Twitter has launched a Tor onion version of its site to give users access even if its blocked in a country, which is likely in response to recent Russian censorship.

According to the Tor Project, this browser helps users “circumvent censorship”, by letting users access sites blocked by their home network. The browser is also encrypted to prevent tracking.

Earlier this month, Russian regulators blocked access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as a retaliation for placing restrictions on state owned media such as RT and Sputnik, the Guardian reported.

Now, Twitters is accessible for users who have a browser such as Tor, with a link to the onion domain available on a help page showing supported browsers.

The news was shared yesterday (8 March) by software engineer Alec Muffett, who said “this is possibly the most important and long-awaited tweet that I’ve ever composed”.

Muffett said he helped Twitter’s engineers to develop the new service. He added that the social media site adopted the Enterprise Onion Toolkit – which Muffett developed – to power the new onion platform “albeit with considerable though reasonable modification”.

This is possibly the most important and long-awaited tweet that I’ve ever composed.

On behalf of @Twitter, I am delighted to announce their new @TorProject onion service, at:https://t.co/Un8u0AEXeE pic.twitter.com/AgEV4ZZt3k

— Alec Muffett (@AlecMuffett) March 8, 2022

While the new services is likely in response to Russia’s new censorship policies during the invasion of Ukraine, it could prove useful in the future for users in other countries hoping to bypass censorship.

“In 2014 I led the team which launched the Facebook onion; there have been occasional conversations (regarding) “an onion for Twitter” ever since,” Muffett said on Twitter. “This is the result of many peoples efforts, over years, and I’d like to thank them all for their perseverance.”

The Tor Project showed support on their own Twitter page, saying that it is a vital time to help people stay connected “and .onion services help do this”.

“Onion services’ location and IP address are hidden, making it difficult for adversaries to censor them or identify their operators,” the Tor Project said on its website. “All traffic between Tor users and onion services is end-to-end encrypted, so you do not need to worry about connecting over HTTPS.”

Muffett said he made the announcement as past experience shows that large announcements can lead to “load spikes”, which “would not be wise in a time of global crisis”.

According to research from SafetyDetectives, VPN demand doubled when the decision to ban Facebook was announced. The research team found that since 24 February, demand for VPNs in Russia has increased by 462pc.

The link to access Twitter’s new Onion service (which requires a browser such as Tor) is https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion/

Instagram updates

While global companies continue to update their services in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Instagram’s parent company Meta has announced updates to keep citizens safe in both countries and “reduce the spread of misinformation”.

Following from its decision last week to demote Facebook posts of Russian state-controlled media, a similar update has occurred on Instagram.

“Stories that contain a link sticker pointing to a Russian state-controlled media website on Instagram will be placed lower in the Stories tray,” Meta said in a blog post.

Users will also be given a notice if they are about to share something from these accounts on their own stories, as sharing it will also impact the spread of their own post.

To protect citizens from both sides of the conflict, Instagram will now hide follower details for private accounts from Ukraine and Russia.

“This means that people following private accounts based in Ukraine and Russia will no longer be able to see who those accounts are following, or who follows them,” Meta said.

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