NordVPN researchers analyzed the sites people most wanted to unblock using Google’s search-term analytics tools (see the full infographic below). YouTube was top of the list worldwide: A whopping 82.7 percent of those seeking to unblock online platforms sought to access it. YouTube is home to content that is mostly blocked in countries with censorship legislation.
The other most popular unblock search sites, Facebook (6.2 percent), Google (5.7 percent), Instagram (1.8 percent), and Reddit (1.5 percent) were very far behind when it came to worldwide searches. But the more you search for unblocking sites in a given country, the more likely it is that the people doing those searches live under a restrictive regime. For residents of China, the constraints imposed on the internet become evident from unblocking searches carried out in that region. Between mid-June to mid-July of this year, they sought to find out how to unblock Google (40.4%), YouTube (31.6%), Facebook (8.8%), Instagram (8.8%) and Twitter (7.9%). A VPN is a powerful tool, if people attempt to get around censorship or maintaining their privacy.