Research lead · OPEN INVESTIGATION
China's Network Filtering Has No Honest Single Rate
Testable question: Across three preregistered comparable rounds, do independent China network-measurement groups converge within twenty percentage points, or does measured interference remain selective and vantage-dependent?
A research lead comparing incompatible measurement denominators, independent vantages, and the counterevidence against treating selective filtering as a country-scale outage.
Current status: The research lead remains open while its public collection and falsification targets are incomplete.
RESEARCH LEAD · NOT A PUBLISHED INVESTIGATION. Draft claims remain under test and must not be read as findings.
Claims and challenges
What is asserted—and what could overturn it
Claim wording is reproduced from the structured record. Confidence and review state are not probability scores.
Hypotheses under test
- Comparable independent instruments converge closely enough to support one bounded national interference estimate.open ·
common-national-rateLinked falsification tests: three-round-convergence
- Instrument scope and vantage continue to produce materially different rates even when collection windows are aligned.open ·
selective-vantage-dependentLinked falsification tests: three-round-convergence, three-round-clean-panel
-
Claim under test · analytical finding · corroborated · draft
The current structured round is consistent with selective and vantage-dependent interference, because independent instruments report materially different scoped measurements.
Linked evidence receipts
ooni-anomaly-rate· OONI China anomaly index · supportcensored-planet-rate· Censored Planet remote interference rate · supportinside-view-panel· Inside-China fixed-panel blocked share · support
Linked counterevidence
no-country-scale-outage· IODA reports no current country-scale outage instrument firing, which argues against describing the scoped filtering measurements as a broad shutdown. · narrows_claim
Claim limits.- The instruments sample different protocols, targets, probes, and completed-test populations. Their percentages may be compared as scoped signals, but not averaged into a national prevalence rate.
- The present lead has not completed three preregistered comparable rounds. It cannot yet call the observed divergence persistent.
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Claim under test · methodological limitation · insufficient · draft
These percentages cannot honestly be collapsed into a prevalence rate for China's population, households, or the whole internet.
Linked evidence receipts
ooni-anomaly-rate· OONI China anomaly index · supportooni-measurement-count· OONI accepted-measurement denominator · contextin-path-rate· OONI-derived completed-test middlebox index · contextcensored-planet-rate· Censored Planet remote interference rate · supportinside-view-panel· Inside-China fixed-panel blocked share · supportinside-view-panel-size· Inside-China fixed-panel size · contextvantage-fusion-rate· Palimpsest derived vantage-fusion index · context
Linked counterevidence
- No counterevidence record is linked.
Claim limits.- The instruments sample different protocols, targets, probes, and completed-test populations. Their percentages may be compared as scoped signals, but not averaged into a national prevalence rate.
- Vantage fusion reuses upstream measurements. It is context, not another independent vote.
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Claim under test · artifact observation · insufficient · draft
The current IODA record reports zero country-scale outage instruments firing; that narrows, but does not erase, the selective-interference evidence.
Linked evidence receipts
ioda-instruments-firing· IODA country-scale outage instruments firing · counter
Linked counterevidence
- No counterevidence record is linked.
Claim limits.- IODA is designed for country-scale connectivity events. It is counterevidence to a shutdown claim, not a clean bill of health for selective filtering.
Counterevidence and competing records
- IODA reports no current country-scale outage instrument firing, which argues against describing the scoped filtering measurements as a broad shutdown.reviewed · narrows_claim · evidence ioda-instruments-firing
Falsification tests
- A temporally overlapping multi-instrument IODA country event would falsify the current narrow statement that the round is not a broad outage.Status: untested
Evidence needed: Aligned IODA, OONI, Censored Planet, and inside-view collection clocks.
- Three preregistered comparable rounds in which independent normalized estimates converge within twenty percentage points would weaken the vantage-dependent hypothesis.Status: untested
Evidence needed: Three aligned rounds with frozen panels, denominator definitions, and source-group labels.
- Three rounds in which at least three independent source groups report no interference across the frozen test panel would falsify the current selective-interference finding for that panel.Status: untested
Evidence needed: Three independent aggregate groups and a versioned fixed panel.
Evidence ledger
Inspect every receipt and interpretation limit
Scroll horizontally to inspect every evidence field.
| Relation / class | Receipt / upstream group | Recorded value | Interpretation limit | Provenance / integrity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| supportresearch | OONI China anomaly indexooni-anomaly-rate · ooni-open-measurements |
58.3Selector /signals/@id=ooni-gfw/payload/gfw_index |
The value is a share of accepted OONI measurements in its test mix, not a share of people, households, websites, or the internet. | Source recordArtifact · · sha 6028bb16b60a · current |
| contextresearch | OONI accepted-measurement denominatorooni-measurement-count · ooni-open-measurements |
272935Selector /signals/@id=ooni-gfw/payload/n_completed_measurements |
Measurement count is not a probability sample of China's population or network endpoints. | Source recordArtifact · · sha 6028bb16b60a · current |
| contextresearch | OONI-derived completed-test middlebox indexin-path-rate · ooni-open-measurements |
1.37Selector /signals/@id=in-path-interference/payload/middlebox_index |
This shares OONI provenance with the anomaly index and therefore is not independent corroboration; its denominator is completed tests only. | Source recordArtifact · · sha 6028bb16b60a · current |
| supportresearch | Censored Planet remote interference ratecensored-planet-rate · censored-planet-remote |
4.27Selector /signals/@id=censored-planet/payload/cn_interference_rate_pct |
The remote side-channel method and denominator differ from OONI and cannot be compared as if both sampled the same population. | Source recordArtifact · · sha 6028bb16b60a · current |
| supportresearch | Inside-China fixed-panel blocked shareinside-view-panel · globalping-inside-view |
1.0Selector /signals/@id=inside-view/payload/block_rate |
This is a deliberately selected panel and cannot estimate prevalence outside that panel. | Source recordArtifact · · sha 6028bb16b60a · current |
| contextresearch | Inside-China fixed-panel sizeinside-view-panel-size · globalping-inside-view |
5Selector /signals/@id=inside-view/payload/n_censored_answered |
The panel size is small and deliberately scoped; it is not a national sample. | Source recordArtifact · · sha 6028bb16b60a · current |
| counterresearch | IODA country-scale outage instruments firingioda-instruments-firing · ioda-country-outages |
0Selector /signals/@id=ioda-outages/payload/instruments_firing |
Absence of a broad routing or reachability outage does not imply absence of selective DNS, HTTP, or application filtering. | Source recordArtifact · · sha 6028bb16b60a · current |
| contextderived | Palimpsest derived vantage-fusion indexvantage-fusion-rate · palimpsest-derived-fusion |
28.6Selector /signals/@id=vantage-fusion/payload/fused_index |
A weighted synthesis is not a new independent vantage and is not a population-prevalence estimate. | Source recordArtifact · · sha 6028bb16b60a · current |
Editorial threshold
Publication gate
A blocked gate keeps this work in the research-lead register regardless of how striking an individual measurement appears.
Scroll horizontally to inspect every publication check.
| Check | Minimum | Observed | Result | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Analytical claims presentanalytical-claims | 1 | 1 | Passed | Observed 1; requires at least 1. |
Independent groups per analytical claimindependent-groups | 2 | 3 | Passed | Observed 3; requires at least 2. |
Analytical claims with counterevidenceanalytical-counterevidence | 1 | 1 | Passed | Observed 1; requires at least 1. |
Analytical claims with explicit limitationsanalytical-limitations | 1 | 1 | Passed | Observed 1; requires at least 1. |
Analytical claims linked to hypothesesanalytical-hypotheses | 1 | 1 | Passed | Observed 1; requires at least 1. |
Counterevidence records reviewedcounterevidence-review | 1 | 1 | Passed | Observed 1; requires at least 1. |
Evidence receipts currentcurrent-evidence | 8 | 8 | Passed | Observed 8; requires at least 8. |
Evidence receipts integrity-verifiedverified-integrity | 8 | 8 | Passed | Observed 8; requires at least 8. |
Right-to-reply disposition completeright-to-reply | 1 | 1 | Passed | Observed 1; requires at least 1. |
Every linked falsification condition assessed with the claim survivingfalsification-assessed | 2 | 0 | Not passed | Observed 0; requires at least 2. |
Survived falsification conditions per analytical claimfalsification-per-claim | 1 | 0 | Not passed | Observed 0; requires at least 1. |
Claims editorially reviewedclaims-reviewed | 3 | 0 | Not passed | Observed 0; requires at least 3. |
Gate blocked. Publishable: false. Failed checks: falsification-assessed, falsification-per-claim, claims-reviewed.
Epistemic boundary
Limitations and consequences
- The instruments sample different protocols, targets, probes, and completed-test populations.Their percentages may be compared as scoped signals, but not averaged into a national prevalence rate.
- The present lead has not completed three preregistered comparable rounds.It cannot yet call the observed divergence persistent.
- Vantage fusion reuses upstream measurements.It is context, not another independent vote.
- IODA is designed for country-scale connectivity events.It is counterevidence to a shutdown claim, not a clean bill of health for selective filtering.
Open collection
Evidence still needed
Targets name aggregate public evidence to collect. They never identify people to target.
collecting · aggregate_only
bleedthrough-longitudinal
Does a controlled external vantage observe stable or changing DNS-injector response processes across repeated rounds?
Blocker: No validated longitudinal artifact has crossed the publication boundary; one round would not establish persistence.
planned · aggregate_only
aligned-network-rounds
Do independent normalized measurements converge when their collection windows are aligned?
Blocker: Three frozen, comparable rounds are required.
Reproducibility
Methodology steps
- freeze-denominatorsRecord each instrument's target population, completed-test rule, panel, time window, and independence group before comparing values.Reproducible: true
- separate-vantagesCount shared OONI-derived products once and keep remote, inside-China, and country-outage vantages separate.Reproducible: true
- test-counterevidenceCheck country-scale outage telemetry before describing selective failures as broad connectivity loss.Reproducible: true
Accountability
Correction, reply and safety state
- Correction
- none
No correction has been issued for this open research lead.
No correction timestamp
Correction policy
- Right to reply
- not_applicable
This open methods investigation makes no allegation about a person or institution.
0 institutions recorded
- Safety
- aggregate_only
Person-level data: false
- Current structured record
- case.json
investigation-cd196dfff93a0065d419
Right-to-reply boundary
No response is not evidence that a finding is true.
Correction boundary
Corrections append an immutable revision and preserve the previous public version.
Institutional reply register
- No institution is recorded for reply.
Safety boundary. Public, aggregate evidence only; private contact details, volunteer identifiers and person-level records are excluded.
Prohibited interpretations
- Do not describe the OONI anomaly index as a percentage of China's people, households, websites, or the internet.
- Do not infer an actor, party, intent, motive, or causal mechanism from these aggregate measurements.
- Do not describe one current round as persistent or nationally representative.
Allegations and motives
- No allegation is made.
- No motive is inferred.