[HN Gopher] US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Eur...
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US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and
elsewhere
https://freedom.gov
Author : c420
Score : 90 points
Date : 2026-02-18 22:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| xvxvx wrote:
| 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.
| reisse wrote:
| When U.S. Govt sponsors Tor, which does expose exactly what
| your describe, the reaction is usually positive.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Or they could just make a donation to Tor and similar projects,
| and get way more mileage for their money.
| gzread wrote:
| The point is for them to track their users, which they can't do
| if their users are all using Tor.
| kyboren wrote:
| They do support Tor, actually[0]. Which makes this even more
| confusing.
|
| [0]: https://www.torproject.org/about/supporters/
| greyface- wrote:
| That funding was recently cut:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47070658
| sgnelson wrote:
| 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.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| These things have been going on forever. Since WWII and until
| right now, there has been radio stations broadcasting into
| enemy territory, to bypass censorship.
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| Ironically, this effectively is a pro-Trump comment because
| it's the Trump administration that defunded US propaganda
| outlets.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| No, the Trump administration is an enormous supporter of
| propaganda outlets, just not the ones that already existed.
| They don't care about maintaining the rules based world
| order. Their propaganda is much more inward-focused.
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| You're probably right, I was speaking as someone from
| outside the States, and hence more familiar with the
| outside-focused US outlets.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government
| in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
|
| Well you've got plenty of countries doing it, including France,
| Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Brasil, Australia,
| you name it. Not that it's good, but a criticism for the goose
| is a criticism for the gander, as a manner of speaking.
|
| As to which, why or why do we care so much about this? Idk,
| same reason our government funds tens of thousands of
| initiatives and cares about lots of different things that
| people find equally important or unimportant.
| mrighele wrote:
| Historically the US did care a lot, in a way it reminds me of
| the Crusade for Freedom [1] and Radio Free Europe [2].
|
| So I find this in line with the behavior of many American
| administration, the weird thing being that this time the target
| is not the just usual suspects (China, Iran, etc.) but also
| European allies.
|
| (not saying this is a good thing btw, just trying to put it in
| perspective)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_for_Freedom
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert...
| sequence7 wrote:
| Wow, it's actually real:
|
| https://freedom.gov/
| dang wrote:
| Thanks - we'll put that link in the toptext.
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| And the site even has a French translation.
| verdverm wrote:
| 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.
| apothegm wrote:
| What it is is a teaser for what will undoubtedly be a giant
| load of far-right propaganda.
| verdverm wrote:
| Turns out it's to "uncensor" content blocked in other
| countries, which we know will be a process free of bias /s
|
| They also gutted the prior org that helped people do this in
| other countries on the ground
| entropyneur wrote:
| Previous discussion: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-plans-
| online-portal-bypass-...
|
| Weird title, but worthy of discussion. From the little info
| available so far this appears to be little more than political
| posturing. If you want to fight censorship, an "online portal" to
| access all the censored content is the wrongest possible way to
| go about it. But we'll see.
| dang wrote:
| (This comment was posted to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47072613 but we merged the
| threads)
| astro1138 wrote:
| Is that going to accelerate copyright violations for AI training?
| https://cuiiliste.de/domains contains just a lot of piracy sites.
| general1465 wrote:
| It is like ultimate throwing stones in a glass house. Americans
| are dependent on other countries following IP and copyright
| protections and yet they will go great lengths to undermine it
| because it is short term beneficial for their companies.
| ortusdux wrote:
| The quest for quarterly returns will be our downfall.
| Hamuko wrote:
| The joke that I saw online was "Does it have Colbert on it?"
| cyberax wrote:
| Yes, but you'll have to spend equal time browsing Pravda^W
| Truth Social.
| derelicta wrote:
| Great! I sure hope it means Americans will stop censoring pro-
| Palestinian and pro-workers movements!
| walthamstow wrote:
| So it'll have porn?
| general1465 wrote:
| I wonder if American citizens from states which requires age
| verification to access porn (25 US states today) will be fine
| with it or these states will start demanding ID to access
| freedom.gov. It would be delicious irony.
| Animats wrote:
| Right. Porn will probably be most of the traffic. The number
| of people in Europe who really want to access US neo-Nazi
| sites is probably not large.
| graemep wrote:
| There is a lot more blocked than porn and neo-nazis. This
| will also allow access to sites that block access because
| of laws: Imgur is not accessible from the uk, nor are a lot
| of smaller US news sites. Ofcom are after 4 chan too.
| crest wrote:
| Government mandated uncensored free porn access. I wonder if
| this will this also apply in US states requiring age
| verification to legally access such content?
| kojacklives wrote:
| They will probably (first) have to bounce off freedom.ccTLD
| for any ccTLD but .us.
| freitasm wrote:
| "Portal team includes former DOGE member Coristine"
|
| "...user activity on the site will not be tracked."
|
| Ok, stopped reading right there.
| reisse wrote:
| Fun hypothetical question - will it be restricted to users in
| sanctioned locations (where it's most needed) because of, well,
| sanctions?
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| Amusingly, there typically are various exceptions made for
| those. All technical and whatnot, but for example, Iran is
| heavily sanctioned, but has all sorts of exceptions for stuff
| like that precisely because of the impact it can have.
| pjc50 wrote:
| But will they put the complete Epstein files on there?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Won't those other nations just ban freedom.gov?
| crest wrote:
| They wouldn't dare ban a .gov domain and we will hide all of
| behind Cloudflare! /s
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| How long until Europe says, "fuck your copyright claims then?"
| crest wrote:
| Just tell everyone who wants to downloads warez to use the US
| .gov VPN and refuse to resolve the IP addresses when they
| complain.
| Nnnes wrote:
| Cool, maybe I'll be able to access www.census.gov from outside
| the US now
| crest wrote:
| At least the starting page is reachable from Germany without a
| VPN.
| schoen wrote:
| I just chaired a session at the FOCI conference earlier today,
| where people were talking about Internet censorship circumvention
| technologies and how to prevent governments from blocking them.
| I'd like to remind everyone that the U.S. government has been one
| the largest funders of that research for decades. Some of it is
| under USAGM (formerly BBG, the parent of RFE/RL)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Globa...
|
| and some of it has been under the State Department, partly
| pursuant to the global Internet freedom program introduced by
| Hillary Clinton in 2010 when she was Secretary of State.
|
| I'm sure the political and diplomatic valence is very different
| here, but the concept of "the U.S. government paying to stop
| foreign governments from censoring the Internet" is a
| longstanding one.
| reactordev wrote:
| It goes deeper than that. The U.S. Government funds it,
| discourages other nations from using it, and spies on all web
| traffic as a result of it.
|
| Almost 80% of communications go through a data center in
| Northern VA. Within a quick drive to Langley, Quantico, DC, and
| other places that house three letter agencies I'm not
| authorized to disclose.
| recursive wrote:
| Speed of light establishes certain latency minima.
| Experimental data can falsify (or not) at geographical
| locations far enough from VA.
| reactordev wrote:
| Correct but local governments using Palantir will need to
| provide it to them somehow.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's a clear way to project soft power: make sure your message
| and culture can get through.
| learingsci wrote:
| This is exactly right. TikTok is a great example. Rather than
| let the CCP take control over people and remove freedom from
| the internet, we have taken over and opened the platform up to
| free expression without communist strictures or interference.
| The are numerous examples, from Apple to Microsoft.
| motbus3 wrote:
| Can you be more specific?
| mossTechnician wrote:
| _Shortly after the American version of TikTok was established
| in January of 2026, users began reporting that certain
| content was creating error messages, including using words
| like "Epstein" in direct messages, which news outlet CNBC was
| able to replicate and confirm, with the error message
| reading: "This message may be in violation of our Community
| Guidelines, and has not been sent to protect our community."
| Other users reported similar messages for content critical of
| U.S. President Donald Trump or other topics._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_TikTok
| tills13 wrote:
| A state sponsored vpn is probably not (only) gonna do what you
| think it's doing.
| ReflectedImage wrote:
| So going forward all countries will be providing citizens of
| other countries free access to the internet whilst censoring
| their own citizens?
| 13415 wrote:
| The irony is big in this one.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| 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.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| If something looks like MITM, chances are it is MITM.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| What's MITM?
| trelane wrote:
| Man In The Middle. They're saying that the US is intercepting
| the traffic.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Until you have to validate your id/age to continue...
|
| Seriously though... we have one segment undermining foreign
| lockdowns while the same and other segments are literally doing
| the same here.
| mlh496 wrote:
| Sad that western Europe is pushing so hard for limits to free
| speech & privacy. I'm not surprised given their history, but it's
| sad nonetheless.
| CupricTea wrote:
| I was in Paris the other week and my girlfriend was having issues
| connecting to reddit from a Google search. Mine was working fine.
| She was using a local SIM while I roamed on my US carrier that
| gives me an American IP address.
|
| That's how I learned that Reddit is currently blocked nationwide
| in France. Say what you want about the porn restrictions some
| states are doing but blocking reddit and crippling most google
| searches is a bit ridiculous.
|
| EDIT: Yes it was blocked. It even included a message about it
| being blocked by "your provider". She wasn't on WiFi and IIRC she
| was using Saily for her SIM.
|
| I theorize it might have to do with user age verification of some
| kind that maybe others here did, but it was definitely blocked
| for us during our visit.
|
| And it worked again once we crossed the border to Belgium,
| Netherlands, Germany, and it worked when we were in Germany
| before France. Only France was an issue.
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| France of all countries is the least I expected, but I guess
| their stance on libertine sex has nothing to do with porn
| tristor wrote:
| French courts /love/ to do blocking orders. Of all the
| Western European nations, they have the most expansive use of
| DNS blocking, and other technical orders from courts.
| Sometimes related to the mundane things you might imagine
| like counter-terrorism, anti-piracy, and obscenity, but
| sometimes for absolutely bonkers reasons nobody agrees with.
|
| Knowing what I know about French blocking orders, I wouldn't
| be surprised if all of Reddit got blocked because of an order
| related to a single comment, instead of some larger reason
| that might make sense in the meta.
| Keats wrote:
| It isn't blocked? I'm in France and I can see it just fine.
| Mesmoria wrote:
| I couldn't find any news items or announcement about France
| blocking access to reddit. Any links to this?
| rkomorn wrote:
| Reddit is currently blocked nationwide in France? I can't seem
| to easily find corroborating info.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| I'm in France, I browse reddit daily. Don't know what the two
| of you were smoking while in Paris but it must have been very
| strong.
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| After the Trump checks and the Trump jabs ....the Trump porn?
|
| I'd rather not...
| csrse wrote:
| Fantastic! Now EU just needs to setup freedomgov.eu that bounces
| off freedom.gov so americans also can browse whatever with no
| restrictions.
| Aloisius wrote:
| What restrictions do Americans have now that would make that
| useful?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Do they plan to allow residents of various US states to access
| sites that are now required to have documented ID evidence?
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(page generated 2026-02-19 23:01 UTC)