Mediapart launches on Tor

Freedom of expression, access to information and the freedom of the press are fundamental rights in any democratic society. Since its creation in 2008, Mediapart has been a prime example of this, with its thousands of investigations and reports of public interest. However, in some countries, governments and authorities may try to restrict access to the free press, a recent example being the blocking of 81 European media outlets in Russia.

A Mediapart Onion service

To protect our subscribers' right to read Mediapart anywhere, in French, English and Spanish, we decided to launch an Onion service on the Tor network, and are the first major French media organization to do so.

This special address, accessible only via a dedicated browsers like the Tor Browser, lets you access our site via a secure tunnel, offering strong guarantees of anonymity and bypassing any attempt at censorship. This new way of reading us is further proof of our strong commitment to defending access for all to our public-interest reporting.

In concrete terms, the Tor network (short for “The Onion Routing”) operates via a network of servers called relays. These relays are run by volunteers throughout the world, and each relay encrypts the connections passing through it. When you browse the Internet via the Tor network, your connection is encrypted as it passes through several relays, with each one adding a layer of encryption to your connection, reminiscent of the layers of an onion.

So using an Onion service like the one we're launching, makes it very difficult to monitor your Internet communications or block certain websites. By design, .onion sites are created inside the Tor network and are end-to-end encrypted, meaning that no information is passed through to the public internet. No Internet provider or government can detect the connection to the service and block access to it: this is particularly useful in certain regions of the world where access to free information is made difficult by the authorities.

"The vocation of Mediapart, French daily newspaper independent of all powers, is to reveal what the political and economic powers seek to keep secret, in order to preserve their advantages and make their possible abuses invisible", said Carine Fouteau, president and publishing director of Mediapart.

"This democratic mission makes us particularly vulnerable to the wrath of illiberal regimes, that hate checks and balances. Following Emmanuel Macron's dissolution of the French National Assembly in June 2024, the risk of the far right forming a government in France has prompted us to prepare for the worst. By being available on the Tor network, we guarantee that our readers can access our information freely, regardless of the political circumstances. We are also thinking of our readers living abroad. Mediapart is a newspaper without borders: our subscribers need to be able to read us securely wherever they live".

"The Tor Project has a long-standing history of empowering journalists and media outlets to safeguard freedom of information and expression", said Isabela Fernandes, Executive Director, Tor Project.

"By launching a .onion site, Mediapart is taking a powerful step to protect its readers in an increasingly hostile environment for independent journalism. It is inspiring to see media organizations like Mediapart leverage Tor technology to ensure their reporting can reach everyone, everywhere, regardless of the political climate".

How to connect?

You can now read us, via the Tor Browser or a similar Tor application, on the following address:

mediapartrvj4bsgolbxixw57ru7fh4jqckparke4vs365guu6ho64yd.onion

You can also visit our normal website using the Tor Browser, then click on the button to the right of the browser’s search bar.

Read more

For more technical information on this service, you can read the Tor Project's interview with a member of our Product and Technical team, on their blog.

For more information on Tor and the Tor network, please visit https://www.torproject.org/.

Any questions or comments on the launch of this new service? Please let us know in the comments section.