Can’t access Lemmy.ml anymore even after changing servers. Using ProtonVPN everything loads fine suddenly.

It works fine for me. When you changed servers, did you also change countries? Sometimes all the servers in a country will claim I am connected when I can't access anything and changing to a different country fixes the problem.

Lemmy in general blocks posts from vpns which is total bullshit but I can still view with vpn

Edit: in my experience anyhow. Also added bold for bs

Lemmy in general

Lemmy software doesn't block VPNs, this is done by individual instances as a way to handle bots / attacks.

Your instance blocks VPN & Tor users: https://lemmy.world/post/11967676

Makes sense but it's still annoying. Thanks for the heads up

It would be best to ask on !meta@lemmy.ml

I always felt this was the paradox of privacy. Those of us who want privacy but try to contribute in a positive way to a community get caught in the crossfire when the same privacy tools are used by bad faith actors, sometimes individuals, sometimes even nation state influence ops.

Did you try swapping VPN server? VPN providers usually offer many servers and sometimes a bot abuses one leading to it being blocked.

It's not that Lemmy.ml is blocking Mullvad, it's that Mullvad is blocking Lemmy. If you're using the DNS content blockers in the Mullvad app, turn the 'adult' filter off. I don't know why they added Lemmy.ml to that blocklist, but that's what's happening.

Those are good thoughts, thank you. I agree, account reputation and initial rate limits is a much better approach than IP blocking.

It's especially annoying when IP blocking happens long after you sign up. I was a casual user of a popular e-marketplace, mostly buying. Over 10 entire years, 100% of my feedback was the highest possible rating. I literally never got anything else. Then one day, no warning, my account was disabled. They would only unlock it if I sent them an unredacted copy of my government ID. I would not do that, so it remains locked to this day. I am sure it was because I always used a VPN. Yet I acted in the most upstanding and good faith manner for a decade.

This is why I want to see privacy normalized. Today, sites don't have to care about shedding a few good faith privacy minded users if the blunt tool can sweep up enough abusers. We're collateral damage. If privacy was normalized and we had some critical mass, then more nuance is required, because they can't afford to shed so many good faith users.

Yep turns out that was the issue :o

I recommend nextDNS