Launched in 2015 and as relevant as ever, RSF’s Operation Collateral Freedom is based on a technological stratagem. By duplicating censored news sites onto mirror sites hosted on the servers of major Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), it allows those living under authoritarian regimes to access their content directly from a standard web browser, without needing to install a VPN (virtual private network). No fewer than 57% of the websites protected by RSF are blocked in just two countries – Xi Jinping's China (53 blocked sites) and Vladimir Putin's Russia (49 blocked sites).

“RSF refuses to cede ground to digital censors. Since 2015, Operation Collateral Freedom has been working to ensure that people living in closed countries can read, see and hear what their leaders would rather hide from them. The enemies of a free press are constantly refining their blocking tools, while we are perfecting our methods for getting information out where it is banned. Where regimes seek to imprison their populations in propaganda, we create openings to allow independent journalism to circulate.

Using mirror sites to defend journalists and press freedom in China

In 2025, RSF restored access to the website of Circle 19, an independent group that provides uncensored information about China. Beijing blocked its platform less than a year after it published a statement of principles denouncing state propaganda on 4 June 2024, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Backed by RSF, this initiative aims to provide resources showing that the right to information is deeply rooted in China's traditions, history and political system, contrary to Beijing's propaganda.

This is not the only Chinese website supported by RSF. Voice of Tibet, an international radio station broadcasting in both Tibetan and Mandarin, was given 16 mirror sites in 2025. RSF also unblocked the Uyghur Post website, one of the few Uyghur-language media outlets reporting on abuses by the authorities in Xinjiang, the autonomous region in northwest China where most Uyghurs live, which has become an information black hole as a result of the regime’s repression.
 

RSF scales up in response to Russian censorship

Blocked in the first weeks of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Meduza is the leading independent Russian media outlet in exile and, in March 2022, became one of the first to benefit from Operation Collateral Freedom. However, every time Meduza created a mirror site, the Russian authorities were able to quickly block it. To counter this unprecedented threat, the generation of mirror sites was automated on an unprecedented scale using technology developed by RSF combined with the technical expertise of Meduza’s staff. As a result, 4,556 mirror sites had been created for Meduza by 2025, allowing it to receive a total of 1.9 billion content requests, making it the most visited site of all those benefitting from Operation Collateral Freedom.

“Right now the situation with internet censorship in Russia is only getting worse. Our developers use every censorship-circumvention technology available today. They constantly test new solutions, update existing tools and often build tailor-made systems to make sure they actually work on the ground in real-life Russian conditions. In this regard, the role of mirrors and projects like ‘Collateral Freedom’ becomes more crucial than ever. Together with the mirror system provided by Reporters Without Borders, we are able to automatically generate new mirrors of our website whenever the authorities block us. It often feels like a constant cat-and-mouse game: a small team of journalists and engineers trying to stay one step ahead of a state with enormous resources and money. It may seem like an impossible confrontation, but for five years in these only worsening digital conditions we have managed to resist and continue to reach millions of people inside Russia. Of course, we would not be able to do this without support, both from our readers and from our partners. It is important not to take independent journalism for granted and to understand that in countries like Russia today, technology is no longer just a tool for journalism – it is what makes journalism possible

Collateral Freedom: a stratagem for circumventing internet censorship 

The Collateral Freedom project relies on mirroring. RSF hosts copies of censored news sites on the servers of major Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), global systems designed to accelerate the distribution of online content. The list of sites unblocked as part of Operation Collateral Freedom is available on the operation's GitHub account. It omits the names of certain sites if publishing them might pose a security risk for their staff.