Russia Bans Roblox

(bbc.com)

43 points by disqard1 hour ago

7 comments

RomanPushkin5 minutes 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.
ch20261 hour 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.
- grishka1 hour 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.
 - Alex203752 minutes 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.
 - grishka42 minutes ago
 Of course I also have a VPN that I selectively route traffic through, in just these kinds of situations.
 - johncolanduoni42 minutes ago
 VPNs on cheap VPSes are blocked quite a lot too.
- Andrew_nenakhov1 hour 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.
 - grishka58 minutes ago
 > In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addressesI 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 ;)
 - throwaway2903 minutes 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.
 - throwaway2906 minutes 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. and new ISP equipment detects and ban VPNs quickly.
- itroot19 minutes 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_spring13 minutes ago
 > check ZeroHedge to get the opposite viewCan you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinion, it's mostly made-up nonsense. Even calling it pseudoscience would be generous.
 - GaryBluto8 minutes ago
 > Can you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinionPeople's worldviews define their opinions, no matter how bizarre or fantastical a worldview may be.
- SanjayMehta41 minutes ago
 Russia Today et al are banned in the EU.This is standard European censorship of Russian media and news.
booi44 minutes ago
I don’t get it. Roblox is an American company. Wouldn’t the pretty broad sanctions prevent them from operating there already?
- extesy28 minutes 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?
- johncolanduoni41 minutes ago
  Some stuff on Roblox is free, perhaps they were only enjoined from accepting payments?
excalibur40 minutes ago
The unsafe and extremist content is coming from INSIDE the Kremlin.
nvch1 hour ago
"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day"
compass_copium1 hour ago
good
- loeg22 minutes ago
  Yeah, Roblox sucks. They might be doing it for the wrong reasons, but it's a good outcome.
briantakita43 minutes 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.
- DecoPerson20 minutes 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?
 - speedgoose4 minutes ago
 Not banning a video game because it has some LGBT stuff in it, perhaps ?
 - garrettjoecox6 minutes 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.