Security News > 2021 > December > Tor’s main site blocked in Russia as censorship widens
The Tor Project's main website, torproject.org, is actively blocked by Russia's largest internet service providers, and sources from the country claim that the government is getting ready to conduct an extensive block of the project.
Tor is a software project that allows users to automatically encrypt and reroute their web requests through a network of Tor nodes for anonymous browsing.
Russia's censorship of Tor's site started on December 1, 2021, but many initially disregarded it by suggesting it was merely a side effect of experimentation with the Runet, Russia's sovereign internet project.
In response to the situation, the Tor Project has published a post urging volunteers to run Tor bridges to help keep Russians online.
"Russia is the country with the second-largest number of Tor users, with more than 300,000 daily users or 15% of all Tor users. As it seems this situation could quickly escalate to a country-wide Tor block, it's urgent that we respond to this censorship! We need your help NOW to keep Russians connected to Tor!" pleads Tor's blog post.
The Tor Project requested its community to help run new Tor Bridges on November 17, 2021, which could be the reason behind the censorship escalation against it.