hxQ&S8ZaVn9e
New Member
I want to host a website that would probably upset some people and am looking to host it in a country with the best free speech laws. What countries should I look into that is good for free speech and privacy?
What country is best for free speech laws?
- Thread starter hxQ&S8ZaVn9e
- Start date
Asian countries are one of the worst. Each country has their own version of the Great Firewall of China here in Asia. Korea for example has all porn websites blocked (in addition, if you want hosting in Korea you can't be anonymous and have to submit proof of identification and are supposed to get a Korean Legal Alien number (similar to your SSN in the US) and leave all this information with your hoster.
Japan may be a little better.
The center for hosting in Asia is Singapore and Hong Kong. Anywhere else is a bit more difficult.
telephone
New Member
Censored porn for the win! So what's worse @HalfEatenPie, blocked porn sites or having pixelated genitals? Does South Korea have porn inspectors too?
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DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
Privacy: the US has weak Internet privacy laws, and the NSA/war on terror has made a joke of the protections that are on the books
Free Speech: the US ranked #49 in the world on the 2015 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index and is sinking fast. Countries like Niger, El Salvador, Ghana, Botswana, have more press freedom at this point. For the first time in 2014, Reporters Wihout Borders also listed the US on its "Enemies of the Internet" list joining the short list of 18 countries that includes countries like China, Syria, Iran, Saudia Arabia, and North Korea.
They say they do but they're ranked #83 on the Press Freedom Index with a long history of harassment and intimidation of writers and reporters. Corruption also means there is a long history of corporations bribing public officials in order to get them to suppress (by initimidating and harrassing writers) anything that is unfavorable to the company that paid the bribe. Uruguay is probably the best current bet if you want something in Central/South America.Quote said:
Define the type of content that will "upset some people" and it will be easier to steer you in the right direction. Iceland currently has probably the strongest free speech and free press rights if your "upset some people" content is of a political nature (but if your definition of free speech includes hardcore porn then no, avoid Iceland because it is not allowed).Quote said:
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Well since if you try to go to any porn sites they block it at the DNS level with this: http://i.imgur.com/ioh65fC.png I'd say Japan is probably better since they only pixelate the genitals.
For those people who have solutions. YES we all know how to get around DNS level blocking and this and that (such as using a VPN). I've stated this only to show that Korea is not tolerant and rather that Asia in general is quite the opposite. Thailand for example has their datacenters constantly raided and shutdown if there's any anti-government talks. Asia is a difficult place for online hosters and you're restricted to a limited area.
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drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
Always been fond of Luxembourg, Switzerland, other northern European countries, Panama, Costa Rica....
Much of my freedom opinion as a writer comes from other journalists. This is a list focused around such ranking: https://index.rsf.org/. Any country that limits media reporting might be free today conceptually, but won't remain so. Plus media is a national form of collective indoctrination all over. So that which professes control and vileness again likely isn't free. (see where the US rightly ranks).
Much of my freedom opinion as a writer comes from other journalists. This is a list focused around such ranking: https://index.rsf.org/. Any country that limits media reporting might be free today conceptually, but won't remain so. Plus media is a national form of collective indoctrination all over. So that which professes control and vileness again likely isn't free. (see where the US rightly ranks).
The short answer: None.
If your threat model is a government/country: host it in a country that has the least cooperation treaties with the country or countries that you are planning on pissing off, and hope for the best. Purchase services anonymously, never connect from any IP that belongs to you (whether during the ordering process, or for server management). Nobody can be trusted. Rely on technical privacy only, not provider trust (eg. use onion routing, not VPNs).
You will have to accept that there is always the possibility of getting arrested and jailed, tortured, or worse, depending on where you live and who you've pissed off. You will need to be diligent about your operational security 100% of the time - where you host your content is only a tiny factor here.
If your threat model is random people sending abusemail, and getting your services shut down: host with companies like UrDN or PRQ who clearly state that they don't care about such abusemail. Alternatively, have a backend server in an undisclosed location, only serving certain whitelisted IPs - then 'rotate' through cheap VPS services elsewhere (especially dodgy ones), set up reverse proxies on them, and whitelist them on the backend server. If a frontend server gets shut down, you change to one at another provider, without data loss.
Unfortunately, such rotation schemes are still necessary in many cases, if your content is controversial enough and you're on a shoestrng budget. The internet is far from a 'free' place nowadays, and going with a 'reputable' provider under your own contact details is still a great way to get burned. You're more or less stuck with the seedy underbelly of providers, in most cases - so design your infrastructure accordingly, and make sure that losing a public-facing server is not a big deal.
If your threat model is a government/country: host it in a country that has the least cooperation treaties with the country or countries that you are planning on pissing off, and hope for the best. Purchase services anonymously, never connect from any IP that belongs to you (whether during the ordering process, or for server management). Nobody can be trusted. Rely on technical privacy only, not provider trust (eg. use onion routing, not VPNs).
You will have to accept that there is always the possibility of getting arrested and jailed, tortured, or worse, depending on where you live and who you've pissed off. You will need to be diligent about your operational security 100% of the time - where you host your content is only a tiny factor here.
If your threat model is random people sending abusemail, and getting your services shut down: host with companies like UrDN or PRQ who clearly state that they don't care about such abusemail. Alternatively, have a backend server in an undisclosed location, only serving certain whitelisted IPs - then 'rotate' through cheap VPS services elsewhere (especially dodgy ones), set up reverse proxies on them, and whitelist them on the backend server. If a frontend server gets shut down, you change to one at another provider, without data loss.
Unfortunately, such rotation schemes are still necessary in many cases, if your content is controversial enough and you're on a shoestrng budget. The internet is far from a 'free' place nowadays, and going with a 'reputable' provider under your own contact details is still a great way to get burned. You're more or less stuck with the seedy underbelly of providers, in most cases - so design your infrastructure accordingly, and make sure that losing a public-facing server is not a big deal.
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hxQ&S8ZaVn9e
New Member
Thanks. It will be for a political site I guess you could call it. But right wing politics that seem to upset people. I do not want to host in the USA even though they are known for their free speech because their privacy laws are not so strong so somewhere else is needed. Thanks.
hxQ&S8ZaVn9e
New Member
Iceland may be good for me since it will be a political site. No porn or gore or anything like that.
Jeeze. I just checked out the pricing at PRQ out of general curiosity and I must be reading this wrong: http://prq.se/?p=webhost&intl=1 Surely "130 BTC/month" isn't correct. That's over $30,000/mo USD for 1GB of storage. 
Anyhow, if it's just a political site I'd imagine Iceland would suffice. How right-wing are we talking though? Like, http://www.breitbart.com/ right-wing or...?
Anyhow, if it's just a political site I'd imagine Iceland would suffice. How right-wing are we talking though? Like, http://www.breitbart.com/ right-wing or...?
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k0nsl
Bad Goy
HalfEatenPie you wrote:
Would that hold true for Europeans as well, who criticize their regimes, or issues pertaining to Euopeans? I had the impression free speech was better in, say, Japan, because in Europe it's more or less non-existent.
Dylan
Active Member
Iceland has strong hate speech laws. Not a good idea if the content is, as you seem to be hinting, far-right. Same goes for most European and Latin American countries.
For far-right speech, the US truly is your best option. Privacy's an issue, sure, but the protection of hateful speech is most definitely not. Even the most extreme far-right views possible have been protected over and over by courts (see the 2011 Westboro Baptist Church Supreme Court decision). There's good reason most neo-Nazi groups around the world host their sites in the US.
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Europe is one of the most free continents in the world. You may think differently, but free speech is SO Much better in Europe than in Asia. Guaranteed. Especially in a place like Korea (since I'm more familiar with Korean law) where if you have any online presence on a Korean website you have to enter your Korean Citizens Number. It's to track individuals on the internet and their uses. If I recall correctly, this policy was implemented because Korea has a ton of civil unrest and people would organize demonstrations and protests online. Therefore, the entire concept of anonymity is removed for any services on the internet. Even video game accounts such has Leagues of Legend requires you to link it to your Korean phone number (which is linked to your Citizen/Alien Registration Number and they verify this through SMS and other means). At least in Europe you have the ability to be anonymous, for many people in Asia this is not even available. More detail here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_registration_number#Online_use.
Europe is probably one of the most free and best continents to live in today. It has the lowest Human Rights Risk Index score (http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/327783/slide_327783_3180650_free.jpg) and is considered one of the most free area of the world (https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FITW_World_Map_24x16_fa_GF2015.jpg). Europe in general has some of the most progressive governments and policies that I just can't imagine anyone thinking otherwise. Yes everyone has their problems, but people in Europe definitely are much more free than others.
In the end though, if you really want "free speech hosting", your best bet is to probably host in a country that isn't best friends with the country you're talking against.
k0nsl
Bad Goy
I suppose that's a consolation for those who have been heavily fined or jailed in one of the "freest continents in the world" and maybe when I tell my friend — who spent 30 months in a German prison — he'll cheer up, as well. I mean, what's 30 months in the slammer for writing a scientific report, anyway? Tss, tss
Europe is not the place for anything that could be deemed 'hate speech', I do know that. Sweden, for example, who is having a lot of issues with illegal immigration and crime related to such has been heavily censoring and punishing those who speak out regarding that. I do recall reading that some guys were discussing with each other, on a public bus, their dislike for the immigration laws and were arrested for hate speech.
Sweden is literally what I imagine a country ran by SJWs would be like. No offence to any Swedes here. You have a beautiful country full of kind and overly trusting people. But you also recently sentenced a Somali immigrant who raped a 12 year old girl to only 180 hours of community service... Y'all too soft and accepting.
I actually know of a site that was hosted in Sweden, then opted to move to the USA for America's better freedom of speech laws. I will say that the US has a pretty good track record of defending civil liberties such as freedom of speech even when it's vile, disgusting, and upsetting to the mass. That's one thing I love about this country. Our privacy laws are shit, though, so just because you're free to say what you want doesn't mean you won't be put on a list or considered some sort of extremist.
Sweden is literally what I imagine a country ran by SJWs would be like. No offence to any Swedes here. You have a beautiful country full of kind and overly trusting people. But you also recently sentenced a Somali immigrant who raped a 12 year old girl to only 180 hours of community service... Y'all too soft and accepting.
I actually know of a site that was hosted in Sweden, then opted to move to the USA for America's better freedom of speech laws. I will say that the US has a pretty good track record of defending civil liberties such as freedom of speech even when it's vile, disgusting, and upsetting to the mass. That's one thing I love about this country. Our privacy laws are shit, though, so just because you're free to say what you want doesn't mean you won't be put on a list or considered some sort of extremist.