US funding for global internet freedom 'effectively gutted'
Source: Hacker News
Internet Freedom – The U.S. Program Under Threat
For nearly two decades, the United States quietly funded a global effort to keep the internet from splintering into fiefdoms run by authoritarian governments. Now that money is seriously threatened – and a large part of it is already gone – internet freedoms around the world are in jeopardy.
What the programme is
Managed by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the initiative – broadly called Internet Freedom – funds small groups worldwide (from Iran to China to the Philippines) that build grassroots technologies to evade government‑imposed internet controls.
- Funding: Over $500 million (£370 million) in the past decade (Guardian analysis).
- 2024 allocation: $94 million — see the House appropriations document.
Recent developments
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Doge – Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency – ordered cuts across U.S. agencies. Career staff who ran Internet Freedom resigned or were sacked. Many programmes were terminated permanently; the main granting office issued no money in 2025. |
| Dec 2024 | The Open Technology Fund (OTF) – a nonprofit that channels roughly half of the programme’s money – won a lawsuit to restore some funding (see the complaint PDF). |
| Jan 2025 | The Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Freedom Online Coalition, a global alliance created to defend digital rights (TechPolicy Press report). |
| Dec 2024 – Jan 2025 | The administration is appealing the OTF ruling (court docket). |
Why the cuts matter
- Iran: Technologies funded by the programme helped protesters coordinate and share videos of massacres during recent anti‑government demonstrations.
- Myanmar: Groups working to bypass the junta’s “digital iron curtain” risk losing support.
- China: Users depend on circumvention tools to avoid pervasive surveillance.
“The programme was effectively gutted,” said a former U.S. official. “They didn’t issue any grants this year.”
“I would like to live in a world where a single U.S. programme is not such a linchpin, such a load‑bearing programme, but it has been.” – a European digital‑rights expert who has worked on several Internet Freedom projects.
How the programme worked
The goal was to make it extremely difficult for authoritarian regimes to replicate the level of isolation achieved by North Korea or the January 2024 Iranian crackdown, where an entire population was cut off from the global internet.
Tools funded
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Well‑known tools | Encrypted messaging service Signal, the Tor browser (anonymous browsing). |
| Advanced circumvention | Satellite datacasting (broadcasting data like a TV signal), high‑performance anti‑censorship software capable of leaping China’s Great Firewall, and other bespoke technologies. |
| On‑the‑ground solutions | Apps that let Iranians securely share locations of shootings and police presence during protests, even when the broader internet is down. |
“When you challenge censorship, the long‑term effect is that oppressive governments must either open their internet or head toward a North‑Korea‑style model.” – former U.S. official.
“Internet Freedom funded the development of many of the censorship‑circumvention technologies that millions of people around the world depend on to maintain a link to the outside world,” said Doug Madory, internet‑infrastructure expert.
The human side
- Grassroots developers often work on a shoestring budget, from apartments rather than fancy offices.
- Most recipients keep the funding quiet because, in many countries, accepting State Department money can be dangerous.
- As funds dry up, journalists, activists, and civil‑society groups are scrambling for alternatives, while censorship regimes grow more aggressive worldwide.
“It’s a massive blow. The need is bigger and other funding is also gone. Organisations that provide these tools are being overwhelmed.” – digital‑rights expert.
“It’s not sustainable.”
Some groups have laid off staff; others continue without pay, hoping that at least part of the funding can be restored. They fear the Trump administration may politicise the programme even further.
Sources & Further Reading
- Guardian analysis of Internet Freedom funding (2024)
- House Appropriations Document – $94 m for 2024
- Open Technology Fund lawsuit (PDF)
- Court docket – OTF v. Kari Lake (appeal)
- TechPolicy Press – U.S. withdrawal from Freedom Online Coalition
- Guardian – Internet coverage
- Guardian – Censorship coverage
The U.S. Department of State has been approached for comment. The Open Technology Fund declined to comment.
Internet Freedom Funding and the Rise of Censorship Technology
“Everybody’s just waiting right now, to be honest. But at the same time, wait at your own risk,” said an Iranian technologist funded through Internet Freedom.
The line for Internet Freedom names no specific programmes as recipients of this cash. Others say they’re existing in a brief grace period as the rest of the funds run out.
Meanwhile, censorship tech is becoming cheaper and easier to access. Chinese companies have exported sophisticated middleboxes—devices that sit on network cables and allow authorities to monitor internet traffic—to countries across Africa and Asia in the past year. These devices enable regimes such as Iran’s to fine‑tune their control over the domestic internet—allowing commerce to continue, for example, while communication is throttled.
Several recipients of the U.S. money expressed hope that Europe might fund these technologies in the future; some have already petitioned EU officials for funding.
“The cuts make it easier to build a ‘digital iron curtain’. It makes it easier for the Kremlin to put Russians in a digital information bubble that reinforces specific narratives about people outside of Russia. This makes it easier for China to do this. For Iran to do this,” one said.