You're usually blocked because something about your connection changed: your IP address now points to a different country, you're on a filtered network, or you're using a VPN or IP range the site doesn't trust. Less often, a new law or government order has kicked in where you are.
The usual suspects
- You crossed a border. Sites read your IP address to guess your location. Some owners block whole countries, which shows up as Cloudflare's error 1009 ("country or region banned"). After GDPR took effect, more than 1,000 US news sites simply stopped serving European visitors rather than comply, and plenty of smaller US sites still do this.
- The network is filtering you. Hotel, airport, school and office Wi-Fi often block categories like gambling, adult content, streaming or social media.
- Your VPN or proxy got flagged. Shared VPN IPs are easy to spot. Netflix, for example, shows a specific VPN or proxy error and asks you to switch the VPN off.
- A new local law. In the UK, adult sites and platforms hosting harmful content had to start age checks on 25 July 2025, so many users suddenly hit verification walls or blocks.
- Government censorship. Countries can add sites to blocklists overnight, often around elections or protests.
How to figure out which one it is
Try the same site on mobile data instead of Wi-Fi. If it loads, the network is the problem. If it fails everywhere, check whether the error mentions your country. Turning a VPN off (or on, connected to your home country) quickly tells you if location is the issue. If you're in a country with legal limits on circumvention, look up the local rules before reaching for a workaround.