# Censorship detected in AE

**Country:** 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates (AE)
**Date:** 2026-08-02
**Type:** Censorship
**Severity:** CRITICAL
**Status:** suspected

## Summary

None

## Metrics

- Confidence: 90%
- Measurements: 6
- Anomaly Rate: 100.0%

## Evidence

- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=AE&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-02&until=2026-08-03&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 3/3 measurements anomalous (100.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=AE&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-02&until=2026-08-03&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=AE&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-02&until=2026-08-03&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 2/2 measurements anomalous (100.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=AE&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-02&until=2026-08-03&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 2/2 measurements anomalous (100.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=AE&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-02&until=2026-08-03&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 2/3 measurements anomalous (66.7%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 77%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=AE&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-02&until=2026-08-03&only=anomalies)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for bbc.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for chat.openai.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for chatgpt.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for claude.ai
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for facebook.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for gemini.google.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for getlantern.org
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for google.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for huggingface.co
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for instagram.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for medium.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for nytimes.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 13/13 probes anomalous (100.0%) for openai.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for protonvpn.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for psiphon.ca
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for reddit.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for signal.org
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for substack.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for telegram.org
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for theguardian.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 16/16 probes anomalous (100.0%) for tiktok.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for tumblr.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for twitter.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for whatsapp.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (dns-probe): DNS blocking detected: 14/14 probes anomalous (100.0%) for youtube.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-02
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)

## What we cannot say

- **Who caused it** — measurement data alone does not attribute the interference to any government, ISP, or other actor.
- **Intent** — anomalous or unreachable measurements indicate interference, not a stated motive or a deliberate-vs-incidental determination.
- **Which networks** — no specific ASN/ISP is identified for this incident.
- **The mechanism** — we cannot state whether this was DNS tampering, TLS/SNI reset, HTTP blockpage, throttling, or an infrastructure outage.
- **A confirmed duration** — we report the observation window, not a verified start/stop of any block.
- **Sub-national scope** — measurement is aggregated at the country level; we cannot localize to a province, city, or network segment.

## Data Sources

ooni, censoredplanet

## Citation

Voidly Research. (2026). Censorship detected in AE [AE-2026-1457]. Retrieved from https://voidly.ai/incident/AE-2026-1457

---
*Report generated by Voidly Research on 2026-08-03*
*Data licensed under CC BY 4.0*
*Incident ID: AE-2026-1457*
*Permalink: https://voidly.ai/incident/AE-2026-1457*