Is it racist? I think it is.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
I do not think we are "entitled" to access all sites by default - if someone do not want it's site to be accessible from Europe, I'm find with it.
In the same vein, I don't think any human should be "entitled" to use someones race or proxy for race, like nationality, as a determining factor for anything. The idea that people who live in, or are willing to travel to, certain regions should be excluded goes down the path of... you can do anything you want. Where does that stop? Why is it okay to discriminate against someone for being "from" or "in" a place, but not being "of" a place? WHat's the difference? Hard lines is all.
This is the very argument used by extreme racists to justify racists actions. It's a standard pattern. I know why it feels okay. But I think when you really look and say "oh wait, there is no honest, ethical reason to ever do this" it starts to make sense. In the INternet, where your IP is means nothing. Imagine if this was an in person shop and that you have a European passport means you are turned away and not allowed to shop. Or more specifically a Croatian one. Oh, you are a Croat? You can't shop here. You say "But I'm not a Croat, I just moved there and live there". Oh, well, too bad, we don't serve people who associate with Croats either.
Does that not feel racist? Is it legal? Yes, in the US. Is it okay? Never. Why do we excuse it on the Internet when it would disgust us in person?
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@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Mario-Jakovina said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
On the other hand, I do not find it "discriminatory" either.
It's literally a mechanism to discriminate by the perceived ownership of an IP address by a group of people. It's as discriminatory as it gets.
No it is not.
It's literally a mechanism to block access from certain IP adresses.Is it discriminatory or not? It depend on the motives of those who set up geoblocking on that site.
Without knowing the motives, you cannot prove is it discriminatory or not.
I do not find it discriminatory - You are free to feel it is discriminatory.
Neither of us have a proof. -
@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
Or,
"This website is blocking every country in the world except the U.S., and their phone support also said it's due to the owners of the service having a huge prejudice against all non-U.S. countries."
So you are okay with saying it is racism, as long as we couch the verbage so to make it feel more palatable to sensitive people who are racist, and we say that they are racist, but we avoid the word to not hurt their feelings?
When do we care about hurting the feelings of people being racist? That seems crazy.
No, because not all prejudice is racism. And what you've been explaining in your experience isn't racism.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
Or more specifically a Croatian one. Oh, you are a Croat? You can't shop here. You say "But I'm not a Croat, I just moved there and live there". Oh, well, too bad, we don't serve people who associate with Croats either.
Does that not feel racist?
No. Croatian is not a race. "Croatian" refers to the people of Croatia or their descendants, and it primarily denotes a nationality or an ethnic identity. Race is a broader concept that typically refers to groups of people with common physical attributes and genetic traits, although the definition and significance of race vary across cultures and is widely debated. Croatians, like other nationalities, can be of various races. It's important to differentiate between ethnicity, nationality, and race.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
There's never a technical reason. We've been discussing this for years. It's common IT knowledge that there is no technical reason to geo-IP block as it doesn't do what the name implies.
It is almost always a technical reason, if ever a racially motivated one. Technical as in one or more of the reasons (not an exclusive list either) I listed in my first post.
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
There's never a technical reason. We've been discussing this for years. It's common IT knowledge that there is no technical reason to geo-IP block as it doesn't do what the name implies.
It is almost always a technical reason, if ever a racially motivated one. Technical as in one or more of the reasons (not an exclusive list either) I listed in my first post.
That's obviously false as there IS no technical reason to do so. Never once have I ever heard any plausible technical reason ever suggested. But tons of "just bad business" and sometimes illegal issues with blocking. Your list of potential reasons contained zero actual viable options. None of those were true or would meet the requirements. Saying "it's almost always technical" when no known technical reason even exists, is quite the stretch. Especially when, when confronted, zero examples of "it's technical" and always "we don't want to do business with 'those people'" have been given in real life.
What is your basis for this statement? How could it possible be plausible? Your first post IS the perfect example. You couldn't come up with a single real world possible reason. We pointed out that none of those apply to any actual scenario that anyone could think of.
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Awesome example happening right now.
For no good reason, this is geo-blocked. And in the worst way, without stating the issue but presenting the site as being offline. Works from some places in Montana. Works from some places in California. Blocked in Nicaragua or Bolivia where we casually tested.
Now before someone makes an insane excuse that there is no reason for those places to use that site, keep in mind that the Montana companies IT team members are in those locations being asked to deal with an issue that involves that site not working. And keep in mind that people from Montana are, presumably, allowed to travel. So any suggestion that there is never a need to see a state government site outside of that state, or the US, is ridiculous and hopefully no one would ever suggest such a thing. Obviously government resources are some of the most important things to be available to US citizens and US businesses when using IPs that aren't listed as being in the US.
So what is the actual problem? In blocking "other countries", that state accidentally blocked some ISPs in Montana, too. We know this because we have sites in Montana with dual ISPs. And on one ISP it just works, on another, it is blocked. Both are Montana IPs. But people on the one ISP don't get told that the resources is blocked, they don't get told what to do, they are simply shown that the resources is offline. That's a huge problem as normal people wouldn't even know to work around a broken geo IP block. Especially when they are in the same state.
The risks to geo IP blocking are big. The benefits.. are simply lies. There are none.
This is a great example where the technical reasons often listed for why you might want to geo-IP block can easily be shown to actually be reasons why you can't.
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Something that I just had to say to someone in Montana dealing with this problem...
They assumed no one was reporting the issue, since the state hadn't fixed it. But in reality, normal reports of the site being down wouldn't inform them of much. ANd when the hosting people check and the site is up, likely they'd ignore the reports.
The problem with things like geo-IT blocking is that anyone that would use that as a tool thinking it had some value, would naturally have little chance of being able to understand when or why it wouldn't work. If they had the ability to troubleshoot it, they've have the knowledge that would have told them it was never okay to use in the first place.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
There's never a technical reason. We've been discussing this for years. It's common IT knowledge that there is no technical reason to geo-IP block as it doesn't do what the name implies.
It is almost always a technical reason, if ever a racially motivated one. Technical as in one or more of the reasons (not an exclusive list either) I listed in my first post.
That's obviously false as there IS no technical reason to do so. Never once have I ever heard any plausible technical reason ever suggested. But tons of "just bad business" and sometimes illegal issues with blocking. Your list of potential reasons contained zero actual viable options. None of those were true or would meet the requirements. Saying "it's almost always technical" when no known technical reason even exists, is quite the stretch. Especially when, when confronted, zero examples of "it's technical" and always "we don't want to do business with 'those people'" have been given in real life.
What is your basis for this statement? How could it possible be plausible? Your first post IS the perfect example. You couldn't come up with a single real world possible reason. We pointed out that none of those apply to any actual scenario that anyone could think of.
Here's a list of technical reasons geo-blocking occurs (whether or not they are 100% effective is a totally different topic all-together):
Legal and regulatory compliance
Export controls
Licensing restrictions
Infrastructure/performance concerns
Economic considerations
Fraud/security concerns
Content sensitivities and appropriateness
Strategic business decisions
Taxation and financial regulations
Local partnerships or agreements
Network abuse prevention
Language and support concerns
Cultural differences and norms
Age verification requirements
Avoiding local controversies
Release windows (especially for media content)
Marketing and promotional strategies
Data protection and privacy regulations
Price discrimination
Local competition concerns
Digital rights management
Bandwidth and server cost optimization
Preventing arbitrage opportunities
Warranty and return policies specific to regions
Avoiding potential local liabilities
Addressing local customs and traditions
Time-sensitive offers or launches
Political or governmental restrictions -
@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
Awesome example happening right now.
For no good reason, this is geo-blocked. And in the worst way, without stating the issue but presenting the site as being offline. Works from some places in Montana. Works from some places in California. Blocked in Nicaragua or Bolivia where we casually tested.
Now before someone makes an insane excuse that there is no reason for those places to use that site, keep in mind that the Montana companies IT team members are in those locations being asked to deal with an issue that involves that site not working. And keep in mind that people from Montana are, presumably, allowed to travel. So any suggestion that there is never a need to see a state government site outside of that state, or the US, is ridiculous and hopefully no one would ever suggest such a thing. Obviously government resources are some of the most important things to be available to US citizens and US businesses when using IPs that aren't listed as being in the US.
So what is the actual problem? In blocking "other countries", that state accidentally blocked some ISPs in Montana, too. We know this because we have sites in Montana with dual ISPs. And on one ISP it just works, on another, it is blocked. Both are Montana IPs. But people on the one ISP don't get told that the resources is blocked, they don't get told what to do, they are simply shown that the resources is offline. That's a huge problem as normal people wouldn't even know to work around a broken geo IP block. Especially when they are in the same state.
The risks to geo IP blocking are big. The benefits.. are simply lies. There are none.
This is a great example where the technical reasons often listed for why you might want to geo-IP block can easily be shown to actually be reasons why you can't.
Yes this is a separate topic and point. It also ties in to why they are geo-blocking in the first place. Doubtfully racial intent. It's more likely technical in intent. That said, I do not know those people. For all I know, they are full on racists. But I just can't assume that without knowing. It's more likely they are geo-blocking due to technical reasons I listed here: https://mangolassi.it/post/554400
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Yet another...
I can't access my State of Utah Retirment: https://www.urs.org/
