alt Hacker NewsUS plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere
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Excellent. I look forward to other service providers responding by cutting traffic from the US.
If the goal is to balkanize the internet, this administration has hit upon an excellent step.
Can it be used to help people in the Bible Belt watch porn?
I would have loved to be in the meeting where they were wondering how to replace the highly costly and complex influence tool that was USAID, and then someone said:
- Why don't we just make a website?
- Yes let's just do that.
The irony is big in this one.
But will they put the complete Epstein files on there?
This is also going to debut in Saudi Arabia, right?
...Right?
This reminds me of "Radio Free Europe" and "Radio Liberty", which were basically bankrolled (and likely largely influenced) by the CIA. They wanted to distribute all kinds of programming into USSR that was banned there, same with Solzhenitsyn's books etc. Eventually the USSR fell apart.
Now they are treating Europe like they treated USSR. Musk and other big influencers on X have already been calling for the breakup of the EU, after the EU fined X $100M. I bet that was at least some of the reason behind this.
The irony is that the Trump admin has been deporting non-citizens for speech, his FCC has been intimidating media like ABC and CBS into firing people or canceling programs and interviews, his DOJ has been telling social networks to fork over the identities of citizens who criticized ICE online, and his CBP will begin demanding that tourists hand over 5 years of their social media history, as well as their biometrics, family's information and whatever else.
This is the administration who would lecture Europe about freedom of speech? Didn't they just get through 10 years of telling European countries to be "nationalist" and resist the influence of their own federal government in Brussels -- but I guess we can just ignore their laws and broadcast anything into their countries, tempting them to set up a "great firewall" like China.
Well, if freedom of speech means violating other countries' laws, in this case can European governments just start streaming copyrighted movies for free to US viewers, and piss off the RIAA / MPAA? Or maybe they can do what Cory Doctorow has been proposing: https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2026-01-29...
It's like when USA ignores European trademarks (actually even stronger, PDOs) like Champagne or Parmesan but expects Europeans to honor US trademarks.
Fantastic! Now EU just needs to setup freedomgov.eu that bounces off freedom.gov so americans also can browse whatever with no restrictions.
hold up, you're telling me the US gov't who censored the hunter biden laptop and Ashley Biden diary are going to make sure citizens of other countries get unfiltered news?
What even is this? It looks to technically be Next JS with a single canvas element. But what does in protend...?
visuals with the only text on screen being...
---
"Freedom is Coming"
Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.
After the Trump checks and the Trump jabs ....the Trump porn?
I'd rather not...
How long until Europe says, "fuck your copyright claims then?"
The same gov't who censored and lied about the 1)Hunter Biden laptop story and 2) Ashley Biden diary (with inappropriate showers between Joe Biden and Ashley) is going to give people the world "unfiltered news"?
Am I reading that correctly?
Another dumb idea by our braindead administration.
The site will just be blocklisted by countries who don’t want you to use it. Duh.
You’d have to have some horrendous security instincts to use a government-hosted VPN.
Remember January 2025 when we were pitched the idea that the Trump administration was going to make the federal government efficient and cut frivolous programs?
Let me know when the budget deficit starts to decrease!
I guess it will allow to access information unless it is about abortion or it is negative about DJT.
It is really a joke to pretend that current US cares about freedom of internet access, given all the attacks on free press it things like voice of America radio in the states.
I assume US will also provide a portal to Russian citizen if it is so eager to allow people to bypassing content bans (/s).
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The world will be exposed to hardcore pornography, child endangerment, AI CSAM, and militant algorithms by force, if needed!
Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine (2018) directly claims the internet is “the most effective weapon the government has ever built,” tracing its roots to Pentagon counterinsurgency projects like ARPA’s efforts in Vietnam-era surveillance.
The book argues surveillance was “woven into the fabric” from the start, linking early ARPANET development to intelligence goals, and extends to modern tech giants like Google as part of a military-digital complex.
Great! I sure hope it means Americans will stop censoring pro-Palestinian and pro-workers movements!
Sorry, but whatever you think about the laws that lead to these blockages, how else are european governments supposed to take that than a direct attack on their executive powers by a foreign government?
This being besides the fact that the folks crying wolf over "censorship" regularly conflate flat-out lies with valuable and protected speech.
Edit: I mean, I love tor as much as the next person, but imagine the reaction you'd get if an EU state (say, Germany) was to launch an official page with the express goal of allowing access to information censored by the Chinese government, targeting it directly to chinese citizens.
Could you make a moral case for this? Probably.
But would you be surprised or offended if the Chinese government took any measures they saw fit to strong-arm Germany into shutting that site right back down? Probably not. And the crowd here would probably go "bruh what did you expect?"
... Now waiting for examples of exactly that having happened already. :D
Why? Seriously, why do we care so much about this?
Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
"Portal team includes former DOGE member Coristine"
"...user activity on the site will not be tracked."
Ok, stopped reading right there.