Pakistan started blocking Deutsche Welle (DW)

As of 16th January 2023, OONI data suggests that access to Deutsche Welle’s (DW) website (which provides an Urdu language service for Pakistan) was blocked on multiple networks in Pakistan.

While OONI data has previously shown the blocking of news media websites in Pakistan during Islamist protests in November 2017, this is likely the first time that we are noticing the blocking of an international media website (Deutsche Welle) in Pakistan.

The blocking of Deutsche Welle’s (DW) website appears to have been in place between 16th January 2023 to 23rd March 2023, as illustrated through the following chart.

The above chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the OONI Probe testing of DW’s website (www.dw.com) on all tested networks (18 ASNs) in Pakistan. As is evident, most measurements collected between 16th January 2023 to 23rd March 2023 presented anomalies, providing signs of blocking. These anomalies were present on most tested networks during the same period. An analysis of the anomalous measurements reveals that they result in connection reset errors, which always occur right after the ClientHello message during the TLS handshake.

In the following months, OONI data suggests that access to www.dw.com was temporarily unblocked, only to be blocked again between May 2023 to July 2023. Recent measurements suggest that www.dw.com is accessible on most tested networks in Pakistan.

Learn more through our research report.