bitcointalk banned in the Philippines

[Ziskinberg]

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

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.

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

[Free Market Capitalist]

The people behind this action are morons.

Real morons.

It seems they have mistaken it for a gambling site. It's probably a glitch in an automatic identification system.

In the end, all they will accomplish is reducing exposure for people who don’t know much about Bitcoin or the forum but are curious—people who would have found it using regular browsers. For everyone else, Tor is your friend.

[EarnOnVictor]

Are you for real??? A forum that is as harmless as Bitcointalk banned by your government? That's pathetic if this is true. I even thought backward a little when I first saw this to be sure I wasn't dreaming of another April fool prank.

Thank goodness, VPN is there for you guys.

[Upgrade00]

That's weird and the description they gave doesn't relate in any way to the forum. Gambling is the closest thing I can think of which will make them do that, but it isn't exactly illegal there, many gambling sites are still accessible from the country.

I cannot see any post on this on the Phillipines board and users there seem to be posting just fine. Could this be peculiar to you or is already general? Can you show a screenshot that shows bitcointalk.org is the website you were getting into when you got that message?

[Free Market Capitalist]

A forum that is as harmless as Bitcointalk banned by your government?  

It seems they've mistaken it for a gambling site, but good luck reporting it as a non-gambling site and getting the ban lifted.

[Cookdata]

"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.

[coinrifft]

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.

With that, I'm not going to log-out my account here, although there is VPN, but I will just try to observed what is going to happen and this is out. In any case though, what ISP are you using?

Edit: It looks like it's real as when I try to used my phone I got this error already which is the typical error when I got accessing gambling sites or exchanges that has been ban by our country.

[NotATether]

It seems they've mistaken it for a gambling site, but good luck reporting it as a non-gambling site and getting the ban lifted.

If that were true, this would be the most old-fashioned looking gambling site on the internet right now.

Or at least one of the most old fashioned.

[Free Market Capitalist]

It seems they've mistaken it for a gambling site, but good luck reporting it as a non-gambling site and getting the ban lifted.

If that were true, this would be the most old-fashioned looking gambling site on the internet right now.

Or at least one of the most old fashioned.

I don't think there's a person out there checking websites to see if they're old-fashioned or not. Those blockers work automatically. The system probably has detected a lot of gambling posts here, and since this forum isn't listed among the licensed sites it gets blocked. That is, if there's a nationwide block—since coinrifft says he can access it.

[Zaguru12]

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

One thing I have always said is government has never done anything well to curb anything scam if not they will be sanitizing even their traditional banks, but let’s be realistic most of these clamp downs in the name of curbing scam are usually target against platforms that is not under regulations

If this is true I will just say Bitcointalk forum is just cut up in the mix of t he government of today still seeing bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a scam or place hwete scams happens, I am never surprised seeing news like this because the government has never evaluated this things properly.

If you’re under their regulations then you’re not scam site or platforms but if you’re not then you’re the den of criminals. This streotype didn’t start today or with Philippine. So while I am disappointed, I am not surprised

[UchihaSarada]

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

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.

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

The message is quite incorrect.

This forum is not a gambling site.
And I believe that scams in this forum are less than on Facebook with many scam advertisements like phishing sites of famous cryptocurrency exchanges, while we knew that Facebook don't moderate these phishing scam advertisements well, they ignore these scam advertisements for money, and the Philippines government did not restrict Facebook in their country.

Really moron's regulatory action.

Let's use VPN, Tor browser or Orbot for Android.
https://www.torproject.org/download/
https://orbot.app/en/download/

[Ziskinberg]

Weird, I'm from the Philippines and I can still access it. So I was surprised to see your post kabayan.

I can still access it, that’s why I was able to post it here, but I’m using a different network and it works because of some DNS trick. I’m also able to access sites like Binance, which is also banned in the Philippines. A friend gave that screenshot to me, he’s using PLDT while I’m using Globe, so I’m not sure if the same DNS trick will work on that ISP too.

I’m sure there are still many Filipinos here who can share their experience. But anyway, it’s really not that hard to find a way to access it. What I’m really trying to point out here is how incompetent the government is. Even a forum like that gets banned, what the hell.

Are you for real??? A forum that is as harmless as Bitcointalk banned by your government?

Yeah, for real.   

[ABCbits]

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

Definitely not the first country. I recall old discussion that claim China and Russia government block this forum first.

That's weird and the description they gave doesn't relate in any way to the forum. Gambling is the closest thing I can think of which will make them do that, but it isn't exactly illegal there, many gambling sites are still accessible from the country.

The screenshot also mention scam, so it could be related with how scam isn't moderated on this forum. Only scammer who also violate other forum rule (such as spamming or share referral link) got punished.

[marrcelo]

that kind of ban usually doesnt last forever. people will just use vpn and keep accessing anyway. blocking a forum doesnt really stop bitcoin discussion it just pushes it somewhere else.

[Cookdata]

One thing I have always said is government has never done anything well to curb anything scam if not they will be sanitizing even their traditional banks, but let’s be realistic most of these clamp downs in the name of curbing scam are usually target against platforms that is not under regulations

If this is true I will just say Bitcointalk forum is just cut up in the mix of t he government of today still seeing bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a scam or place hwete scams happens, I am never surprised seeing news like this because the government has never evaluated this things properly.

If you’re under their regulations then you’re not scam site or platforms but if you’re not then you’re the den of criminals. This streotype didn’t start today or with Philippine. So while I am disappointed, I am not surprised

This might be rooted than what you are assuming. Some actions of government aren't usually a collective action of people but an individual action that abused power. Looking at this banned, you can tell that this person didn't do proper investigation before making a conclusion, from the SS above you can tell whoever made this call to block isp from accessing Bitcointalk understand nothing about it, wrong assumption that this place is a gambling platform and it's not registered, it's even a shame to the department of information technology not to know anything about Bitcointalk.

Last I check gambling is legal in Philippine but who knows if they are too regulated and perhaps they often experienced here with huge traffic from the region and they might want Bitcointalk be licensed so they can make money from tax, you know the government knows nothing than tax.

Clearly this is not even about Bitcoin, this is about casino but what I don't understand is where they say people can lose money. The licensed casinos in the Philippine, people don't lose money? Everything about this action is funny.

[MusaMohamed]

Definitely not the first country. I recall old discussion that claim China and Russia government block this forum first.

Interesting that block in Russia is with a reason of gambling advertisement.
Bitcointalk has been blocked in Russia because of Gambling advertisement.
Bitcointalk blocked from Russia.

Bitcointalk blocked by the Great Firewall of China! This did not have given reasons like gambling advertisements.

[eaLiTy]

~
Definitely not the first country. I recall old discussion that claim China and Russia government block this forum first.

Yes bitcointalk is blocked by the Chinese firewall.

@OP Try Opera browser, with their free VPN you should be able to bypass these restrictions.

[stadus]

@OP Try Opera browser, with their free VPN you should be able to bypass these restrictions.

In this case, using a VPN is not really a problem because the forum won’t ban us for that, unlike with exchanges or casinos that are officially restricted where using a VPN can be seen as bypassing their rules.

Here, it’s different because anonymity is actually part of what the forum stands for. The Philippines has been doing this kind of action for a long time, but it’s clearly not effective. It’s just a useless approach that only ends up making people more angry at the system.

[Karl_3000]

Using VPN to access Bitcointalk should work.

It seems they have mistaken it for a gambling site. It's probably a glitch in an automatic identification system.

What if someone among the government people in the country noticed many crypto gambling sites on this forum and think they should ban it and give wrong information that Bitcointalk is a gambling site because those gambling sites are not licensed in their country? I do not trust everything I hear from the government because they like politics. They know what to say that will make people believe their lies. They are indeed a moron.

[EarnOnVictor]

Are you for real??? A forum that is as harmless as Bitcointalk banned by your government?

Yeah, for real.   

I dug a little about this, and I think the government has stepped their desperate ban beyond "gambling" that people are alleging, but also crypto businesses and activities. And due to their laziness (as usual), they are overdoing it without the foreknowledge of the actual websites they blocked. They started the directive last year, in December, when the National Telecommunications Commission directed ISPs. I think this is another phase of stricter enforcement.

Try searching other crypto websites to confirm this; it is not an isolated target against Bitcointalk, as it might have affected many other crypto websites/businesses.