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Design

Chrome Add-On Reveals the Countries Blocking Your Favorite Websites

As it turns out, more countries are anti-YouTube than you might think.
Screencaps by the author

Once a page has loaded on your browser, the Firewhere Chrome browser addon sources the blocked or censored sites from Heredict, which serves as a global forum to report URL blockages, and reflects this data through a momentary display of the flags from each of the censoring countries. “States around the world continue to block access to certain web pages and content,” Barron Webster, the artist behind Firewhere explains in his project's description, “despite statements by the UN that argue for internet access as an extension of basic human rights to express and receive free speech.”

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Webster encourages Firewhere users to screenshot their experiences for possible display on Firewhere's homepage. While the artist admits that his young tool may not be perfect (“these blacklists are updated frequently, and most countries do not publish their blacklists publicly") it reflects the mutability of internet access and communication surveillance, which, as we saw with yesterday's monumentous court ruling, has become one of the defining conversations around the Digital Age.

Check out below for a few screenshots from our own censored adventures:

Learn more about Firewhere on Webster's website and add your screenshot to the mix by emailing them to: hello@barronwebster.com.

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