U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

Perceived corporatocracy and bipartisan capture

• Many see the bill as serving large media corporations, not public needs, reinforcing a “corpo‑authoritarian” or “corporate fascist” system.
• Frustration is expressed that both major U.S. parties line up on copyright/lockdown issues while campaigning on liberty and anti-corporate rhetoric.
• Some argue politicians face structural pressure: if they don’t “take the money” and cooperate with industry, they’re replaced by someone who will.

Censorship vs. copyright enforcement

• One side claims this is unlike China’s Great Firewall: blocks would be court‑ordered, limited to foreign piracy sites, and initiated only by rights‑holders, so “by definition” not censorship.
• Others respond that any blocking infrastructure is inevitably repurposed: copyright becomes a pretext to suppress disfavored content (news mirrors, critics, “sites that say mean things about Trump”).
• YouTube’s strike system and DMCA are cited as examples where copyright tools already chill speech and are abused.

Technical effectiveness and circumvention

• People expect ISP‑level IP/DNS blocking, trivially bypassed by foreign VPNs, Tor, custom resolvers, etc., leading to a cat‑and‑mouse game.
• That, in turn, raises fears this will be used to justify later VPN restrictions or even whitelisting ISPs that block “unvetted” IPs.

Streaming, DRM, and the ‘piracy UX’

• Many report returning to piracy because streaming has been “enshittified”: higher prices, fragmentation across many services, removals, region locks, ads even on paid tiers, poor apps, and short rental windows.
• Strong resentment toward DRM and “buy” buttons that really sell revocable licenses; some argue that if buying isn’t owning, piracy feels like repossession, not theft.
• Debate over copyright’s value: some see IP as mainly enriching incumbents and enabling suppression; others see at least a plausible economic argument for it but little moral basis.

Access to older or obscure works

• A major theme: large swaths of 60s–90s film, older TV, foreign cinema, erotica, and classic games are simply unavailable to purchase or stream, or are region‑locked.
• Long, complex rights chains and century‑scale copyright terms mean works can be effectively “lost” despite existing; pirates and collectors are portrayed as the only practical archivists.

Bill naming and legislative culture

• The “Block BEARD” backronym is widely ridiculed as uncreative propaganda, emblematic of a U.S. habit of spending more effort on catchy acronyms than on sound policy.

Broader fears about internet control and politics

• Commenters connect this bill with age‑verification laws, device lock‑downs, and pandemic-era precedents as steps toward a Western “Great Firewall” and mandatory digital IDs.
• Some warn that visible pro‑corporate moves like this fuel anti‑establishment politics and could expand into wider blocking of foreign networks and non‑corporate content, leaving most users with only social media and big streaming platforms.