July showed that digital restrictions are spreading across the world. Government bans, blocking amid mass protests, and leaks from services with multimillion-strong audiences — in our digest.
We’ve recovered after another series of attacks and are wrapping up the international results for July 2026.
This month we’re again releasing two versions of the digest, including one with news from Russia — stay on top of regional internet censorship
Teens Are Being Banned from Social Media
Background
In December 2025, Australia became the first to ban access to social media for children under 16.
Note that, according to The BMJ, the restrictions are practically useless — within six months teens had mastered VPNs and incognito mode, and 85% of them use the internet as if nothing had changed.
France
Following Australia’s example, on July 21 the French Senate and National Assembly banned children under 15 from using social media. It’s the first such precedent in the EU. Creating new accounts will be prohibited starting September 1, 2026, and by January 1, 2027, platforms are required to close teens’ profiles and roll out verification systems.
Vietnam
The country’s government proposed requiring platforms to register children under 16 only through parents or guardians, and to prohibit young users from liking posts and leaving comments.
Despite the questionable effectiveness of such measures, similar steps are under discussion or already set to be introduced in the United Kingdom, Spain, Indonesia, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and other countries.
Local Incidents
- July 5, U.S., Michigan — outages that affected Detroit were tied to severe storms, which caused breaks in power and communication lines.
- July 7–8, Cuba — amid fuel shortages and constant power outages.
- All month, Pakistan — in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, communications remain restricted throughout July amid political unrest.
- July 30, Kenya — internet service outages coincided with a large-scale power outage that affected part of the country.
A shutdown in Delhi, the Authorities’ Demands to GitHub, and the Resignation of India’s Education Minister
On the evening of July 23, shop and restaurant owners in central Delhi complained that they couldn’t accept online payments. The authorities demanded that operators shut off mobile internet in the parts of the city where the “Cockroach People’s Party” movement’s protests were taking place. It grew out of a discontent expressed by young people, activists, and journalists whom Chief Justice Surya Kant had compared to parasites.
On July 24, the Indian authorities demanded that GitHub remove the repository of Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat mesh-based messenger.
All to no avail: on July 25, India’s Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned — the protesters had originally been seeking a response from him after a leak of exam questions and other violations.
Leaks of DeepSeek and Claude Chats
On July 22, researchers found users’ conversations with DeepSeek freely accessible through Google Search. The cause lay in the Share feature — if you use the chatbot, delete the links to chats you’ve shared in the Settings → Data section.
Four days later, the exact same incident happened to users of Claude, developed by Anthropic.
News Around VPNs
Sanctions Against First VPN
On July 14, the U.S. imposed sanctions against a VPN provider — First VPN — for the first time. Its creators are accused of supporting ransomware hackers who attacked American hospitals, schools, and government agencies. The service itself had already been shut down back in May 2026.
Notably, the t.me domain was frozen that same day, and external links to Telegram messages stopped opening. The operator of the .me domain zone explained the suspension by sanctions compliance. The domain was back up within a day.
A Senator Is Worried About Outdated Services
On July 27, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, in a letter to the relevant agencies, voiced concern that outdated VPN servers for employee remote access are still running in U.S. federal systems.
The letter was prompted by a series of attacks on VPN devices from Cisco, Fortinet, Ivanti, and Check Point, behind which, in the senator’s view, are hackers from Russia and China. The senator proposes a directive that would, within two years, require both civilian and military agencies to switch to the Zero Trust modelAn approach to information security in which the system asks the user to authenticate every time to gain access.
In Brief
Starting July 6, South Korea tightened the rules for getting new SIM cards. Buyers must verify their identity through one of three methods:
- a certificate issued on the day the SIM card is registered,
- facial recognition on the operator’s side,
- the Mobile ID app issued by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
Good News of July
On Thursday, July 16, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that using a VPN to bypass geoblocks set by a rights holder does not violate copyright.
The case was prompted by the manuscripts of Anne Frank, part of which is protected by copyright in the Netherlands until 2037. A co-owner of the intellectual property rights considered the geoblock insufficient, since it can be bypassed via a VPN, and filed suit. The court, however, recognized the VPN as a neutral tool that does not in itself provide access to a protected work, and placed responsibility for access control on rights holders.
We covered in detail the fight against pirated football broadcasts, which sometimes crosses the reasonable limits of intellectual property protection.
Results of the Month
Despite the legislative initiatives restricting teens’ access to the internet, the examples of India and the Court of Justice of the European Union prove that freedoms, including digital ones, are important to protect. You don’t even necessarily have to take to the streets — in the case of DeepSeek and Claude, it’s enough to dig through the service’s settings.
We continue to track internet censorship and blocking around the world. Our digests draw in part on Amnezia Pulse data — connect to Amnezia Premium to help us put together the next issue.
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