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Comment by kmlx | Hacker News Reader

yes. websites across the world have been banning whole EU countries like there’s no tomorrow. but on the plus side we now we know how it feels for the Chinese and their firewall. only ours is called GDPR. to put this in context: there are more websites accessible from Hong Kong than from the EU.

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> there are more websites accessible from Hong Kong than from the EU.

After a quick search, I couldn't find a source that claims that any website is blocked in Hong Kong, and several that claim that no website is blocked.

The Internet connection is monitored, there's pressure and self-censorship, but there's no blocked access to websites. It's easy to be bigger than zero.

EDIT: The biggest collection of the websites I could find lists 1129 that are still blocking access to EU citizens, and 252 that stopped (presumably, once they've become GDPR compliant): https://data.verifiedjoseph.com/dataset/websites-not-availab...

I know for a fact the great firewall does not extend to Hong Kong. We can deploy APIs there AND use HTTPS/ communicate with the outside world/ use Google services. How insane.

>The Internet connection is monitored[...]

While I agree that there is pressure from pro-Chinese Government henchmen to intimidate free press in HK, I am curious as to where you get this assertion that the internet is monitored. That would imply some kind of government surveillance. I have never heard of any systematic internet monitoring in HK of the kind done in other countries, like mainland China.

there's no censorship, direct or indirect, in HK. that is why there is less of the Internet in the EU than in HK.

Which means the shitty companies are removed from the market and websites and companies that respect their users stop getting undercut by their unethical competition.

Well, I guess the really shitty companies simply ignore the GDPR. They might even use some shady business construct to move money and data between companies, while shielding themselves from the regulator.

there are right now companies from the EU that don't respect GDPR.

this is not a right/wrong issue. like most of reality, it's full of grey.

I've not come across a single website that has banned me access to it based on the EU GDPR (except maybe I think some news site that was linked on here once?)

Care to share some examples?

I regularly come across those that are blocking EU users. Guitar Center is a pretty big one: https://www.guitarcenter.com

The Chinese regime blocks sites that are critical of the Chinese regime.

GDPR on the other hand has absolutely no political selectivity. It's just a bunch of self selected US sites that can't be bothered to properly implement GDPR (until they get their own version of it).

That makes your claim about the number of websites accessible from Hong Kong about as relevant for freedom of speech as the lack of chlorinated chickens in Europe's supermakets for the variety of food we get to eat.

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