Effective Anti-Censorship is a Partnership Between Technology and People

Internet freedom doesn’t happen through technology alone. It doesn’t happen through goodwill alone. What actually works is the combination of both: continuous technical innovation, and the engagement and participation of the ordinary people for whom it matters most — the people in the censored country, and those in the diaspora. Psiphon learned that lesson during one of the most severe internet shutdowns the world has ever witnessed: the one we just went through in Iran, in early 2026.

Most people know the Psiphon app. Few know the real Psiphon and our commitment to continuous innovations like Forge & Conduit. The Psiphon app and network is where most people encounter us, for good reason. With more than 500 million downloads, it is the most widely used anti-censorship platform in the world, enabling tens of millions of users every day to access the Internet within the most heavily restricted environments on the planet. For those users, it's the one app that they can rely on when nothing else works. What makes that possible is a global managed network operating behind the scenes: thousands of servers distributed across jurisdictions, built on a multi-protocol approach that continuously adapts to detection and blocking. When a government shuts down a platform or throttles a protocol, our systems respond in real time.

The internet was built on a simple idea: that information should flow freely, that collaboration should have no borders, and that access should be universal. That's not the reality for billions of people. In 2024, 4.8 billion people experienced government-imposed online restrictions. As of April 8, 2026, Iran's internet shutdown has exceeded 39 consecutive days and counting, the longest nationwide internet disruption ever recorded anywhere in the world. Russia is blocking platforms and cracking down on the tools people use to get around it. Across Africa, elections are being held under the cover of digital darkness. This is the world we work in. And it's exactly why Psiphon exists.