A couple of days ago i noticed something off with blahaj.zone. I couldn’t see images posted by users on blahaj, so i thought it was a problem on their side.

Well guess fucking what? After 3 days, it was STILL broken, so i opened it and…

Blocked. They fucking blocked blahaj.zone. Actually beyond parody🤦‍♂️ Why? What was the point? there’s trans content literally everywhere on lemmy. what’s next, block them all? So now if i want to see a post by a user on blahaj, i have to turn on my VPN (protonvpn.com is also blocked in saudi, jfc) just to see it. Fuck this place. 🙄

I swear a couple of days ago it worked. This is a mild annoyance (hence the community) but still.

It’s so over guys, MBS said no more 196 😔

  • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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    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's on dbzer0@lemm.eeOP
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          2 months ago

          Getting citizenship is hard, (even asylum is turned down often). You need a stable job in that country, and above average skills to prove your worth. If not, you’ll be deported back.

          You also need to stay in that country for [upto] 10 years.

          And you have to leave everything behind, your culture, your family, and your friends. It would be too dangerous to go back. And they might not even accept you, immigration is brutal.

          Even after you become a citizen, many people will never truly accept you as your own, and see you as an immigrant, never as a citizen.

          And Saudi Arabia is well known to harass, spy on, and even kill dissidents. There was a scandal with twitter, where the Sauds bought up large amounts of stocks, then ordered 3,000 Saudi dissident’s private info. Even in other countries you aren’t safe.

          And money. You need money. A shit ton of it.

    • Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago
      • 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.

  • gigachad@sh.itjust.works
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    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's on dbzer0@lemm.eeOP
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      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.

        • fxomt's on dbzer0@lemm.eeOP
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          2 months ago

          That’s the thing, I thought Lemmy was too niche to be known about by the gov. I was wrong. I should cool it on the anti saud, pro republic stuff, this can get me in serious trouble.

          • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            Ye, this shit is no joke if you’re actually inside the Kingdom! Exercise tight OpSec please!

            • fxomt's on dbzer0@lemm.eeOP
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              2 months ago

              I ought to. Do you know any general tips, or places for me to ask about making my social media presence as secure as possible?

              • Jrockwar@feddit.uk
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                2 months ago

                Do a search on yourself - try to find out your real identity based on information online, and do it as thoroughly as if you were searching for your worst enemy.

                If you can find who you are yourself, chances are they will.

                Make sure you don’t have anything “hairy” tied to an email with an email address you’d use for anything uncompromising. E.g. keep the email you use to login on Lemmy and the email you use to login on netflix separate.

                Use 2 factor authentication and a password manager. Treat your password leaks seriously and consider any leaked accounts burnt - assume the details you had in there are now known.

                Avoid using your real name on anything you can.

                Best wishes. Take care my friend!

                • AFallingAnvil@lemmy.ca
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                  2 months ago

                  Additional advice from a cybersecurity professional that’s good for you and anyone else reading: under no circumstances should you use SMS 2FA if there’s another option.

                  Yes, having another app sucks (google/Microsoft have pretty universal apps if they’re supported) but it’s trivially easy for an even slightly well funded and motivated attacker to redirect your texts/phone calls so it’s well worth the pain.

                  Hope this helps!

                • irelephant 🍭@lemm.ee
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                  2 months ago

                  I was trying to tell my friend why having a picture of himself, and his real name on his instagram account was a bad idea (like using insta in general), if you google his name his account is the first result. The only thing with my real name on it is a github and email. I’m lucky, my name is common and there is a athlete with the same name, which took all the seo

              • superkret@feddit.org
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                2 months ago

                Not posting on Lemmy about how you disagree with their censorship of a Lemmy instance might be a good first step.

      • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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        2 months ago

        youre kidding right. one of the most oppressive shitty, religion-based garbage of a country that subjugates 50% of its population and you wonder why its acting shitty?

  • Bezier@suppo.fi
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    2 months ago

    geoblocked

    “Geoblocking” would mean that it’s blahaj who don’t want saudis on their instance

    • dan@upvote.au
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      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 instancea that don’t block the other instances).

      • Poplar?@lemmy.world
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        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 the 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.

        • dan@upvote.au
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          2 months ago

          Sure, but anyone can just spin up a new instance that federates with the large instances. For example, my instance is literally just me using it.

          Also, if that were to happen, Lemmy could be modified to restrict it so that only admins could see that list.

  • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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    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.

      • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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        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 (:

        • fxomt's on dbzer0@lemm.eeOP
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          2 months ago

          Oh dear, hearing anything about russia almost makes me proud to a saudi :).

          Through our suffering, we are brothers 😂