/cohorts shows shape similarity, this surface adds the time-shifted axis: for every pair of the 50 most-censored countries, the daily confirmed-censorship rate is cross-correlated at lags of -30 to +30 days, and the lag with maximum Pearson r is recorded. 129 pairs clear the bar of |r| >= 0.4 with a Benjamini-Hochberg FDR-corrected p < 0.05 (1,225 raw pairs evaluated; 30 of 50 countries kept after a sparse-country filter that drops degenerate r=1.0 artifacts). The strongest single signal is Saudi Arabia leading Thailand by 1 day (r = +0.91); the densest sub-graph is a Middle East -> Central Asia chain (UZ -> PK -> AZ at +-1-2 days, IQ -> KZ at +26 days, MA -> IR at +15 days). Lag-zero is intentionally excluded (it is covered by the correlation matrix). Honest caveats baked into every response: cross-correlation is descriptive, not causal — a lead/lag pair can reflect a shared regional driver rather than imitation; the FDR correction controls false discoveries but 7-day-centered smoothing inflates short-lag correlations; IODA disruption rows are excluded from the source signal so the series is confirmed-censorship only.