“DNS resolvers aren’t a censorship tool” – experts warn against the risks of growing internet blocking

The i2Coalition published a new report to map the collateral damage of DNS blocking and other internet restrictions across the worldSome European governments and the US are actively debating infrastructure-level blocking as an anti-piracy solutionExperts urge the global community to help them document these incidents

From halting online dissent and illegal content to copyright infringement and child safety, governments worldwide have been increasingly turning to blocking practices that target the core internet infrastructure to pursue their policy goals. Yet, even when deployed with the best intentions, these measures are not only thought to be ineffective, but also to lead to “unintended and profound” collateral damage.

This is the warning from a new report published by the i2Coalition (Internet Infrastructure Coalition). The group wants to shed light on what it describes as an “alarming trend” of governments across the world weaponizing DNS resolvers and even the best VPN services as enforcement tools.

“This report is a wake-up call,” said Christian Dawson, Executive Director of the i2Coalition. “DNS resolvers are neutral infrastructure – not censorship tools. When governments use them to enforce content policies, the result is overreach, disruption, and long-term harm to the open Internet.”

From DNS to VPN blocking – how authorities block the internet

As the report shows, internet blocking tactics span from DNS-based restrictions, IP-level enforcement, and even AI-driven filtering. Nonetheless, experts highlight DNS blocking as the most widely used mechanism.

Short for Domain Name System, we can think of a DNS as the Internet phone book. It translates user requests into strings of numbers – IP addresses – to connect them with the right websites.

DNS servers are at the core of the internet infrastructure as they enable users to navigate the internet. This is exactly why these services have become a target of censors like Russia, Iran, and China, first, and now, rights-holders or lawmakers behind children’s safety policies.

Some European countries, including Italy, Spain, and France, have been increasingly using such infrastructure-level blocking against pirated or other harmful content. The US is also currently debating a bill to employ similar blocking methods against copyright infringement.

DNS blocking, however, isn’t just according to experts ruining the internet, but also ineffective. This is because these network-level blocks only obscure rather than remove the content, which remains online and accessible through other means.

Increasingly more internet users have learned to use virtual private network tools, which enable users to spoof their IP addresses and bypass these restrictions. Hence, VPNs are now becoming the next target of authorities.

Russian authorities have been particularly active in cracking down on the usage of VPN services. A law that was enforced in March 2024 to criminalize the spread of information about ways to circumvent internet restrictions, especially, led to an escalation of Russia’s battle against VPNs, with many apps being removed from official App Stores.

In Europe, rights-holders in Italy and France have so far targeted both DNS and VPN providers within their fight against online piracy.

Again, while the motivations behind differ, the unintended consequences seem to be the same. As the i2Coalition notes in the report: “These measures are too often implemented without legal or technical precision, transparency, or accountability, resulting in overblocking, fragmentation, and collateral damage.”

In Italy, for example, the country’s Piracy Shield system caused widespread service outages on other platforms such as Google Drive. Then, following the decision to require VPN and DNS providers to block pirated content, a VPN provider (AirVPN) had already stopped accepting new Italian subscribers.

The report explores this and other examples of overblocking and internet fragmentation across Europe (France, Spain, Austria, and Portugal), alongside case studies from Russia, Malaysia, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Myanmar, Venezuela, and even the US.

“The global Internet depends on common protocols, trust, and neutrality at the infrastructure layer,” said Dawson. “This initiative shines a spotlight on where that’s breaking – and what we can do about it.”

Dawson is now urging the global community to “help push back with evidence and clarity” by documenting these incidents. You can do this by heading to the nsatrisk.org platform that the group has just created.

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