The internet is not what’s being censored. The three platforms that everyone on the internet uses exclusively are being censored.

People then say, well, they can still access other websites! Everyone has a web browser!

Unfortunately the way people disseminate those URLs is via the main censorship platforms, and there are dozens or hundreds of domain names that form URLs which you can’t DM on Discord or Instagram, for example.

The internet as we know it is controlled centrally by Meta and Google and Apple and Microsoft and Amazon - what is done at the network layer is largely irrelevant.

There is research on actual Internet censorship, worth following the ARMOR IRTF group.