Posted in Commentary with tags NordVPN on September 25, 2020 by itnerd
The things people search for on engines like Google or Bing can tell a lot about how they live. New research by NordVPN reveals that video content on YouTube is the most desirable to unlock.
In total, 63,64% of Canadian internet users searching for how to unblock certain online services want to access content on YouTube.
The rest of “unblock” searches from Canada are related to locked social media accounts due to forgotten login credentials or attempts to access Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat in public places like schools, where the service is often restricted.
However, Canadians are half as concerned with unblocking Facebook than Americans — only 9.09% compared to 20.41% in the US.
“Globally, 82.7% of users are trying to access YouTube the most, but Google is also in high demand (5.7%). This proves that a substantial part of the world cannot enjoy unrestricted internet browsing. Not Canada, however, as the country is considered to have free internet. But content on YouTube still makes them feel at a disadvantage,” said Daniel Markusson, digital privacy expert at NordVPN.
Why do people look for how to unblock YouTube much more than other services?
Youtube is the second most popular website as of August 2020, with one billion hours of content watched daily. “Not surprisingly, some video content is not available in certain countries due to copyright or censorship. This makes people look for workarounds,” says Daniel Markusson.
First on the list isthe US, accounting for 7.7% of all “unblock YouTube” searches. The country is followed by India (6,5%) and Indonesia (5,3%). Canada hits the top-10, with 0.62% of all searches worldwide.
Countries can be broken down into two groups: those that have little censorship over content on the internet and those where censorship prevails.
Therefore, the reasons behind attempts to access blocked content on YouTube might be notably different. “One of the reasons behind “unblock YouTube” search volumes in Canada, the US, UK, Australia, and others are the result of students trying to bypass rules at school, where bandwidth is often blocked for YouTube. On the other hand, internet users from India and Indonesia are either trying to bypass censorship or overcome geo-restrictions imposed by content creators,” said Daniel Markuson.
Examples of censorship include Denmark blocking YouTube following a dispute over royalty fees and Germany blocking the service for 7 years on copyright grounds. Regimes are blocking the service to suppress the opposition. For instance, YouTube was censored in Venezuela during the presidential elections crisis back in 2019.
Methodology: NordVPN researchers used Google’s search term analysis tools to search terms including the keyword “unblock”. Apart from global trends, search volumes were also checked by country. The analysis was based on search volumes over a period of 30 days.
Time frame: 15 June-15 July, 2020.
Additionally, researchers looked at the Freedom on the Net report 2019 by Freedom House to list the countries considered to be the most censored.
Today, LinkedIn launched the LinkedIn Stories feature in Canada, along with a suite of updates to its platform. Stories provides members with a less intimidating way to share everyday professional moments with their LinkedIn communities, such as offering perspectives from their work day or an event, giving insights on timely breaking news, walking through a product demo or teaching others a skill.
With Stories, Canadians can engage with their network using a full-screen ephemeral format (live for 24 hours). And since Stories won’t be permanently attached to profiles, it provides members with the freedom to share their professional side with an extra personal touch, and message their network in more timely and relevant moments.
Other exciting LinkedIn updates include:
New site design. The heart of LinkedIn is its community. There are incredible examples of this every day on the platform: people and organizations coming together to help, support, and inspire one another. LinkedIn wants its site and member experience to reflect this. The new design is personable, inclusive, approachable, and warm. It’s been simplified while still providing the structure necessary to be easy to navigate and understand.
Messaging updates. Conversations are the centerpiece for members to stay informed and find opportunities, and LinkedIn has seen an increase in 25% of messages sent since last year. To help professionals continue to find and engage in conversations they care about, LinkedIn is adding to its messaging experience from giving members the ability to edit or delete a message to managing their messages in bulk to initiating a video call right from their messages, LinkedIn wants to make it as easy as possible.
Search updates. LinkedIn is taking steps to better-organize search results into a more intuitive, streamlined, and relevant experience. For instance, people, jobs, events, courses, posts, groups, and more will now appear together in a clear and more understandable format, making it easier for members to find what they need faster and browse through results. For example, if they search for java, they’ll see people they may know with that skill, jobs requiring that skill, relevant LinkedIn Learning courses and related groups to join.
A new organization called the “Coalition for App Fairness” has been formed They describe themselves as follows:
An independent nonprofit organization founded by industry-leading companies to advocate for freedom of choice and fair competition across the app ecosystem.
Their sole purpose is to advocate for the following:
No developer should be required to use an app store exclusively
Every developer should always have access to app stores
Every developer should always have the right to communicate directly with its user through its app
No app store owner or its platform should engage in self-preferencing its own apps or services
No developer should be required to pay unfair, unreasonable or discriminatory fees or revenue shares.
And this organization’s target is Apple of course. Which isn’t a shock given who’s part of this:
Epic Games
Spotify
Tile
Basecamp
Blix
Blockchain
Deezer
The European Publishers Council
Match
News Media Europe
Prepear
ProtonMail
SkyDemon
All of these groups have had beefs with Apple in the past. And they want other developers to join. I’m sure that Apple will respond to this soon enough. And that will be interesting to watch.
UPDATE: Apple has responded to this by making apple.com look like this:
Posted in Commentary with tags ESET on September 24, 2020 by itnerd
When it comes to coercing people into parting with their money, cybercriminals seem to have an endless bag of tricks, but one of their favourites is extortion.
It’s important to remember that blackmailers don’t just stick to one scheme but will employ multiple methods of extortion to try to force victims into doing their bidding – be it paying them a handsome sum or even performing tasks on their behalf.
Here is a list of five ways cybercriminals can try to extort you:
Ransomware
Ransomware is by far one of the best-known examples of extortion employed by hackers around the globe. The basic premise is that your device will be infested by ransomware using one of the various tactics hackers employ, such as duping you into clicking on a malicious link found in an email, posted on social media or shared with you through a direct instant message.
After the malware makes its way into your device, it will either encrypt your files and won’t allow you to access them or it will lock you out of your computer altogether, until you pay the ransom. Some ransomware groups have begun using a form of doxing, where they go through your files looking for sensitive information and threaten to release it unless you pay an additional fee. This could be considered a form of double extortion.
You should never pay when faced with ransomware, but you should check if a decryption tool has been released for the ransomware strain that has infested your device. For additional advice on protecting against ransomware attacks, you can check out our excellent, in-depth article Ransomware: Expert advice on how to keep safe and secure.’
Hack and extort
The extortionist will infiltrate your device or online accounts, go through your files looking for any sensitive or valuable data, and steal it. Although it may echo ransomware in some respects, in this case, the breaking-and-entering of your device is done manually. The target then receives an email threatening to expose this data unless they pay up, listing examples for added effect.
Sextortion relies on a threat of exposure of sexual material about the target. It can start as an apparent romantic dalliance through a dating platform, until the criminal gains their victim’s trust, convincing them to leave the platform for a regular messaging service. This is done to avoid triggering the security mechanisms dating apps use to detect potential scammers. Once off the dating platform, they will try to coax the target into sharing intimate photos or videos, which will then be used to blackmail the victim. Alternatively, hackers can opt for hacking a victim’s computer and hijack their webcam to secretly watch and even take salacious snapshots or voyeuristic videos of them.
Sending any kind of risqué photos to anyone is ill-advised, even someone you trust, since you can’t rule out that their devices or accounts won’t be compromised, and the sensitive photos leaked. Keep your devices patched and up-to-date as well as use a reputable security solution to mitigate the risks of being hacked.
Sextortion Scams
While not sextortion per se, scammers also like to engage in scams that consist of bluffing, rather than having any damning evidence, to scare you into paying. This scam isn’t very sophisticated and consists of an email accusing you of visiting a pornographic website, with the fraudsters claiming that they have both a screen-recording of the material you watched and a webcam recording of you while watching it. Unless you want them to release the material you have to pay up. A good spam filter can help protect you against this type of scam.
DDoS Extortion
Distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) against businesses are not uncommon and are often deployed by cybercriminals to cripple their target’s ability to provide services. To boost their illegal income, they often offer their services on DDoS-for-hire marketplaces. During these attacks, cybercrooks use a large number of machines organized into a botnet to flood a target with requests, which leads to their systems crumbling under the onslaught, effectively taking them offline. Attackers can keep this up for days at a time, which could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in revenue for some businesses.
Setting up a firewall that will block access to all unauthorized IP addresses and registering with a DDoS mitigation service can protect you from DDoS extortion schemes.
As a deal deciding the fate of TikTok hangs in the balance, the Chinese-owned video app is seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the Trump administration’s order that would ban app stores from carrying TikTok in the U.S. as of Sept. 27.
TikTok alleges that Trump cited “national security” concerns as a pretext for trying to shut down the app in the absence of a deal to transfer ownership of TikTok to American buyers. The company, per its motion, claims the president was motivated “by political considerations relating to the upcoming general election.”
“There is simply no genuine emergency here that would justify the government’s precipitous actions,” TikTok said in the motion, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “And there is no plausible reason to insist the prohibitions be enforced immediately.”
At Microsoft Ignite 2020, ServiceNow introduced new workflows embedded in Microsoft Teams to improve employee productivity with seamless self-service and faster case resolution. Powered by the Now Platform, the new capabilities also improve agent productivity by enabling them to more effectively collaborate and complete key tasks in Microsoft Teams.
Teams is Microsoft’s fastest-growing business app ever. That was true in 2018, long before lockdowns started driving up numbers for remote work and learning. As of April 29, Microsoft Teams had 75 million daily active users, up 70% from just six weeks prior. That month, Microsoft saw more than 200 million meeting participants in a single day, generating more than 4.1 billion meeting minutes.
The new capabilities announced today include:
Employee experiences in Microsoft Teams: Companies want to provide employees with support for whatever tools and devices they choose to use. By embedding ServiceNow natively within Teams, employees can submit requests, receive updates on in-progress requests, take action on notifications, chat with virtual agents for automated assistance, and connect with live agents when virtual agents cannot assist – all without ever leaving Microsoft Teams.
Agent capabilities in Microsoft Teams: Agents spend most of their time in ServiceNow IT Service Management but want to more easily leverage the collaboration functionality in Teams to communicate with employees and collaborate with other agents. Now, agents can use Notify to launch the Teams client to engage with peers directly, push major incident updates to business stakeholders, and open direct chats with employees from an incident or request. When used with the new Teams Meeting Extensibility feature, ServiceNow workflows enable agents to be more productive by resolving major incidents directly from within a Microsoft Teams meeting.
The new capabilities are available for select customers as part of the Beta program today.
Today’s updates come on the heels of the ServiceNow Now Platform Paris release, which features several high-demand Microsoft integrations to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation journeys. Customers can use these integrations to:
Optimize hybrid cloud spending and usage with Microsoft Azure support for ServiceNow Cloud Insights,
Streamline new hire onboarding with ServiceNow employee experiences and Microsoft Azure Active Directory, and
Gain greater control and visibility into organizational assets with ServiceNow Software Asset Management and Microsoft Azure Active Directory.
Additionally, the ServiceNow Virtual Agent Lite plugin for Microsoft Teams, also released in Paris, offers a limited version of Virtual Agent for IT Service Management standard customers. It launched with three prebuilt conversations for common IT support requests. These keyword-based conversations run in the web chat client and in a virtual agent messaging integration with Microsoft Teams.
Today’s announcement furthers the companies’ partnership announcement from 2019 to accelerate digital transformation for joint customers. Customers are accessing the value of this partnership with more than 25 joint solutions available between Microsoft and ServiceNow today. The companies have committed to continued ServiceNow-Teams innovation to enable richer employee experiences from anywhere, at scale.
Posted in Commentary with tags Apple on September 23, 2020 by itnerd
Apple came out with two new Apple Watches last week. The brand new Apple Watch Series 6, and the lower cost Apple Watch SE. And after my review of the Apple Watch 6, I got a number of questions about which one of these two watches that one should choose. And why did I pick the Apple Watch Series 6 over the Apple Watch SE. Hopefully, this story will answer both questions.
In terms of the differences between the Apple Watch Series 6 and the Apple Watch SE, here’s the key differences:
Apple Watch Series 6
Apple Watch SE
Processor
S6
S5
Blood Oxygen Sensor
Yes
No
Always-on altimeter
Yes
Yes
Compass
Yes
Yes
International SOS
Yes
Yes
ECG
Yes
No
Supports Family Setup
Yes
Yes
Always On Display
Yes
No
Fall Detection
Yes
Yes
Cellular Connectivity
LTE + UMTS
LTE + UMTS
WiFi
802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz and 5GHz
802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz
Bluetooth
Bluetooth 5.0
Bluetooth 5.0
CaseMaterials
Aluminum, Stainless Steel, Titanium
Aluminum
Display Materials
Aluminum models have Ion-X glass displays. Stainless steel and titanium models have sapphire crystal displays.
Ion-X glass display.
So you can see that if you buy the Apple Watch SE, you give up the always on display, the ECG and blood oxygen sensors. You also give up WiFi on the 5GHz band and some of the fancy case and display materials. You also get the processor that was in the Series 5 (and Series 4 for that matter as there was no speed difference between the two) which is about 20% slower than the S6 processor. But in the grand scheme of things, the Apple Watch SE on the surface still seems to be a tremendous value as you get most of the Apple Watch experience at a lower price point. But that depends on your use case. Which is why I’ll get into the weeds now.
In my opinion, the Apple Watch SE is aimed at the following people:
Kids who’s parents want to give them an Apple Watch to keep in touch and keep tabs on them as they can be set up via Family Setup as long as you have a cellular model. One thing to keep in mind that the cellular model of the Apple Watch SE is cheaper than the iPhone SE and plans for the Apple Watch are far cheaper than iPhone plans.
A senior who’s kids want to keep tabs on them and leverage features like Fall Detection as they can be set up via Family Setup as long as you have a cellular model. One thing to keep in mind that the cellular model of the Apple Watch SE is cheaper than the iPhone SE and plans for the Apple Watch are far cheaper than iPhone plans.
Someone who wants the basic Apple Watch experience. Meaning that they aren’t going to be using it for marathons or anything that can be considered to be high levels of fitness tracking. Nor do they care about having the fancy case materials or the always on display.
The last point is a key one. The Apple Watch SE has two issues when it comes to fitness. This was uncovered by DC Rainmaker who is well known YouTuber who reviews fitness technology in high amount of detail. Specifically by directly comparing devices with each other and taking a deep dive into the data they generate.
The first issue is the heart rate monitor. Apple claims that the heart rate monitor is a 2nd generation optical HR sensor. Except that’s not true. Apple has had three generations of heart rate monitors. From DC Rainmaker’s review of the Apple Watch SE:
Apple Watch 1/2/3: This is a 2xLED, and 2xPhotodiode arrangement Apple Watch 4/5/SE: This is a center LED (which technically has 4xLED’s in it), 8xPhotodiode arrangement Apple Watch 6: This is a 4x LED (with each LED also having two colors in it, green for HR, red for SpO2), 4xPhotodiode
And this according to him shows up in his tests of the heart rate monitor of the Apple Watch SE:
Starting with the heart rate. This run was mostly evenly paced, but I threw in some solid sprints to check out responsiveness, and unfortunately, the SE failed on one of them – spiking the heart rate considerably higher than my viable max HR (and certainly higher than my effort) – nearly 190BPM:
When it comes to GPS tracking, the Apple Watch historically has had issues with mapping corners. Let me have DC Rainmaker explain:
It’s GPS that’s where the problems are. And in some ways, it’s easiest to just show Apple’s own app here, because it so easily makes things clear. With the Apple Watch Series 6, gone was what I’d dubbed ‘Mario Karting’ (or ‘Whooshing’) around the corners, where basically it ignores the laws of physics for GPS track beauty. It’d cut many corners, even when water/bridges/buildings/trees/rocks/statutes/angry geese, and others were involved. It’s been a stable of Apple Watch GPS tracks since the beginning, but the Series 6 unquestionably got rid of it. The SE though? Oh, it’s still here in force.
That means if you want accurate tracking of your runs for example, you won’t get it with the Apple Watch SE unless you run in straight lines. Which nobody does. But you will get it with the Apple Watch Series 6. In short, people who are serious about fitness should be looking at the Apple Watch Series 6. And that’s the prime reason why I went with the Apple Watch Series 6.
Now neither of these issues are fatal. But they will impact your fitness experience if you care about having accurate data. Or if you would use your Apple Watch for fitness purposes at all as some users of the Apple Watch don’t do that. And that’s not to say the Apple Watch SE is a bad device. It isn’t. But it’s pretty clear that Apple when they came up with the Apple Watch SE made come compromises to hit a price point. Something that they didn’t do with the Apple Watch Series 6. So when choosing one over the other, you need to keep that in mind so that you choose the right Apple Watch for you.
I hope this story helps you to make the right choice. If you still need help, please leave a comment below and I will do my best to help you out.
Acunetix, a global leader in automated web application security testing, teamed up with Dimensional Research to learn how effectively companies are handling web application security. Security, DevOps, and C-suite professionals from 382 organizations across the globe responded to the survey; Acunetix analyzed the findings and today released a report, “Web Application Security – Enterprises are Losing the War.”
Companies are struggling to keep up with rapidly evolving threats and the need to automate security efforts. Attacks against web applications have increased in prevalence to become the single biggest cause of data breaches. As the battlefield shifts more and more from the network to the application, it is important to understand how companies are meeting this challenge.
Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), found that 43% of breaches could be traced back to attacks against web applications – more than double the results from last year. Equifax is a high-profile example of a web application data breach that exposed the personal information of 147 million people, costing the company $1.38 billion in settlements and security upgrades.
According to the Acunetix report, 88% of companies now develop web applications in-house. Half of the respondents have been successful with their shift-left efforts and include web application security scans with every code build or during unit testing. However, that leaves half that don’t scan early enough and may incur major time and resource costs to remediate vulnerabilities. Remarkably, half of the respondents said that vulnerabilities are found faster than they can be fixed, meaning their web applications are open to an attack.
Nearly 64% of enterprises still burden specialized security personnel with simple web application security testing that could be automated. And less than half of companies empower developers to run security scans on their own code.
LinkedIn has released the Canadian edition of the 2020 Top Startups list, featuring the top emerging startups to work for. In the wake of COVID-19, the 2020 list reflects the current state of the economy and the world, showcasing emerging and resilient startups and how they’re navigating the ever-changing world of work
The startups on this list are all experiencing growth, are still in high demand amid the pandemic, and have weathered through an increasingly challenging economic climate this year. These are the key trends we’re seeing among the Top Startups in Canada this year:
BREAKING BARRIERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: Education technology companies have pivoted to embrace new virtual and flexible models to help students pursue educational opportunities remotely. This includes application assistance, online study from abroad, increase student diversity on campus, advocacy for greater flexibility in study permit requirements for international students.
EXPANDING ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE: Digital health startups have gained further prominence in the fight against COVID-19, as they address labour shortages, offering telehealth, pandemic healthcare needs, employee-focused health, de-stigmatization of mental health.
EVOLVING FINANCIAL SERVICES: Financial services companies have ramped up innovation to help companies and consumers access the funds they need in new and creative ways, for example online valuation tools and emergency funding for startups, early access to paycheques and government support for consumers.
These are the top emerging startups on LinkedIn right now:
Clearbanc– As e-commerce booms in Canada over the pandemic, it’s no wonder this fintech startup – which specializes in funding online brands – has found its way to the top of the list. Clearbanc has also recently launched a tool to help startups assess their own worth.
Drop – Drop is a personalized platform that matches consumers with brands through a mobile app, allowing customers to earn points for purchases that can be redeemed for rewards. The company has raised over $71M from global investors, and offers employees unlimited time off.
ApplyBoard – The online education platform connects students with academic institutions and recruitment partners around the world. Even as the pandemic disrupts education, the edtech startup closed another round of funding that brought its valuation to USD$1.5 billionand has continued to hire rapidly, adding nearly 250 new employees since March.
LinkedIn measures startups based on four pillars: employment growth, engagement, job interest and attraction of top talent. Employment growth is measured as percentage headcount increase over one year, which must be a minimum of 15%. Engagement looks at non-employee views and follows of the company’s LinkedIn page, as well as how many non-employees are viewing employees at that startup. Job interest counts rate at which people are viewing and applying to jobs at the company, including both paid and unpaid postings. Attraction of top talent measures how many employees the startup has recruited away from LinkedIn Top Companies, as a percentage of the startup’s total workforce. Data is normalized across all eligible startups. The methodology time frame is January 1, 2020 through July 31, 2020. To be eligible, companies must be independent and privately held, have 50 or more employees, be 7 years old or younger and be headquartered in the country on whose list they appear. We exclude all staffing firms, think tanks, venture capital firms, management and IT consulting firms, nonprofits and philanthropy, accelerators, and government-owned entities. Startups who have laid off 20% or more of their workforce within the methodology time frame are also ineligible.
*For fairness, we have removed LinkedIn and Microsoft from consideration for the LinkedIn Top Startups list as we do with all other lists in the editorial franchise.
The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) is still trying to figure out if the personal information of its 300 employees and 195,500 members has been compromised more than ten days following a ransomware attack. CBC News has the details:
“We are aware of a claim on the dark web regarding data theft from CNO,” the nursing regulatory body told CBC News in a statement.
“While we are not able to confirm at this time, through a comprehensive forensic investigation, CNO is seeking to determine whether personal information was compromised as result of the incident that may require notification to individuals. Although CNO was affected by ransomware, the organization is implementing a range of approaches to resume operations safely and securely, including restoring from backups.”
Hackers have posted some of the information they claim to have obtained online, including folders marked “Human Resources” and “Human Rights Matters.” Among the information posted are photos of small claims and Superior Court settlements, which include the full names, addresses and phone numbers of people.
Lovely. This isn’t a trivial attack as clearly someone has information that they shouldn’t have. And it will be interesting to see what The College of Nurses of Ontario does to remedy this situation. You should likely stay tuned for updates.
David Masson, Director of Enterprise Security at Darktrace had this to say:
This latest news follows a number of intensifying ransomware attacks globally – just last week a woman’s death in Germany has been directly linked to a cyber-attack. Threat actors no longer simply lock up data until the ransom is paid; instead they steal it and threaten exposure until they receive payment. This ransomware technique has been a developing trend since the end of 2019 in Canada. When attackers are able to target data, we can assume they have been lying dormant in the infrastructure for some time before they launch a full blown attack.
This is common amongst organizations around the world who struggle to get visibility over their increasingly disparate and dynamic workforces. CNO may now pay a price in loss of trust through not having disclosed to their clients as soon as possible that they suffered a compromise. In situations like this it is best practice to have a disclosure plan and to disclose as soon as possible otherwise it is likely that someone else will make the story public and it won’t be on the company’s terms.
Ransomware is evolving but the key to preventing attacks remains the same. It is clearer than ever before that the status quo is not good enough. Organizations need to ensure they are using the best technologies available to them, like AI, to automatically stop fast-moving attacks in their tracks.
Guest Post: NordVPN Discusses Why Restricted Content On YouTube Is The Most Desired Among Canadians
Posted in Commentary with tags NordVPN on September 25, 2020 by itnerdThe things people search for on engines like Google or Bing can tell a lot about how they live. New research by NordVPN reveals that video content on YouTube is the most desirable to unlock.
In total, 63,64% of Canadian internet users searching for how to unblock certain online services want to access content on YouTube.
The rest of “unblock” searches from Canada are related to locked social media accounts due to forgotten login credentials or attempts to access Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat in public places like schools, where the service is often restricted.
However, Canadians are half as concerned with unblocking Facebook than Americans — only 9.09% compared to 20.41% in the US.
“Globally, 82.7% of users are trying to access YouTube the most, but Google is also in high demand (5.7%). This proves that a substantial part of the world cannot enjoy unrestricted internet browsing. Not Canada, however, as the country is considered to have free internet. But content on YouTube still makes them feel at a disadvantage,” said Daniel Markusson, digital privacy expert at NordVPN.
Why do people look for how to unblock YouTube much more than other services?
Youtube is the second most popular website as of August 2020, with one billion hours of content watched daily. “Not surprisingly, some video content is not available in certain countries due to copyright or censorship. This makes people look for workarounds,” says Daniel Markusson.
First on the list is the US, accounting for 7.7% of all “unblock YouTube” searches. The country is followed by India (6,5%) and Indonesia (5,3%). Canada hits the top-10, with 0.62% of all searches worldwide.
Countries can be broken down into two groups: those that have little censorship over content on the internet and those where censorship prevails.
Therefore, the reasons behind attempts to access blocked content on YouTube might be notably different. “One of the reasons behind “unblock YouTube” search volumes in Canada, the US, UK, Australia, and others are the result of students trying to bypass rules at school, where bandwidth is often blocked for YouTube. On the other hand, internet users from India and Indonesia are either trying to bypass censorship or overcome geo-restrictions imposed by content creators,” said Daniel Markuson.
Examples of censorship include Denmark blocking YouTube following a dispute over royalty fees and Germany blocking the service for 7 years on copyright grounds. Regimes are blocking the service to suppress the opposition. For instance, YouTube was censored in Venezuela during the presidential elections crisis back in 2019.
Methodology: NordVPN researchers used Google’s search term analysis tools to search terms including the keyword “unblock”. Apart from global trends, search volumes were also checked by country. The analysis was based on search volumes over a period of 30 days.
Time frame: 15 June-15 July, 2020.
Additionally, researchers looked at the Freedom on the Net report 2019 by Freedom House to list the countries considered to be the most censored.
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