bitcointalk banned in the Philippines

[stompix]

I don't expect they actually research or know rule of this forum. What i mean is amount of scam and shady stuff that promoted or spammed here, because of that rule.

The forum is full of contradictory rules
- Theymos bans mixers because the forum has been labeled as a starting point for them, despite mixers not being illegal
- Theymos explicitly says that scams are not moderated, despite, well, them obviously being illegal

But yeah, let's get comfy with one stupid rule, let's not do anything about something obvious because...much freedom, such wow repercussions!

[hilariousandco]

Weird, I'm from the Philippines and I can still access it. So I was surprised to see your post kabayan. Nevertheless, if this is true then obviously this is the biggest mistakes that our country has done.

And I thought that we are friendly or pro-crypto as we have existing laws with regards to blockchain or even making Bitcoin as national reserved.

Perhaps it's an ISP block. Oh well, this is a good day for VPNs I guess.

I don't expect they actually research or know rule of this forum. What i mean is amount of scam and shady stuff that promoted or spammed here, because of that rule.

The forum is full of contradictory rules
- Theymos bans mixers because the forum has been labeled as a starting point for them, despite mixers not being illegal
- Theymos explicitly says that scams are not moderated, despite, well, them obviously being illegal

I think theymos was acting on legal advice and just being on the side of caution regarding banning mixers. Whilst people may or may not be for mixers it's a no-brainer that the US government along with many others will not be and could only be a matter of time before they're used to go after the forum or potentially even shut it down.

[Lucius]

~snip~
I think theymos was acting on legal advice and just being on the side of caution regarding banning mixers. Whilst people may or may not be for mixers it's a no-brainer that the US government along with many others will not be and could only be a matter of time before they're used to go after the forum or potentially even shut it down.

Especially considering that the forum and the admin are US based, making them extremely vulnerable. Yet the forum still somehow promotes mixers with lists that are apparently completely legal even in user signatures.

[tbct_mt2]

Especially considering that the forum and the admin are US based, making them extremely vulnerable. Yet the forum still somehow promotes mixers with lists that are apparently completely legal even in user signatures.

The forum is US-based as shown in the privacy page.
https://bitcointalk.org/privacy.php

Bitcointalk.org is in US jurisdiction, and is subject to US subpoenas, wiretap orders, preservation orders (which would negate the above retention rules), and similar. Furthermore, our service providers could also be subject to similar orders without our knowledge. Note that we consider PMs to require a warrant in order to be released.

In history of the forum, theymos received a subpoena from the US government related to Silk Road case.
Bitcoin Forum Bitcointalk.org Receives and Answers First Subpoena from DOJ.

https://bitcointalk.org/docs/ulbricht.pdf

I won't post my response because it contains deleted posts which should remain private if at all possible. Probably my response will end up as part of public record, but I'm not going to speed up the process or make it easier for people to find. I already PMed the users affected by this.

Maybe this is the first time Theymos experienced a formal subpoena, but I have trouble believing that this is the first time he experienced a law enforcement inquiry.

This is the first government request/inquiry I've received related to Ulbricht's case. I have received a few other inquiries for other cases.

[PrivacyG]

The forum is full of contradictory rules
- Theymos bans mixers because the forum has been labeled as a starting point for them, despite mixers not being illegal
- Theymos explicitly says that scams are not moderated, despite, well, them obviously being illegal

But yeah, let's get comfy with one stupid rule, let's not do anything about something obvious because...much freedom, such wow repercussions!

Whether he takes any action or not, he still risks a lot.  I am often very confused on the subject myself.  Continuing to allow Mixers may put Bitcoin Talk and theymos under significant risk but banning them is against the second rule you mention.  And see, this ban is also a precedent.  Because if theymos banned Mixers then I get that he does not have to crack down on every single thing that may look like a scam but it would have seemed logical to at least use the ban hammer on the 1xbit crew promoting a scam all around Bitcoin Talk.

As hilariousandco says however.  This may be a 'legal trouble versus no legal trouble' thing where the Mixers promotion could trigger a three letter agency anger on theymos and Bitcoin Talk while the 1xbit promotion does not.  Because the truth is.  It is often that we can only preach Freedom and all as much as.. three letter agencies like.

-----

LOL I am not surprised their automated checks are really baaaaaad!

Few months ago, tumblr.com was also falsely flagged as unlicensed gambling website, and was banned. But restriction was lifted, I think because loads of people were posting about it on social media. Good ol' public exposure.

Well.  This looks like someone translated some Gambling related keywords and used the Find function of Notepad to find which fits out of a large list of websites.  There is no way you can think of Tumblr as a 'Gambling website' other wise.

If it was an automated thing, it is just as dumb.

[GeorgeJohn]

I think it’s high time scam start getting moderated in this forum I believe it will reduce a lot of scam activities happening on this forum.
Scam not being moderated by the forum will never sound well for any government.

   
The most scam activities that's happening in the forum comes from casinos, i think new rules should be made for casinos, before operating in the forum, and secondly those casinos that doesn't have licence to operate should be filter's out of the forum...With the policy of none licenced casinos should operate on forum, it will help to moderate scam in the forum, especially the casinos scams..

[Peanutswar]

I guess this could be because of the filtering of the ISP we knew recently here in the Philippines, where there is a lot of banning of exchange and other crypto-related stuff, and I guess because of this, and based on the other members in the local board of the Pilipinas into this topic, they are still accessible. Apparently, right now, I can still access the forum smoothly. Have you tried to change your DNS?

[bhadz]

I guess this could be because of the filtering of the ISP we knew recently here in the Philippines

My ISP hasn't banned the forum but for specific other ISPs, they always act like this and quick to comply to whatever is being told them to do. What is happening in our country lately is that the government instructs the ISPs to block international exchanges(Binance, okx, etc.) so that we'd stick to the local exchanges. I wonder who made this instruction and why the forum involves in it. I don't even think that there's so much local volume that happens if there are members who does P2P in our local.

[NotATether]

They are trying everything to gather tax that’s why they are blocking all sites that possibly involved on gambling to force user to play only to registered casino. The main goal is to collect tax to fund their corruption once again.

Yep, that's exactly it.

And that's why we use Bitcoin. Opt out of the system. 

[SuperBitMan]

I think it’s high time scam start getting moderated in this forum I believe it will reduce a lot of scam activities happening on this forum.
Scam not being moderated by the forum will never sound well for any government.

 
The most scam activities that's happening in the forum comes from casinos, i think new rules should be made for casinos, before operating in the forum, and secondly those casinos that doesn't have licence to operate should be filter's out of the forum...With the policy of none licenced casinos should operate on forum, it will help to moderate scam in the forum, especially the casinos scams..

Yeah 99 percent of scam happening on this forum are casino scam, talking about casinos showing their license before they can operate on the forum is a good idea but a lot them are using a fake license already and they are difficult to dictate, the rules that can be helpful are first the forum should be moderating scam activities, and then i brought up a suggestion that casinos should entrust reasonable finance to Admin,
» before operating. I believe if something like this is being implemented on the forum scam casinos won’t be interested coming to this forum again.
But then the forum mission is already against it because they want to make the forum be as free as possible, I appreciate that fact but if casino scam activity continues growing bigger in this forum even the US government eyes may be on the forum. Just visit the scam accusation board casino scam cases are coming up everyday.

the forum's mission to be as free as possible.

[Zoomic]

Looks like the Philippines is making history as the first one to block the forum.

I have read somewhere in the past that Russia restricted bitcointalk and the Russian locals were assessing the forum via VPN. But I didn't understand much about it because as at then Russia was even the most participants in the forum despite the restriction.

The people behind this action are morons. They blocked a website that is actually very informative, and whoever reported it as a scam is probably just trying to ruin the website.

It might not be as you think. You know that scam is not moderated in the forum, if a newbie is scammed by a forum member, they might misinterpret it to be the forum that scammed them.

But the Philippines authority would have just tried to make a little research before action.

Facebook and other social media sites have way more scams than here.

The Philippine government could even pay Mark if he threatens to block their country, that is the irony.

This is just a forum, we don’t promote scams. DT has been doing everything to keep the forum clean. I think the forum is being wrongly targeted because of the lack of competency from the Philippine authorities.

Sorry for expressing my feelings, or ranting if it sounds like one. I just can’t accept how bad this decision is.

A non member of the forum might not understand how things work here though.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

That’s a real shame and it surprises me. Don’t answer me OP but I assume you are from The Phillip lines and are inventive enough to circumvent this ban.

I know there are quite a number of posters from there, including one very esteemed poster here. It doesn’t seem fair, not everybody is tech savvy or can afford a good VPN. Some governments do not serve their people at all do they.

[Cookdata]

Someone might have pushed the button wrong, but, no, not in my case, yet it might be on my provider. To OP, what's your internet provider? The absurdity of this one is to the highest level tbh, and what could get worse is that they can't recognize a forum as a gambling site, it's definitely far from it. Well, if that's the case, then a VPN will be useful to have, and the forum is VPN-friendly, afaik.

The question is why now? If we go by rough estimate, there used to be a time around 2021, 2022 and 2023 when ads on the forum constitute 40% casino, 30% mixers and 20% Dex and wallets but now more than 80% of ads in the forum are casinos while the rest are Dex, you can see that we are likely going to have casino clickers on ads than the rest of the ads from the forum, this alone open the forum to people that loves gambling than other people, this is  maybe another angle.

If this is why, then why not banned Google that advertised pure scams, they don't filter scams, they appeared it to end users like it's nothing but they don't see that as a problem. Double standard isn't?

"Many users reported." Who are the users? Government can be useless you know.

When does government license a common website? Bitcoin must be very interesting over there because what's this.

Look at the scam accusation board, it's full of accusations against casinos. In many accusations, the members of this forum are equally blamed, because they "carry casino advertisements in their signatures".
Now, put in that context a couple of them from the Philippines, who are persistent in trying to destroy the reputation of a casino, so they decide to go to all lengths. It is easier for the outdated government apparatus to solve this problem by blocking it than to investigate the accuracy of the claims.

I don't follow much on scams but there is particular thread I saw on scam board, Scam Accusation Cases Against Betting Platform on The Forum posted by holydarkness, that thread shows history of reported scams by users on the forum and the progress. One can see casino that is a scam, some resposnded to accusations and some never solve a singe case. The forum might not moderate scam but that alone should be a guide for what kind of casino to avoid in the forum. He is doing his best to fish out bad eggs from the good casinos.

[rat03gopoh]

But then the forum mission is already against it because they want to make the forum be as free as possible, I appreciate that fact but if casino scam activity continues growing bigger in this forum even the US government eyes may be on the forum. Just visit the scam accusation board casino scam cases are coming up everyday.

the forum's mission to be as free as possible.

You misunderstand, the "free" mission you quoted is only in the context of the discussion (the post was talking about spammers). Still there is no room for scam-free anywhere. It's just that Bitcointalk doesn't want to moderate too much because that would create a false sense of security among naive members. I think it also costs a lot of money to regulate fraud to involve relevant experts and authorities in each field and locale.

Anyway, almost all bitcointalk rules are in line with US regulations including the ban on mixer-related advertising 3 years ago. If you're just starting to worry that the US government will be monitoring this forum, I think we've been for a long time.

[PX-Z]

I guess this could be because of the filtering of the ISP we knew recently here in the Philippines

My ISP hasn't banned the forum but for specific other ISPs, they always act like this and quick to comply to whatever is being told them to do.

Converge and Smart (mobile data) already did as i checked after reading the OP, initially i never encountered such message since im on custom DNS config always.

What is happening in our country lately is that the government instructs the ISPs to block international exchanges(Binance, okx, etc.) so that we'd stick to the local exchanges. I wonder who made this instruction and why the forum involves in it. I don't even think that there's so much local volume that happens if there are members who does P2P in our local.

This is not actually about exchange but gambling, the forum is detected for promoting/discussing casino content that is not licensed on pagcor does they make such decision. But the warning message they are using is ridiculous since this is not a gambling site.

I search some related news, Tumblr was also banned with the same message lmao although they unban due to those viral posts in FB as it shows how irresponsible they are, and they're excuse? "Technical glitch". How ridiculous their system is.

[Taskford]

LOL I am not surprised their automated checks are really baaaaaad!

Few months ago, tumblr.com was also falsely flagged as unlicensed gambling website, and was banned. But restriction was lifted, I think because loads of people were posting about it on social media. Good ol' public exposure.


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblrhelp/comments/1rpbxpn/looks_like_tumblr_is_banned_in_the_philippines/

This ban was pretty likely at domain level again, thus the DNS trick should have worked just like this bitcointalk.org ban and the binance.com ban.

By reading this  it seems that they are not aware on what sites they are blocking. Maybe they just tag those what they think suspicious site as gambling  then block them without doing full investigation.

The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center said it is investigating how access to the microblogging platform Tumblr seems to have been blocked for some users as part of a government drive against illegal online gambling.

The San Francisco-headquartered social media acknowledged the ban on Thursday, saying on X that it is "aware of the issue and working to resolve it."


CICC, in a statement on Wednesday, said it is "investigating the series of reports raised by concerned citizens online regarding the alleged blocking" without acknowledging that users were being sent to what looks like a CICC website.

Read the full news here https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2026/3/12/some-tumblr-users-redirected-as-site-tagged-for-illegal-gambling-cicc-says-investigating-1412

But I think soon they will fix it and people in that country can access Bitcointalk again.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Converge and Smart (mobile data) already did as i checked after reading the OP, initially i never encountered such message since im on custom DNS config always.

You mean they already did also for converge? I am using this internet but never encountered any restriction and I hope none too in the future.

Some governments do not serve their people at all do they.

Yeah can also include pur country for that. Not only these banning of sites are the one they are hampering about but also a lot of issues like trying to dethrone someone on Politics, trying to cover up some wrong doing by their politican friends and what worse is the crime rate here increasing due to poverty. This forum problem is one of the newest addition on their not so good sloppy work.

[Ziskinberg]

But I think soon they will fix it and people in that country can access Bitcointalk again.

Hope so, because instead of reducing scams, this will only lead to more of them if the information here that is supposed to help us can’t even be read by people just because the forum is blocked.

I also tried using mobile data with Globe, and it’s working.
So far, I think that ISP is the most reliable.

[7juju]

I appreciate that fact but if casino scam activity continues growing bigger in this forum even the US government eyes may be on the forum. Just visit the scam accusation board casino scam cases are coming up everyday.

the forum's mission to be as free as possible.

The Casinos are not committing the scams in the forum, the scams are being committed in their platforms, why will bitcointalk take the hit? Bitcointalk provides an avenues for people to report casinos scams so that others will be aware of what’s happening and avoid such casinos. I don’t see any reason why bitcointalk should be banned for any scams committed by casinos that run their ads here. Bitcointalk does not encourage any form of scams. The scam accusations board is a place to raise awareness, and not where scams are being committed. Any government that know that they are doing won’t ban the forum because of the scam reports that are coming up in scam accusation board.

[Synchronice]

Isn't it irony that Bitcointalk is a place where people, who got scammed by a casino or had problems with casino, come and open a scam accusation thread and later their problem gets solved because DT members pressure casinos to seriously take care of users and these casinos, who care about their reputation, try to fix the situation. I can't believe that there were hundreds or thousands of stupid people officially filling a lawsuit against Bitcointalk in Philippines. To my mind, the government simply wanted it and did it.