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It's good to remember that the previous American president also waged a war against every media outlet he didn't like by claiming they were "fake news." It's th

by pavlov 5y ago

It's good to remember that the previous American president also waged a war against every media outlet he didn't like by claiming they were "fake news." It's the same authoritarianism in different stages. And if you think nobody in America wants to jail journalists and media CEOs, go look at any forum with a substantial amount of Republicans talking freely.

calculatte 5y ago
zackees 5y ago
- sydthrowaway 5y ago
jansen555 5y ago
[flagged]
- criley2 5y ago
  [flagged]
throwaway5752 5y ago
The backchannels were Manafort/Kilimnik, Michael Flynn/Kislyak, and more. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-... is a digestible background. That is just the US - most European countries have analogues, as do key Asian, African, and South American countries. The are not separate phenomenon at different stages, they are a global, coordinated group. They were coordinated by the massive cash flows coordinated by a small group in Russia. The use coordinated tactics, in concert with each other.
- pohl 5y ago
  Yes, it's the same trans-national crime syndicate. It's the same war, even – it's just recently became kinetic. Amazing the ROI that Vlad got from TFG.
  - areyousure 5y ago
    In case anyone is curious, it appears that ROI = "return on investment", Vlad = Vladimir Putin, and TFG = "the former guy" = Donald Trump. It appears to be the ~4th time the latter abbreviation has been used on this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27920739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27920739
    - koshergweilo 5y ago
      Thanks for the translation. I'm pretty new to HN, is mentioning Putin or Trump by name a surefire way to get banned or something?
      - nix23 5y ago
        >surefire way to get banned or something No, but people like to self-censor sometimes ;)
swayvil 5y ago
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  It's one thing for Zuckerberg to ban you, and another thing for Putin to do the same. If Facebook bans you, you can go somewhere else. But they aren't the only game in town and their power is limited to refusing to serve you. If a government bans you, that means almost certain death.
  - yifanl 5y ago
    I mean, let's not pretend that in Facebook's ideal world where they own the market, there _wouldn't_ be somewhere else to go to. Obviously that's not the case today, but I'm concerned that it'll get there eventually just based on how network effects seem to be trending.
    - kmeisthax 5y ago
      I will not deny for a second that Zuckerberg dreams of having the kind of big monopolistic platform that would let him single-handedly suppress speech he doesn't like. However, that's still not as bad of a harm as being thrown in jail for the same thing. There's a huge gulf between "large multinational corporation" and "sovereign nation" - the former can still have it's power challenged through antitrust law and regulations, while the latter is immune to such things because they have their own military.
ch4s3 5y ago
That's not really a good comparison. Being an asshole to journalists if really different than putting them in jail for their reporting. The difference here is that some Republicans who have no power to actually do that talk shit about doing it, but Putin actually jails a lot of journalists.
- cromd 5y ago
  I don't think they're saying that Republicans are currently doing what Putin is currently doing. They said some people want to jail journalists, and you seem to be agreeing by saying those people "talk shit" about jailing journalists. Maybe one could say that talk is harmless, but I think most would challenge that.
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    My claims is that the phrase "the previous American president also waged a war against every media outlet" is overblown nonsense. There are a mere handful of marginal Republican nobodies who support this stuff and we saw for 4 years that the courts are happy to slap down any US politician makes big constitutional missteps.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      No, that phrase isn't 100% true. Trump didn't wage war on Brietbart, OAN, and the like. Only "mainstream media" like CNN and even Fox when they reported what he called "fake news," actually facts he didn't like.
      - ch4s3 5y ago
        It's also not true at all. There was no war on any journalists. I'm not aware of a single journalist jailed by the Trump DOJ, the FCC didn't yank any licenses, nothing. It was all talk.
        klyrs 5y ago
echelon 5y ago
> And if you think nobody in America wants to jail journalists and media CEOs, go look at any forum with a substantial amount of Republicans talking freely. I'm a liberal and would like to point out that fellow liberals say the same about conservatives. We're wasting energy and making enemies fighting a narrative warfare, and it's frankly very stupid. Jail the their protestors, but not our own. Deplatform their voices and curtail their free speech, but not our own. It's the exact same behavior in both sides, yet both parties rush in to say how they're different and morally correct. We need to mend ties, not strain them further. We're becoming too polarized, and that's exactly what authoritarians that eye the end of Democracy and its influence want. We're focused on fighting our petty squabbles instead of positioning ourselves in the global sphere. If you think any of our manufactured crises are even in the same order of magnitude as what Ukraine is facing right now, then they're already winning. My worry isn't in owning or being owned by the other party. It's that Democracy is shown to be less effective, that free speech is put in a box, and that we end the century in shackles. No future under those pretenses is worth looking forward to.
- cabalamat 5y ago
  I agree. The US culture war helps dictators like Putin and Xi.
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    tnat doesnt solve the problems it just makes the stakes higher.
- natechols 5y ago
  Nearly all of recorded human history has been rule by gangsters - the liberal democracies of the rich world are an aberration, not the norm. I think about this almost daily and it terrifies me.
  - phs318u 5y ago
    Yes! I often wonder whether, in the far future, there will even be historians that know that for a brief moment in time - a couple of centuries - a historical blip - there was a significant chunk of the world where the masses could educate themselves and rise above their origins, without fear of reprisal from the state. What I fear most is a return to the historical mean - where the vast majority are mere peasants. Ignorant, and systematically oppressed, restrained, and exploited.
akomtu 5y ago
To be honest, the blue camp is different only in rhetoric: if the red wants control in the name of national security, the blue wants the same control in the name of grotesque moral rightnessess. Fake news is a good summary of our media today, it just applies to both camps.
- electrondood 5y ago
  Bullshit false equivalence. I notice that Democrats aren't forming white supremacist militias, plotting to kidnap state governors, attacking Congress specifically to overturn the results of a national election, etc.
  - avion23 5y ago
  - dev_by_day 5y ago
    Democrats have plenty of blood on their hands in demanding censorship. Remember the accusations of racism that were used to shut down the lab leak theory? Or the demands to censor scientists with any dissenting viewpoints over Covid? The cover up of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal that resulted in journalists from the Post being banned? The "war on disinformation" their obsessed with is not any different from a "war on fake news". Censorship is a tool of cowards and there are plenty of cowards in both parties that will use it to shut down any dissenting view points.
    - throwaway5752 5y ago
      Division is the goal of the adversary. We should stop arguing for no good reason if we don't have to.
      - dev_by_day 5y ago
        We shouldn't allow people to spread lies and demonize one side unchecked. If were going to talk about problems, its best we don't scape goat on one side and admit there are flaws in both parties. Letting them scape-goat and demonize unchecked doesn't help anything either.
EtherTyper 5y ago
Or for a more concrete example, look at how both Republicans and Democrats are treating Julian Assange. Investigative journalism and whistleblowing are under attack by all political factions and by the justice system, today. We cannot treat anti-free-press authoritarianism in the West as an "early stage" or tomorrow's problem.
- malfist 5y ago
  Julian Assange isn't a journalist though. He was a contractor trusted with protected information which he then publicized. There's a big difference between a journalist finding and publishing information, and a mole in our government sharing our secrets with people. And that's ignoring the whole rape thing with Assange.
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    My understanding is the fake rape charges were dropped. I expect it could've been an attempt at character assassination by certain governments with a long history of this kind of attack.
    - sonotathrowaway 5y ago
      America should have just threatened to murder him like Putin did. Maybe then he would’ve worked for the US, instead of signing a tv deal with Putin.
      - ashwagary 5y ago
        Stealing 10 years of his life and freedom is basically slow murder and torture. Whataboutism is unwarranted, the US is overreaching.
  - scatters 5y ago
    You're confusing Snowden with Assange. (And probably forgetting the role of Manning.)
- 5y ago
prox 5y ago
I found this article very enlightening : https://www.csis.org/features/kremlin-playbook-3 https://www.csis.org/features/kremlin-playbook-3 From the center of strategic and international studies. It describes how the same ideology (white male christian) worldview is connected to Putin and Trump, and how the West is viewed as decadent through the moral lens of the fundamentalist churches in both the US and the Russian orthodox church.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  white male christian is not an ideology. The first is a skin color, the second is a gender, the third is a religion. Pretending that you throw those three things together creates some coherent and common ideology is not logical thought
  - prox 5y ago
    No, and maybe I could have worded that better. But that’s part of their identity and what they rally around. If you read the article you would see what I mean. From the article “Here traditionalism and identity are fused together such that disrupting one threatens the other. Any demographic change (particularly immigration from Muslim-majority and non-White countries, exacerbated in the public perception by low birth rates) is viewed as a direct challenge to identity and tradition.” So maybe the better word is “strategic conversatism” as per the article.
- t0suj4 5y ago
  Conservatism is relative term. It basically means "keep what we have and carefully evaluate new things". Conservatism in the US is not what conservatism in France is. Conservatism in Mexico is not what conservatism in Brazil is. Putin's version of conservatism, as mentioned in the article, is only applicable to Russia and countries with similar culture. Comparing Trump to Putin is like comparing Nixon to Brezhnev.
  - prox 5y ago
    So when Trump is praising Putin, where does that come from? What does he admire?
commandlinefan 5y ago
- ajross 5y ago
  Curious what you're citing here? The american right obviously has an extremely robust selection of sources to choose from in every medium there is. You can read Breitbart or watch Fox, you can find multiple radio stations with talking heads in every market. You can find fellow travellers on Facebook or 4chan (or right here). The biggest podcast in the nation pushes a mostly conservative line. I mean, I'm sure that somewhere there's been a terrible abuse and someone got fired or whatever. It's a big country. But, I'm equally sure that whatever happened, you know about it because the news was delivered to you by conservative media. The US is fine. We had an authoritarian scare for a while, but the system held.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
  - honkdaddy 5y ago
    Are you talking about Joe Rogan? He’s not a conservative.
    - koshergweilo 5y ago
      He never said he was, he said Rogan "pushes a mostly conservative line" which from my understanding seems to be true, at least regarding all major issues in the past year or so.
- moate 5y ago
  Avowed leftist here: Let's just agree that both the Dems and Repubs ban/seek to stifle opinions they don't agree with. Someone wants to ban Maus, someone else wants to ban Joe Rogan. Both parties want power at the expense of "freedom". Censorship is part of existing as part of a society though. There are people who seek to actively hurt others using words and media, and the whole idea of a state is to (pretend?) to act in the common good. At this point the internet gives everyone a platform (look at us right now, there's a near 0% chance we would have ever spoken in physical real life) and makes a TON more noise that makes finding the signal harder, which means both sides can find plenty of examples of the other behaving badly to "whatabout" whenever someone points out their own bad behavior. TL;dr- Everyone wants censorship, even if they pretend they don't, so let's not pretend it's actually either side. If anything, your point just proves that Dems/leftists might have more power in the US to influence these things, but that doesn't prove they have more desire to influence them than the right.
squarefoot 5y ago
Does it sound surprising that they all are Putin strong supporters?
- lkxijlewlf 5y ago
  Nope. Putin has played the long game by buying sympathy from the American Right.
- meragrin_ 5y ago
  "We're protecting Germany, we're protecting France, we're protecting all of these countries. And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they're paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. "So we're supposed to protect you against Russia and you pay billions of dollars to Russia and I think that's very inappropriate" Trump 2018 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pipeline/trump-lashes-germany-over-gas-pipeline-deal-calls-it-russias-captive-idUSKBN1K10VI https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pipeline/trum...
  - squarefoot 5y ago
    "I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. (sarcastic) So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well." Trump 02/22/2022. (emphasis mine) Full audio interview here: https://www.clayandbuck.com/president-trump-with-cb-from-mar-a-lago/ https://www.clayandbuck.com/president-trump-with-cb-from-mar...
    - kbelder 5y ago
      It's weird how people don't seem to understand. He's saying that Putin is a threat and a liar, and that this campaign is based on a clever deception. Obviously it wasn't as clever as Putin hoped, because nobody in the whole world except a few Russian HN posters believe it. But saying that your opponent has a clever plan does not mean you're on the opponent's side.
gotoeleven 5y ago
Do you remember all the reporting about russia and trump during this time? Would you call that news fake or not fake?
- lkxijlewlf 5y ago
  But, there is a connection between the two. Even his own children have admitted they get most all of their money from Russia (for example).
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    Prime example of the effects of biased reporting ^ There's a difference between having LEGITIMATE business long BEFORE your dad has power vs. getting put on a board of a corrupt energy company WHILE your dad is overseeing the country relations as VP. One is capitalism, one is nepotism. But all that being said, the statement "they get most all of their money from Russia" is wrong at face value. Their businesses do not get the majority of revenue from Russia. Back that statement up with a source so it can be torn apart.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
waffleiron 5y ago
Not just America, in the EU right now: In Czechia up to 1 year for publicly supporting Russia (two people already detained): https://www.praguemorning.cz/expressing-support-for-russia-or-putin-could-be-prosecuted-in-the-czech-republic/ https://www.praguemorning.cz/expressing-support-for-russia-o... In Slovakia, supporting [Russian] war propaganda 10 to 25 years: https://spravy.rtvs.sk/2022/02/za-podporu-vojnovej-propagandy-hrozi-az-dozivotie/ https://spravy.rtvs.sk/2022/02/za-podporu-vojnovej-propagand... EU banned RT and Sputnik: "It shall be prohibited for operators to broadcast or to enable, facilitate or otherwise contribute to broadcast, any content by the legal persons, entities or bodies listed in Annex XV, including through transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed"
- frabbit 5y ago
  Wow! That should be the real headline story. "Western" (w.t.f. does that mean?) state destroys freedom of speech in order to save it from Russia.
  - dTal 5y ago
    Those channels were toxic propaganda, psyops designed to divide and weaken Russia's enemies. Such things are never tolerated in war. I do think this is a period in human history where we're going to have to let go of some naive notions pertaining to "freedom of speech".
    - frabbit 5y ago
      > Those channels were toxic propaganda, psyops designed to divide and weaken Russia's enemies. How do you know that if you can't see them? And if you have been looking at them and have made a judgement why can't other people do the same? > Such things are never tolerated in war. Wait, what?! The Czech Republic is at war with Russia? > this is a period in human history where we're going to have to let go of some naive notions pertaining to "freedom of speech". And replace it with a sophisticated, jesuitical understanding? I'd prefer if you were honest and just said you do not believe in Free Speech.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
"Fake News" comes in many forms. Hyperbole and playing fast and loose with words like "waged a war" plays into this. The media has NEVER been particularly friendly to the President. Even George Washington himself lamented how the press was slandering his administration with falsehoods. What did this war look like? What actions did the government actually take to fight journalists covering POTUS unfavorably? Because I just remember an incredible amount of pearl clutching by journalists about how dangerous it is to say bad things about the press and how democracy would die in darkness if their credibility was questioned. It never actually stopped them from continuing act the same way.
- peeters 5y ago
  I think it's useful to distinguish between what a President says, and what he uses his executive powers to do. As far as what he did, I think the most impactful was probably drastically reducing press briefings in which the free press can directly challenge the administration. https://pressgazette.co.uk/trump-vs-media-freedom-of-press-distrust/ https://pressgazette.co.uk/trump-vs-media-freedom-of-press-d...
coolso 5y ago
signatoremo 5y ago
It’s also good to remember that Donald Trump is no longer the president, all of the fake news that he didn’t like still made it to the public, and none of the journalists he didn’t like are in jail, or killed. Now that is out of the way, should we switch our focus back to how Russia suppress any domestic news about the ongoing Ukriane war? Or “special operation” as it’s only allowed to be called?
eric_cc 5y ago
This is bullshit. Most American news (left and right) is Entertainment and in that sense it IS actually quite fake. And that's to say nothing of the times MSM is outright lying. Trump calling out the fake news as fake was probably one of the best things he did with his time as president. At least some people woke up as a result. Before Trump, people would view publications like NYT and WaPo as fundamentally different than Fox News. Now, thankfully, many more people realize they are exactly the same. If anything, Fox News presents itself more honestly as news entertainment and NYT is more deceptive.
ashwagary 5y ago
I agree. If we are being completely honest, the last 3 presidents attacked important information from getting out to the public in varying forms and degrees.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > If we are being completely honest, the last 3 presidents attacked important information from getting out to the public in varying forms and degrees. If we are being completely honest, we won't pretend the last three (whether you mean Obama, Trump, Biden or Bush, Obama, Trump) were special in that regard.
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    That's a fair point. Many of the 45 presidents engaged in similar behavior but recent technology improvements have made noticing it much easier.
Chris2048 5y ago
Any forum with a substantial amount of an left/right leaning group will have people wanting to jail/punish journalists. Describing media outlets he didn't like as "a war against .. media" is sensationalist. Saying this is "the same authoritarianism in different stages" is the same as saying getting angry is the same as genocide - "same anger in different stages" which is what ahs given rise to the draconian "literally Hitler" attitude to any dissent; This in itself is totalitarian.
helloworld11 5y ago
Your comparison is absurd. I'm sorry, but while Trump was often hostile to the media, the media and almost all major news sources (especially liberal-oriented ones) gave the hostility right back, in spades, openly and with no real threat to life or liberty for the editors and journalists involved. Trump made a lot of noise about authoritarian measures and personal wishes but if anything, did less than some previous presidents to actually try muzzling the media or journalists. I repeat, he was if anything the most heavily media-criticized president in recent history. You then claim that this is the "same authoritarianism" as that of Putin's Russia, where the press is firmly muzzled, where you can and will go to prison for in any way openly criticizing the United Russia Party or Putin himself and where reporters or political opponents are regularly, frequently murdered even abroad for going against the grain of Putin's narratives too often. No, these are not cases of different stages, they're cases of entirely different worlds. Trump's authoritarian noises were mostly just noises and sloppy backlash. Putin's authoritarianism is the real thing.

by pavlov 5y ago

calculatte 5y ago

zackees 5y ago

sydthrowaway 5y ago

jansen555 5y ago

[flagged]

criley2 5y ago
[flagged]

throwaway5752 5y ago

The backchannels were Manafort/Kilimnik, Michael Flynn/Kislyak, and more. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-... is a digestible background. That is just the US - most European countries have analogues, as do key Asian, African, and South American countries. The are not separate phenomenon at different stages, they are a global, coordinated group. They were coordinated by the massive cash flows coordinated by a small group in Russia. The use coordinated tactics, in concert with each other.

pohl 5y ago
Yes, it's the same trans-national crime syndicate. It's the same war, even – it's just recently became kinetic. Amazing the ROI that Vlad got from TFG.
- areyousure 5y ago
  In case anyone is curious, it appears that ROI = "return on investment", Vlad = Vladimir Putin, and TFG = "the former guy" = Donald Trump. It appears to be the ~4th time the latter abbreviation has been used on this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27920739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27920739
  - koshergweilo 5y ago
    Thanks for the translation. I'm pretty new to HN, is mentioning Putin or Trump by name a surefire way to get banned or something?
    - nix23 5y ago
      >surefire way to get banned or something No, but people like to self-censor sometimes ;)

swayvil 5y ago

kmeisthax 5y ago
It's one thing for Zuckerberg to ban you, and another thing for Putin to do the same. If Facebook bans you, you can go somewhere else. But they aren't the only game in town and their power is limited to refusing to serve you. If a government bans you, that means almost certain death.
- yifanl 5y ago
  I mean, let's not pretend that in Facebook's ideal world where they own the market, there _wouldn't_ be somewhere else to go to. Obviously that's not the case today, but I'm concerned that it'll get there eventually just based on how network effects seem to be trending.
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    I will not deny for a second that Zuckerberg dreams of having the kind of big monopolistic platform that would let him single-handedly suppress speech he doesn't like. However, that's still not as bad of a harm as being thrown in jail for the same thing. There's a huge gulf between "large multinational corporation" and "sovereign nation" - the former can still have it's power challenged through antitrust law and regulations, while the latter is immune to such things because they have their own military.

ch4s3 5y ago

That's not really a good comparison. Being an asshole to journalists if really different than putting them in jail for their reporting. The difference here is that some Republicans who have no power to actually do that talk shit about doing it, but Putin actually jails a lot of journalists.

cromd 5y ago
I don't think they're saying that Republicans are currently doing what Putin is currently doing. They said some people want to jail journalists, and you seem to be agreeing by saying those people "talk shit" about jailing journalists. Maybe one could say that talk is harmless, but I think most would challenge that.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  My claims is that the phrase "the previous American president also waged a war against every media outlet" is overblown nonsense. There are a mere handful of marginal Republican nobodies who support this stuff and we saw for 4 years that the courts are happy to slap down any US politician makes big constitutional missteps.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    No, that phrase isn't 100% true. Trump didn't wage war on Brietbart, OAN, and the like. Only "mainstream media" like CNN and even Fox when they reported what he called "fake news," actually facts he didn't like.
    - ch4s3 5y ago
      It's also not true at all. There was no war on any journalists. I'm not aware of a single journalist jailed by the Trump DOJ, the FCC didn't yank any licenses, nothing. It was all talk.
      - klyrs 5y ago

echelon 5y ago

> And if you think nobody in America wants to jail journalists and media CEOs, go look at any forum with a substantial amount of Republicans talking freely. I'm a liberal and would like to point out that fellow liberals say the same about conservatives. We're wasting energy and making enemies fighting a narrative warfare, and it's frankly very stupid. Jail the their protestors, but not our own. Deplatform their voices and curtail their free speech, but not our own. It's the exact same behavior in both sides, yet both parties rush in to say how they're different and morally correct. We need to mend ties, not strain them further. We're becoming too polarized, and that's exactly what authoritarians that eye the end of Democracy and its influence want. We're focused on fighting our petty squabbles instead of positioning ourselves in the global sphere. If you think any of our manufactured crises are even in the same order of magnitude as what Ukraine is facing right now, then they're already winning. My worry isn't in owning or being owned by the other party. It's that Democracy is shown to be less effective, that free speech is put in a box, and that we end the century in shackles. No future under those pretenses is worth looking forward to.

cabalamat 5y ago
I agree. The US culture war helps dictators like Putin and Xi.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  tnat doesnt solve the problems it just makes the stakes higher.
natechols 5y ago
Nearly all of recorded human history has been rule by gangsters - the liberal democracies of the rich world are an aberration, not the norm. I think about this almost daily and it terrifies me.
- phs318u 5y ago
  Yes! I often wonder whether, in the far future, there will even be historians that know that for a brief moment in time - a couple of centuries - a historical blip - there was a significant chunk of the world where the masses could educate themselves and rise above their origins, without fear of reprisal from the state. What I fear most is a return to the historical mean - where the vast majority are mere peasants. Ignorant, and systematically oppressed, restrained, and exploited.

akomtu 5y ago

To be honest, the blue camp is different only in rhetoric: if the red wants control in the name of national security, the blue wants the same control in the name of grotesque moral rightnessess. Fake news is a good summary of our media today, it just applies to both camps.

electrondood 5y ago
Bullshit false equivalence. I notice that Democrats aren't forming white supremacist militias, plotting to kidnap state governors, attacking Congress specifically to overturn the results of a national election, etc.
- avion23 5y ago
- dev_by_day 5y ago
  Democrats have plenty of blood on their hands in demanding censorship. Remember the accusations of racism that were used to shut down the lab leak theory? Or the demands to censor scientists with any dissenting viewpoints over Covid? The cover up of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal that resulted in journalists from the Post being banned? The "war on disinformation" their obsessed with is not any different from a "war on fake news". Censorship is a tool of cowards and there are plenty of cowards in both parties that will use it to shut down any dissenting view points.
  - throwaway5752 5y ago
    Division is the goal of the adversary. We should stop arguing for no good reason if we don't have to.
    - dev_by_day 5y ago
      We shouldn't allow people to spread lies and demonize one side unchecked. If were going to talk about problems, its best we don't scape goat on one side and admit there are flaws in both parties. Letting them scape-goat and demonize unchecked doesn't help anything either.

EtherTyper 5y ago

Or for a more concrete example, look at how both Republicans and Democrats are treating Julian Assange. Investigative journalism and whistleblowing are under attack by all political factions and by the justice system, today. We cannot treat anti-free-press authoritarianism in the West as an "early stage" or tomorrow's problem.

malfist 5y ago
Julian Assange isn't a journalist though. He was a contractor trusted with protected information which he then publicized. There's a big difference between a journalist finding and publishing information, and a mole in our government sharing our secrets with people. And that's ignoring the whole rape thing with Assange.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  My understanding is the fake rape charges were dropped. I expect it could've been an attempt at character assassination by certain governments with a long history of this kind of attack.
  - sonotathrowaway 5y ago
    America should have just threatened to murder him like Putin did. Maybe then he would’ve worked for the US, instead of signing a tv deal with Putin.
    - ashwagary 5y ago
      Stealing 10 years of his life and freedom is basically slow murder and torture. Whataboutism is unwarranted, the US is overreaching.
- scatters 5y ago
  You're confusing Snowden with Assange. (And probably forgetting the role of Manning.)
5y ago

prox 5y ago

I found this article very enlightening : https://www.csis.org/features/kremlin-playbook-3 https://www.csis.org/features/kremlin-playbook-3 From the center of strategic and international studies. It describes how the same ideology (white male christian) worldview is connected to Putin and Trump, and how the West is viewed as decadent through the moral lens of the fundamentalist churches in both the US and the Russian orthodox church.

LegitShady 5y ago
white male christian is not an ideology. The first is a skin color, the second is a gender, the third is a religion. Pretending that you throw those three things together creates some coherent and common ideology is not logical thought
- prox 5y ago
  No, and maybe I could have worded that better. But that’s part of their identity and what they rally around. If you read the article you would see what I mean. From the article “Here traditionalism and identity are fused together such that disrupting one threatens the other. Any demographic change (particularly immigration from Muslim-majority and non-White countries, exacerbated in the public perception by low birth rates) is viewed as a direct challenge to identity and tradition.” So maybe the better word is “strategic conversatism” as per the article.
t0suj4 5y ago
Conservatism is relative term. It basically means "keep what we have and carefully evaluate new things". Conservatism in the US is not what conservatism in France is. Conservatism in Mexico is not what conservatism in Brazil is. Putin's version of conservatism, as mentioned in the article, is only applicable to Russia and countries with similar culture. Comparing Trump to Putin is like comparing Nixon to Brezhnev.
- prox 5y ago
  So when Trump is praising Putin, where does that come from? What does he admire?

commandlinefan 5y ago

ajross 5y ago
Curious what you're citing here? The american right obviously has an extremely robust selection of sources to choose from in every medium there is. You can read Breitbart or watch Fox, you can find multiple radio stations with talking heads in every market. You can find fellow travellers on Facebook or 4chan (or right here). The biggest podcast in the nation pushes a mostly conservative line. I mean, I'm sure that somewhere there's been a terrible abuse and someone got fired or whatever. It's a big country. But, I'm equally sure that whatever happened, you know about it because the news was delivered to you by conservative media. The US is fine. We had an authoritarian scare for a while, but the system held.
- user-the-name 5y ago
- honkdaddy 5y ago
  Are you talking about Joe Rogan? He’s not a conservative.
  - koshergweilo 5y ago
    He never said he was, he said Rogan "pushes a mostly conservative line" which from my understanding seems to be true, at least regarding all major issues in the past year or so.
moate 5y ago
Avowed leftist here: Let's just agree that both the Dems and Repubs ban/seek to stifle opinions they don't agree with. Someone wants to ban Maus, someone else wants to ban Joe Rogan. Both parties want power at the expense of "freedom". Censorship is part of existing as part of a society though. There are people who seek to actively hurt others using words and media, and the whole idea of a state is to (pretend?) to act in the common good. At this point the internet gives everyone a platform (look at us right now, there's a near 0% chance we would have ever spoken in physical real life) and makes a TON more noise that makes finding the signal harder, which means both sides can find plenty of examples of the other behaving badly to "whatabout" whenever someone points out their own bad behavior. TL;dr- Everyone wants censorship, even if they pretend they don't, so let's not pretend it's actually either side. If anything, your point just proves that Dems/leftists might have more power in the US to influence these things, but that doesn't prove they have more desire to influence them than the right.

squarefoot 5y ago

Does it sound surprising that they all are Putin strong supporters?

lkxijlewlf 5y ago
Nope. Putin has played the long game by buying sympathy from the American Right.
meragrin_ 5y ago
"We're protecting Germany, we're protecting France, we're protecting all of these countries. And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they're paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. "So we're supposed to protect you against Russia and you pay billions of dollars to Russia and I think that's very inappropriate" Trump 2018 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pipeline/trump-lashes-germany-over-gas-pipeline-deal-calls-it-russias-captive-idUSKBN1K10VI https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pipeline/trum...
- squarefoot 5y ago
  "I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. (sarcastic) So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well." Trump 02/22/2022. (emphasis mine) Full audio interview here: https://www.clayandbuck.com/president-trump-with-cb-from-mar-a-lago/ https://www.clayandbuck.com/president-trump-with-cb-from-mar...
  - kbelder 5y ago
    It's weird how people don't seem to understand. He's saying that Putin is a threat and a liar, and that this campaign is based on a clever deception. Obviously it wasn't as clever as Putin hoped, because nobody in the whole world except a few Russian HN posters believe it. But saying that your opponent has a clever plan does not mean you're on the opponent's side.

gotoeleven 5y ago

Do you remember all the reporting about russia and trump during this time? Would you call that news fake or not fake?

lkxijlewlf 5y ago
But, there is a connection between the two. Even his own children have admitted they get most all of their money from Russia (for example).
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Prime example of the effects of biased reporting ^ There's a difference between having LEGITIMATE business long BEFORE your dad has power vs. getting put on a board of a corrupt energy company WHILE your dad is overseeing the country relations as VP. One is capitalism, one is nepotism. But all that being said, the statement "they get most all of their money from Russia" is wrong at face value. Their businesses do not get the majority of revenue from Russia. Back that statement up with a source so it can be torn apart.

deleted 5y ago

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waffleiron 5y ago

Not just America, in the EU right now: In Czechia up to 1 year for publicly supporting Russia (two people already detained): https://www.praguemorning.cz/expressing-support-for-russia-or-putin-could-be-prosecuted-in-the-czech-republic/ https://www.praguemorning.cz/expressing-support-for-russia-o... In Slovakia, supporting [Russian] war propaganda 10 to 25 years: https://spravy.rtvs.sk/2022/02/za-podporu-vojnovej-propagandy-hrozi-az-dozivotie/ https://spravy.rtvs.sk/2022/02/za-podporu-vojnovej-propagand... EU banned RT and Sputnik: "It shall be prohibited for operators to broadcast or to enable, facilitate or otherwise contribute to broadcast, any content by the legal persons, entities or bodies listed in Annex XV, including through transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed"

frabbit 5y ago
Wow! That should be the real headline story. "Western" (w.t.f. does that mean?) state destroys freedom of speech in order to save it from Russia.
- dTal 5y ago
  Those channels were toxic propaganda, psyops designed to divide and weaken Russia's enemies. Such things are never tolerated in war. I do think this is a period in human history where we're going to have to let go of some naive notions pertaining to "freedom of speech".
  - frabbit 5y ago
    > Those channels were toxic propaganda, psyops designed to divide and weaken Russia's enemies. How do you know that if you can't see them? And if you have been looking at them and have made a judgement why can't other people do the same? > Such things are never tolerated in war. Wait, what?! The Czech Republic is at war with Russia? > this is a period in human history where we're going to have to let go of some naive notions pertaining to "freedom of speech". And replace it with a sophisticated, jesuitical understanding? I'd prefer if you were honest and just said you do not believe in Free Speech.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

"Fake News" comes in many forms. Hyperbole and playing fast and loose with words like "waged a war" plays into this. The media has NEVER been particularly friendly to the President. Even George Washington himself lamented how the press was slandering his administration with falsehoods. What did this war look like? What actions did the government actually take to fight journalists covering POTUS unfavorably? Because I just remember an incredible amount of pearl clutching by journalists about how dangerous it is to say bad things about the press and how democracy would die in darkness if their credibility was questioned. It never actually stopped them from continuing act the same way.

peeters 5y ago
I think it's useful to distinguish between what a President says, and what he uses his executive powers to do. As far as what he did, I think the most impactful was probably drastically reducing press briefings in which the free press can directly challenge the administration. https://pressgazette.co.uk/trump-vs-media-freedom-of-press-distrust/ https://pressgazette.co.uk/trump-vs-media-freedom-of-press-d...

coolso 5y ago

signatoremo 5y ago

It’s also good to remember that Donald Trump is no longer the president, all of the fake news that he didn’t like still made it to the public, and none of the journalists he didn’t like are in jail, or killed. Now that is out of the way, should we switch our focus back to how Russia suppress any domestic news about the ongoing Ukriane war? Or “special operation” as it’s only allowed to be called?

eric_cc 5y ago

This is bullshit. Most American news (left and right) is Entertainment and in that sense it IS actually quite fake. And that's to say nothing of the times MSM is outright lying. Trump calling out the fake news as fake was probably one of the best things he did with his time as president. At least some people woke up as a result. Before Trump, people would view publications like NYT and WaPo as fundamentally different than Fox News. Now, thankfully, many more people realize they are exactly the same. If anything, Fox News presents itself more honestly as news entertainment and NYT is more deceptive.

ashwagary 5y ago

I agree. If we are being completely honest, the last 3 presidents attacked important information from getting out to the public in varying forms and degrees.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> If we are being completely honest, the last 3 presidents attacked important information from getting out to the public in varying forms and degrees. If we are being completely honest, we won't pretend the last three (whether you mean Obama, Trump, Biden or Bush, Obama, Trump) were special in that regard.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  That's a fair point. Many of the 45 presidents engaged in similar behavior but recent technology improvements have made noticing it much easier.

Chris2048 5y ago

Any forum with a substantial amount of an left/right leaning group will have people wanting to jail/punish journalists. Describing media outlets he didn't like as "a war against .. media" is sensationalist. Saying this is "the same authoritarianism in different stages" is the same as saying getting angry is the same as genocide - "same anger in different stages" which is what ahs given rise to the draconian "literally Hitler" attitude to any dissent; This in itself is totalitarian.

helloworld11 5y ago

Your comparison is absurd. I'm sorry, but while Trump was often hostile to the media, the media and almost all major news sources (especially liberal-oriented ones) gave the hostility right back, in spades, openly and with no real threat to life or liberty for the editors and journalists involved. Trump made a lot of noise about authoritarian measures and personal wishes but if anything, did less than some previous presidents to actually try muzzling the media or journalists. I repeat, he was if anything the most heavily media-criticized president in recent history. You then claim that this is the "same authoritarianism" as that of Putin's Russia, where the press is firmly muzzled, where you can and will go to prison for in any way openly criticizing the United Russia Party or Putin himself and where reporters or political opponents are regularly, frequently murdered even abroad for going against the grain of Putin's narratives too often. No, these are not cases of different stages, they're cases of entirely different worlds. Trump's authoritarian noises were mostly just noises and sloppy backlash. Putin's authoritarianism is the real thing.