Twitter launches Dark Web Tor service amid Russian censorship

Blocked by the Russian government, Twitter has entered the Dark Web and people can now access the platform via a Tor Onion service to bypass the censorship. Russian users can use the Tor anonymity network to reach Twitter, announced cyber-security researchers. Tor's anonymity network routes a user's Internet connection through a selection of different servers, run mostly by volunteers, around the world.

Blocked by the Russian government, Twitter has entered the Dark Web and people can now access the platform via a Tor Onion service to bypass the censorship.

Russian users can use the Tor anonymity network to reach Twitter, announced cyber-security researchers.

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"This is possibly the most important and long-awaited tweet that I've ever composed," Alec Muffett, the cybersecurity expert and designer of the Enterprise Onion Toolkit which makes deploying Tor onion services easier, tweeted.

"On behalf of Twitter, I am delighted to announce their new Tor Project onion service," he posted late on Tuesday.

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Tor's anonymity network routes a user's Internet connection through a selection of different servers, run mostly by volunteers, around the world.

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"Making our service more accessible is an ongoing priority for us," a Twitter spokesperson told Motherboard, pointing to Twitter's "supported browsers" page, which now includes a link to the Tor onion service.

In March, 12.77 per cent of Tor relay users were originally connecting from Russia, according to data by the Tor Project.

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Facebook launched its own Tor version in 2014.

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Twitter has launched the Tor onion service, optimising it for the privacy-protecting and censorship-evading network.

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