I use Tor's Snowflake extension in my browser, and I've noticed that the counter of how many users it has helped circumvent censorship over the last 24 hours has been very high for a couple of days now, upwards of around 50 per day, where usually it's 2 or 3. I know there's a lot going on around the world right now, but is there anything in particular I've missed that could explain the sudden spike in Tor traffic (or simply just Snowflake bridge usage)?

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[–] 27 points 7 months ago (1 child)

This happened early December:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/09/australia/australia-social-media-ban-starts-intl-hnk

Platforms are checking ages via live video selfies, email addresses or official documents. According to Yoti, an age verification company whose clients include Meta, most users choose a video selfie which uses facial data points to estimate age.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    I read about it, but I'm not sure those companies allow signups from Tor.

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Perhaps some do. Reddit has or at least had an onion address.
    But last I checked, they were blocking Tor IP addresses... even on their onion address. Someone out there had to be smoking something.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    I can imagine the Tor address used to be legit but now after banning vpns they banned onion addresses too completely forgetting that their own onion url exists.

    So there's a reason, but then again not even realizing it still exists is exceptionally sloppy and ambiguous.

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