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Russia Bans Roblox

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61–70 of 175 posts

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#61
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Technically, the act of bypassing censorship by itself is still not even illegal. They did make it recently such that writing about VPNs is grounds for blocking wherever you've written about it.

https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2024-11-22_v_rossii_zapretili_...

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#62
post #4

Incidentally nobody in Russia can read that article because they already banned the BBC and 80 other EU media outlets. And Facebook. And Instagram. And Twitter. And Discord. This is standard Russian censorship of western media and news.

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

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Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> A rich billionaire can still be affected by shareholders.

A rich billioneaire is a shareholder.

> If they stop providing shareholder value [...] they have to change.

But we (the small people) don't care about the shareholder value. Shareholder value is often contrary to what we (the small people) value, so expect change for the worse.

> due to mass boycotts or public scandals

Sorry, what?

> has spent a quarter century digging his claws into every facet of the country

Well, capitalists (as a group) spent 100+ years doing the same, so ...

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody in Russia who is not a complete idiot already has a VPN that allows to circumvent censorship (for now). Source: I'm in Russia now. In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses, and that will indeed insure that nobody would be able to access banned resources.

"everybody who is not a complete idiot" not true. looks like you're in your tech bubble and you think everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot. using VPN for circumventing censorship is illegal in Russia. fine is worse if if you promote it. for people who can't afford to spend a few thousands it's enough. some people don't care about fines, but new ISP equipment detects and ban VPNs quickly so people always…

Of course, it is true. If you are not a complete idiot, you won't be content with being blocked from the information you seek, so you'd find someone technical to help you out. I personally give access to my vpn server to ~100 users for free, and so far the access is stable enough. I have little doubts that in the future it'll be more difficult, but we'll see about that when we get there.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#65
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"everybody who is not a complete idiot" not true. looks like you're in your tech bubble and you think everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot. using VPN for circumventing censorship is illegal in Russia. fine is worse if if you promote it. for people who can't afford to spend a few thousands it's enough. some people don't care about fines, but new ISP equipment detects and ban VPNs quickly so people always…

> everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot. Looking at your dictator's approval levels and the number of people willingly signing up to die while killing innocents, that sounds correct. You all need help breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

Lol, the dictator's approval rating is so high that he bans, forces to exile or kills any opposing candidate, never risking elections vs anyone not fully controlled by him.

Every time someone like Bukele flexes that his approval rating is higher than Putin's, I laugh -- the guy clearly doesn't understand that this isn't the flex he thinks it is.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#66
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.

It implemented on a DNS level. Easily circumvented by using a third party dns server (like Google or Cloudflare). Nonetheless this is political censorship plain and simple. EU crying about censorship in other countries is just pure hypocrisy.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#67
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.

It implemented on a DNS level. Easily circumvented by using a third party dns server (like Google or Cloudflare). Nonetheless this is political censorship plain and simple. EU crying about censorship in other countries is just pure hypocrisy.

Of course it's political, what else could it be? If Putin's regime is censoring western media, is it any less political? In other words, is there any censoring of news media (foreign or domestic) you would consider apolitical?

> EU crying about censorship in other countries is just pure hypocrisy.

I don't see any crying about censorship. It's a made up argument. Personally, I couldn't care less about censoring in Russia or any other country that I'm not living in.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"everybody who is not a complete idiot" not true. looks like you're in your tech bubble and you think everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot. using VPN for circumventing censorship is illegal in Russia. fine is worse if if you promote it. for people who can't afford to spend a few thousands it's enough. some people don't care about fines, but new ISP equipment detects and ban VPNs quickly so people always…

Of course, it is true. If you are not a complete idiot, you won't be content with being blocked from the information you seek, so you'd find someone technical to help you out. I personally give access to my vpn server to ~100 users for free, and so far the access is stable enough. I have little doubts that in the future it'll be more difficult, but we'll see about that when we get there.

Calling people "complete idiots" because they follow the law, because they don't have $$$ to spend on fines, because they are unlucky to be doing a job society actually needs like a teacher or cleaner or bus driver instead of vibe coding ai saas, will not help you convince people about the change you want to see

A normal person follows the law. It's bad when that law is forced by dictator but you should get off your high horse sometimes. If you think of regular public as complete idiots you should not be surprised when they vote for putin. Similar thing happened in america where democrats alienated as many people as possible by looking down on them like they're stupid

And why it is logically not true: an idiot is by definition a person with abnormality. If you are saying 90% of people are abnormal... idk what to tell you

> I personally give access to my vpn server to ~100 users for free, and so far the access is stable enough

yeah I often talk to a friend who does the same. depending on your region it won't be too stable for long.

> you won't be content with being blocked from the information you seek

You don't know what you don't know. If you don't know it is, you don't seek it. That's why censorship works

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#69
post #17
post #9

I don’t get it. Roblox is an American company. Wouldn’t the pretty broad sanctions prevent them from operating there already?

That depends on what you mean by "operating". This very website, Hacker News, is not blocked in Russia - does that mean Y Combinator is "operating" there?

If they get money from users in that particular country then yes.

Re: Russia Bans Roblox

#70
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.

I see you have an axe to grind with EU. That's fine, but I'll say that I also lived in socialism, so I do have experience and perspective of what it was like. And precisely because of that, these EU bans don't worry me at all. I know the difference as opposed to many who think they know the difference.
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