Jordan blocked 12 news media websites

In May 2025, the Jordanian Media Commission ordered the blocking of several news media websites on the basis of “spreading fake news and attacking Jordan and its national symbols”.

This is not the first time we have seen news media being targeted by censorship in Jordan. Back in 2019, almost 50 media outlets' websites were reportedly blocked by the Media Commission. Jordanian authorities are also known for blocking LGBTQ+ websites and dating apps, social media, and circumvention tools.

On 13th May 2025, community members informed us that multiple news media websites were inaccessible in Jordan. Most of these websites weren’t already included in the list of websites measured for censorship in Jordan, and they were only added after 13th May 2025. As a result, OONI data pertaining to most of the websites covered in this report is only available from 13th May 2025 onwards, and we have no data on the accessibility of these websites prior to this date.

The final list of websites reported by our community and covered in this report is the following:

• al-akhbar.com
• www.middleeasteye.net
• shehabnews.com
• www.alkhanadeq.com
• qudspress.com
• www.meemmagazine.net
• arabicpost.net
• jordan-voice.com
• alshoub.tv
• rassd.com
• arabi21.com
• raseef22.net
• ammannet.net

Out of the above 13 domains, OONI data confirms the blocking of 12 domains (excluding arabicpost.net) on at least one network (Batelco (AS9038)) in Jordan.

11 domains (excluding arabicpost.net and alshoub.tv) have been blocked on at least three networks: Jordan Data Communications (AS8376), Jordan Telecommunications (AS8697), Batelco (AS9038). We describe the details of how the blocks were implemented by different ISPs further in this report.

The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from the testing of the 13 domains listed above in Jordan between 1st May 2025 to 15th May 2025.

As is evident from the chart, most measurements pertaining to the listed domains show that most of the tested websites start resulting in anomalies from 13th May 2025 onwards, which provides us with a signal of intentional censorship. OONI data from the period before 13th May 2025 for these 13 domains is very limited, and we can only state that al-akhbar.com, ammannet.net and arabi21.com were previously accessible on the tested networks.

The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from testing of the 13 domains listed above in Jordan on the Jordan Data Communications (AS8376) network between 1st May 2025 to 15th May 2025.

Almost all measurements pertaining to 11 out of 13 listed websites (excluding arabicpost.net and alshoub.tv) collected from the Jordan Data Communications (AS8367) network after 13th May 2025 result in “connection reset” type of errors after the first write operation. This indicates that the ISP intentionally blocked access to these websites through TLS level interference.

The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from testing of the 13 domains listed above in Jordan on the Jordan Telecommunications (AS8697) network between 1st May 2025 to 15th May 2025.

Similarly to the Jordan Data Communications (AS8367) network, all measurements, excluding those pertaining to arabicpost.net, alshoub.tv and ammannet.net collected from the Jordan Telecommunications (AS8697) network between 13th May 2025 to 15th May 2025 mostly result in “connection_reset” errors after the first ‘write’ operation and show strong signs of TLS interference.

The following chart aggregates OONI measurement coverage from testing of the 13 domains listed above on the Batelco (AS9038) network between 1st May 2025 to 15th May 2025.

Similarly to the other networks, we see that all of the tested media, except arabicpost.net, are resulting in anomalies and presenting signs of blocking on this network. All measurements except those pertaining to arabicpost.net, collected from the Batelco (AS9038) network after 13th May 2025, are resulting in DNS level anomalies.

On two other networks tested in Jordan by OONI Probe users between 1st May 2025 to 15th May 2025, we see that the blocking order hasn’t been implemented at all (Starlink, AS14593) or was implemented partially, with only a few websites being blocked. For instance, Jordanian Mobile services (AS48832) have limited access only to www.meemmagazine.net, raseef22.net, and rassd.com and jordan-voice.com, leaving nine other media mostly available for their clients. Similarly to Jordan Data Communications (AS8376), the blocking on this network was implemented via TLS interference, and all anomalous measurements collected from this network show that the connection is reset after the ClientHello during the TLS handshake.

While we haven’t seen any anomalous measurements for arabicpost.net on the tested networks between 1st May 2025 to 15th May 2025, it was reported by Jordanian state media as one of the media outlets included in the blocklist.

On 23rd May 2025, access to ammannet.net was restored on all tested networks. This corroborates Ammannet's reporting that the Jordanian Media Commission ordered to lift the blocking of their website. The rest of the domains remain inaccessible at the time of this publication.

We thank all OONI Probe users in Jordan for running tests and contributing measurements supporting this report.

If you are in Jordan, you can collect more measurements by running OONI Probe.