I don't know anything about Adguard, but good on the team for doing the extra digging instead of just going along with the claim. Even better that they're sharing what they've found with everyone else.
IMO it is safer to use a big popular DNS recursor (google, cloudflare, adguard, quad9, etc), use DoT/DoH/DoQ and maybe add some additional filtering on top of it.
https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardFilters/issues/216586#...
The legal advice we got was basically “block asap or risk jail time”. Moreover, the risk would still be there even if the complainant is shady or hiding their identity.
So it took us some time to do the digging and make sure that illegal content was removed which was the prerequisite to unblocking.
The digging is not finished btw, we’ll later post a proper analysis of our reaction and the results of the research.
Maybe it would have been virtuous to fight it tooth-and-nail from the start, but I don't think it was wrong to comply while investigating further
It's worth trying on devices where you can't install ad blocking software, but can change the TCP/IP settings.
It's pretty slick, highly recommend. (Also super useful to see what devices are reaching out to where and how frequently, custom block lists, custom local DNS entries, etc).
I would recommend it
That's the intention of intermediary liability laws - to make meritless censorship be the easy, no-risk way out. To deputize corporations to act as police under a guilty-until-proven-innocent framework.