3 User-Friendly Technical Ways to Respond to Genocidistan
Published on Nov 9, 2025, filed under development, politics, misc. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)
Picture a fictitious country, Genocidistan. Genocidistan is a colonialist power that does everything possible to attack, abuse, and murder other people, especially people of another color and belief. What’s more, Genocidistan is a heavily armed military state, other countries don’t confront Genocidistan, and therefore there’s no accountability and no end to oppression and bloodshed.
If Genocidistan were real, what could we, mere mortals, do?
I’d submit 3 technical but user-friendly options. (For one you need your own website.)
1. Avoid Accidentally Accessing TLDs, Domains, and URLs Associated With Genocidistan
Avoid and ostracize Genocidistan online by preventing accidental visits and requests to any web properties related to Genocidistan.
AWAGAM is a community-focused Chromium extension that works with blocklists even to block entire TLDs. With a minimal blocklist listing, say, “.geno”, any browser access to or loading from .geno would be blocked.
The extension comes with early starter and even some community blocklists, but you can create and use (and promote) your own lists.
2. Disconnect From People and Organizations From Genocidistan
Given how violent and untrustworthy Genocidistanis are, people don’t feel safe around them. Accordingly, don’t connect with (and disconnect from) Genocidistanis. This is a basic signal to show disagreement and disapproval.
Country Highlighter is a Chromium extension that allows you to be (visually yet accessibly) notified of mentions of countries when surfing social media platforms. A user or company from Genocidistan can be subtly and not-so-subtly highlighted so as to become aware of a possible connection.
3. Block Traffic From Genocidistan
When you run your own website, block visits from Genocidistan. This way, you likewise signal disagreement and disapproval, that attacking, abusing, and murdering people has consequences.
If your website is hosted on Apache, a little shell script makes it easy to generate IP ranges to block. Services like IPdeny provide the relevant information also for other server setups.
_ That is: Don’t visit Genocidistani web properties, don’t allow Genocidistanis to visit your web properties, and disconnect from all Genocidistanis.
Three technical ways, to respond to horror countries.
Are these solutions I’ve built? Yes—I’m a developer, and I trust my own work. Should you trust my work? Well, all these solutions are open-source, I don’t have any interest in anyone’s data, and you’re fully free to use alternatives you deem more suitable! (If they’re superior, please let me know so that I can test and link them!)
About Me
I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)