{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "US government blocks League of Legends in Syria and Iran amid escalating tensions | Dot Esports", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/185785796933/", "html": "

quoms:

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US government blocks League of Legends in Syria and Iran amid escalating tensions | Dot Esports

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As tensions between the U.S. and Iran begin to boil over, the conflict has had an unexpected side effect.\u00a0League of Legends, one of the most played video games of all time, has been blocked in\u00a0Iran\u00a0and\u00a0Syria\u00a0by the U.S. government. [\u2026]

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This is an extraordinary occurrence that hasn\u2019t been seen in the esports sphere before. Tariffs, trade sanctions, and threats of military conflict are frequent sights when countries are in active dispute, but the step of blocking civilians\u2019 access to video games is a novel course of action. It\u2019s quite a change from politicians regularly debating the dangers of loot boxes and microtransactions. This can easily set a precedent of conflicting countries disabling access to games as part of ongoing tensions.

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The ban hasn\u2019t stopped some ingenious players from cheating the system, though, and using VPNs to get around the authentication process upon log-in (the part where the client flares up a message that says \u201cDue to U.S. laws and regulations, players in your country cannot access\u00a0League\u00a0of Legends at this time\u201d). But this still makes it quite difficult for\u00a0League\u00a0players in these affected countries to play anyway since VPNs can be quite expensive in these areas.

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I fucking hate 2019 dude

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