censorcanary

CensorCanary 🐦

A lightweight JavaScript library to detect internet censorship and notify users when their access to a free and open internet may be restricted.

Why This Matters

The open internet is under threat. Around the world, governments and corporations are increasingly restricting access to certain websites, protocols, and platforms. While activists, journalists, and developers often work on censorship circumvention tools, ordinary citizens are the front line of defense:

• Censorship is invisible by design. If people don’t notice it, it becomes normalized.
• Distributed awareness is resilience. A single website being censored might not raise alarm, but if millions of users are running small checks, censorship attempts become visible.
• Everyday users are stakeholders. A free internet isn’t just for technologists — it’s for students, workers, families, and communities everywhere.
• Collective action matters. The more people adopt tools like this, the harder it becomes for authorities to silently erode online freedoms.

Installation

Simply include the script in your webpage:

<script src="censorcanary.js" defer></script>

You can also load it directly from this repository:

<script src="https://censorcanary.org/censorcanary.js" defer></script>

If you want to check what the banner will look like, you can run censorcanary.showBanner(); in your browser console.

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