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Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?

1309 points rickybule | 1 comments | 28 Aug 25 16:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source

Indonesia is currently in chaos. Earlier today, the government blocked access to Twitter & Discord knowing news spread mainly through those channels. Usually we can use Cloudflare's WARP to avoid it, but just today they blocked the access as well. What alternative should we use?
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nomilk ◴[28 Aug 25 17:27 UTC] No.45054759[source]▶
Australia and UK might soon go down this path.

Something quite depressing is if we (HN crowd) find workarounds, most regular folks won't have the budget/expertise to do so, so citizen journalism will have been successfully muted by government / big media.

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GlacierFox ◴[28 Aug 25 18:27 UTC] No.45055360[source]▶
I would have laughed in your face if you wrote this comment merely 6 months ago. Now I'm just depressed. (UK)
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infamouscow ◴[29 Aug 25 00:42 UTC] No.45058673[source]▶
America's Founders saw civil rights as inherent in the Constitution's framework, rooted in natural law. They added the Bill of Rights as an explicit bulwark. That's why we have the 1st Amendment's free speech, and if that falls, the 2nd Amendment ensures we have guns.
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dragonsky67 ◴[29 Aug 25 03:43 UTC] No.45059921[source]▶
How's that working for you at the moment?

Sorry for the snide comment, but considering the last 6 - 8 months in the US, at least from what is being reported in the outside world, the 1st amendment doesn't seem to be providing much in the way of protection, and unless I'm missing something the general public doesn't seem to have the level of interest that would be required for your 2nd amendment to play out in any meaningful way.

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1. infamouscow ◴[31 Aug 25 01:38 UTC] No.45079569[source]▶
The United States, uniquely, guards speech under its 1A, excepting only direct calls to violence. A hypothetical like "we ought to hang <person>, but the police would stop us, so have to draw a new plan first" is protected, a case study in law schools for where liberty draws its line.

If you suppress the avenues for peaceful political change, your courting violent revolution. History bears this out. Each, in its moment, seemed an unthinkable leap—overthrowing monarchs or empires—yet each remade its world.

The saying that history rhymes, not repeats, points to immutable human behavior.

Today, revolutionary pressures simmer. The U.S. saw a peaceful political shift in 2024, enabled by free speech's safety valve. Elsewhere, without such freedoms, violence fills the void. I pray other nations find paths to renewal without bloodshed, but history's lessons are not optimistic.