The act also requires companies to maintain "an effective and transparent procedure for dealing with complaints, which is readily recognizable, directly accessible and constantly available to users," according to a Bundestag statement.

Heiko Maas, Germany's federal minister of justice and consumer protection, said the law is meant to "prevent a climate of fear and intimidation."

Chinese broadcasters, including social media platform Weibo, streamer Acfun and media company Ifeng were told to shut down all audio and visual content that cast the country or its government in bad light, China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television posted on its website on Thursday, saying they violate local regulations.

The country ranks 176th out of 180 countries on the 2017 World Press Freedom Index, and its president Xi Jinping is listed as a "press freedom predator" and an "enemy of the Internet" by Reporters without Borders.

“The still high incidence of punishable hate posting shows a need for police action,” Holger Münch, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office, said in a statement. “Our free society must not allow a climate of fear, threat, criminal violence and violence either on the street or on the internet.”

The raids come as Germans are debating the draft of a new social media law aimed at cracking down on hate speech, a measure that an array of experts said was unconstitutional at a parliamentary hearing on Monday.

Over the past three weeks, the Egyptian authorities have blocked access to more than 50 news websites, including Al Jazeera and local newspapers Daily News Egypt, Al-Borsa, and Al-Mesryoon.

On Monday, as more and more Egyptians turned to VPN services as a way to get around the blocks, ISPs started blocking access to the websites of companies offering such services.

"We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed," May said. "Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide."

"The biggest and richest social media companies are shamefully far from taking sufficient action to tackle illegal and dangerous content," the report said. "Given their immense size, resources and global reach, it is completely irresponsible of them to fail to abide by the law."

HTTPS prevents governments and others from seeing the specific page users are visiting. For example, a government could tell that a user is browsing Wikipedia, but couldn't tell that the user is specifically reading the page about Tiananmen Square.

Although countries like China, Thailand and Uzbekistan were still censoring part or all of Wikipedia by the time the researchers wrapped up their study, they remained optimistic: "this initial data suggests the decision to shift to HTTPS has been a good one in terms of ensuring accessibility to knowledge."

A block affecting all language editions of the website detected at 8:00AM local time Saturday 29 April. The loss of availability is consistent with internet filters used to censor content in the country.

A formal judgement has been issued in approval of the administrative measure, indicating that a permanent restriction is now in place.

The move limits access to one of the few remaining channels for readers in mainland China to read The Times without resorting to special software.

Mr. Sainz declined to comment on what local regulations the Times apps were said to have violated, who had contacted Apple and when, and whether a court order or other legal document had been presented.

Open Whisper Systems, which created and maintains Signal, announced that it’s added a feature to its Android app that will allow it to sidestep censorship in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, where it was blocked just days ago.

“Now when people in Egypt or the United Arab Emirates send a Signal message, it’ll look identical to something like a Google search,” Marlinspike says. “The idea is that using Signal will look like using Google; if you want to block Signal you’ll have to block Google.”

It and four other copyright-infringing sites - Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and SolarMovie - must be blocked within 15 days, the court said on Thursday.

The judge agreed with internet service providers including Telstra, Optus, TPG and M2 that rights holders should pay the cost of blocking the websites.