# Sustained censorship in SY (2026-05)

**Country:** 🇸🇾 Syria (SY)
**Date:** 2026-05-03
**Type:** Censorship
**Severity:** CRITICAL
**Status:** confirmed

## Summary

OONI detected 11 days of elevated network interference averaging 65.2% anomaly rate.

## Metrics

- Confidence: 77%
- Measurements: 11
- Anomaly Rate: 65.2%

## Evidence

- **OONI** (measurement): OONI facebook_messenger: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-26
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=facebook_messenger&since=2026-05-26&until=2026-05-26&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI http_invalid_request_line: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-18
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=http_invalid_request_line&since=2026-05-18&until=2026-05-18&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-17
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-05-17&until=2026-05-17&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI facebook_messenger: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-17
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=facebook_messenger&since=2026-05-17&until=2026-05-17&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 2/4 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-16
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=signal&since=2026-05-16&until=2026-05-16&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 4/6 measurements anomalous (66.7%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-16
  - Confidence: 77%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=signal&since=2026-05-16&until=2026-05-16&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-10
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-05-10&until=2026-05-10&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 1/1 measurements anomalous (100.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-09
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=signal&since=2026-05-09&until=2026-05-09&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 1/1 measurements anomalous (100.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-09
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=telegram&since=2026-05-09&until=2026-05-09&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI facebook_messenger: 1/2 measurements anomalous (50.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-06
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=facebook_messenger&since=2026-05-06&until=2026-05-06&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 1/1 measurements anomalous (100.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-05-03
  - Confidence: 90%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=SY&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-05-03&until=2026-05-03&only=anomalies)

## 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.
- **Sub-national scope** — measurement is aggregated at the country level; we cannot localize to a province, city, or network segment.
- **Independent corroboration** — this rests on a single source; treat it as a single-source signal, not a multi-source confirmation.

## Data Sources

ooni

## Citation

Voidly Research. (2026). Sustained censorship in SY (2026-05) [SY-2026-0104]. Retrieved from https://voidly.ai/incident/SY-2026-0104

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*Report generated by Voidly Research on 2026-06-21*
*Data licensed under CC BY 4.0*
*Incident ID: SY-2026-0104*
*Permalink: https://voidly.ai/incident/SY-2026-0104*