I was surprised this morning when I opened the forum on my computer and got a "Privacy Error". I don't remember this happening in the past. I tried to access it via mobile and found out my access is restricted. It appears Bitcointalk.org is in effect banned in the Philippines.
Accordingly, it's "not licensed by Philippine authorities." What's interesting is that it looks like the site is categorized under gambling, which isn't true. I'm wondering how the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) got reports of "scams, fake games, and lost money" when it's just a platform for discussions. Obviously, this is another illustration of incompetence.
But I easily got access to the site from another gadget with a different DNS server. Of course, everything here is superficial, could easily be sidestepped.
