Internet Censorship Update: Blocking of Grindr.com website
30 April 2024, Sinar Project with test data measurements from Open Observervatory for Network Interference (OONI), confirmed that a few Malaysian Internet service providers were implementing what appears to be an MCMC mandated blocking of the website grinder.com.
After running test measurements and analyzing the data, Sinar Project has confirmed that the website of Grindr (www.grindr.com) has been blocked since 16 April 2024.
As at time of writing, data on OONI indicates that blocking had occurred on networks run by 7 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which redirected users to a server maintained by MCMC. This would have resulted in users facing difficulties in accessing the website. However, latest test results also showed that a few of the ISPs have later unblocked the website:
|
ISP |
Latest test result |
|
TM (AS4788 and AS38322) |
Blocked as at 30 April |
|
Digi (AS4818) |
Blocked as at 25 April |
|
Maxis (AS9534) |
Unblocked since 24 April |
|
Time (AS9300) |
Blocked as at 29 April |
|
Celcom (AS10030) |
Unblocked since 24 April |
|
U Mobile (AS38466) |
Blocked as at 19 April |
|
YTL (AS45960) |
Blocked as at 19 April |
Source: OONI Data
Based on an analysis of censorship of Grindr in Jordan, similar tests were also run on the app endpoints that were required for the functionality of the app:
|
Domain |
Test results |
|
grindr.mobi |
Not blocked |
|
cdns.grindr.com |
Blocked on:
|
The data on OONI was collected through the OONI Probe App by Sinar Project and various volunteers. A confirmed blocking on OONI shows that there has been DNS blocking on the website whereby the DNS had been tampered to redirect to MCMC’s IP address: 175.139.142.25. This method of blocking was found for both “www.grindr.com” and “cdns.grindr.com” on OONI.