Remix.run Logo
ajsnigrutin 5 hours ago

I mean... EU already blocks eg. some russian sites (some countries more effectively than others)... plus all the chat control pressures every year.

Spain is blocking whole blocks of internet during football matches.

UK is making you "show your ID card" to jerk off.

But every such country likes pointing fingers at others, "hey, our censorship is not bad, they have more of it!".

edit: considering the downvotes, HN is not bothered by our censorship either

walletdrainer 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> UK is making you "show your ID card" to jerk off.

There are no ID cards in the UK, so you actually have to get a special jerking off loicense.

isoprophlex 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I remember giggling at those "oi you got a loicense for that m8??!" memes. Funny, maybe, but not to be taken seriously.

Fast forward less than ten years, and here we are.

Al-Khwarizmi 2 hours ago | parent [-]

One of my favorite Monty Python sketches, the fish license: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lXyup0De7Q

yard2010 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Did Kemal Ataturk really have a full menagerie all named abdul?

avhception 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I remember a popular "greentext" specifically about this...

lifestyleguru 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What if someone is not a certified wanker?

reactordev 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Head down to your local Tory office and prove it.

jamesbelchamber 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The wanker licensing board defected to Reform last week

keysersoze33 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If all else fails, ask for BJ

otherme123 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Spain is blocking whole blocks of internet during football matches.

Lets make this clear: "Spain" is not blocking, some ISP companies which have many users ask the judge for permission to block IP ranges because they are streaming football matches. The judge agrees (they don't seem to know how Cloudflare works), so the ISPs are the ones that are blocking their own users to access sites behind Cloudflare. As they have millions of users, the block feels huge, but it is not issued by the government.

I am not a customer of those ISP, so my internet isn't disrupted at all during football matches. Some services, like annas-archive and torrent sites, are intermittently blocked, but you can easily avoid the blocks just by switching DNS server to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8.

perihelions an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

An even more apt analogy is France in New Caledonia. Back in 2024, the French territorial government used an anti-terrorism law to enforce DNS blocks in that overseas territory, for the express purpose of suppressing political protests (by New Caledonians angry at the French mainland government).

> "Philippe Gomes, the former president of New Caledonia's government, told POLITICO the decision aimed to stop protesters from "organizing reunions and protests" through the app."

[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/french-tiktok-ban-new-caledo...

This is the only example I'm aware of (are there others?) of a Western government effecting internet censorship to suppress protests. (Though the article also mentions Macron considering (but rejecting) the same idea in France, to suppress protests following a police shooting. See also[1])

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36599726 ("Macron floats social media cuts during riots", 105 comments)

edit: There was also an incident in San Francisco way back in 2011,

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2879546 ("San Francisco Subway Muzzles Cell Service During Protest", 113 comments)

buzzerbetrayed 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why during football matches?

ajsnigrutin 5 hours ago | parent [-]

So people wouldn't stream the games ilegally... the private entity that owns the rights to broadcasting the games can arbitrarily ban whole subnets.

the end result is well... not good:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45323856

sigmar 5 hours ago | parent [-]

A company using legal action to protect their IP rights is so different from a theocratic dictatorship shutting down the entire Internet to prevent their overthrow. Perhaps you don't follow the news about Iran but these comments are incredibly daft.

freetanga 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The problem itself is not IP protection…. They tried that, and were always chasing behind - servers changed week after week, ban after ban.

So, misteriously (suspicions of bribery abound) now they block full blocks of internet preventively, bringing down innocent and paying customers with them. From Law Enforcement to privatized Minority Report.

Thats what people dislike. If you are a private entity and loose money to piracy, use the legal framework to solve it. Don’t override it with lobbying

lukan an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You don't see a problem if private companies get the right to decide who to block from the internet, without any process?

ajsnigrutin 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But that's even worse... Iran is a stuck up country with huge political issues, internal and external pressures, outside countries attacking it while internally they're at the cusp of a civil war. Of course they'll shut down the internet, what else do you expect them to do? It's not like they have many options, nor the government trying to stay in power and crush a coup, even if that means blocking the internet, nor the people who are protesting against it and risking their lives.

But EU countries should be a bastion of freedom, free speech, free access to information, democracy, human rights, rights to this, rights to that... Why do we, the EU countries have to use the same playbook? Yes, banning the whole internet is in one way worse and in other easier, than just banning a list of sites where people can find a way around it, but again, the difference is just in the quantity, the censorship factor is the same. The government gets scared people will see some other propaganda from the other side, and censors it... and even that is done very selectively (daily mail is still accessible from over here, so are fox news and cnn)

With spain it's even worse, because it's not even the government doing it, but the government giving the right of censorship to a private company which clearly abuses that right and the government tolerates this... no court orders, no judges, no way to complain, no fair use, no nothing, a private company decides and the government gives them a blank stamped paper to aprove that.

Yes, i know iran has it much worse, but there's nothing we can do about it here, assuming the internet is banned for iranians and they can't read this or comment here. But EU is doing the same, and we've been tolerating it for years... a site here, a site there,... not everything, but censorship is still censorship, no matter how many sites are censored, and there are people from EU here that should argue against censorship, even if it's just a few sites and not all of them.

FilosofumRex 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Iran is not a dictatorship, but a republic with thousands of MPs since 1905 and 8 elected presidents since 1979. It subsidize basic needs of its poorer citizens, such as fuel, bread, housing, education and healthcare.

Perhaps, you prefer Arabia, UAE or Israel's internet and find it more to your liking

breppp 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A republic with a supreme religious leader who actually decides everything, that fakes elections and has a council of religious leaders that can disqualify any candidate

that's without even talking about killing 30,000-40,000 citizens for wanting their rights

> It subsidize basic needs of its poorer citizens, such as fuel, bread, housing, education and healthcare.

I'd start with supplying basic needs like water and electricity.

The actual subsidizing is for the IRGC which steals whatever they can get their hands on so they can be counted on to mass slaughter the people

noduerme 9 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>> Arabia, UAE or Israel's internet

You mean the internet?

orwin an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Khomenei is called the "supreme leader" since 89. His predecessor betrayed his allies by wording a referendum for the abolition of the monarchy weirdly, making it instead about the installation of a theocracy.

(i don't want to make it overly political, but once again the historical materialist offshots of the revolutionary groups are the only ones who understood the betrayal and called a boycott of this referendum. Please listen to marxists when they're in a coup, they are so used to betrayal they'll see it comming)

hagbard_c an hour ago | parent [-]

It was the same "Marxists" who helped Khomeini gain power so by all means observe Marxists but only to understand where they are trying to lead society so you can be ready to limit the amount of damage they'll do. Lenin is supposed to have called these people 'useful idiots', useful to create societal upheaval because they are so easy to lead and eager to follow but for that same reason they should be neutralised once the Party has gained power. Lenin and Stalin tended to just kill them or sent them into the GULAG, Mao sent them to the countryside, Khomeini followed Lenin and Stalin in getting rid of the Marxist students who helped push the revolution.

hagbard_c an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Iran is a democratic republic just like the 'democratic peoples republic' of North Korea is, i.e. not at all. It is remarkable how often entities which use the term 'democratic' do not live up to the concept it refers to

ThePowerOfFuet 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>Iran is not a dictatorship

lmao

wartywhoa23 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

wewxjfq 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Your upvotes are issued by sheep and wolf in sheep's clothing telling you to not censor propaganda from a country that's been waging war against you.

31337Logic 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, you're right. It's totally fair to compare how the EU treats its people to how Iran is treating its people right now. Good job. :-/

breppp 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

it's a very weird kind of propaganda I see a lot of lately.

Everything is the same and comparable never mind how hyperbolic. Doubt it? be showered with cherry picked micro facts that on the surface are similar.

This rests on the fact that in order to establish a big picture you have to take small facts and agree on the big picture, and that leap from small and verifiable to large and analytic is the place you can inject faith and emotion

Nursie 3 hours ago | parent [-]

This seems to happen a lot.

The UK is doing some shitty stuff and a man was arrested for wearing a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt a few weeks ago, “Palestine Action” being a proscribed group in the UK, and showing support being an offence. When the mistake was realised he was released after a few hours with an apology.

These things are objectively terrible, shouldn’t be happening. The UK government is under popular and legal pressure to un-proscribe the group as hundreds (thousands?) have been arrested and charged.

But it is not the same as someone being ‘disappeared’ in South American dictatorships, where they would be taken and denied process for years if not killed outright. Yet people here drew that comparison. He was arrested for inconvenient speech! It’s the same! And then I came under fire for defending the actions of the UK, having done nothing of the sort.

It’s really weird to watch.

roenxi 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The people complaining probably live in the UK or are related to it somehow. Then it would make sense that they are more worried about authoritarianism in the UK rather than in South America.

And even if the man was wearing a proper "Palestine Action" shirt that'd still be pretty concerning. It is an insane stretch to say that wearing a shirt represents a matter for police action. How far the world has moved on from when the UK could be considered a forward-thinking bastion of liberalism.

Nursie 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The people complaining were American AFAICT and weren’t worried by either, they were just drawing hyperbolic equivalences between suppression of speech and state orchestrated mass kidnapping and murder.

roenxi an hour ago | parent [-]

If we're talking about the Palestine Action shirt, Israel is defending against accusations [0] that they are genocidal. The police action of the UK seems like it could be pretty easily construed as suppression of speech in support of state orchestrated mass kidnapping and murder on a concerning scale.

Whatever is happening in SA might be as bad, I suppose, but I don't speak Spanish or have any family connection there so I'm not going to look it up. Although if they're genocidal then they should stop too, should that need to be said.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa's_genocide_case_a...

Nursie 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

The example given was of a man in a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt, with the poster saying how that man was “disappeared” by the British state when he was briefly arrested and released.

If you’re not aware of the history of people being disappeared by states such as Chile under Pinochet, or more broadly what it means for a state to disappear someone, that’s kinda on you.

Either way these are not equivalent actions.

Yes, it’s suppression of free speech in a chilling manner. I hate it. No, it’s not the same as suppressing that speech by taking someone and holding them in a secret prison for years and/or killing them.

ajsnigrutin 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I live in EU and I oppose internet cenorship, privacy invasion and many other bad things the governments have been doing for years now.

I can't do anything about iran, i don't live there, neither does anyone else commenting here it seems... but many of us do live in EU, and are bothered by EU doing the same thing as iran, even if it's on a smaller scale (for now). You can't support censorship at home and then act outraged when someone else just implements more of it... even though some do, as long as the censored things are the things they personally don't like.

To be fair, i'm more worried about UK, since it's a "test ground" to see how things work before the bad thing are implemented elsewhere, but either way, in my small country we have a saying, that "people should first sweep infront of their own doorways", and yeah, EU and our censorship is my doorway in this case.

TLDR: if we're bothered by internet censorship, we should first stop at 'at home'.

Flatterer3544 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If not for EU there would already be multiple states with privacy invasive systems seen in UK.. We are close of getting there and they keep on trying, but so far the blocking states are enough as majority.

Sure EU has some fkn horrible sides to it, such as the anonymous vote to get big stuff through when a majority should be enough as democracy depicts, but currently 2 states out of all EU states can block the big decisions...