Trying to find out if I can use Discourse for my organisation which has a global scope.
AI-generated summary
The discussion explores whether Discourse is banned in any countries. mtrgrande seeks clarity for global organizational use. merefield questions whether any decentralized forum platform is ever banned. Jagster notes bans are typically content- or internet-access-related rather than platform-specific, citing China and Russia as examples — though Discourse itself isn’t banned even in China. Tris20 confirms their organization faced access issues in China due to the Great Firewall, particularly with CDN/VPN configurations, but after collaboration with Discourse’s team, users in China have had seamless access for about 10 months. Wojtek_X emphasizes Discourse’s decentralized nature: each instance operates independently, making it nearly impossible to ban the platform globally — banning one instance doesn’t affect others or the brand. In summary, Discourse as a platform isn’t officially banned anywhere, but local internet restrictions or content policies may affect accessibility, which can often be resolved with technical adjustments.
Do you know of a (“un-centralised”) forum platform that is banned anywhere?
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I don’t know but I could guess such bans aren’t platform dependent per se. It is matter of wider limiting of use of internet (as seen on conflict areas) or based on content. China is one example and even there Discourse is not banned. Nowadays Russia can be a questionmark too. And so on.
So AFAIK Discourse itself works globally. But content can lead to bans.
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The only issue our organisation had was making it accessable for users in China. The platform itself isn’t banned, but the greatfirewall can still be a pain point regarding content distribution. If I remember correctly, it was a CDN/VPN issue which the guys at Discourse worked hard to help us with.
Since about 10 months all users in China have had no trouble accessing our internal platform 
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@mtrgrande Discourse is (or is trying to be) decentralised platform and, as such, it is virtually impossible to ban each and every instance of it.
I mean each & every instance is like independent body. You can ban one instance and nothing will happen to Discourse as a brand.