Is RT.com being censored in the West? | Hacker News Reader

Is RT.com being censored in the West?

19 pointsa0-prw43 comments

I cannot access rt.com from Firefox or Brave browsers. The site isitdownrightnow.com says it's down for everyone but I can access it with tor browser. What's up ?

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They're being DDOSed. See this comment[0]. You can be part of the DDOS, if you want.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30465912

Isn't DDOSing illegal? I'd rather not get my account with my ISP terminated.

You're not DDoSing, you're just trying to load that site that keeps failing to load over and over again

Invading a country and killing its people is more illegal. In a war, laws are thrown out of a window and then it is up to everyone’s own moral compass to do what they feel is right. Naturally different people have different opinions and any kind of activisim comes with a risk, like a slap on the wrist in the case of a keyboard warrior. But I am quite sure ISPs, especially European ones, have tolerance for activism.

> But I am quite sure ISPs, especially European ones, have tolerance for activism.

Only if it’s the right kind of activism.

Every ISP I've had in the US specifically says their services can't be used for DDOS

I suspect they're being DDOSed. I couldn't access it this morning, without completing a captcha... which I refuse to do, on principle.

EDIT UPDATE:

I just tried again. The first couple of times Firefox refused to load the page with an error about 'unexpected end of file' [Sorry. I didn't note the exact term, as I thought a reload would fix it]

Then I tried a third time and, now, the page doesn't load at all.

Definitely omething untoward going on.

> I suspect they're being DDOSed.

Very likely. I am in India and it goes offline intermittently.

Visiting rt.com will make the browser warn about an unsafe self-signed certificate emitted by ddos-guard. I think the latter's website is ddos-guard.net, which welcomes me with a captcha and this message, which is kind of cute:

> We have registered suspicious traffic coming from your network. Using this page, we will be able to determine that you are not the robot.

What if I am, in fact, The Robot?

Anonymous has been ddos’ing it. https://twitter.com/youranonnews/status/1496969715826278407?...

That's so idiotic. The only thing they are DDOSing is a public facing website where people can read what Russian-sponsored media is saying about the events. It's not like RTs internal infrastructure runs on the same as the public-facing one. Why not try to attack their internal infrastructure instead?

They are idiotic. Everything they do is just opportunistic, they've never provided anything of value. (Anonymous, not RT).

Telecomix which came out of anonymous provided a massive amount landlines to keep communication channels up while governments in Syria and Egypt killed the internet. You can be the easy pedantic but if you have no idea about what you are talking just shut it.

The fact you had to clarify there tells you all you need to know about Russia Today, which is a scourge on the world.

Nah, I clarified because I felt my comment was ambiguous and didn't want someone to turn it against RT (which you kind of did anyway).

I actually enjoy RT, as they make some interesting documentaries, https://www.youtube.com/c/RTDocumentaryChannel/videos

Naive question: doesn't this still achieve a useful outcome? i.e., denying RT the ability to spread government propaganda?

I'm unsure why it's idiotic to down a mouthpiece for the Kremlin propaganda when Russia has started a war? Russia spent weeks lying about their intentions to start a war with Ukraine. Who really cares what they have to say publicly at this point until they start withdrawing?

What effect is achieved by going after the internals that isn't achieved by the DDOS to the outside world?

> I'm unsure why it's idiotic to down a mouthpiece for the Kremlin propaganda when Russia has started a war?

Does the same principle also apply to neoconservative mouthpieces in the West?

Yes? What do you think that's a gotcha?

First because you're just "downing" the mouthpiece for as long as you can keep the DDOS running, which is during a limited amount of time. Secondly because there are better targets than obvious propaganda. Thirdly because even if they spread propaganda, can't be trusted and just echoes the sentiment of the Russian government, it's useful to read every side of the events, even if you don't agree or trust what they are saying.

I don't know how effective it is, I suspect not much, but it is anonymous. Their history seems to just be largely unorganized opportunists. Not sure how much we should expect.

> Why not try to attack their internal infrastructure instead?

Because that will attract international law enforcement, and ruin your life if caught. DDOS is pretty safe cybervandalism that everyone can join with a couple of clicks. It's also pretty low impact besides a few stressed IT workers, but that's mostly what anonymous does.

The days of LulzSec made us think that was the tip of the iceberg of Anonymous, but it was peak Anonymous and we didn't know it.

> The only thing they are DDOSing

How do you know “only”?

Russia is doing the entire planet a favor by removing the CABAL from Ukraine. Yes, those who do not do much research believe Russia is attacking Ukraine for a very different reason. When the smoke clears Russia will be seen as a HERO. Many do not want to believe this. They are somewhat brainwashed by a lying media that is owned and controlled by the same CABAL. I have been researching this CABAL for more than 40 years. Most of the people of this planet have only recently began to 'see' that something is wrong with, not some, but almost all of those who sit at the top level of corporations. Like the CDC, Facebook, Twitter etc. There is a group taking a stand against the CABAL. Russia is part of that group. That does not mean that Russia is not guilty of crimes against its people and/or against humanity. It means that they are on the good side of this conflict.

I'm in the UK, and suffering censorship of RT.COM by various western powers. Even using TOR (as I would in an oppressive dictatorship like the USA) is getting me nowhere.

I have deleted BBC news from all of my TVs in response, since it is the propaganda channel for the UK government.

I have RT News on TV here in the UK. Instead of banning them I think it's interesting to watch their reports on Ukraine, of course keeping in mind that all is war propaganda at this point.

For instance their map of Ukraine now has the whole of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions excluded (along with Crimea, of course) although the current rebel-held areas that they have recognised are less than half of that. This may tell us something about one of their goals.

> For instance their map of Ukraine now has the whole of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions excluded (along with Crimea, of course) although the current rebel-held areas that they have recognised are less than half of that.

Russia has recognized the full regions claimed by the breakaway “republics”, not the areas current held by the rebels, and (before announcing the general invasion) announced they were sending military forces to help “defend” that territory.

So, that map doesn't provide any clue to their goals not already in the explicit statements of the Russian government.

It's not clear to me that Russia has recognised the full regions rather than the areas under rebel control when I read the following but maybe:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of...

I am intermittingly able to access through Tor on Brave, and the home page of RT.com includes a headline that "Anonymous declares cyber war on RT"

Austrian here, using Drei. For rt.com I get a 404.

Not available in my sector, using VPN, get a captcha that does not respond. Tor not responding either.

I was able to get to rt.com when using an american vpn. I had to reload 3 times and fill a captcha though.

english.pravda.ru is working though.

Must be particular ISPs. I just checked from Toronto, Canada and it loads instantly

Seems to load fine from my UK home connection, but not through my Ireland VPN.

Anyone that can access, could you summarize their spin on all of this?

You can watch live stream here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHcrYqrrQ4

Follow up question is RT youtube channel facing similar things?

RT YouTube channels like the German one have been banned by YT some months ago.

Maybe it’s your ISP ? From a Mexico I can access it just fine.

SSL handshake fails if you are not going through TOR

It's accessible from Panama using Firefox.

No, stil works.

de.rt.com is working for me, RT.com seems down.

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