On August 20th and 21st, Psiphon joined the 16th annual Toronto Chinatown Festival for the first time as one of the event sponsors. In this 2 day event, Psiphon raised public awareness on Internet content access by reaching out to over 200,000 participants and educating more than 200 visitors on Psiphon’s software. Psiphon has also given out 10 visitors a free month of Psiphon Pro and custom made festival giveaways to booth visitors during the event.

Did you know that Cuba is one of the countries with the most restricted internet access in the world? Home internet access is forbidden, and even though the government is introducing more and more public WiFi spots, they cost 2$ an hour, which in Cuba is one tenth of the monthly wage. Even then users cannot surf the web freely - they are subject to government surveillance and anti-government websites are blocked.

In December, Psiphon blogged about a previous blocking event in Brazil, available here. Psiphon use surged again in Brazil in response to another nationwide suspension of WhatsApp messaging service. On May 2nd, Brazilian state judge Marcel Maia Montalvão issued an order to block WhatsApp for 72 hours. The judge is seeking user data from WhatsApp as part of a criminal investigation. The five main mobile operators were ordered to block the messaging service, beginning at Monday at 2 p.

At 9PM ET on December 16th WhatsApp was blocked in Brazil. The ban came after a judge ordered that the messenger app be blocked for 48 hours when the company refused to hand over private user information related to a criminal case. For months, Brazilian telecommunications companies have been attempting to shut down WhatsApp because it provides free messaging and voice services. WhatsApp is the most popular messenger service in Brazil and telecoms blame it for luring millions away from paid cell phone use.