Methodology
How we measure global internet censorship
Overview
Composite score from three data sources, processed through federated ML pipeline, updates continuously based on live network measurements.
When a government blocks a new service, our data reflects the change within hours.
Data Sources
OONI Measurements
Sensor Network
User Telemetry
Multi-Source Correlation
No single measurement network captures the full picture of internet censorship. OONI provides active probing but has geographic gaps. CensoredPlanet provides remote measurement but lacks ground truth. IODA detects outages but not selective blocking. Cloudflare Radar sees traffic shifts but not which domains are blocked.
Voidly operates its own 16-node probe network across 6 continents — testing VPN accessibility and censorship patterns every 5 minutes — then correlates these proprietary measurements with all four external sources to produce verified incidents with evidence chains. This turns ambiguous network anomalies into structured, citable censorship intelligence.
ML Model
Gradient boosting classifier trained on 37K labeled censorship incidents. Federated learning across 16 nodes ensures no raw user data leaves local systems.
Censorship Classifier
Shutdown Forecast Model
Feature Importance
Scoring System
0-100 scale. 0 = complete freedom. 100 = total censorship.
Limitations
- ⚠Scores are national averages — regional variations not captured
- ⚠VPN detection underreported in highly restricted environments
- ⚠Sample sizes vary by country — affects confidence levels
- ⚠Real-time events may take up to 24h to reflect in scores
- ⚠Content filtering and throttling harder to detect than blocking
- ⚠Self-censorship and legal restrictions not measured
Confidence Intervals
Each country score includes a confidence interval reflecting measurement certainty. Wider intervals indicate less data or greater variability.
Validation
Scores are validated against external benchmarks and known censorship events. Continuous evaluation ensures model accuracy over time.
Update Pipeline
Citation
Use this data in research? Please cite:
APA Format
Voidly Research. (2026). Global Censorship Index. https://voidly.ai/censorship-indexBibTeX
@misc{voidly_censorship_index,
author = {Voidly Research},
title = {Global Censorship Index},
year = {2026},
url = {https://voidly.ai/censorship-index}
}License: CC BY 4.0 — Free to use with attribution