Proton VPN is experiencing a spike in free VPN signups from Jordan over the past few days, coinciding with social media reports that Discord is no longer working there. Some users have speculated that the government is blocking the communications platform, but there have been no official announcements or confirmed news reports.
The increase in signups began around Oct. 6 and 7, with significantly more people downloading Proton VPN than average. New signups peaked at 250% over baseline on Oct. 8 and remained around double the daily average as of Oct. 13, when the service was still inaccessible in Jordan without a VPN.
Discord users posted screenshots on social media of the app failing to load messages or download updates. People use discord for a variety of activities, from workplace communications to online gaming to group chats with family. Jordanian users complained that the disruption was impacting their ability to do their jobs and stay in touch with friends.
Others pointed to potentially more grave societal consequences: “Are we just gonna act like nothing happened and move on with our lives?” one Reddit user posted on Oct. 9. “This isn’t just about Discord it’s about censorship, and it could lead to other stuff getting banned too.”
Jordan is a monarchy in the Middle East with power heavily concentrated in the royal family. Freedom House lists the country as “partly free(new window)” because of the king’s dominance over civil liberties and internet freedom. In May 2025, the Jordanian government banned 12 news sites(new window) that reported on fees Jordan received for providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. The government authority accused the sites of “spreading media poison and attacking Jordan and its national symbols.”
If the government is restricting Discord, the reasons are less clear. Discord suffered a data breach(new window) on Oct. 3 that exposed at least 70,000 users’ government IDs via a third-party provider that was helping the company enforce new age-verification laws. But if Jordanian data security was the reason for blocking Discord, the government hasn’t said so.
In most cases, access restrictions are implemented by internet service providers on orders from government authorities. DNS servers and the online services themselves can also implement blocks based on the user’s apparent location. A VPN can circumvent any of these, but as of Oct. 13, it’s still unclear what is causing the Discord restrictions in Jordan.
