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Spain orders blocks on Archive.today and its mirrors

555 points · 436 comments · latein

  1. nottorp · · focus · HN ↗
    Apparently all of south western europe blocks half the internet in the name of football. Besides Spain there's also Italy, France, Portugal and surprisingly the UK somewhat.
    1. gabaix · · focus · HN ↗
      France has blocked Polymarket since the World Cup in June.

      This was requested by the state gaming license authority, which sanction the betting business in France. Most of the business benefits the “Federation française des jeux”, the state gaming company.

      Officially this was done out of concern for the safety of the French citizens.

      1. TheRoque · · focus · HN ↗
        I mean... Righfully so. All those new "gambling" websites (who aren't even regulated as such) are an insider trader's dream.
        1. judge2020 · · focus · HN ↗
          A lot of trust in the government to only ban websites which are actively unhealthy for citizens and not websites which are critical or unfavorable to said government.

          I do wonder, was Polymarket given a chance to prevent itself from being accessed/used from Spain? They seem to be a-okay with blocking usage from US states that have asked them to cease operation, so I don't see why they would try to actively defy countries that have (legally) asked them to not do business there?

          1. lemmetellya · · focus · HN ↗
            This isn't a slippery slope. They ban gambling. Polymarket is gambling. It gets banned.
            1. judge2020 · · focus · HN ↗
              It's a slippery slope giving the government the technical means to ban websites.
              1. TheRoque · · focus · HN ↗
                They just remove it from the ISP's DNS, changing your DNS server will bypass it. I don't really call that a ban personally, more like softly hiding
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