[deleted]
Hey at least Lemmy is becoming popular enough for the authorities to block us.
[deleted]
Submitted 2 months ago by fxomt@lemm.ee to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
Comments
Sunshine@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Can’t have shit in Saudi, not even Lemmy 😤
dan@upvote.au 2 months ago
The good thing about Lemmy is that due to its distributed and federated nature, it can’t be fully blocked. You can just use a different instance and see all the same content (assuming no instance blocks between the instances).
poplargrove@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Couldnt you just copy the list of instances lemmy.world or a similarly large instance federates with (its in the footer), or grab a list of Lemmy instances from e.g fedidb.org to block?
I feel that would block most of the network, and doubt there would be much value left in joining whatever unconnected instances left.
Revan343@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
If I were in Saudi Arabia I’d be using a VPN anyways.
Also, if I were in Saudi Arabia, I’d be trying to leave Saudi Arabia
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Easier said than done. At least, for the second one.
Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
What are the obstacles in the way of leaving?
Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
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Also, if I were in Saudi Arabia, I’d be trying to leave Saudi Arabia
Probably not, as long as you are not openly queer, you wont see any reason to leave co sidering the ridiculous amounts of perks you get, its not a 3rd world country or a backwater nation, it is a rich monarchial regime.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Would those perks be extended to most people, or only to a certain subset of people (ie straight, male, religious)? Like, would a bisexual, atheist woman receive the same perks? I get the impression that a lot of people still wouldn’t feel accepted there.
I’m genuinely curious. Your comment prompted me to do a little research. I found that Saudi Arabia has been making strides toward women’s equality in the past few years. It’s doing a lot better than it had been even just six years ago! At the same time, this thread exists, so… I’m skeptical that Saudi Arabia would have enough benefits to outweigh the restrictions that someone like myself would have to live with.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Rich… But only to the royals/businessmen.
Most of us live normally if not a little worse off than the average westerners.
The only perk I have at all is healthcare. The west is basically better at everything other than that.
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answersplease77@lemmy.world 2 months ago
the government also thretens people who use vpn with jail and heavy fines
Bezier@suppo.fi 2 months ago
geoblocked
“Geoblocking” would mean that blahaj doesn’t want saudis on their instance
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Damn 😔
yeah that was my bad, sorry
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Is it weird this makes me proud to be a blahaj user?
Like when a transphobic government starts hating, you know you’re doing something right.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I guess MBS didn’t like 196 😔
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
zeppo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
he doesn’t want citizens of the Kingdom to see how few upvotes his memes were getting
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I bet he didn’t even post before leaving
mp3@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Use Tor if you can, and people outside of these countries can help by running Snowflake in their regular browser.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Love tor, it’s a lifesaver (literally :) ) and thank you for the tip!
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Installed Snowflake, thanks for the heads-up. Pretty simple way to try to be a little helpful.
gregor@gregtech.eu 2 months ago
Ooooh this is a pretty cool tool, I’ll set up the docker container on my homeland.
Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
You can also run a full Tor relay: community.torproject.org/relay/setup/guard/
There are tutorials on YouTube:
Sunshine@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
That’s a great recommendation, it’s always important to practice bypassing potential censorship as you do not always know what is being hidden from the public.
mlg@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Lol I’d tread a bit carefully.
KSA likes to chase people and have them “disappeared” for their opinions.
I know a guy they picked up for 3 months and when he finally showed up, his poor mouth was zippered shut.
And he was an international too.
I’d look around for a solid VPN solution anyway. Useful to have in any country.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
That’s what i’m afraid of, too. Doing such risky things in the middle of the den of snakes. There isn’t much they can do to a visitor, but they can do what they please to “threats” and dissidents.
Psythik@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Why would you ever visit that shithole of a country?
tal@lemmy.today 2 months ago
So now if i want to see a post by a user on blahaj, i have to turn on my VPN just to see it. Fuck this place. 🙄
One of the first conversations I was on when I joined was one between Ada, the lemmy.blahaj.zone admin, and some guy in a Middle Eastern country. Apparently his country had blocked lemmy.blahaj.zone at the national network level.
The Threadiverse is federated, so one could view posts from lemmy.blahaj.zone elsewhere, but not images, which did not propagate.
I thought that at some point, lemmy servers had started also storing images, but upon checking, it looks like they have not. I did run into one – no longer up – that had, according to the description, had apparently been modified to do this, probably to afford its users more privacy. In theory, if you could find one that did so, you could just rely on propagation through the network.
kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
If i remember correctly after the downfall of reddit and the mass migration to Lemmy happened a big issue was CSAM spreading across the Lemmy servers. Wouldn’t surprise me that that is the cause that images are no liner stored across servers.
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Some shitheads started to spam CSAM and it got cached on other instances too. db0 admin created a tool to check every upload via library of hashes of known dangerous images (not images themselves). Since then, most images are stored locally on instances and aren’t cached by others.
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
That’s not what my tool is doing
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
That’s good to know, thank you. Unfortunately alot of the communities i spend time in have a lot of blahaj users, so i don’t have context of the post sometimes. Better than nothing, though.
superkret@feddit.org 2 months ago
Pro tip: Don’t “click here”!
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
man that page is so fucking annoying, everything i try to open anything it’s just blocked. All sites critical of islam/saudi/sauds, and alcohol/porn/and anything that they hate. Even tor and vpns are blocked, i need to use a mirror to get them, which may not always be safe (atleast for the VPN, tor has trusted mirrors)
ngl i think of running a vpn on my router, literally just not to see that fucking page anymore (and security too, ofc :) )
superkret@feddit.org 2 months ago
Just as a heads-up: What you just wrote is an admission of a crime in SA. Everything you post on the fediverse is public. And you now know they’re aware of Lemmy.
I hope you are absolutely sure whatever you’re using to hide your identity is bomb-proof, and that you’ve never posted any identifying info under this account or any other one with the same username.possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Use Tor snowflakes. They are very resistant to censorship and many of us in the western world run the extension so that you can get access to accurate information.
lukewarm_ozone@lemmy.today 2 months ago
I’m not aware of how exactly blocking works there, but if it’s similar to China and Russia, consider subscribing to a VPN provider that supports stealth proxies (e.g. Shadowsocks or VLESS); that’s harder to block.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Well its Saudi Arabia after all. It isn’t exactly known for being all that high on the freedom index.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Yeah, but it’s a little weird how they’d go out of their way to ban such a small and obscure website. I didn’t even know the feds knew about lemmy. Besides, it’s been fine for a long time for me.
But this was bound to happen eventually, i guess :/
Jarix@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I didn’t even know the feds knew about lemmy.
Probably just an automated list of blocking then. At least I would assume theres block lists floating around at those levels
Harvey656@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Stay safe friend.
Without giving away potentially anything dangerous to yourself, in case they are watching. Any idea what place you intend on disappearing too?
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
texas will probably block us next.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Sorry to hear that, hopefully it will turn out all right for trans people in the US.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
I wish this was a joke but these days I wouldn’t put it past them. I don’t think it would hold up terribly well since the US doesn’t have any form of advanced censorship.
31337@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
With the current laws on the books, Texas could probably sue Lemmy instances because they contain pornographic content and they don’t verify users’ identity.
Sunshine@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
The book bans are currently practice before they start banning more resources such as Wikipedia.
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
My fuckers blocked catbox.moe, most western news sites and slowed down youtube traffic, but lemmy still flies under radar thankfully. I wish you still have your ways to choose what content you want to consume.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
That sounds worse, what country are you living in? Sorry to hear it. And thanks for the wishes :)
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
The Motherland, of course. I was born into her teenage phase of 90\00s and now I see her rapidly becoming one young and salty widow (:
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Tor with Snow flakes is probably what you want.
You could even use Tails to avoid leaving a trace.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They fucking geoblocked blahaj.zone.
I suppose THEY is Saudi Arabia.
How can you be surprised about that? Saudi Arabia is a Sharia law country. An absolute shit stain of a country in many more ways than this.
You can fucking get a death penalty for posting something against Sharia Law on any site. Actively using Lemmy could be enough to see you in jail.fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The last line was a joke. Anyways yes it is about Saudi Arabia, and I’m no stranger to how shitty they are. I’m surprised that such a niche forum could be targeted, websites about trans stuff get banned all the time.
I knew this happen eventually, I just didn’t know when.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m surprised that such a niche forum could be targeted,
If you can find it, authorities can too. Sounds like you are far from careful enough, considering where you are.
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Saudi Arabia is shit, but anyone who uses the term Sharia law is a dolt.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Saudi would take a hacksaw to them if they could
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
MBS’s wet dream every night.
Doorbook@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It is not realistic to think the saudi government cared that much about this. The way it works is someone send a request to block the site. If there are banned words including “sex” then it will be block. You can request for it to be unblock and say it’s a social media site. They have different rules. Remember reddit is not blocked.
FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Just click there and tell them it shouldn’t be blocked.
I am sure they’ll listen!
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
That shit’ll get me on a watchlist, trying to access a website for trans people 😂
FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I was joke but, maybe go find the worst bigot you know, and do it from their computer?
ech@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Do I misunderstand how federation works, or should a block like that not do anything unless your home instance is hosted in that particular country? The instances communicate with each other, not directly with the users. It’s similar to viewing blocked content through a VPN.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
You understand it correctly. The problem is i can’t see anything other than the text of their posts/comments. Posts with images, i wouldn’t be able to see the image.
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 2 months ago
Instances have a choice to enable a new Lemmy feature that will proxy all images through the local instance. Whilst your instance may not do that today it may do in the future. Or you could move to an instance that has this enabled. I don’t know how to list instances with it enabled but it should be obvious by the URL used by images when viewed from an instance.
ech@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Ah, right. Media is still hosted on its instance. Didn’t consider that. Bummer :/
Allero@lemmy.today 2 months ago
Yes, but images and other files are hosted on the instance itself, so any pictures embedded in posts will not be visible.
Mwa@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I didn’t know Saudi can block fediverse instances
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
A lot of websites are blocked here.
Porn (60,000 BLOCKED PORN SITES!), alcohol/drug stores, Gay sites (from blogs to forums, anything), anti islam websites like wikiislam, and just non-muslim religious shit in general. we have a lot of banned christian sites.
VPNs + tor is also banned too.
For some reason, israel.com + idf.il are also blocked. weird considering saudi-israel’s relationship.
Mwa@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Thats even worse then i Live(Which most of the stuff are blocked are Vpns,Porn sites and some lgbtq sites i am pretty sure btw am not in saudi am living in a country bordering it) Tor isnt blocked here
viking@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Proton works in China if you set the protocol to “stealth” in the setting, maybe that works for Saudi as well?
Ludrol@szmer.info 2 months ago
Rhoeri@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They must have thought that admin defending a troll was the last straw as well.
lurch@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Please don’t use so many swear words, as they might execute you.
earmuff@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
I blocked blahaj.zone voluntarily. Same as the tankie-zone.
hddsx@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Because trans content is against god. Or something like that.
What’s 196?
someguy3@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Change the title from “they” to “Saudi Arabia”.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Blocked. They fucking geoblocked blahaj.zone.
Geoblocked for whom?
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 2 months ago
You should still be able to see the blåhaj content on your Lemmy instance. If not it’s time to switch instances.
joyjoy@lemm.ee 2 months ago
feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Weird, so did I.
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gigachad@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It sucks, but it’s also one positive thing about the Fediverse - if Lemmy was a central platform, it would be completely gone for you now.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Yeah, thank god. I’m more baffled on why fucking saudi arabia would care about a tiny trans-ran instance on a niche software. must’ve been a slow day there, i guess.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You are very naive, and should probably be a lot more careful when in Saudi Arabia.
breakingcups@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m a way that’s a downside too, it’s now easier for shit regimes to block content they disagree with, without blocking the larger services. Less people will be disrupted by it, so less people will care. See: blocking Facebook,YouTube or WhatsApp vs. blocking a single activist site.
fxomt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Thank god for VPNs though.
moody@lemmings.world 2 months ago
Federated content gets around that though.