Decentralizing circumvention: a DIY approach to making censor-resistant apps

Internet censorship is a pervasive and growing global problem, as authoritarian governments worldwide make it harder and harder to freely access information online. While there are a variety of known circumvention tools that can help individual users dodge locally-imposed blocks, from an organizational perspective, the challenge looks slightly different; for example, for media outlets, human rights groups, and civil society organizations, there may be a lack of resources to build technical solutions, forcing the burden onto users and users alone. In this context, AppMaker was born. AppMaker is a tool that allows any organization or individual to easily create a customized Android app in minutes, with localized content and circumvention tech baked in. In this session, we'll show how AppMaker works while also collaboratively exploring new ways to decentralize circumvention tech.