Twitter is now accessible over the Tor network, allowing users in countries that banned it to continue accessing the social network's site.
The new onion URL was announced today by security engineer Alec Muffett who announced that Twitter can now be accessed worldwide via the Tor browser.
This is possibly the most important and long-awaited tweet that I've ever composed.
— Alec Muffett (@AlecMuffett) March 8, 2022
On behalf of @Twitter, I am delighted to announce their new @TorProject onion service, at:https://t.co/Un8u0AEXeE pic.twitter.com/AgEV4ZZt3k
Muffett told BleepingComputer that he wrote and helped deploy the software used to connect Twitter to the Tor network.
The Tor Project allows you to download a customized Firefox browser that can be used to browse the web anonymously and access special .onion domains only accessible via Tor.
The project is especially useful as it allows users to bypass government censorship and continue accessing sites that are normally blocked in their country.
To access Twitter over Tor, you can download the Tor Browser and browse to the special special onion URL https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion/.
Using Tor, Twitter can now be accessed even in countries where the government blocks access to the site.
The launch of this project comes at a good time as Russia begins to isolate itself from the rest of the world.
To prevent the free flow of information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia last week began blocking access to Twitter, Facebook, and foreign news outlets.
With Twitter now being accessible via Tor, people in Russia can continue accessing the service and gaining information about the conflict and other worldwide events.
Twitter is not alone in offering Tor onion URLs for their service. Other social sites and news outlets offering Tor URLs are:
- BBC News in Ukrainian:
https://www.bbcweb3hytmzhn5d532owbu6oqadra5z3ar726vq5kgwwn6aucdccrad.onion/ukrainian - BBC News in Russian:
https://www.bbcweb3hytmzhn5d532owbu6oqadra5z3ar726vq5kgwwn6aucdccrad.onion/russian - BBC News internationally:
https://www.bbcweb3hytmzhn5d532owbu6oqadra5z3ar726vq5kgwwn6aucdccrad.onion - Deutsche Welle:
https://www.dwnewsgngmhlplxy6o2twtfgjnrnjxbegbwqx6wnotdhkzt562tszfid.onion/ - Facebook:
facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd.onion - Radio Free Europe | RFERL:
https://www.rferlo2zxgv23tct66v45s5mecftol5vod3hf4rqbipfp46fqu2q56ad.onion/ - The Intercept:
https://27m3p2uv7igmj6kvd4ql3cct5h3sdwrsajovkkndeufumzyfhlfev4qd.onion - The New York Times:
https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/
Comments
ardsur - 2 years ago
Great news and thanks for the onion addresses. Since the change to version 3 I lost a lot of my onion address from v2. Would be nice if some more onion addresses could be revealed.
Amigo-A - 2 years ago
In case you didn't know, Tor has been completely blocked in Russia for several months now.
To use it, you need to establish a VPN connection, then Tor will open. But through a VPN connection, Twitter and Facebook will also open, so there is no need to open them through the Tor browser. Another issue is that many VPNs are also blocked by court orders.
Lawrence Abrams - 2 years ago
While the main Tor nodes are blocked, volunteer bridges are setup to bypass the censorship.
Russia is cracking down on these, and the Tor project is requesting more volunteers.