this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025

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Mildly Infuriating

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606

Saudi Arabia blocked blahaj.zone (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

240 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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 😔

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[–] [email protected] 164 points 5 days ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 89 points 5 days ago (15 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 101 points 5 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 55 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I'm more suprised at the fact that they blocked such a small website, but i guess they really leave nothing left behind. I gotta be more careful on lemmy if that's the case.

And i know KSA is shitty, i really do, but i can't do shit about it. I'm not suprised they'd block a trans instance, just such a small one.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 days ago (1 children)

its what happens when horrible people have money to burn

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Only a small percentage of saudi arabia live luxuriously, guess who's most of them? (Hint: they're a royal family) meanwhile, i've seen homeless people, starved to the bone (literally), without a single piece of clothing, sitting in the sweltering heat.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Proton works in China if you set the protocol to "stealth" in the setting, maybe that works for Saudi as well?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Proton works in China if you set the protocol to “stealth” in the setting

With or without alternative routing?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Without.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wait so the "great firewall" doesn't block Proton VPN IP addresses? That's interesting.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

They don't blacklist IP addresses generally, though some are certainly blocked. But normally they run deep packet inspections and block traffic that is identified as VPN traffic based on certain header data. That's what makes the firewall "great" in the first place; many other countries simply block a range of IP addresses, and all it takes is for the VPN provider to switch the IP in their data warehouse. That's trivial and takes seconds, and many providers rotate their IPs on a regular basis to prevent blocks in the first place.

Because of the deep packet inspection, OpenVPN and wireguard as protocols are entirely useless in China whatsoever, for example. Stealth mode AFAIK is using a modified wireguard protocol that obfuscates certain headers and thereby avoids detection (for now).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It works without stealth here, too. It's a little slow, tho. granted, i am using the free version.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Ah ok, I've got the paid version. If you happen to be or know a student, they offer a 50% discount through studentbeans.com, only $2.50 a month.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Good advice, thank you :)

[–] [email protected] 63 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Hey at least Lemmy is becoming popular enough for the authorities to block us.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago

Can't have shit in Saudi, not even Lemmy 😤

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 days ago (15 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago (12 children)

Easier said than done. At least, for the second one.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Pro tip: Don't "click here"!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (4 children)

man that page is so fucking annoying, everything i try to open anything it's just blocked. All sites critical of islam/saudi/sauds, and alcohol/porn/and anything that they hate. Even tor and vpns are blocked, i need to use a mirror to get them, which may not always be safe (atleast for the VPN, tor has trusted mirrors)

ngl i think of running a vpn on my router, literally just not to see that fucking page anymore (and security too, ofc :) )

[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

Just as a heads-up: What you just wrote is an admission of a crime in SA. Everything you post on the fediverse is public. And you now know they're aware of Lemmy.
I hope you are absolutely sure whatever you're using to hide your identity is bomb-proof, and that you've never posted any identifying info under this account or any other one with the same username.

Edit: I found enough info about you in 10 minutes to dox you if I had access to SA government resources (birthday, -year, and -country, area in SA you currently live in, and very niche knowledge which at your age is likely what you're currently studying at a SA university). Be more careful, Tor doesn't do shit if you dox yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Use Tor snowflakes. They are very resistant to censorship and many of us in the western world run the extension so that you can get access to accurate information.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

It is not realistic to think the saudi government cared that much about this. The way it works is someone send a request to block the site. If there are banned words including “sex” then it will be block. You can request for it to be unblock and say it’s a social media site. They have different rules. Remember reddit is not blocked.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 days ago (8 children)

Is it weird this makes me proud to be a blahaj user?

Like when a transphobic government starts hating, you know you’re doing something right.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

geoblocked

"Geoblocking" would mean that it's blahaj who don't want saudis on their instance

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 days ago

Damn 😔

yeah that was my bad, sorry

[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 days ago (8 children)

Lol I'd tread a bit carefully.

KSA likes to chase people and have them "disappeared" for their opinions.

I know a guy they picked up for 3 months and when he finally showed up, his poor mouth was zippered shut.

And he was an international too.

I'd look around for a solid VPN solution anyway. Useful to have in any country.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (7 children)

Use Tor if you can, and people outside of these restrictive countries can help by running Snowflake in their regular browser.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

They must have thought that admin defending a troll was the last straw as well.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (9 children)

So now if i want to see a post by a user on blahaj, i have to turn on my VPN just to see it. Fuck this place. 🙄

One of the first conversations I was on when I joined was one between Ada, the lemmy.blahaj.zone admin, and some guy in a Middle Eastern country. Apparently his country had blocked lemmy.blahaj.zone at the national network level.

The Threadiverse is federated, so one could view posts from lemmy.blahaj.zone elsewhere, but not images, which did not propagate.

I thought that at some point, lemmy servers had started also storing images posted on other lemmy servers, but upon checking, it looks like they have not. I did run into one -- no longer up -- that had, according to the description, had apparently been modified to do this, probably to afford its users more privacy and not expose their IP addresses other than to their home instance. In theory, if you could find one that did so, you could make that your home instance and just rely on propagation of images through the network.

EDIT: It sounds from this year-old post like a lemmy instance can at least be configured to cache remote images:

https://futurology.today/post/6440

I suppose it'd be possible to go look and find out exactly what the current situation is.

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