No surprise, it's Cloudflare:

    $ host freedom.gov
    freedom.gov has address 172.67.219.106
    $ whois 172.67.219.106
    NetRange:       172.64.0.0 - 172.71.255.255
    CIDR:           172.64.0.0/13
    NetName:        CLOUDFLARENET

A lot of Cloudflare is netblocked during soccer games in Spain, this has been a thing for years now.

This is not a dedicated block against freedom.gov, it's just the ordinary collateral damage from the fight against sports piracy. Sigh.

The truly fun fact here rather is that the US government seems to be unable to host a website on its own these days but needs Cloudflare's protection. It's either a grift, a hack job / MVP demo or every last competent person in IT there has departed or been DOGE'd off. Ridiculous.

▲ Symbiote 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This Reddit post [1] says the block 188.114.96.0/23 is blocked.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1ravua8/psa_if_...

▲ SilverElfin 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Wait that’s a thing? It sounds outright crazy to block people from going about their business and using the Internet to protect one particular industry. Especially sports, which is low priority to me and I am sure to many people.

▲

iamnothere 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, it has caused major issues all across Spain, including interference with emergency services, but apparently the owner of the league has deep political connections or something. It’s also likely that the political class sees this as laying the groundwork for future censorship efforts, given their track record.

▲

potatototoo99 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Cloudflare could refuse to host illegal material or make it available in Spain. If they cannot or will not, this was the best solution the courts arrived at. Other Cloudflare clients could also decide to host elsewhere for Spanish traffic if they cared.

	▲	Symbiote 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I assume court orders against Cloudflare have been tried. How come they are not effective? Edit: according to this article, Cloudflare have not been ordered to block the sites. Very odd. https://cybernews.com/news/cloudflare-spain-laliga-piracy-bl...

▲

mschuster91 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, for years now [1].

Sports is worth billions of dollars - La Liga makes 6.1 billion € from domestic rights alone [2]. UK's Premier League made 7.1 billion € during the Covid years [3].

[1] https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/la-liga-w...

[2] https://www.laliga.com/en-GB/news/laliga-secures-over-euro61...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/mar/06/premier-lea...