I recommend finding everyone responsible for this and exercising your right to free speech on them. It works for politicians, and it should work on this other flavour of bastard too.
Once again, Stallman was very prescient: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
How is this, conceptually, any different from sites that used to block IE out of spite?
Would it be acceptable for a website owner to block users from Detroit (78% African Americans)[1] or block users from El Paso (82% Hispanic)[2] because the website owner claims that fraudulent ad clicking is more prevalent from those cities?
Would it be acceptable to only serve web pages to people without disabilities and without a need for specialist accessibility software because it's not economically viable to consider users with disabilities?
Would the poorest 10% of the population be able to access web pages and services delivered over the Internet with old hardware (all they can afford) and with limited computer literacy and limited ability to raise complaints (that are ignored anyway or responded to by an AI algorithm that doesn't care)?
A website owner is still discriminating when they hide behind technology such as AI algorithms, Web Integrity APIs, etc and pretend that their use of such technology is non-discriminatory.
[1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/detroitcitymich...
[2] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/elpasocitytexas...
I’m not defending google’s crap but I should be able to block anyone I want from my websites if I choose.
Yes. And not only for discriminating. You make the web shittier than it already is, and more fragmented.
> or should I have to tolerate the script kiddies, ddosing and exploit searches?
This part is unrelated to the first part.
What's the point of asking a question (...does this make me a bad person for discriminating?) if you're not ready to accept some of the answers?
Yes, geoblocking totally makes the internet a shittier place. In the same way as the hackers and scriptkiddies make it the shittier place. It's a chicken and egg situation. You're blocking part of the world because it's dangerous waters. I am blocking part of the world because I disagree with the politics of that particular part. We are together making geo-blocking tolerable and acceptable. We're together making the internet more shitty than it deserves. Congratulations.
By the way, I'm not sure I wouldn't have done the same thing you did. I guess if I can't properly manage the security of a resource, the easiest way to deal with it would be to eliminate the source of the attack vector. I wouldn't deny that I'm part of the problem though. Because that's exactly what I am.
What is actually making the internet a shittier place is the bad actors, bots, scammers, scrapers, psychopaths and etc. Maybe those countries that get blocked should do more to stop those bad actors in the first place.
Has China or Turkey ever contributed or paid for one of my projects/services? Nope, not once. Have they caused me grief and wasted my time dealing with bullshit? Yes, absolutely!
So I don't think I am a bad, unless you think preventing myself from getting punched makes me bad guy.
Maybe you should change your frame of thought and start pointing the fingers at the actual bad guys who actually ruining the web and stop accusing people of self defense of being "bad guys".
Basically if you don't want to be treated like an asshole (geoblocked) don't act like an asshole. I know it's a very hard concept to grasp.
> Has China or Turkey ever contributed or paid for one of my projects/services?
Have other countries? What about the countries that haven’t? Isn’t it completely unrelated to the “bad actors” question?
Internet is the best thing that we have now. It’s great because it’s open. You’re ruining it. As well as the other bad actors, attackers, etc. You’re just one of them, even though you’re also the victim. So no, you’ve completely missed my point. I’m not blaming the victim. I’m blaming everybody in this particular situation. You are the part of the problem just as well as the attackers.
> I know it's a very hard concept to grasp.
Calm down. Take it as a grown up. You’ve asked for opinion yourself, don’t forget it.
> Have other countries? What about the countries that haven’t?
Not every country has paid, but they also haven't launched a barrage of DDOS attacks, blatant scraping, and constant scanning for exploits and etc.
You're funny because you think defending one's site from hackers is "ruining the internet". You gave your naïve opinion and I have the right to disregard it and think that it is really stupid, don't forget.