Wikipedia, which is one of the most popular sites in the world and the largest free encyclopedia, has been a frequent target for partial or complete censorship by certain governments.<\/span><\/p>\n In June 2015, Wikipedia became HTTPS-only, in an effort to make browsing more secure and provide privacy to its users around the world.<\/p>\n While we can all agree that HTTPS is A Great Thing, it’s privacy benefits can actually pose a problem when a government is committed to censorship. \u201cHTTPS prevents censors from seeing which page a user is viewing, which means censors must choose between blocking the entire site [or] allowing access to all articles.\u201d<\/p>\n A main goal of Wikipedia\u2019s mission is to make information freely accessible to the world. Wikipedia was taking a gamble when they moved to HTTPS-only. Would the change increase accessibility to their millions of pages of free knowledge? Or would it lead to harsh crackdowns, cutting some countries off from the site entirely?<\/p>\n A new study from Harvard University\u2019s Internet Monitor<\/a> answers the question.<\/p>\n Measuring internet activity in 15 countries known to have human rights issues, the study looked at all 292 of Wikipedia\u2019s localized language sites and measured traffic from Wikipedia\u2019s server and client computers located in the countries. This gave them visibilities on both sides of the connection and gave them a better understanding of how access to Wikipedia was handled.<\/p>\n The comprehensive study found that Wikipedia\u2019s HTTPS-only transition has not lead to wide-spread censorship. In fact, the use of HTTPS has actually decreased the observed amount of censorship activity.<\/p>\n HTTPS encrypts the URLs you are accessing. It\u2019s still possible to know the hostname you are connecting to \u2013 such as \u201cWikipedia.org\u201d or \u201cWebMD.com.\u201d But anything after the \u201c\/\u201d is only known between you and the server.<\/p>\n For general purpose sites \u2013 like Wikipedia or Google \u2013 this provides you with a good amount of privacy as internet monitors can\u2019t tell if you are looking at an article on censorship in China<\/a> or a new species of gecko<\/a>. When the hostname reveals the site\u2019s purpose \u2013 like \u201cWebMD.com\u201d does \u2013 you have less protection because they know it\u2019s something related to medicine or health.<\/p>\n This is one of the major privacy benefits of HTTPS. It gives internet monitors \u2013 such as governments and ISPs aggregating your search history for advertising \u2013 a lot less information about your specific activity. However, it also raises concerns when it comes to censorship because it could lead to a \u2018blanket ban\u2019 approach.<\/p>\n For example, one of the methods used for internet censorship in Iran involves keyword-filtering URLs. This allows them to block any URL with an undesired word in it without blocking other URLs on the same site. When Wikipedia was available over HTTP, this allowed them to selectively block pages while leaving the rest of the site accessible.<\/p>\nHTTPS, Privacy, and Censorship<\/h2>\n