[whatis991]

If X/Twitter was to be banned in the EU, and some of its citizens still wanted to access X/Twitter, let us say for the sake of getting alternative points of view on politics and news, would it be a good or a bad thing if accessing X/Twitter by IP was stopped?

As in, a citizen of an EU country types x.com/CNN, because he or she wants to know the other side of some political issue between the EU and the USA, and he or she feels that the news in the EU might be biased or have misunderstood something. Would it be good or bad if the user was met with a "This website is by law not available within the EU"?

[yxhuvud]

Generally speaking I wouldn't support blocking their IP, but rather I'd block the ability of European companies to pay for ads on X unless they fixed their shit and paid any damages. That might of course lead X to block Europe visitors in turn but that is a different discussion.

Or in other words: I would block the do business-part, not the access part.

[pjc50]

Like anything involving hundreds of millions of users, there's going to be good or bad effects. However I have been on the internet long enough to have concluded that the idea that local law has _no effect at all_ on websites is not good. Ultimately if they don't comply they would probably have to be blocked.

CNN is a very silly example though, because .. you can just go to the CNN website separately. The one that is blocked is Russia Today and various other enemy propaganda channels.

[muyuu]

there's a push to end with VPNs in the UK and in the EU because it's clear that this is a very plausible endgame

currently VPNs are too easy to use for the leadership of autocracies like the EU or the UK to be comfortable with them, so at the very least they will require for backdoors to see which citizens are watching what, and have them visited by fellows in hi-vis jackets

[GJim]

> there's a push to end with VPNs in the UK and in the EU

No there isn't.

Governments discussing such things doesn't _remotely_ mean there is a political will for them, or that they will be voted into law.

Governments are expected to research and discuss paths of legislation (and in this case, come to the conclusion banning VPNs is both harmful and ridiculous). This is how our democracies work!

Reporting government discussions as approved legislation is, at best ignorant, at worst trolling.

[datsci_est_2015]

I’m reminded of Lord Haw-Haw, an English-speaking Nazi propagandist during WW2 that garnered quite a bit of attention for his radio broadcasts.

There’s an interesting tidbit that he gained quite a few listeners when he started releasing casualty information that the British government withheld to try to keep wartime-morale high.

Lord Haw-Haw then tried to leverage that audience into a force of Nazi sympathy and a general mood of defeatism.

Anyway, fun anecdote. Enemy propaganda during wartime (or increased tensions) is harmless until it isn’t.

[whatis991]

I would have thought that the Great Firewall of China would be a more obvious thing to be reminded of. Especially since there is no world war currently, yet, at least, and communication might help stop one.

Also, Godwin's law, strangely.