White House Urges Tech Giants to Boost Support for Anti-Censorship Tools

The White House held a meeting with top tech companies and civil society activists to encourage support for government-funded internet censorship evasion tools. The U.S.-backed Open Technology Fund (OTF) sought discounted server bandwidth from tech giants to support the growing demand for VPNs, especially in heavily censored countries like Russia and Iran.

The White House convened a crucial meeting with representatives from Amazon.com, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft, Cloudflare, and civil society activists on Thursday, aiming to encourage U.S. tech giants to offer more digital bandwidth for government-funded internet censorship evasion tools.

The tools, backed by the U.S.-supported Open Technology Fund (OTF), have seen a surge in usage in countries like Russia, Iran, and Myanmar, which heavily censor the internet. OTF's president, Laura Cunningham, emphasized the need for discounted server bandwidth to meet the rising demand for VPNs, revealing that monthly VPN users have more than quadrupled.

OTF backs VPNs designed to work in restrictive states, especially following increased funding after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The organization has struggled to meet demand due to budget constraints, despite a funding boost from the U.S. State Department. Tech giants did not immediately comment on the initiative.

(With inputs from agencies.)