Lots of zingers flying around these days. Snake Island, Ghost of Kyiv, we are getting a daily dose of things that are walked back.<p>As much as Ukraine is turning into a humanitarian crisis, the silence from many other humanitarian crisis that are also ongoing is deafening (the Yemen civil war comes to mind).<p>Be extra vigilant - these are not normal times and when Russia and the USA face off like this, there is going to be a lot of manufactured consent flying around.<p>It's pretty clear who the aggressors are, and who is the evil dictatorship starting an unjustifiable war, but don't assume that just because you agree with "the good guys" that the truth will come easy.
The Russian state media are reporting lie after lie - see some of the real footage from the war that you can easily find anywhere online and compare to what they are reporting. You don't need to be an intelligence expert to see that the Russian media is spreading outright lies and propaganda. Stopping this propaganda is the right thing to do.
I agree it’s not good to censor RT and similar, though I do remember Churchill’s comment that in wartime “truth is so precious that it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies”. RT are scumbags and it’s been depressing to see some of my stupider/more self-serving academic friends go on there to pump their personal hobbyhorses. But they don’t need censoring, just our contempt.<p>The article would be better if it didn’t make spurious and unsupported assertions about how NATO “had a hand in starting” this conflict.
OP makes a clear case here.<p>Appeals to universal values are fatally compromised by exceptions.<p>If a rule doesn't apply under all conditions then it becomes of matter of importance to determine <i>who</i> decides when they should be suspended. This reveals universalist values as hypocrisy, they are local values applied to others, for political purpose.<p>Its like a cop says 'don't steal cars', then goes ahead and steals _your_car, only to show up the next day and says 'don't steal cars'<p>Institutional distrust emerges this way
Yeah "Both-sideism" is BS<p>Complaining about some warnings when Russia is blocking Twitter and others is just naive<p>Blocking RT is just tit-for-tat and sanctioning.<p>During a war, controlling propaganda sources is important. And if you think there's no war, or that the west is not a target, you're wrong.<p><i>Funnily enough</i> anti-vax content on these past days seem to have calmed down or even stopped. Funnily enough.<p>Cynical takes like this only make the author sound like a complete moron who never studied any XXth century history or just a plant
Yeah, cancel people for allegedly saying the N-word, but when a whole TV channel is financed by actual dictator invading countries and killing thousands of people, and is spreading his excuses for doing so - just leave them be because "freedom of speech".
I think people need to understand, that there is no "absolute truth" but rather a view point on both sides. And to protect each system of values, implicit (by ignoring) or explicit (by blocking, invalidating) censorship takes place and both micro and macro level. People find rationalization for their system of believes and governments take use of that. Ignoring that would be just another narrative to ignore western own violent history. Everyone simply tries to protect their own interests in the national and economic conflict of powers.
- Think about why is narrative around Russia so much different than any other NATO or US "intervention" in the past?
- Why is TikTok controlled by Chinese gov, worse than FB, with majority stakes with a single man, controlled by US?<p>For the largest portion of the world, in both cases, those are all foreign governments protecting their own interests.
I am reading Clark's <i>Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia</i> (<<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/</a>>). Right after hearing about YouTube shutting down Russian state media channels, I was surprised to learn in the book of the extent of the freedom of the press in late 18th-century Prussia. A British visitor wrote that people were as free to speak as back home, citing a work that was very critical of the king in the context of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars, despite the existential threat to Prussia from France, at least four newspapers that celebrated Revolutionary France as the next step in human freedom were allowed to publish.<p>It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech. Even liars deserve the opportunity to speak. This is especially true when there is no formally declared war between the US and Russia.
I see the argument against censorship, in principle.<p>> You'd think the truth would be more robust than that. You'd think freedom would extend farther than that. You'd think democracy would be more tolerant of dissent than that.<p>Yeah, I'd think that. I wish it was true, but in practice it's not.<p>> If perhaps we have foolishly consented to a reality where the most powerful people in the world get to control the information people consume in order to shut down dissent against a murderous and oppressive globe-spanning oligarchic empire.<p>We really don't have a choice. The reality is that one side is perfectly fine with using misinformation as a weapon. And it's really effective! What is foolish is to do nothing and hope truth will prevail automagically. What are alternatives to censorship that can be used <i>today</i>?
Relevant: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance</a><p>A pretty sound argument can be made that the reactions of the international community are consistent with intolerance of the intolerant (in this case, a superpower that decided to invade a neighbor without cause or provocation).<p>The hate mail to and vandalism of innocent businesses e.g restaurants (Russia House in DC for instance) needs to stop, but RT is a state media arm and is thus complicit by nature with its parent government's decisions. Since nobody within the apparatus is choosing to rebel against state-sanctioned intolerance of another country's sovereignty, it's clear the whole organization needs to be addressed.
yeah, it’s full throttle on domestic propaganda. it looks like NATO is eager to go to war with Russia. NATO could have avoided this war easily by giving some symbolic win to Russia, placing some sanctions and moving on. but they don’t budge which usually means real war is coming.<p>EDIT: what I meant was NATO prob had a way to prevent the Ukraine war but chose not to: allow Russia to veto NATO membership as they demanded but at the same time impose the same drastic sanctions on Russia. this just avoids the war in Ukraine, leaving the rest the same. the sanctions would aim to push Russia to drop its veto and other demands.