{
  "case_id": "investigation-cd196dfff93a0065d419",
  "claims": [
    {
      "claim_id": "current-round-diverges",
      "confidence": "corroborated",
      "counterevidence_ids": [
        "no-country-scale-outage"
      ],
      "evidence_ids": [
        "ooni-anomaly-rate",
        "censored-planet-rate",
        "inside-view-panel"
      ],
      "hypothesis_ids": [
        "selective-vantage-dependent"
      ],
      "limitation_ids": [
        "incompatible-denominators",
        "single-round"
      ],
      "publication_state": "draft",
      "statement": "The current structured round is consistent with selective and vantage-dependent interference, because independent instruments report materially different scoped measurements.",
      "type": "analytical_finding"
    },
    {
      "claim_id": "no-honest-single-rate",
      "confidence": "insufficient",
      "counterevidence_ids": [],
      "evidence_ids": [
        "ooni-anomaly-rate",
        "ooni-measurement-count",
        "in-path-rate",
        "censored-planet-rate",
        "inside-view-panel",
        "inside-view-panel-size",
        "vantage-fusion-rate"
      ],
      "hypothesis_ids": [
        "common-national-rate",
        "selective-vantage-dependent"
      ],
      "limitation_ids": [
        "incompatible-denominators",
        "derived-fusion"
      ],
      "publication_state": "draft",
      "statement": "These percentages cannot honestly be collapsed into a prevalence rate for China's population, households, or the whole internet.",
      "type": "methodological_limitation"
    },
    {
      "claim_id": "not-a-broad-outage",
      "confidence": "insufficient",
      "counterevidence_ids": [],
      "evidence_ids": [
        "ioda-instruments-firing"
      ],
      "hypothesis_ids": [
        "selective-vantage-dependent"
      ],
      "limitation_ids": [
        "outage-scope"
      ],
      "publication_state": "draft",
      "statement": "The current IODA record reports zero country-scale outage instruments firing; that narrows, but does not erase, the selective-interference evidence.",
      "type": "artifact_observation"
    }
  ],
  "collection_targets": [
    {
      "blocker": "No validated longitudinal artifact has crossed the publication boundary; one round would not establish persistence.",
      "data_level": "aggregate_only",
      "evidence_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/bleedthrough-latest.json",
      "question_answered": "Does a controlled external vantage observe stable or changing DNS-injector response processes across repeated rounds?",
      "source_id": "bleedthrough-longitudinal",
      "status": "collecting"
    },
    {
      "blocker": "Three frozen, comparable rounds are required.",
      "data_level": "aggregate_only",
      "evidence_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "question_answered": "Do independent normalized measurements converge when their collection windows are aligned?",
      "source_id": "aligned-network-rounds",
      "status": "planned"
    }
  ],
  "correction": {
    "last_corrected_at": null,
    "note": "No correction has been issued for this open research lead.",
    "policy_url": "https://palimpsest.info/methodology/",
    "status": "none"
  },
  "counterevidence": [
    {
      "counterevidence_id": "no-country-scale-outage",
      "disposition": "narrows_claim",
      "evidence_ids": [
        "ioda-instruments-firing"
      ],
      "review_status": "reviewed",
      "statement": "IODA reports no current country-scale outage instrument firing, which argues against describing the scoped filtering measurements as a broad shutdown."
    }
  ],
  "dek": "A research lead comparing incompatible measurement denominators, independent vantages, and the counterevidence against treating selective filtering as a country-scale outage.",
  "evidence": [
    {
      "artifact_generated_at": "2026-08-24T15:58:52Z",
      "artifact_id": "osint-china",
      "artifact_sha256": "6028bb16b60aba5c4f3be7deeecb9830f6f82b9d831e8c361c9cb8a7102bcc04",
      "artifact_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "evidence_id": "ooni-anomaly-rate",
      "freshness": "current",
      "independence_group": "ooni-open-measurements",
      "integrity": "verified",
      "interpretation_limit": "The value is a share of accepted OONI measurements in its test mix, not a share of people, households, websites, or the internet.",
      "label": "OONI China anomaly index",
      "role": "support",
      "selector": "/signals/@id=ooni-gfw/payload/gfw_index",
      "source_class": "research",
      "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T02:00:59Z",
      "source_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/ooni-gfw-latest.json",
      "value": 58.3,
      "value_type": "number"
    },
    {
      "artifact_generated_at": "2026-08-24T15:58:52Z",
      "artifact_id": "osint-china",
      "artifact_sha256": "6028bb16b60aba5c4f3be7deeecb9830f6f82b9d831e8c361c9cb8a7102bcc04",
      "artifact_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "evidence_id": "ooni-measurement-count",
      "freshness": "current",
      "independence_group": "ooni-open-measurements",
      "integrity": "verified",
      "interpretation_limit": "Measurement count is not a probability sample of China's population or network endpoints.",
      "label": "OONI accepted-measurement denominator",
      "role": "context",
      "selector": "/signals/@id=ooni-gfw/payload/n_completed_measurements",
      "source_class": "research",
      "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T02:00:59Z",
      "source_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/ooni-gfw-latest.json",
      "value": 272935,
      "value_type": "integer"
    },
    {
      "artifact_generated_at": "2026-08-24T15:58:52Z",
      "artifact_id": "osint-china",
      "artifact_sha256": "6028bb16b60aba5c4f3be7deeecb9830f6f82b9d831e8c361c9cb8a7102bcc04",
      "artifact_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "evidence_id": "in-path-rate",
      "freshness": "current",
      "independence_group": "ooni-open-measurements",
      "integrity": "verified",
      "interpretation_limit": "This shares OONI provenance with the anomaly index and therefore is not independent corroboration; its denominator is completed tests only.",
      "label": "OONI-derived completed-test middlebox index",
      "role": "context",
      "selector": "/signals/@id=in-path-interference/payload/middlebox_index",
      "source_class": "research",
      "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T02:07:57Z",
      "source_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/in-path-interference-latest.json",
      "value": 1.37,
      "value_type": "number"
    },
    {
      "artifact_generated_at": "2026-08-24T15:58:52Z",
      "artifact_id": "osint-china",
      "artifact_sha256": "6028bb16b60aba5c4f3be7deeecb9830f6f82b9d831e8c361c9cb8a7102bcc04",
      "artifact_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "evidence_id": "censored-planet-rate",
      "freshness": "current",
      "independence_group": "censored-planet-remote",
      "integrity": "verified",
      "interpretation_limit": "The remote side-channel method and denominator differ from OONI and cannot be compared as if both sampled the same population.",
      "label": "Censored Planet remote interference rate",
      "role": "support",
      "selector": "/signals/@id=censored-planet/payload/cn_interference_rate_pct",
      "source_class": "research",
      "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T06:07:17Z",
      "source_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/censored-planet-latest.json",
      "value": 4.27,
      "value_type": "number"
    },
    {
      "artifact_generated_at": "2026-08-24T15:58:52Z",
      "artifact_id": "osint-china",
      "artifact_sha256": "6028bb16b60aba5c4f3be7deeecb9830f6f82b9d831e8c361c9cb8a7102bcc04",
      "artifact_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "evidence_id": "inside-view-panel",
      "freshness": "current",
      "independence_group": "globalping-inside-view",
      "integrity": "verified",
      "interpretation_limit": "This is a deliberately selected panel and cannot estimate prevalence outside that panel.",
      "label": "Inside-China fixed-panel blocked share",
      "role": "support",
      "selector": "/signals/@id=inside-view/payload/block_rate",
      "source_class": "research",
      "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T02:10:02Z",
      "source_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/inside-view-latest.json",
      "value": 1.0,
      "value_type": "number"
    },
    {
      "artifact_generated_at": "2026-08-24T15:58:52Z",
      "artifact_id": "osint-china",
      "artifact_sha256": "6028bb16b60aba5c4f3be7deeecb9830f6f82b9d831e8c361c9cb8a7102bcc04",
      "artifact_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "evidence_id": "inside-view-panel-size",
      "freshness": "current",
      "independence_group": "globalping-inside-view",
      "integrity": "verified",
      "interpretation_limit": "The panel size is small and deliberately scoped; it is not a national sample.",
      "label": "Inside-China fixed-panel size",
      "role": "context",
      "selector": "/signals/@id=inside-view/payload/n_censored_answered",
      "source_class": "research",
      "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T02:10:02Z",
      "source_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/inside-view-latest.json",
      "value": 5,
      "value_type": "integer"
    },
    {
      "artifact_generated_at": "2026-08-24T15:58:52Z",
      "artifact_id": "osint-china",
      "artifact_sha256": "6028bb16b60aba5c4f3be7deeecb9830f6f82b9d831e8c361c9cb8a7102bcc04",
      "artifact_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "evidence_id": "ioda-instruments-firing",
      "freshness": "current",
      "independence_group": "ioda-country-outages",
      "integrity": "verified",
      "interpretation_limit": "Absence of a broad routing or reachability outage does not imply absence of selective DNS, HTTP, or application filtering.",
      "label": "IODA country-scale outage instruments firing",
      "role": "counter",
      "selector": "/signals/@id=ioda-outages/payload/instruments_firing",
      "source_class": "research",
      "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T02:04:27Z",
      "source_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/ioda-outages-latest.json",
      "value": 0,
      "value_type": "integer"
    },
    {
      "artifact_generated_at": "2026-08-24T15:58:52Z",
      "artifact_id": "osint-china",
      "artifact_sha256": "6028bb16b60aba5c4f3be7deeecb9830f6f82b9d831e8c361c9cb8a7102bcc04",
      "artifact_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/osint-china-latest.json",
      "evidence_id": "vantage-fusion-rate",
      "freshness": "current",
      "independence_group": "palimpsest-derived-fusion",
      "integrity": "verified",
      "interpretation_limit": "A weighted synthesis is not a new independent vantage and is not a population-prevalence estimate.",
      "label": "Palimpsest derived vantage-fusion index",
      "role": "context",
      "selector": "/signals/@id=vantage-fusion/payload/fused_index",
      "source_class": "derived",
      "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T02:27:09Z",
      "source_url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/vantage-fusion-latest.json",
      "value": 28.6,
      "value_type": "number"
    }
  ],
  "falsification_conditions": [
    {
      "condition_id": "country-scale-ioda-event",
      "evidence_needed": "Aligned IODA, OONI, Censored Planet, and inside-view collection clocks.",
      "statement": "A temporally overlapping multi-instrument IODA country event would falsify the current narrow statement that the round is not a broad outage.",
      "status": "untested"
    },
    {
      "condition_id": "three-round-convergence",
      "evidence_needed": "Three aligned rounds with frozen panels, denominator definitions, and source-group labels.",
      "statement": "Three preregistered comparable rounds in which independent normalized estimates converge within twenty percentage points would weaken the vantage-dependent hypothesis.",
      "status": "untested"
    },
    {
      "condition_id": "three-round-clean-panel",
      "evidence_needed": "Three independent aggregate groups and a versioned fixed panel.",
      "statement": "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"
    }
  ],
  "hypotheses": [
    {
      "falsification_condition_ids": [
        "three-round-convergence"
      ],
      "hypothesis_id": "common-national-rate",
      "statement": "Comparable independent instruments converge closely enough to support one bounded national interference estimate.",
      "status": "open"
    },
    {
      "falsification_condition_ids": [
        "three-round-convergence",
        "three-round-clean-panel"
      ],
      "hypothesis_id": "selective-vantage-dependent",
      "statement": "Instrument scope and vantage continue to produce materially different rates even when collection windows are aligned.",
      "status": "open"
    }
  ],
  "limitations": [
    {
      "consequence": "Their percentages may be compared as scoped signals, but not averaged into a national prevalence rate.",
      "limitation_id": "incompatible-denominators",
      "statement": "The instruments sample different protocols, targets, probes, and completed-test populations."
    },
    {
      "consequence": "It cannot yet call the observed divergence persistent.",
      "limitation_id": "single-round",
      "statement": "The present lead has not completed three preregistered comparable rounds."
    },
    {
      "consequence": "It is context, not another independent vote.",
      "limitation_id": "derived-fusion",
      "statement": "Vantage fusion reuses upstream measurements."
    },
    {
      "consequence": "It is counterevidence to a shutdown claim, not a clean bill of health for selective filtering.",
      "limitation_id": "outage-scope",
      "statement": "IODA is designed for country-scale connectivity events."
    }
  ],
  "methodology": [
    {
      "description": "Record each instrument's target population, completed-test rule, panel, time window, and independence group before comparing values.",
      "reproducible": true,
      "step_id": "freeze-denominators"
    },
    {
      "description": "Count shared OONI-derived products once and keep remote, inside-China, and country-outage vantages separate.",
      "reproducible": true,
      "step_id": "separate-vantages"
    },
    {
      "description": "Check country-scale outage telemetry before describing selective failures as broad connectivity loss.",
      "reproducible": true,
      "step_id": "test-counterevidence"
    }
  ],
  "opened_at": "2026-08-11T00:00:00Z",
  "publication_gate": {
    "checks": [
      {
        "check_id": "analytical-claims",
        "detail": "Observed 1; requires at least 1.",
        "label": "Analytical claims present",
        "minimum": 1,
        "observed": 1,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "independent-groups",
        "detail": "Observed 3; requires at least 2.",
        "label": "Independent groups per analytical claim",
        "minimum": 2,
        "observed": 3,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "analytical-counterevidence",
        "detail": "Observed 1; requires at least 1.",
        "label": "Analytical claims with counterevidence",
        "minimum": 1,
        "observed": 1,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "analytical-limitations",
        "detail": "Observed 1; requires at least 1.",
        "label": "Analytical claims with explicit limitations",
        "minimum": 1,
        "observed": 1,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "analytical-hypotheses",
        "detail": "Observed 1; requires at least 1.",
        "label": "Analytical claims linked to hypotheses",
        "minimum": 1,
        "observed": 1,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "counterevidence-review",
        "detail": "Observed 1; requires at least 1.",
        "label": "Counterevidence records reviewed",
        "minimum": 1,
        "observed": 1,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "current-evidence",
        "detail": "Observed 8; requires at least 8.",
        "label": "Evidence receipts current",
        "minimum": 8,
        "observed": 8,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "verified-integrity",
        "detail": "Observed 8; requires at least 8.",
        "label": "Evidence receipts integrity-verified",
        "minimum": 8,
        "observed": 8,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "right-to-reply",
        "detail": "Observed 1; requires at least 1.",
        "label": "Right-to-reply disposition complete",
        "minimum": 1,
        "observed": 1,
        "passed": true
      },
      {
        "check_id": "falsification-assessed",
        "detail": "Observed 0; requires at least 2.",
        "label": "Every linked falsification condition assessed with the claim surviving",
        "minimum": 2,
        "observed": 0,
        "passed": false
      },
      {
        "check_id": "falsification-per-claim",
        "detail": "Observed 0; requires at least 1.",
        "label": "Survived falsification conditions per analytical claim",
        "minimum": 1,
        "observed": 0,
        "passed": false
      },
      {
        "check_id": "claims-reviewed",
        "detail": "Observed 0; requires at least 3.",
        "label": "Claims editorially reviewed",
        "minimum": 3,
        "observed": 0,
        "passed": false
      }
    ],
    "failed_check_ids": [
      "falsification-assessed",
      "falsification-per-claim",
      "claims-reviewed"
    ],
    "publishable": false,
    "status": "blocked"
  },
  "published_at": null,
  "right_to_reply": {
    "applicability_reason": "This open methods investigation makes no allegation about a person or institution.",
    "parties": [],
    "status": "not_applicable"
  },
  "safety": {
    "allegations": [],
    "data_level": "aggregate_only",
    "inferred_motives": [],
    "person_level_data": false,
    "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."
    ]
  },
  "slug": "china-network-filtering-no-single-rate",
  "status": "evidence_gathering",
  "status_reason": "The research lead remains open while its public collection and falsification targets are incomplete.",
  "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?",
  "title": "China's Network Filtering Has No Honest Single Rate",
  "updated_at": "2026-08-24T06:07:17Z",
  "url": "/news/investigations/china-network-filtering-no-single-rate/",
  "version_id": "investigationv-aa5647b3f3e38f22c965c1a0"
}