China 🇨🇳 A Chinese defence-linked university has reportedly disciplined 20 students for using VPNs to access overseas websites.

According to a reported September 20 notice from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Harbin Engineering University, the students used VPNs or other "unauthorised channels" on September 18 and 19. The university allegedly said the activity was detected by its cybersecurity monitoring system.

All 20 were reportedly first-time offenders and received warnings. Students needing foreign academic resources were told to use university-approved channels instead.

Harbin Engineering University is one of China’s so-called "Seven Sons of National Defence", a group of universities with extensive links to the country’s military and defence-industrial sector.

The incident was reported by Vision Times, aka Kanzhongguo, a Chinese-language newspaper affiliated with Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that the Chinese government banned in 1999 and officially designates as a "cult" and anti-government organisation.

Turkey 🇹🇷 The country saw a sharp escalation in online censorship throughout September, with authorities issuing blocking orders against at least 1,270 X accounts during the month, according to data from the Freedom of Expression Association’s (İFÖD) EngelliWeb project. X subsequently made hundreds of those accounts inaccessible to users in Turkey. 

The restrictions began on September 12, when authorities targeted numerous LGBTQ+ organisations and activists. On September 13, another 32 accounts, including university LGBTQ+ and gender-studies groups, were blocked. On September 14, the restrictions expanded to journalists, media organisations, women’s groups, Amnesty International Turkey, Academics for Peace and other rights organisations. 

On September 24, X withheld the account of digital-rights advocate Yaman Akdeniz, co-founder of İFÖD, citing a Turkish order based on "national security and public order." On September 26, at least 80 additional accounts were targeted, while on September 28 authorities ordered at least 150 more blocked, including journalists and a news outlet. 

On September 29, an Istanbul court ordered the blocking of the independent news outlet T24’s website and X account. The measure took effect on September 30, with the Justice Ministry alleging that T24 had published 118 pieces of "LGBT propaganda" over the previous year. 

On September 30, EngelliWeb identified another 147 X accounts targeted over posts concerning Turkey’s investment-fund crisis. By the end of September, at least 1,270 accounts had been subject to blocking orders.

The restrictions are largely geographically targeted: the affected accounts generally remain visible outside Turkey, while being made inaccessible to users inside the country. This means that an account can effectively exist online while being invisible to the population it primarily serves. 

More on this: read "The Invisible Borders of Turkey's Digital Censorship: Are We Looking at the Same Reality?", by Yasemin Giritli İnceoğlu, on The Wire. She argues that geographically targeted restrictions on social media accounts in Turkey do more than limit expression: they create unequal access to information and make censorship harder to detect. 

🌍 Stay up to date with the latest internet disruptions with Internet Society’s Pulse shutdown tracker.

🇷🇺 Russia is developing Rassvet, its own Starlink-like satellite network, with plans to launch hundreds of satellites to provide internet access and potentially support military communications and drone operations. Mezha, October 1, 2026

🇺🇦 Ukraine is preparing for a possible prolonged internet outage after Russian strikes damaged several data centres, with authorities moving infrastructure underground, to the cloud and abroad. Polskie Radio, September 28, 2026

🇺🇸 US District Judge David Barlow granted a preliminary injunction against Utah’s aggressive age verification law - aka SB 73 - on September 24. The legislation targets VPN use by requiring adult platforms to identify and verify the age of users physically located in Utah, even if they were masking their traffic with a VPN or similar tool. It also banned sites from providing instructions on how to use a VPN to bypass these checks. TechRadar, September 28, 2026

"When telcos shut down the internet, they shut down protests for the government", Ranking Digital Rights, Global Voices, September 28, 2026

📆 SMEX Secure Communications Hackathon at Bread&Net
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📆 IMC 2026 Hackathon at Internet Measurement Conference
Where & when: Karlsruhe, Germany | October 12, 2026
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📆 Remote Sensing and OSINT Analysis for Human Rights and Humanitarian Applications
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Where & when: Stockholm, Sweden | December 3-5, 2026
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