1.4 million people used FreeBrowser to circumvent the Great Firewall of Turkmenistan

Since 2021, the authorities in Turkmenistan have taken exceptional measures to crack down on the use of circumvention tools. Citizens have been forced to swear on the Koran that they will not use a VPN. Circumvention tool websites have been systematically blocked. Arbitrary searches of mobile devices have also taken place and have even targeted school children and teachers.

The government has also blocked servers hosting VPNs which led to “near complete” internet shutdowns on several occasions in 2022. Current reports indicate that 66 hosting providers, 19 social networks and messaging platforms, and 10 leading content delivery networks (CDNs), are blocked in the country. The government presumably is unconcerned about the negative economic impact that such shutdowns can cause.

The authorities are not just trying to block outside information from getting into the country, they are also preventing their citizens from sharing information about life in Turkmenistan with the outside world. In August 2022, it was reported that deliberate attempts were made by the authorities to reduce the speed of internet connections.

Like in many countries around the world that practice severe online censorship, while VPNs are deemed to be illegal in Turkmenistan, they are widely used. According to Singapore-based advisory firm Kepios, there are about 2.35 million internet users in Turkmenistan (January 2022). It is believed that the number of internet users in the country has increased rapidly since 2020 because citizens of Turkmenistan were trying to learn more about COVID-19 and wanted to find uncensored information from sources other than local state media.

The Open Technology Fund (OTF), in their most recent annual report, noted that while it is common for authoritarian regimes to place restrictions on circumvention tools during political crises, it is becoming more likely that these politicians decide not to lift these restrictions, even after crises have passed. OTF also notes that the blocking of large global social media platforms has “gone from a China-only exception to an authoritarian norm”.

Since January 1, 2023, GreatFire has seen a surge of downloads of its censorship circumvention tool FreeBrowser in Turkmenistan. FreeBrowser has consistently been amongst the top ten free apps in the Turkmenistan Google Play Store. In 2023, FreeBrowser has been used by over 1.4 million unique users in Turkmenistan. A recent report placed the population of Turkmenistan at 2.8 million people (although government officials claim the population is much higher). This potentially means that every other person in Turkmenistan is using or has used FreeBrowser sometime this calendar year.

FreeBrowser’s popularity in Turkmenistan has been achieved with no promotional effort and largely by word of mouth. GreatFire focuses most of its efforts on China where the so-called great firewall is the most sophisticated censorship technology in the world. But our tools can also beat firewalls in other countries.

However, the rise of FreeBrowser in Turkmenistan came as a complete surprise. We believe that the growth of FreeBrowser is linked to efforts that the Turkmen authorities took in 2022 to limit the use of VPNs in the country. In the second half of 2022, civil rights organizations reported that “an increasing number of internet websites” were being blocked and that those using circumvention tools were being subjected to intimidation. 

The media environment in Turkmenistan is in many ways more restrictive than that of China. There is no media freedom in Turkmenistan, and all print and electronic media is state-controlled. There are few foreign journalists in the country and no independent voices. A 2013 law prohibits censorship yet all publications are controlled by the government and must receive authorization before going to press.

Like in China, there is no public list of censored websites but media websites are regularly blocked. These websites include social platforms, privacy-enhanced messaging services, and VPN websites. The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Turkmenistan as the #3 most censored country in the world. China ranks #5.

We note that our peers in the internet freedom space have reported increased aggression from the Turkmen authorities. Citizens have shared their on-the-ground internet experience via the Localization Lab here, and Tor has shared detailed information about their recent experiences here.

FreeBrowser may soon pass a threshold of 500,000 monthly active users in Turkmenistan. That would mean that each month, 19% of the entire population of Turkmenistan would be using FreeBrowser to access an uncensored internet, circumvent internet restrictions, read alternative media, and avoid repressive surveillance.

It is difficult to assess FreeBrowser’s impact in Turkmenistan. Human Rights Watch has admitted that strict information control measures make it difficult for them to assess the human rights situation in-country. As a result, citizens in Turkmenistan are being robbed of their fundamental human rights and this likely severely impacts many at-risk groups in the country.

The narrative spun by state-controlled media in Turkmenistan paints a deceptive picture of reality, one that tools like FreeBrowser are crucial in challenging. As Turkmenistan welcomed its $5 billion "smart city," Arkadag, the government simultaneously throttled internet speeds, making VPNs unusable. This tactic curtailed any dissemination of unfavorable coverage of the event, leaving the citizens to rely solely on the state's glorified portrayal of the city.

Without FreeBrowser, citizens would be left with a single, state-controlled narrative, devoid of critical information. For instance, while the state media lauds Arkadag's smart homes with remotely controlled devices, it fails to address how these systems will function when internet speed is manipulated by censors. The state media's narrative is further skewed by the deliberate timing of Arkadag's inauguration, strategically chosen to strengthen the cult of personality around former President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

In this environment of controlled information, FreeBrowser offers an uncensored view of the world to Turkmenistan's citizens, promoting free access to information and a more informed populace. It stands as a beacon of truth, challenging the state's narrative and fostering a sense of agency among citizens. In the face of state media's efforts to suppress the truth, tools like FreeBrowser are more crucial than ever.