News Media Scan by DW – Deutsche Welle and OONI launch new app

Many regions worldwide are affected by Internet censorship, which makes it difficult to access news and information. With "News Media Scan by DW", users can view a list of the news sites that they can access in the country in which they find themselves.  

And here’s how it works: The app calls up the websites of news and information providers. Data about the technical reachability of the individual sites is transmitted to OONI, where they are then collected and evaluated. The users are then provided with the analyzed data about which specific sites are available or blocked. 

The test lists are created based solely on the users’ input. Neither OONI nor Deutsche Welle curate the lists. This ensures full transparency about the reachability of news and information sites from the country in question. 

"As an international media company, we have been working with OONI on various projects related to censorship detection," says Guido Baumhauer, Managing Director, Distribution, Marketing and Technology at DW. "Creating an app that provides this kind of transparency on the reachability and availability of news and information across the world was the next logical step in our cooperation." 

News Media Scan by DW is the result of successful cooperation between DW and OONI. The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a free software project developed by the Tor Project with the goal of promoting the decentralization of efforts to detect Internet censorship across the world. DW and OONI have worked together for years on the topic of Internet censorship. 

Arturo Filastò, Project Lead at OONI: "Access to news media sites is restricted in many countries and it has a huge impact on the right of people to access information and stay informed. In partnership with DW, we are excited to launch the News Media Scan app, which empowers the public to document and collect evidence of news media censorship to support a free and open internet around the world." 

DW is dedicated to providing people around the world with access to free information and to help them work against censorship. As OONI’s first international media partner, DW is supporting the project with its comprehensive expertise and is consulting on the topics of censorship circumvention, freedom of expression and freedom of information. 

The app is currently available free of charge in English for Android devices in the Google Play Store.