By [Vigilante]
Real Deep web Contributor
The internet promised a single, borderless commons. Governments had other plans. Around the world, ruling parties and militaries now flick off the web like a light switch, throttle platforms in the middle of disasters, and criminalize the very tools people use to read the news. In these places, access to the open web increasingly depends on a second one—what many call the deep web: anonymity networks such as Tor, onion sites, and other circumvention lifelines that move information through the cracks.
Quantifying reliance on those tools is hard; regimes hide the blocks that force people underground. So this ranking synthesizes the best public signals available as of mid-2025: documented shutdowns (Access Now’s #KeepItOn), measured blocks (OONI network tests), overall repression (Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net and country reports; RSF’s Press Freedom Index), and Tor “bridge” usage—connections typical of censored environments where direct Tor access is blocked (Tor Metrics). Taken together, they trace a map of where deep-web routes have become a daily necessity, not a novelty. (Access Now)
Method, in brief
- Shutdown intensity: Countries that cut access most often—nationwide blackouts, platform blocks, regional “kill switches”—create the strongest incentives to use onion services and other circumvention tools. In 2024 the world saw a record 296 shutdowns in 54 countries—a grim new high.
- Measured censorship: OONI’s tests capture concrete blocks (from throttling to TLS interference) and long-term campaigns against media, apps, and circumvention sites.
- Overall freedom climate: Freedom House’s 2024 data identifies China and Myanmar as the worst environments for internet freedom, a tie that frames this list. RSF’s 2025 index keeps both near the global bottom.
- Tor bridge demand: When regimes block Tor, users pivot to bridges; where bridge connections are high (e.g., Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan), reliance on deep-web pathways tends to be intense. (metrics.torproject.org)
The Ranking
1) Myanmar: a blackout nation builds new walls
Four years after a coup, Myanmar has made the deep web an everyday tool for survival. In 2024 alone, the junta imposed 85 disruptions, the most in the world, while moving to block most VPNs and passing a sweeping cybersecurity law that criminalizes circumvention. The result is a country where standard routes vanish with little warning and encrypted backroads are all that remain.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: frequent nationwide and regional shutdowns; legal bans on VPNs; targeted blocking of platforms; arrests tied to online activity. These conditions push activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens toward Tor and onion mirrors as a matter of routine. Freedom House now ranks Myanmar alongside China as the world’s worst for internet freedom.
2) China: the Great Firewall, perfected and exported
China’s censorship machine remains the archetype. China and Myanmar are tied for last in Freedom House’s assessment, and Beijing still runs one of the planet’s most extensive filtering systems—blocking platforms, fining people for VPN use, and pioneering new ways to police metadata. Leaks and investigations show Chinese filtering tech being exported to other states, propagating a model of “digital authoritarianism as a service.”
Why deep-web use is pervasive: direct Tor is aggressively filtered, pushing users toward bridges and covert transports; onion mirrors matter for sensitive reporting and diaspora communications. China’s place near the bottom of RSF’s 2025 Press Freedom Index underscores how much of the public sphere has migrated behind the curtain.
3) Iran: bans on “unlicensed” VPNs amid mass demand
Tehran tightened its grip in February 2024, formally prohibiting “unlicensed” VPNs and steering users to state-approved tools—after years of blocking encrypted DNS and platforms whenever protest flares. Independent reporting suggests VPN and circumvention adoption is near-universal among the young, a testament to how central the deep web has become to Iranian daily life.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: persistent platform blocks (Instagram, WhatsApp, others during unrest), tampering with DoH/DoT, criminalization of circumvention tools. Tor bridge usage data consistently shows Iran among the top bridge-using countries.
4) Russia: a cat-and-mouse war on circumvention
Since 2021, Russia has escalated technical blocks against Tor and other tools. In September 2024, censors even blocked OONI Explorer itself, the open dataset used to audit censorship. Tor’s bridge table shows Russia as the leading source of bridge connections, a strong proxy for deep-web reliance since direct Tor is often impeded.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: systemic blocking of independent and foreign media, platform throttling, rising legal penalties, and the wartime information climate—all of which drive audiences to onion mirrors, bridges, and covert transports.
5) India: the democracy with the most shutdowns
India is the paradox on this list: a large, boisterous democracy that remains the global leader in shutdowns nearly every year. In 2024, authorities ordered 84 disruptions, often justified as exam protection or public order, from state-level mobile cuts to platform blocks. In such conditions, circumvention isn’t just for dissidents; it’s for students, traders, and families trying to stay online.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: the sheer frequency and geographic spread of disruptions, plus targeted platform blocks and arrests for online speech, sustain broad demand for VPNs and onion routes. Tor’s tables also show India among the top bridge-using countries.
6) Pakistan: routine platform blocks and election-season outages
Pakistan set a national record with 21 shutdowns in 2024, and censors have repeatedly blocked major sites—from Wikipedia (briefly) to Deutsche Welle—with technical fingerprints of TLS interference and resets. When protests or politics heat up, deep-web tools become the plan B for basic information access.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: intermittent nationwide blackouts; recurrent platform blocks; legal and religious pretexts for speech suppression; growing technical sophistication of censors. The incentives to shift to Tor or onion mirrors rise accordingly.
7) Turkmenistan: a near-total blocklist, briefly “amnestied”
One of the world’s most closed networks oscillated in 2024–25 between brief “internet amnesty” and renewed blanket blocking—including of circumvention tools and the Tor Project’s own site. The state’s single-provider model makes throttling and DPI cheap and total. In this environment, any working bridge or onion mirror becomes precious.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: chronic, centralized censorship; reports of heavy surveillance; and a long record of service-level interference that leaves privacy-preserving backchannels as the only stable option. U.S. human-rights reporting in 2024 also flagged state control and disruption of access.
8) Belarus: a decade of repression—and a Tor ban
Belarus formally banned Tor in 2016, and the post-2020 crackdown cemented a climate in which independent outlets are labeled “extremist” and blocked. Freedom House notes continuing deterioration; OONI’s historic measurements documented TCP injection against Tor and wide blocks on media. Under those conditions, onion mirrors and other covert transports are not luxuries—they’re lifelines.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: intense political repression; an ISP landscape easy to instrument for DPI and resets; a culture of fear that makes anonymous reading an act of self-preservation.
9) Egypt: heavy blocks, high stakes
Egyptian authorities block hundreds of sites and VPN services, and during unrest have targeted foreign media—BBC and Alhurra were blocked amid 2019 protests, with DPI as the likely method. Human-rights reporting through 2024–25 shows arrests linked to online speech and ongoing surveillance capacity expansion. When news goes dark on the open web, deep-web routes shoulder the load.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: periodic waves of media blocking; legal pressure on platforms; prosecutions for online expression; and a large, mobile-first population that seeks consistency via circumvention tools when the network shifts underfoot. Freedom House’s 2024 country profile details the scope.
10) Vietnam: rule-by-decree and strict platform policing
Hanoi’s Decree 147 (late 2024) tightens data-handover rules and accelerates takedowns; arrests for Facebook posts underscore the risks of speaking plainly. Measurements and NGO analyses show hundreds of domains blocked, including political criticism, and recent blocking of Telegram during sensitive windows. People who want to read—without being watched—often step off the main road.
Why deep-web use is pervasive: legal and platform pressure plus targeted blocks create steady demand for onion services and covert transports; the Freedom on the Net country report situates Vietnam in the “Not Free” cohort.
What the numbers can’t show (and what they can)
No single metric captures deep-web reliance. High Tor relay usage can reflect privacy culture as much as censorship (the U.S. and Germany top relay users), while Tor bridge usage is a better—if imperfect—proxy for evasion in censored states (Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan, China, India all appear in the top-ten by bridges). That’s why this ranking blends live measurements with shutdown tallies and country-level freedoms data.
What is clear is the direction of travel: 2024 was the worst year on record for shutdowns, and global internet freedom fell for the 14th straight year. As authorities normalize platform-by-platform throttling, onion services and other circumvention channels become the public square of last resort.
How people actually use the deep web under pressure
- Onion mirrors of newsrooms and NGOs help people reach blocked reporting in Russia, Iran, and beyond; Russia even blocked OONI’s data site to obscure the scoreboard.
- Covert transports and bridges matter most where ISPs block Tor directory authorities (Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan, China). Tor’s own tables show the bridge demand.
- Post-disaster throttling (e.g., Twitter in Turkey after the 2023 earthquake) teaches a civic lesson: when the mainstream breaks, knowing the back roads can save hours—or lives.
A note on risk
In several of these countries, circumvention may be restricted or criminalized; users face device searches, fines, and detention (Myanmar, Iran). This report does not encourage law-breaking; it describes a reality in which access to information—the most basic precondition of civic life—has moved into darker tunnels carved by necessity.
Sources at a glance
- Shutdowns: Access Now/#KeepItOn 2024 global report and regional breakdowns.
- Measured blocks: OONI analyses for Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, and country Explorer pages. (ooni.org)
- Freedom climate: Freedom on the Net 2024 (global and country pages); RSF 2025 index.
- Bridge usage: Tor Metrics top-ten by bridges (Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan, China, India among the leaders).
- Country specifics: Turkmenistan’s 2025 “internet amnesty” and renewed blocks; U.S. human-rights reporting (2024) on state control; Vietnam’s Decree 147 and arrests.
Bottom line
A decade ago, the deep web was a niche. In 2025, for hundreds of millions of people, it’s where the real public internet begins—an improvised infrastructure of bridges and onions holding up the parts of civic life that censorship tries to collapse. The story of the next decade will be written there, in an internet that survives by being hard to see.
Disclaimer & Reader Advisory
This article is for journalistic and informational purposes only. It does not instruct, encourage, or endorse evading lawful restrictions or accessing illegal content. Laws governing censorship, encryption, Tor, VPNs, and related technologies vary by jurisdiction and change frequently; readers are responsible for understanding and complying with the rules where they live and travel. Nothing here constitutes legal, security, or technical advice—consult qualified counsel or experts before acting.
Accessing anonymity networks and third-party services carries risk (including malware, phishing, surveillance, data loss, and legal exposure). Use such tools at your own risk and practice rigorous operational security if you choose to do so. Mentions of companies, tools, websites, or onion services are descriptive, not endorsements; we have no financial relationship with them and make no warranties about their availability, safety, or legality. We disclaim all liability for losses, damages, or consequences arising from the use—or misuse—of any information or services referenced.
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