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Russia Bans Roblox

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Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#51
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, if you wish fully non-censored media, you need to live in a third world nation! All the high-and-mighty, old Europe powers are busy censoring a lot of stuff.

This is news to me! Could you share an example of some censored media in the US that's available elsewhere?

My bad - I thought Tiktok (and other Bytedance apps) were banned in the US but apparently not since President Trump reversed the US Supreme Court decision. Huh, so it is mainly the European powers who are the culprits. Changed my claim.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#52
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, if you wish fully non-censored media, you need to live in a third world nation! All the high-and-mighty, old Europe powers are busy censoring a lot of stuff.

This is news to me! Could you share an example of some censored media in the US that's available elsewhere?

An example, not current, is that the US Government censored all access to wikileaks in 2010 - enforced for all Federal workers, military personal, etc.

You can certainly argue that this was ineffective censorship that could be evaded, but it was, in fact, censorship by the US Government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_State...

It's the same across the world, countries that routinely censor material still have their citizens evading censorship.

Also:

  Analysts from Reporters Without Borders ranked the United States 57th in the world out of 180 countries in their 2025 Press Freedom Index and they gave the country a "problematic" designation.

  Certain forms of speech, such as obscenity and defamation, are restricted in communications media by the government or by the industry on its own.
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_State...

~ https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2024

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#53
post #48
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses I already had this idea of tunneling traffic through the voice/video calls in the Max messenger app. No one has done it in practice, yet , but I see no reason why it should not be possible. Обход блокировок, который ловит даже на парковке ;)

That does not seem like a good idea at all. Even if you are “not doing something stupid” the fact that you would be circumventing their app to bypass censorship they may deem you treasonous and a possible risk. Who knows what they could arrest you for.

Law enforcement in Russia works differently than in the US, especially in politically charged fields. An exapmel: in the US, one man was charged of breaking construction codes because he was doing chemical experiments in the basement of his single-family house, in a block zoned accordingly.

I understand this is extreme, but a good illustration. He was doing something on his own, and was charged. Such enforcement is extremely unlikely in Russia even in todays situation. For instance, a recent law explicitly banned _searching_ for extremists materials, e.g. Navalny's party website (they're labelled as extremists ex-court by the Interior or the Justice ministry, I don't remember). But there's been just 1 court case since then. You can search whatever you want as long as you're not public about it. As soon as you get enough publicity, you do get on the radar.

Same kinds of examples: in the 1950's USSR some musicians were shadow-banned (there was no legal ban on them), and not published. A man made a lathe and carved disks with their music on used x-ray films. He was arrested when he got enough publicity and sold good deal of copies. He was charged not for copying them -- there was no ban on this -- but for illicit enterpreneurship, or speculation as it was called back then. Had he been doing this alone, he'd probably have not got under arrest.

I actually, think it's roughly the same as dealing with Torrent and trackers in the Western world nowadays.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#54
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Russia (currently in Moscow), and I can read your comment just fine without VPN. BBC won't open... which is fine, as I jump straight to comments as many do here :))) . Also do not miss twitter and facebook. Youtube is working (so far) with no ads. Also stuff like WaPo is perfectly acessible. Sometimes I skim through it (also mostly comments), then check ZeroHedge to get the opposite view. So a lot of info is…

> check ZeroHedge to get the opposite view Can you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinion, it's mostly made-up nonsense. Even calling it pseudoscience would be generous.

Yeah, I see it as a radical anti-establisment resource. I would not call it a complete nonsence though, for me it's a place where you can "get" thinking of folks who are opposing "the System". So there is some value.

I'm not political or activist of any kind. However sometimes it makes sense to get understanding how other people think, so sometimes I read comments here and there.

HN has its own bias as well. Usually the quality of discussion here is quite high though.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#55
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is news to me! Could you share an example of some censored media in the US that's available elsewhere?

My bad - I thought Tiktok (and other Bytedance apps) were banned in the US but apparently not since President Trump reversed the US Supreme Court decision. Huh, so it is mainly the European powers who are the culprits. Changed my claim.

All good, it can be a ...chore to keep track of what decisions and reversals the current administration is making.

To support your original claim - when I was in the military, we were explicitly forbidden to look at anything Snowden leaked as it was still classified and would be a violation of our clearances as we did not have either the appropriate level (e.g., TS-SCI) or need to know. Kind of understandable, but still.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia Today et al are banned in the EU. This is standard European censorship of Russian media and news.

I live in a country that is in the process of banning TikTok.

I live in a country which banned TikTok. Nothing of value was lost.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#57
post #39
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is officially banned (along with Sputnik and other Russian media). It is sad that you don't know this as an EU citizen and think that formal directives of your union are Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots "On 2 March 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a measure suspending the broadcasting activities of RT (and another Russian outlet Sputnik) in the EU" https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/p…

Yeah, I know about that. But it's not been implemented, so RT is in practice accessible. As are other Russian websites. I don't know what is sad about it, I'm just saying what is in real life, not what is on paper.

In real life, European hypocrisy is off the charts.

BBC got caught manipulating videos featuring Trump. 12000 people were detained in the UK for thought crimes. In one year. One little old lady was arrested for praying silently.

France went after Durov.

Russia media IS banned, hiding behind ISP incompetence doesn't count.

Come on. Wake up. We who have lived under actual socialist dictators can see what's happening.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seeing a corporation lose control over the Internet But the state controls the flow of information in a dictatorship. So to me this seems more a lose-lose scenario than a lose-win or win-win.

You're simplifying too much. So to you its the state VS who? The rich billionaires + us? The rich billionaires are the state. We're the ones with no real representation. The fundamental divide is workers vs capitalists, not simply people vs government.

A rich billionaire can still be affected by shareholders. If they stop providing shareholder value (due to mass boycotts or public scandals), they have to change.

If it's a Putin-style dictator who has spent a quarter century digging his claws into every facet of the country, there's literally nothing you can do that doesn't involve physical violence to change things.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#59
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know about that. But it's not been implemented, so RT is in practice accessible. As are other Russian websites. I don't know what is sad about it, I'm just saying what is in real life, not what is on paper.

In real life, European hypocrisy is off the charts. BBC got caught manipulating videos featuring Trump. 12000 people were detained in the UK for thought crimes. In one year. One little old lady was arrested for praying silently. France went after Durov. Russia media IS banned, hiding behind ISP incompetence doesn't count. Come on. Wake up. We who have lived under actual socialist dictators can see what's happening.

Yeah, the EU (and also the UK earlier) were always lecturing to the third world on human rights and tolerance and media freedom/integrity, blah-blah not so long ago. So many pompous speeches made. Now, it is eye-rolling to see them backtrack hard on everything they stood for.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#60
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The luxury of the West in 1 sentence. Have fun telling that to yourself when a random idiot that 30% of people voted for has power of life and death over you and your family.

As if you have a say other than "that guy" or "that other guy". The wealthy already fund politicians' careers, they fund judges, they fund campaigns. The wealthy already run the country. They fund both parties as a tactic. The parties are just "good cop/bad cop".

This is democracy, it doesn't mean it's perfect. It's just a tool to keep a lot of people in line. It's the HOW that matters, which is what life finally is about.

Being a crazy authoritarian guy with power of life and death over each of your citizens is one. No government at all is the other extreme, which finally leads always to another crazy guy.

In between there is an ocean.

...and putting everything in the same pot is mostly wrong, but lately it's cool to be anti-everything.

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