Spain’s LaLiga has blocked access to freedom.gov

What’s Actually Being Blocked

• Multiple commenters say this is not a targeted ban of freedom.gov, but part of long‑standing IP‑range blocks against Cloudflare during LaLiga matches to fight football piracy.
• Others report that freedom.gov resolves normally outside match times or on some ISPs, reinforcing the “collateral damage” explanation.
• There is disagreement over whether RT and other sites are “blocked in the entire EU” or only by some ISPs / countries; experiences differ by jurisdiction.

LaLiga, Cloudflare, and Collateral Damage

• Spanish courts have reportedly granted LaLiga broad powers, leading ISPs to “carpet block” Cloudflare ranges, affecting many unrelated sites (including businesses and possibly critical services).
• Users in Spain describe recurring outages for work and personal sites whenever games are on, with non‑technical users often just blaming their own connection.
• Some see LaLiga as a “soccer mafia” with outsized political influence; others defend the copyright system’s basic legitimacy but criticize collective punishment.

Broader Censorship Debate: EU vs US

• Thread devolves into a wide EU‑vs‑US free‑speech comparison:
  • One side: EU censorship is becoming normalized (RT bans, porn age‑gating, betting/piracy blocks, ID verification); blocking RT is “plain censorship.”
  • Other side: these are democratically enacted, court‑supervised restrictions (e.g., Nazi symbols, war glorification, CSAM), not comparable to authoritarian censorship, and US “corporate/financial” suppression is worse in practice.
• Some argue any state deciding what counts as “misinformation” is inherently dangerous; others say blocking hostile foreign propaganda is necessary self‑defense.

Freedom.gov: Influence Campaign or Speech Canary?

• Several commenters view freedom.gov as a US political influence/propaganda proxy designed to bypass “sovereign policy decisions” in Europe.
• Others see it as a deliberate “canary” to expose European censorship: if it gets blocked before doing anything, that undercuts European claims to free speech.
• Some insist that censoring such a site is itself proof of “thoughtcrime” logic; others say blocking a foreign disinformation conduit is just rational policy.

VPNs, Centralization, and Future Risks

• Users in Spain increasingly rely on VPNs to evade LaLiga blocks and worry about future moves to regulate or identity‑gate VPNs themselves.
• There’s debate over Cloudflare’s ubiquity:
  • Critics say extreme centralization creates a “world firewall” and a single chokepoint for states.
  • Supporters note that high collateral damage can also raise the political cost of censorship.