EU Ban on Russian War Propaganda Misfires: Blocks Social Media Giants & Pirate IPTV

📰 New article from TorrentFreak

EU Ban on Russian War Propaganda Misfires: Blocks Social Media Giants & Pirate IPTV

https://torrentfreak.com/eu-ban-on-russian-war-propaganda-misfires-blocks-social-media-giants-pirate-iptv/

Here’s your punchy, newsletter-ready summary:

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EU’s Russian Propaganda Blocklist? More Like a Digital Sweepstakes.

The EU banned Russian state media after the Ukraine invasion—smart move. But when ISPs were left to figure out what exactly to block… things got weird.

Enter NLconnect, a Dutch ISP group that stitched together unofficial blacklists from Germany, Lithuania, and others. Result? A 796-domain mess blocking everything from Sputnik… to ShareChat, Weibo, and pirate IPTV sites. Yes, you read that right—India’s biggest social app is banned because someone on it once posted something Russian. And yes, Streema.com—a U.S.-based radio directory—is down because it listed a few banned stations.

Lithuania’s regulator, LRTK, seems to have thrown everything into the blacklist: social networks, torrent sites, even streaming portals. No explanation. Just “ban it all.” Dutch ISPs like Ziggo are following suit—while privacy-focused Freedom says, “Nope,” and makes its own list.

The problem? No central EU list. Just a patchwork of overzealous interpretations. Millions of users lose access to legitimate services because regulators can’t—or won’t—do precise targeting.

This isn’t sanctions. It’s digital collateral damage—and no one’s asking if it’s even legal.

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