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It's worth considering that the Spanish football league has successfully lobbied to implement widespread Cloudflare IP blocks during matches that affect website

It's worth considering that the Spanish football league has successfully lobbied to implement widespread Cloudflare IP blocks during matches that affect websites totally unrelated to football (or to any kind of piracy). I don't watch football at all, but when there are matches I often find my normal work or home browsing activity disrupted by the blocks and have to turn on the VPN. Considering this, I strongly believe that the ethical way to watch football in Spain is piracy. People who watch it legally are funding a mafia-like organization that harms society.

cryptonym 11d ago
There is no ethical way to watch football. It's always funding a (or multiple) mafia-like organization. Authorities tried to work with that provider but it required a process that doesn't scale to live events. They do not want to preemptively disallow abuses on their platform. If you leverage their shared IPs to expose your service, your traffic cannot be distinguished from abuses by traffic filtering solutions. I think they provide BYOIP, if you think your service is important enough to justify not being mixed with non-legit things. Or you can rework your architecture, this provider is not the full web. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it and would vote against IP-filtering if I was asked that specific question. I don't consider it tyrannical. Criteria for blocking IPs is clear and limited, even if blocking IPs is dumb. VPN are allowed.
- trumpdong 10d ago
  Oh no! They won't implement censorship without a court decision? How tragic!
  - cryptonym 10d ago
    Blocking illegal football streaming is not censorship.
    - trumpdong 10d ago
      Of course it's censorship. It's the government blocking certain content from the internet, without a trial. How do you define censorship?
      - cryptonym 10d ago
        By this logic removing CSAM also is censorship. This definition of censorship is valid but it doesn't convey much moral value. Removing some content, even without a trial, can be a good thing.

cryptonym 11d ago

There is no ethical way to watch football. It's always funding a (or multiple) mafia-like organization. Authorities tried to work with that provider but it required a process that doesn't scale to live events. They do not want to preemptively disallow abuses on their platform. If you leverage their shared IPs to expose your service, your traffic cannot be distinguished from abuses by traffic filtering solutions. I think they provide BYOIP, if you think your service is important enough to justify not being mixed with non-legit things. Or you can rework your architecture, this provider is not the full web. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it and would vote against IP-filtering if I was asked that specific question. I don't consider it tyrannical. Criteria for blocking IPs is clear and limited, even if blocking IPs is dumb. VPN are allowed.

trumpdong 10d ago
Oh no! They won't implement censorship without a court decision? How tragic!
- cryptonym 10d ago
  Blocking illegal football streaming is not censorship.
  - trumpdong 10d ago
    Of course it's censorship. It's the government blocking certain content from the internet, without a trial. How do you define censorship?
    - cryptonym 10d ago
      By this logic removing CSAM also is censorship. This definition of censorship is valid but it doesn't convey much moral value. Removing some content, even without a trial, can be a good thing.