IIUC, most of the "blocking" is going on at the DNS level[1] - i.e.
they have altered the content of their name servers such that when
you try and resolve one of the censored domain names, it returns the
address of a local server which the ISP has setup to return a page
saying (in effect) "bog off".

FWIW (bearing in mind you are not (usually) a VM user) I don't think it
is DNS. Two reasons: (i) switching to another DNS does not allow HTML
access; and (ii) tracerts to TPB are not blocked or diverted whatever
DNS is used.

--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid