8 ms·

Russia Bans Roblox

69 points by disqard 11mo ago

compass_copium 11mo ago
good
- loeg 11mo ago
  Yeah, Roblox sucks. They might be doing it for the wrong reasons, but it's a good outcome.
nvch 11mo ago
"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day"
ch2026 11mo ago
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.
- Andrew_nenakhov 11mo ago
  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.
  - grishka 11mo ago
    > 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 ;)
    - throwaway290 11mo ago
      great idea. use the app tied to your passport and gosuslugi to make sure they know who is the genius when they detect it. edit: didn't know they allow anything except belarus, cool... as long as you can anonymously register that number
      - grishka 11mo ago
        I don't think they would care as long as you don't do something stupid that would show up on their dashboards. But if you're paranoid, you can use phone numbers from, for example, Armenia or Kazakhstan. There are 8 countries besides Russia whose numbers they allow.
    - 14 11mo ago
      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.
      - culebron21 11mo ago
        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.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway290 11mo ago
    "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 need to keep trying new servers. so people get used to not using VPN more and more because it's annoying and unstable.
    - coryrc 11mo ago
      > 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.
      - throwaway290 11mo ago
        you are offtopic, but I will entertain your comment because I'm so confused/amused by what you say and what means "idiot" in your world. - are you saying people forced to sign up for the war by force or rapists who do it to get out of jail in Russia are idiots? - are you saying being pro putin/pro war is like being an idiot in Russia? - are you saying russians in tech are saints and all like one are "not idiots" against the war? maybe you need a reminder about unit 26165 and APT28 - are you saying "everyone in russia/china/israel/iran/north korea/republican party is an idiot"? then allow me to congratulate you on such nuanced understanding of the world, enough said!
        coryrc 11mo ago
        I'm saying the vast majority of people who support Putin are idiots, just like the vast majority of people who support Trump are idiots, and the religious rural fundies of Iran are mostly idiots. There's a lot of idiots out there and they don't like to think. It causes them pain to think hard. So they like people who tell them simple lies. Others are immoral or evil smart people. Unless you're working to undermine your dictator, that might be you.
  - woctordho 11mo ago
    There are plenty of ways to circumvent whitelists, such as domain fronting. Some are already battle-tested in China and we'd be happy to share them with the rest of the world.
  - Lapsa 11mo ago
    I would argue use of VPN is idiotic
    - Lapsa 11mo ago
      for (likely corrupt) down voters - one argument would be that it's basically a subscription to browser fingerprinting. vpn providers even openly state when such doings will begin
- grishka 11mo ago
  Yes, we have to use censorship circumvention tools to make the internet usable. Especially when it's mobile data. About a year ago I got fed up enough that I bought an OpenWRT router and installed Zapret on it. Now, at least while at home, I can mostly forget that internet censorship is a thing.
  - Alex2037 11mo ago
    Zapret isn't good enough, because a lot of random websites geoblock RU via Cloudflare. you'd be better off with a VPN running on a cheap VPS.
    - johncolanduoni 11mo ago
      VPNs on cheap VPSes are blocked quite a lot too.
    - grishka 11mo ago
      Of course I also have a VPN that I selectively route traffic through, in just these kinds of situations.
- SanjayMehta 11mo ago
  Russia Today et al are banned in the EU. This is standard European censorship of Russian media and news.
  - jan_g 11mo ago
    It's not banned. I am within EU and can normally access RT website. I can also access yandex, etc. Without VPN or proxies. SO, how is this "standard European censorship"? Don't believe Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots.
    - lenkite 11mo ago
      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/press-releases/2022/03/02/eu-imposes-sanctions-on-state-owned-outlets-rtrussia-today-and-sputnik-s-broadcasting-in-the-eu/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022... "Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine: Council bans broadcasting activities in the European Union of four more Russia-associated media outlets" https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/17/russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-council-bans-broadcasting-activities-in-the-european-union-of-four-more-russia-associated-media-outlets/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024...
      - jan_g 11mo ago
        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.
        SanjayMehta 11mo ago
        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.
- itroot 11mo ago
  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 acessible. Quite a few of resources are blocked on the other side though. I surely can use VPN but prefer not to unless that required for more intellectual activity then reading news.
  - seattle_spring 11mo ago
    > 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.
    - GaryBluto 11mo ago
      > Can you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinion People's worldviews define their opinions, no matter how bizarre or fantastical a worldview may be.
    - itroot 11mo ago
      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.
      - r721 11mo ago
        FYI: ZeroHedge is a project of two pro-Kremlin Bulgarians, a father and son: https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-trojan-horse https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-tr...
- lenkite 11mo ago
  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.
  - boston_clone 11mo ago
    This is news to me! Could you share an example of some censored media in the US that's available elsewhere?
    - lenkite 11mo ago
      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.
      - boston_clone 11mo ago
        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.
        buggeryorkshire 11mo ago
        I was working at a place in the UK where I only had BPSS but everybody else in the office had top clearance as they worked on military stuff, this was when The Guardian were doing the Snowden stuff. It was easily the best way of clearing the office for some peace - mention the front page of the newspaper and everybody would lock their laptops, pick up their papers and walk. From what I can gather the fact you know something you shouldn't, even though it's in the national news, it causes problems when renewing your clearances, so...
      - 11mo ago
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
booi 11mo ago
I don’t get it. Roblox is an American company. Wouldn’t the pretty broad sanctions prevent them from operating there already?
- johncolanduoni 11mo ago
  Some stuff on Roblox is free, perhaps they were only enjoined from accepting payments?
- extesy 11mo ago
  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?
  - thenthenthen 11mo ago
    Fun fact, Hacker News is blocked in China
    - AndrewKemendo 11mo ago
      I’m curious how you know this? Did you try to get to this site from mainland and it was blocked? Seems to work fine from a Chinese VPN IP
      - thenthenthen 11mo ago
        I am in China and it does not load. What vpn are you using? Its prolly hosted in HK or TW.
  - mog_dev 11mo ago
    If they get money from users in that particular country then yes.
    - extesy 11mo ago
      Not necessarily. Roblox does not directly receive money from users - nobody sends them a paper check or bank wire from Russia. Technically they get money from payment providers, who are supposedly compliant with all sanctions. I'm pretty sure that any provider that can support Roblox scale is big enough to worry about risks of being non-compliant.
briantakita 11mo ago
Roblox has been banned in China since 2021. Perhaps it's something to do with nationalist governments not liking global corporate circumvention of their culture/power.
- DecoPerson 11mo ago
  Or maybe Roblox is causing harm to children and nationalist governments are the fastest to both recognise and respond to the issue. We can speculate all day, but we should try to analyse these sorts of things from a learning perspective. What can we learn from Russia, China, etc? How are they better?
  - garrettjoecox 11mo ago
    They don’t need to hide behind a "think of the children" excuse to justify invading people’s privacy and rights. They already do that freely. But to be fair, they do actually think about the kids some times. Limiting screen time, banning certain games, and restricting social media are based policies for developing brains IMO. In 20 years we'll look at a lot of things that are normalized today like we look at cigarettes now, in disbelief at how unhealthy it was.
  - speedgoose 11mo ago
    Not banning a video game because it has some LGBT stuff in it, perhaps ?
  - briantakita 11mo ago
    I think you will mostly get "the west is the best" over here. And "look at those evil authoritarians over there"....Enjoy your "freedom" to participate in the culture wars digital serf...while the standard of living, personal autonomy, wealth, & health may be on the decline...of yours & your loved ones. At least we have many of each other to blame...while a few profit. Well, the last couple sentences is me paraphrasing. But one thing that many in the West boast about is the ability to criticize the systems to improve said systems. Let's see if actions match the rhetoric.
- cosmicgadget 11mo ago
excalibur 11mo ago
The unsafe and extremist content is coming from INSIDE the Kremlin.
RomanPushkin 11mo ago
It's both good and bad. On one hand, it's sad that there's no access. On the other hand, it increases the diversity of tools and services worldwide. Google, for example, is well known for buying startups just to kill them. In Russia and China, they have their own search engines, social networks, eBay/Amazon alternatives, and so on. These companies have produced great free software like LLMs, databases, development tools, etc. Seeing a corporation lose control over the Internet is usually good news for us, the small people - even if that change is coming from the government.
- shevy-java 11mo ago
  > 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.
  - Atlas667 11mo ago
    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.
    - theshrike79 11mo ago
      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.
      - M95D 11mo ago
        > 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 ...
shevy-java 11mo ago
Censorship in a dictatorship. Now if only democracies wouldn't censor anything either ...
- DocTomoe 11mo ago
  See, there is no such thing as a 'democracy'. There's only autocratic systems that pretend better, and those who pretend worse.
  - mk89 11mo ago
    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.
    - Atlas667 11mo ago
      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".
      - mk89 11mo ago
        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.
        s1mplicissimus 11mo ago
        > 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 no, the other extreme of "crazy authoritarian" is "liberal democracy" The other extreme of "no government at all" is "everything is run by the government"
eqwqweqw 10mo ago
[dead]
Jotalea 10mo ago
they did the right thing (banning a dangerous platform such as Roblox) for the wrong reason (censorship).

Russia Bans Roblox

69 points by disqard 11mo ago

compass_copium 11mo ago

good

loeg 11mo ago
Yeah, Roblox sucks. They might be doing it for the wrong reasons, but it's a good outcome.

nvch 11mo ago

"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day"

ch2026 11mo ago

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.

Andrew_nenakhov 11mo ago
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.
- grishka 11mo ago
  > 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 ;)
  - throwaway290 11mo ago
    great idea. use the app tied to your passport and gosuslugi to make sure they know who is the genius when they detect it. edit: didn't know they allow anything except belarus, cool... as long as you can anonymously register that number
    - grishka 11mo ago
      I don't think they would care as long as you don't do something stupid that would show up on their dashboards. But if you're paranoid, you can use phone numbers from, for example, Armenia or Kazakhstan. There are 8 countries besides Russia whose numbers they allow.
  - 14 11mo ago
    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.
    - culebron21 11mo ago
      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.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway290 11mo ago
  "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 need to keep trying new servers. so people get used to not using VPN more and more because it's annoying and unstable.
  - coryrc 11mo ago
    > 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.
    - throwaway290 11mo ago
      you are offtopic, but I will entertain your comment because I'm so confused/amused by what you say and what means "idiot" in your world. - are you saying people forced to sign up for the war by force or rapists who do it to get out of jail in Russia are idiots? - are you saying being pro putin/pro war is like being an idiot in Russia? - are you saying russians in tech are saints and all like one are "not idiots" against the war? maybe you need a reminder about unit 26165 and APT28 - are you saying "everyone in russia/china/israel/iran/north korea/republican party is an idiot"? then allow me to congratulate you on such nuanced understanding of the world, enough said!
      - coryrc 11mo ago
        I'm saying the vast majority of people who support Putin are idiots, just like the vast majority of people who support Trump are idiots, and the religious rural fundies of Iran are mostly idiots. There's a lot of idiots out there and they don't like to think. It causes them pain to think hard. So they like people who tell them simple lies. Others are immoral or evil smart people. Unless you're working to undermine your dictator, that might be you.
- woctordho 11mo ago
  There are plenty of ways to circumvent whitelists, such as domain fronting. Some are already battle-tested in China and we'd be happy to share them with the rest of the world.
- Lapsa 11mo ago
  I would argue use of VPN is idiotic
  - Lapsa 11mo ago
    for (likely corrupt) down voters - one argument would be that it's basically a subscription to browser fingerprinting. vpn providers even openly state when such doings will begin
grishka 11mo ago
Yes, we have to use censorship circumvention tools to make the internet usable. Especially when it's mobile data. About a year ago I got fed up enough that I bought an OpenWRT router and installed Zapret on it. Now, at least while at home, I can mostly forget that internet censorship is a thing.
- Alex2037 11mo ago
  Zapret isn't good enough, because a lot of random websites geoblock RU via Cloudflare. you'd be better off with a VPN running on a cheap VPS.
  - johncolanduoni 11mo ago
    VPNs on cheap VPSes are blocked quite a lot too.
  - grishka 11mo ago
    Of course I also have a VPN that I selectively route traffic through, in just these kinds of situations.
SanjayMehta 11mo ago
Russia Today et al are banned in the EU. This is standard European censorship of Russian media and news.
- jan_g 11mo ago
  It's not banned. I am within EU and can normally access RT website. I can also access yandex, etc. Without VPN or proxies. SO, how is this "standard European censorship"? Don't believe Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots.
  - lenkite 11mo ago
    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/press-releases/2022/03/02/eu-imposes-sanctions-on-state-owned-outlets-rtrussia-today-and-sputnik-s-broadcasting-in-the-eu/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022... "Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine: Council bans broadcasting activities in the European Union of four more Russia-associated media outlets" https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/17/russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-council-bans-broadcasting-activities-in-the-european-union-of-four-more-russia-associated-media-outlets/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024...
    - jan_g 11mo ago
      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.
      - SanjayMehta 11mo ago
        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.
itroot 11mo ago
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 acessible. Quite a few of resources are blocked on the other side though. I surely can use VPN but prefer not to unless that required for more intellectual activity then reading news.
- seattle_spring 11mo ago
  > 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.
  - GaryBluto 11mo ago
    > Can you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinion People's worldviews define their opinions, no matter how bizarre or fantastical a worldview may be.
  - itroot 11mo ago
    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.
    - r721 11mo ago
      FYI: ZeroHedge is a project of two pro-Kremlin Bulgarians, a father and son: https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-trojan-horse https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-tr...
lenkite 11mo ago
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.
- boston_clone 11mo ago
  This is news to me! Could you share an example of some censored media in the US that's available elsewhere?
  - lenkite 11mo ago
    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.
    - boston_clone 11mo ago
      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.
      - buggeryorkshire 11mo ago
        I was working at a place in the UK where I only had BPSS but everybody else in the office had top clearance as they worked on military stuff, this was when The Guardian were doing the Snowden stuff. It was easily the best way of clearing the office for some peace - mention the front page of the newspaper and everybody would lock their laptops, pick up their papers and walk. From what I can gather the fact you know something you shouldn't, even though it's in the national news, it causes problems when renewing your clearances, so...
    - 11mo ago
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

booi 11mo ago

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

johncolanduoni 11mo ago
Some stuff on Roblox is free, perhaps they were only enjoined from accepting payments?
extesy 11mo ago
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?
- thenthenthen 11mo ago
  Fun fact, Hacker News is blocked in China
  - AndrewKemendo 11mo ago
    I’m curious how you know this? Did you try to get to this site from mainland and it was blocked? Seems to work fine from a Chinese VPN IP
    - thenthenthen 11mo ago
      I am in China and it does not load. What vpn are you using? Its prolly hosted in HK or TW.
- mog_dev 11mo ago
  If they get money from users in that particular country then yes.
  - extesy 11mo ago
    Not necessarily. Roblox does not directly receive money from users - nobody sends them a paper check or bank wire from Russia. Technically they get money from payment providers, who are supposedly compliant with all sanctions. I'm pretty sure that any provider that can support Roblox scale is big enough to worry about risks of being non-compliant.

briantakita 11mo ago

Roblox has been banned in China since 2021. Perhaps it's something to do with nationalist governments not liking global corporate circumvention of their culture/power.

DecoPerson 11mo ago
Or maybe Roblox is causing harm to children and nationalist governments are the fastest to both recognise and respond to the issue. We can speculate all day, but we should try to analyse these sorts of things from a learning perspective. What can we learn from Russia, China, etc? How are they better?
- garrettjoecox 11mo ago
  They don’t need to hide behind a "think of the children" excuse to justify invading people’s privacy and rights. They already do that freely. But to be fair, they do actually think about the kids some times. Limiting screen time, banning certain games, and restricting social media are based policies for developing brains IMO. In 20 years we'll look at a lot of things that are normalized today like we look at cigarettes now, in disbelief at how unhealthy it was.
- speedgoose 11mo ago
  Not banning a video game because it has some LGBT stuff in it, perhaps ?
- briantakita 11mo ago
  I think you will mostly get "the west is the best" over here. And "look at those evil authoritarians over there"....Enjoy your "freedom" to participate in the culture wars digital serf...while the standard of living, personal autonomy, wealth, & health may be on the decline...of yours & your loved ones. At least we have many of each other to blame...while a few profit. Well, the last couple sentences is me paraphrasing. But one thing that many in the West boast about is the ability to criticize the systems to improve said systems. Let's see if actions match the rhetoric.
cosmicgadget 11mo ago

excalibur 11mo ago

The unsafe and extremist content is coming from INSIDE the Kremlin.

RomanPushkin 11mo ago

It's both good and bad. On one hand, it's sad that there's no access. On the other hand, it increases the diversity of tools and services worldwide. Google, for example, is well known for buying startups just to kill them. In Russia and China, they have their own search engines, social networks, eBay/Amazon alternatives, and so on. These companies have produced great free software like LLMs, databases, development tools, etc. Seeing a corporation lose control over the Internet is usually good news for us, the small people - even if that change is coming from the government.

shevy-java 11mo ago
> 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.
- Atlas667 11mo ago
  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.
  - theshrike79 11mo ago
    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.
    - M95D 11mo ago
      > 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 ...

shevy-java 11mo ago

Censorship in a dictatorship. Now if only democracies wouldn't censor anything either ...

DocTomoe 11mo ago
See, there is no such thing as a 'democracy'. There's only autocratic systems that pretend better, and those who pretend worse.
- mk89 11mo ago
  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.
  - Atlas667 11mo ago
    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".
    - mk89 11mo ago
      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.
      - s1mplicissimus 11mo ago
        > 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 no, the other extreme of "crazy authoritarian" is "liberal democracy" The other extreme of "no government at all" is "everything is run by the government"

eqwqweqw 10mo ago

[dead]

Jotalea 10mo ago

they did the right thing (banning a dangerous platform such as Roblox) for the wrong reason (censorship).