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Most of the ISPs that block russian sites (RT, etc.) do it on DNS level, so just changing the DNS allows you to open those sites. And yes, this is a dark part

Most of the ISPs that block russian sites (RT, etc.) do it on DNS level, so just changing the DNS allows you to open those sites. And yes, this is a dark part of EU history... someone like putin blocking websites... sure, he's more or less a dictator, and we expect dictators to do stuff like that. But EU, a "pillar of democracy" blocking sites, because they don't like what they say, and because they show a different side to western propaganda... that's a bad precedent to set. But yeah, unironically writing articles like "evacuation of azovstal" [0] with a headline photo like that, takes some guts and needs some censorship to pass [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2022/may/17/evacuation-of-azovstal-plant-in-mariupol-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2022/may/17/evacua... ("evacuation" for western media is another word for "surrendering and being taken as war prisoners to siberia")

trasz 4y ago
RT isn’t banned because we don’t like what it says - it’s banned because it’s a part of information war. It’s not media - you won’t find there a single fact you wouldn’t get from western media. Which, btw, is very obvious when you actually look at RT. It’s a (more American than Russian for some reason) right wing sewage pool in the comments and some Daily Mail level “journalism” above.
- vogre 4y ago
  >it’s banned because it’s a part of information war Yup, just call anything you don't like "russian disinformation", and you are free to ban it, easy.
  - ptr 4y ago
    So, what are we supposed to do with actual Russian disinformation? Or are you saying it doesn’t exist?
    - miracle2k 4y ago
      You let it be published and broadcast, like a normal free country would.
      - ptr 4y ago
        I’m sorry but people in general aren’t critical thinkers — broadcasting false and misleading communication should be avoided since it’s extremely dangerous. See the storming of the Capitol Building. It’s especially dangerous when that communication is meant to undermine your country and what your country stands for.
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        ptr 4y ago
        Relevance? Why do you feel a need to pull out such arguments when we have a complete war criminal over in the kremlin?
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        It's relevant, because we didn't ban western media (well, our own) back then, for spreading false propaganda (ending in many many deaths), and we're banning RT now, because it's "them" and not "us". If we hate false news/propaganda/... then ban cnn (and many other media), but we clearly want (and allow) "that kind" of propaganda, just not the russian one.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        There's a big difference between intentionally lying and saying things that you honestly believed but turned out to be false.
  - trasz 4y ago
    It’s not “anything”: it’s not like Fox News is banned, or antivaxers. We are talking about an actual shooting war between a genocidal regime and the western civilization, and the ongoing process of Russia turning from “Nigeria with nukes”[1] into North Korea. It’s a once-per-century event. 1. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/russia-nigeria-with-nukes_b_1181592 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/russia-nigeria-with-nukes_b_1..., and of course Nigeria got much better future prospects
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    > anything you don’t like Riiight. Because that’s why RT was banned.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > RT isn’t banned because we don’t like what it says - it’s banned because it’s a part of information war. You're going to have to explain the difference between these two things.
  - trhway 4y ago
    It is an information arm of the Russian government. Restricting direct actions of other government on your territory is a well established international practice. Europe doesn't ban [dis]information from Russia (until of course it violates specific laws of a given country against say inciting violence, propaganda of genocide, etc.)
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      Banning media is a thing repressive dicatators do.
      - trhway 4y ago
        RT is a propaganda department of Russian government. Most countries do regulate behavior of the agents of foreign governments on their territory. It is up to a specific government whether they allow another government to come in and for example spread propaganda or mine coal or build railways. Usually there is some reciprocity expected. Russia blocked not only West government propaganda agencies, it is also blocked independent media. So, the West governments are more than expected to block Russian government propaganda operations, especially given that non government information flow from Russia isn't blocked (that would be the censorship similar to that Russia has been doing, and West hasn't done it yet).
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        > RT is a propaganda department of Russian government So is BBC. And they lied about iraq having weapons of mass destruction. We didn't ban them. Yes, russia is led by an ex-kgb dictator... do we really want to be the same as him, and do the same things? Are we really no better at censorship and propaganda than him?
- turdit 4y ago
  the information i got from rt was that putin says he’s invading bc the us is putting missiles in ukraine, which take a certain amount of minutes to hit moscow, which putin claimed was unacceptable to russian national security. from the west the only info you get is that he’s crazy and there was no reason at all for the invasion. so without even getting into details of is it actually true or not, it was nice to at least hear putin’s rationale, because the west’s explanation that he’s doing this for no reason except that he’s crazy is really insulting to the intelligence of everyone who is not a complete moron. but unfortunately that is 99% of people.
  - stefan_ 4y ago
    See, that's the problem when "news" like RT hits on people that have no critical thinking ability. No one needs to put missiles physically closer for half a century now; they just launch from nuclear subs. Even Israel can do this. (And this isn't even the stated reason! You can just watch Putins faux-historical speech!)
    - int_19h 4y ago
      It is one of the stated reasons, actually. There have been many, not necessarily coherent, even coming just from Putin himself.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - ptr 4y ago
    “the us is putting missiles in ukraine” — first time I’m hearing that explanation. Didn’t he invade because Ukraine is “full of nazis”? Or was it due to the “nukes Ukraine was planning to get”? Or to “return Ukraine to Russia”? https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-admits-ukraine-invasion-is-an-imperial-war-to-return-russian-land/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-adm...
jollybean 4y ago
This is a misunderstanding, I believe. What people need to understand is that 'words have consequences'. The 'truth' isn't that important in communications because people can't discern it. People don't know, and often do not care what the truth is. Putin, Xi etc. can easily convince millions of Europeans of their view of the world, which will mostly be based on lies. It's a key pillar of their respective foreign policies. That disinformation has material effects in civil culture. So put another way: we don't want to 'completely ban' content from Russia, but rather, not make it part of the populist lexicon. It's a bit like removing a TV station from broadcasting as one of the 'major channels'. If Europeans conscientiously choose want to get RT, they can. But the West shouldn't allow Russia or China to broadcast directly into people's homes willy nilly. My god man. Information is by far the most powerful weapon. If either Putin or Xi lost their power to censor, their respective governments would collapse, frankly I suggest both of them would be literally dead. Very quickly, within a few months. The internet is giving us the biggest lesson in 'Critical Theory' imaginable (i.e. competing narratives) and of course, we have our own narratives (and internally huge competition over them), but still, some truths are a bit better than others.
- vogre 4y ago
  > West shouldn't allow Russia or China to broadcast directly into people's homes willy nilly. My god man. What will happen if West would allow it? Will it collapse? If not, why censor it? If it will, what's the difference between West and Putin? Both will collapse without censorship.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    "What is the difference between the Allied 'liberation' of France and Hitler's 'liberation' of France? They both deserve an equal voice!" If you're wading int moral relativism, then what is the point, really? The West mostly acts in good faith (not always), and, bad information mostly is marginalized though definitely available. For example, we suppress some kinds of bad information about health, and definitely suppress things like 'how to make nuclear weapons' etc. though generally, it's available if you really try. We don't completely shut down pirate bay. RT.com is a propaganda outlet, designed to spread falsehoods and to undermine civic integrity. If RT.com was 'in every home', a large swath of Europeans would come to believe things that are not true, and likely undermine important efforts, specifically around security. Stalin controlled 17% of the Bundestag during the Wiemar Republic through direct control over the Germany Communist party. He used information, thugs, violence, populism to try to overthrow the Social Democrats (center left) many times, in an attempt to spread his tyranny. He even worked with the far right (aka nascent Hitler) during that time, as they were considered fools. The far right used the legitimacy of Soviet intervention as a means for violent populism. They lied themselves about various things in order to gain power. Mass destruction ensued. The Russians ironically initiated the spread of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' a pretty good example of 'misinformation' which has seriously dire consequences. 30% of Americans believe that 'Joe Biden Stole the Election' which combined with events on Jan 6 which was a clear and direct attempt to dismiss valid votes in lieu of political 'votes' to overthrow the government, has very real consequences. None of that could have happened of only, say, 1% of Americans believed the election stolen. And that's in a media system where most mainstream outlets did not directly promulgate the lie (Fox News didn't sufficiently question the lies about election integrity, but they didn't usually directly support the lie either). The issue matters, greatly. I have access to RT in North American and I don't think it's a big deal, but collectively it is, much more so in Europe where there are Russian sympathizers. For example, RT was pulled form regular broadcast, which is rational. Someone noted above that 'Vodafone' blocked them from RT.com, which I think is fine so long as there is some way to conscientiously get around that arbitrary blocking. Finally, you'll note that Russians do have access to tons of information from outside the censors, but they don't access it, or even care to, which denotes how kind of 'lazy' most of us plebes are - we tend to watch what is in front of us, and believe what we want to believe. Go ahead and watch Russia 1, i.e. Russia's main TV broadcast for a bit, translated into English. It's utterly shocking, now contemplate that 50% of the country believes most of what is beings said because of how they are being fed information. This idea that 'the truth' rises to the point is worse than naive, it's extremely dangerous because it's absolutely false. The most engaging ideas that appeal to our impulses are those that 'rise to the top' to become 'truth'. It's a serious issue. Though again, Europeans should be able to access RT by jumping a few small hoops.
Volker_W 4y ago
German Vodafone customer here: It seems to be blocked properly not just on DNS level. Changing DNS does not fix it. $ ping rt.com PING rt.com (91.215.41.4) 56(84) bytes of data. ^J --- rt.com ping statistics --- 293 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 295812ms I'm not a Putin/Russia supporter, nor do I read rt.com, but I want the ability to hear what the enemy says.
- fosefx 4y ago
  I think that's because the rt server does not respond to ICMP. I use 1.1.1.1 and can access rt.com just fine (also German Vodafone customer here)
- 5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
  > but I want the ability to hear what the enemy says. Read propaganda written for internal consumption then. I find it much more illuminating. Maybe through Google Translate, I think it's quite decent at ru → en translation these days. Some of the main outlets off the top of my head: https://interfax.ru https://interfax.ru https://tass.ru https://tass.ru https://regnum.ru https://regnum.ru https://pravda.ru https://pravda.ru https://kommersant.ru https://kommersant.ru https://gazeta.ru https://gazeta.ru https://iz.ru https://iz.ru https://ria.ru https://ria.ru https://lenta.ru https://lenta.ru https://rbc.ru https://rbc.ru Or through an aggregator: https://yandex.ru/news/ https://yandex.ru/news/
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Getting acquainted with both kinds of propaganda is informative. If you compare RT and internal outlets side by side, you see which stuff gets said for which audience.
    - the_why_of_y 4y ago
      Very much so. Example: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/11/11/the-two-faces-of-rt-s-coronavirus-propaganda https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/11/11/the-two-faces-of-rt-...
hayst4ck 4y ago
> because they don't like what they say, and because they show a different side to western propaganda... News stories are often engineered to achieve a specific desired outcome. What do you call something that is engineered to cause destruction or chaos? I would call it a weapon. Just because it isn't incendiary, doesn't mean it is any less able to cause destruction. You wouldn't let someone who has engineered an explosive bring it through your borders. I don't understand why you would let someone who engineered a story for the purpose of creating chaos transmit on your equipment. The west has sanctity for all communication due to the potential of misidentifying good faith communication as bad faith. Good faith communication should enjoy a level of sanctity, but to say bad faith communication should be treated with the same sanctity as good faith communication in all situations seems deeply optimistic at best. At some point the pragmatic call has to be made that the risk of labeling a good faith communication as bad faith is low enough that action must be taken. This game is worth playing: https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/ It beautifully demonstrates what happens when you give unfettered trust to those who abuse it.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  >What do you call something that is engineered to cause destruction or chaos? Depends is that thing a lie or the truth? The Pentagon Papers were designed to cause destruction and chaos. They were the truth. Should we have banned them because they let people see what their government was actually doing? Would it have mattered if Pravda posted them instead of the NYT?
vbezhenar 4y ago
Honest question: which big western news websites were blocked in Russia?
xdennis 4y ago
> And yes, this is a dark part of EU history... Was blocking Hitler's propaganda during WW2 a dark side of Europe's history? This is war! You can't allow the enemy to trick your population. In Romania, when we were occupied by Russia, there were just 400 communists in the country. Those people were put in charge of everything by the occupiers. If Ukraine is defeated, we'll be next, so it makes sense to not have any such people. A poll showed that only 75 % of Romanians blamed Russia for the war. 5 % blamed Ukraine, and the rest NATO/"the West"/etc. That means that an incredible number of our people are traitors, and we can't allow Russia to communicate to them.
- 331c8c71 4y ago
  > That means that an incredible number of our people are traitors. I don't see any logical support for this conclusion even based on your narrative. > and we can't allow Russia to communicate to them. Obviously because YOU know better.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >I don't see any logical support for this conclusion even based on your narrative. The AUR party was very pro-Russian before the war, and now, after the war, the politics in Romanian are getting incredibly charged to the extent that if you were to legitimately criticize actions of NATO or the EU, regardless of what arguments you bring, you'd be automatically be classified as an AUR fan, a Kremlin supporter, a Russian shill, and a traitor that must be silenced or locked up. Basically any criticism towards NATO/EU is forbidden in Romania, on the basis that don't bite the hand that feeds you.
    - trasz 4y ago
      Again, imagine living in UK in 1943 and criticizing the allied forces. It’s the exact same situation, except now Russians are the nazis.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
wiseowise 4y ago
> blocking sites, because they don't like what they say, and because they show a different side to western propaganda... that's a bad precedent to set. You mean blocking sites because they spread blatant misinformation, fake news and generally text book demagogue?
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  So basically, every mainstream news media in the last few decades? Or is it just when it's the "other guys" doing it? When it's "iraq has weapons of mass destruction", "iraqi soldiers kill babies", "trump inpatient, feeds fish to fast", "smirking kid attacks native american", etc?
agapon 4y ago
It looks like you are arguing for tolerating intolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Freedom of speech means also letting people say stuff, you don't like.

trasz 4y ago

RT isn’t banned because we don’t like what it says - it’s banned because it’s a part of information war. It’s not media - you won’t find there a single fact you wouldn’t get from western media. Which, btw, is very obvious when you actually look at RT. It’s a (more American than Russian for some reason) right wing sewage pool in the comments and some Daily Mail level “journalism” above.

vogre 4y ago
>it’s banned because it’s a part of information war Yup, just call anything you don't like "russian disinformation", and you are free to ban it, easy.
- ptr 4y ago
  So, what are we supposed to do with actual Russian disinformation? Or are you saying it doesn’t exist?
  - miracle2k 4y ago
    You let it be published and broadcast, like a normal free country would.
    - ptr 4y ago
      I’m sorry but people in general aren’t critical thinkers — broadcasting false and misleading communication should be avoided since it’s extremely dangerous. See the storming of the Capitol Building. It’s especially dangerous when that communication is meant to undermine your country and what your country stands for.
      - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        ptr 4y ago
        Relevance? Why do you feel a need to pull out such arguments when we have a complete war criminal over in the kremlin?
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        It's relevant, because we didn't ban western media (well, our own) back then, for spreading false propaganda (ending in many many deaths), and we're banning RT now, because it's "them" and not "us". If we hate false news/propaganda/... then ban cnn (and many other media), but we clearly want (and allow) "that kind" of propaganda, just not the russian one.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        There's a big difference between intentionally lying and saying things that you honestly believed but turned out to be false.
- trasz 4y ago
  It’s not “anything”: it’s not like Fox News is banned, or antivaxers. We are talking about an actual shooting war between a genocidal regime and the western civilization, and the ongoing process of Russia turning from “Nigeria with nukes”[1] into North Korea. It’s a once-per-century event. 1. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/russia-nigeria-with-nukes_b_1181592 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/russia-nigeria-with-nukes_b_1..., and of course Nigeria got much better future prospects
- wiseowise 4y ago
  > anything you don’t like Riiight. Because that’s why RT was banned.
pessimizer 4y ago
> RT isn’t banned because we don’t like what it says - it’s banned because it’s a part of information war. You're going to have to explain the difference between these two things.
- trhway 4y ago
  It is an information arm of the Russian government. Restricting direct actions of other government on your territory is a well established international practice. Europe doesn't ban [dis]information from Russia (until of course it violates specific laws of a given country against say inciting violence, propaganda of genocide, etc.)
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    Banning media is a thing repressive dicatators do.
    - trhway 4y ago
      RT is a propaganda department of Russian government. Most countries do regulate behavior of the agents of foreign governments on their territory. It is up to a specific government whether they allow another government to come in and for example spread propaganda or mine coal or build railways. Usually there is some reciprocity expected. Russia blocked not only West government propaganda agencies, it is also blocked independent media. So, the West governments are more than expected to block Russian government propaganda operations, especially given that non government information flow from Russia isn't blocked (that would be the censorship similar to that Russia has been doing, and West hasn't done it yet).
      - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        > RT is a propaganda department of Russian government So is BBC. And they lied about iraq having weapons of mass destruction. We didn't ban them. Yes, russia is led by an ex-kgb dictator... do we really want to be the same as him, and do the same things? Are we really no better at censorship and propaganda than him?
turdit 4y ago
the information i got from rt was that putin says he’s invading bc the us is putting missiles in ukraine, which take a certain amount of minutes to hit moscow, which putin claimed was unacceptable to russian national security. from the west the only info you get is that he’s crazy and there was no reason at all for the invasion. so without even getting into details of is it actually true or not, it was nice to at least hear putin’s rationale, because the west’s explanation that he’s doing this for no reason except that he’s crazy is really insulting to the intelligence of everyone who is not a complete moron. but unfortunately that is 99% of people.
- stefan_ 4y ago
  See, that's the problem when "news" like RT hits on people that have no critical thinking ability. No one needs to put missiles physically closer for half a century now; they just launch from nuclear subs. Even Israel can do this. (And this isn't even the stated reason! You can just watch Putins faux-historical speech!)
  - int_19h 4y ago
    It is one of the stated reasons, actually. There have been many, not necessarily coherent, even coming just from Putin himself.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- ptr 4y ago
  “the us is putting missiles in ukraine” — first time I’m hearing that explanation. Didn’t he invade because Ukraine is “full of nazis”? Or was it due to the “nukes Ukraine was planning to get”? Or to “return Ukraine to Russia”? https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-admits-ukraine-invasion-is-an-imperial-war-to-return-russian-land/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-adm...

jollybean 4y ago

This is a misunderstanding, I believe. What people need to understand is that 'words have consequences'. The 'truth' isn't that important in communications because people can't discern it. People don't know, and often do not care what the truth is. Putin, Xi etc. can easily convince millions of Europeans of their view of the world, which will mostly be based on lies. It's a key pillar of their respective foreign policies. That disinformation has material effects in civil culture. So put another way: we don't want to 'completely ban' content from Russia, but rather, not make it part of the populist lexicon. It's a bit like removing a TV station from broadcasting as one of the 'major channels'. If Europeans conscientiously choose want to get RT, they can. But the West shouldn't allow Russia or China to broadcast directly into people's homes willy nilly. My god man. Information is by far the most powerful weapon. If either Putin or Xi lost their power to censor, their respective governments would collapse, frankly I suggest both of them would be literally dead. Very quickly, within a few months. The internet is giving us the biggest lesson in 'Critical Theory' imaginable (i.e. competing narratives) and of course, we have our own narratives (and internally huge competition over them), but still, some truths are a bit better than others.

vogre 4y ago
> West shouldn't allow Russia or China to broadcast directly into people's homes willy nilly. My god man. What will happen if West would allow it? Will it collapse? If not, why censor it? If it will, what's the difference between West and Putin? Both will collapse without censorship.
- jollybean 4y ago
  "What is the difference between the Allied 'liberation' of France and Hitler's 'liberation' of France? They both deserve an equal voice!" If you're wading int moral relativism, then what is the point, really? The West mostly acts in good faith (not always), and, bad information mostly is marginalized though definitely available. For example, we suppress some kinds of bad information about health, and definitely suppress things like 'how to make nuclear weapons' etc. though generally, it's available if you really try. We don't completely shut down pirate bay. RT.com is a propaganda outlet, designed to spread falsehoods and to undermine civic integrity. If RT.com was 'in every home', a large swath of Europeans would come to believe things that are not true, and likely undermine important efforts, specifically around security. Stalin controlled 17% of the Bundestag during the Wiemar Republic through direct control over the Germany Communist party. He used information, thugs, violence, populism to try to overthrow the Social Democrats (center left) many times, in an attempt to spread his tyranny. He even worked with the far right (aka nascent Hitler) during that time, as they were considered fools. The far right used the legitimacy of Soviet intervention as a means for violent populism. They lied themselves about various things in order to gain power. Mass destruction ensued. The Russians ironically initiated the spread of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' a pretty good example of 'misinformation' which has seriously dire consequences. 30% of Americans believe that 'Joe Biden Stole the Election' which combined with events on Jan 6 which was a clear and direct attempt to dismiss valid votes in lieu of political 'votes' to overthrow the government, has very real consequences. None of that could have happened of only, say, 1% of Americans believed the election stolen. And that's in a media system where most mainstream outlets did not directly promulgate the lie (Fox News didn't sufficiently question the lies about election integrity, but they didn't usually directly support the lie either). The issue matters, greatly. I have access to RT in North American and I don't think it's a big deal, but collectively it is, much more so in Europe where there are Russian sympathizers. For example, RT was pulled form regular broadcast, which is rational. Someone noted above that 'Vodafone' blocked them from RT.com, which I think is fine so long as there is some way to conscientiously get around that arbitrary blocking. Finally, you'll note that Russians do have access to tons of information from outside the censors, but they don't access it, or even care to, which denotes how kind of 'lazy' most of us plebes are - we tend to watch what is in front of us, and believe what we want to believe. Go ahead and watch Russia 1, i.e. Russia's main TV broadcast for a bit, translated into English. It's utterly shocking, now contemplate that 50% of the country believes most of what is beings said because of how they are being fed information. This idea that 'the truth' rises to the point is worse than naive, it's extremely dangerous because it's absolutely false. The most engaging ideas that appeal to our impulses are those that 'rise to the top' to become 'truth'. It's a serious issue. Though again, Europeans should be able to access RT by jumping a few small hoops.

Volker_W 4y ago

German Vodafone customer here: It seems to be blocked properly not just on DNS level. Changing DNS does not fix it. $ ping rt.com PING rt.com (91.215.41.4) 56(84) bytes of data. ^J --- rt.com ping statistics --- 293 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 295812ms I'm not a Putin/Russia supporter, nor do I read rt.com, but I want the ability to hear what the enemy says.

fosefx 4y ago
I think that's because the rt server does not respond to ICMP. I use 1.1.1.1 and can access rt.com just fine (also German Vodafone customer here)
5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
> but I want the ability to hear what the enemy says. Read propaganda written for internal consumption then. I find it much more illuminating. Maybe through Google Translate, I think it's quite decent at ru → en translation these days. Some of the main outlets off the top of my head: https://interfax.ru https://interfax.ru https://tass.ru https://tass.ru https://regnum.ru https://regnum.ru https://pravda.ru https://pravda.ru https://kommersant.ru https://kommersant.ru https://gazeta.ru https://gazeta.ru https://iz.ru https://iz.ru https://ria.ru https://ria.ru https://lenta.ru https://lenta.ru https://rbc.ru https://rbc.ru Or through an aggregator: https://yandex.ru/news/ https://yandex.ru/news/
- int_19h 4y ago
  Getting acquainted with both kinds of propaganda is informative. If you compare RT and internal outlets side by side, you see which stuff gets said for which audience.
  - the_why_of_y 4y ago
    Very much so. Example: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/11/11/the-two-faces-of-rt-s-coronavirus-propaganda https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/11/11/the-two-faces-of-rt-...

hayst4ck 4y ago

> because they don't like what they say, and because they show a different side to western propaganda... News stories are often engineered to achieve a specific desired outcome. What do you call something that is engineered to cause destruction or chaos? I would call it a weapon. Just because it isn't incendiary, doesn't mean it is any less able to cause destruction. You wouldn't let someone who has engineered an explosive bring it through your borders. I don't understand why you would let someone who engineered a story for the purpose of creating chaos transmit on your equipment. The west has sanctity for all communication due to the potential of misidentifying good faith communication as bad faith. Good faith communication should enjoy a level of sanctity, but to say bad faith communication should be treated with the same sanctity as good faith communication in all situations seems deeply optimistic at best. At some point the pragmatic call has to be made that the risk of labeling a good faith communication as bad faith is low enough that action must be taken. This game is worth playing: https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/ It beautifully demonstrates what happens when you give unfettered trust to those who abuse it.

thrown_22 4y ago
>What do you call something that is engineered to cause destruction or chaos? Depends is that thing a lie or the truth? The Pentagon Papers were designed to cause destruction and chaos. They were the truth. Should we have banned them because they let people see what their government was actually doing? Would it have mattered if Pravda posted them instead of the NYT?

vbezhenar 4y ago

Honest question: which big western news websites were blocked in Russia?

xdennis 4y ago

> And yes, this is a dark part of EU history... Was blocking Hitler's propaganda during WW2 a dark side of Europe's history? This is war! You can't allow the enemy to trick your population. In Romania, when we were occupied by Russia, there were just 400 communists in the country. Those people were put in charge of everything by the occupiers. If Ukraine is defeated, we'll be next, so it makes sense to not have any such people. A poll showed that only 75 % of Romanians blamed Russia for the war. 5 % blamed Ukraine, and the rest NATO/"the West"/etc. That means that an incredible number of our people are traitors, and we can't allow Russia to communicate to them.

331c8c71 4y ago
> That means that an incredible number of our people are traitors. I don't see any logical support for this conclusion even based on your narrative. > and we can't allow Russia to communicate to them. Obviously because YOU know better.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >I don't see any logical support for this conclusion even based on your narrative. The AUR party was very pro-Russian before the war, and now, after the war, the politics in Romanian are getting incredibly charged to the extent that if you were to legitimately criticize actions of NATO or the EU, regardless of what arguments you bring, you'd be automatically be classified as an AUR fan, a Kremlin supporter, a Russian shill, and a traitor that must be silenced or locked up. Basically any criticism towards NATO/EU is forbidden in Romania, on the basis that don't bite the hand that feeds you.
  - trasz 4y ago
    Again, imagine living in UK in 1943 and criticizing the allied forces. It’s the exact same situation, except now Russians are the nazis.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago

wiseowise 4y ago

> blocking sites, because they don't like what they say, and because they show a different side to western propaganda... that's a bad precedent to set. You mean blocking sites because they spread blatant misinformation, fake news and generally text book demagogue?

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
So basically, every mainstream news media in the last few decades? Or is it just when it's the "other guys" doing it? When it's "iraq has weapons of mass destruction", "iraqi soldiers kill babies", "trump inpatient, feeds fish to fast", "smirking kid attacks native american", etc?

agapon 4y ago

It looks like you are arguing for tolerating intolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Freedom of speech means also letting people say stuff, you don't like.