When a state can block a website, throttle a network, or flood a hashtag, what can citizens do, and what does it cost the state to try? This course studies both sides of that contest: the architecture of control (filtering, throttling, deep packet inspection, legal takedown regimes) and the architecture of circumvention (VPNs, Tor, protocol obfuscation, mesh networks), alongside the political science of when movements succeed or fail. Computing students gain grounding in networks, measurement, and security; political science students gain grounding in collective action and censorship theory. Every student does both.
The Turkish media and internet landscape; how censorship works technically (DNS tampering, filtering, throttling); first measurements with OONI.
Theories of networked protest against the Gezi Park case; the shift to trolling, astroturfing, and legal instruments like Law 5651.
Izmir and Ephesus, shared across all three courses.
VPNs, Tor, and protocol obfuscation as an arms race; the dual-use nature of identity and surveillance technology; midterm case memo.
Measurement ethics, then a mixed-team field project documenting or measuring a real information-control event, presented publicly in Week 10.
Readings, labs, and week-by-week detail are still being finalized between the two instructors. Any in-country measurement or circumvention work is planned to stay optional, reviewed, and legal; nothing here should be read as a final commitment until the syllabus is signed off.