Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

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."