Metacurity

Share this post
U.S. Has Stepped Up Funding for VPN Companies to Help Russians Evade Censorship
metacurity.substack.com

U.S. Has Stepped Up Funding for VPN Companies to Help Russians Evade Censorship

Cyber Partisans are finding new forms of asymmetrical warfare in Belarus, Ukrainian ISPs are forced to route through Russia, New bill would ban sale of location and health data, much more

Cynthia Brumfield
Jun 16, 2022
1
Share this post
U.S. Has Stepped Up Funding for VPN Companies to Help Russians Evade Censorship
metacurity.substack.com

person holding black iphone 5
Photo by Privecstasy on Unsplash

According to five people familiar with the situation, the U.S. government has pushed new, increased funding into three VPN companies, nthLink, Psiphon, and Lantern, since the start of the Ukraine war to help Russians sidestep censors and access Western media.

A U.S. government-funded nonprofit organization, the Open Technology Fund (OTF), gave the VPN companies at least $4.8 million in U.S. funding between 2015 and 2021. However, the sources say that since February, the total funding allocated to the companies has increased by almost half in order to cope with the rise in demand in Russia. The funding flows through the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), a federal agency that oversees U.S. government-backed broadcasters, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, as well as via the Washington-based OTF, which is funded entirely by the U.S. government and overseen by the USAGM.

Posters advertising nthLink and other U.S.-government-ba…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Metacurity to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
Previous
Next
© 2023 DCT Associates
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing