Friday, March 29, 2024

PLDT, Smart said to be blocking Change.org’s URL shortener

Earlier this week, subscribers of PLDT and Smart found out that their ISP was blocking chng.it, the URL shortener of the petition site Change.org, without warning.

A number of netizens who are subscribers of PLDT and Smart are having problems accessing Change.org’s URL shortener

Change.org is a website platform where users can organize petition campaigns and solicit signatures for various causes. When sharing a signature campaign page, Change.org provides users with a shortened URL starting with https://chng.it.

While working for some, other users reported that the URL-shortened site couldn’t be reached from PLDT and/or Smart, and that they either had to use a backup ISP or a VPN to be able to load the URL and proceed to the signature campaign site.

In December 6, 2021, users complained that PLDT was blocking the privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo.com. Access to the site was restored later that day.

In May 2021, PLDT was found to be blocking one of the largest image-hosting sites on the Internet, Imgur.com.

That PLDT keeps arbitrarily blocking valid non-malicious websites has led to frustration for its subscribers. It’s a practice that needs to stop for the integrity of Philippine Internet.

The author is a Web developer and board member of Democracy.Net.PH, an ICT rights, governance, development, policy, and security advocacy group

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