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"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
by 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.
- cabirum 4y ago[flagged]
- marvin 4y agoYou can bet your ass that I'm afraid that an expanding, violent imperialist dictatorship will continue its historically proven tradition of undermining the political stability of my country and thereby make us much poorer and less free. It just so happens that I'm not stupid, and am sufficiently worried about this real and imminent risk that I will support quite strong measures to defend against it. One of which is making blatant lies and propaganda from the enemy somewhat harder to access for the population of my country, who collectively have the power to surrender to this attack.
- thriftwy 4y agoThat's OK, but you've just gave up on free speech and settled with "information is weapon which must be contained" like in good ol' pre-modern age.
- marvin 4y agoI did not abolish the freedom of speech. This sorts under «tolerate everything except intolerance». Russia will not extend the courtesy of freedom of speech if their propaganda operations succeed, so we must defend it before we get to that point. Before I’m accused of being totalitarian, I’ll just state the obvious that this is a subtle and complex subject.
- thriftwy 4y agoThe problem here is that it takes just one case of intolerance to introduce cascading limitations, and after a short while most everyone is pointing guns to everyone else. Neither Russia nor China are not going to open up their media unless there is reciprocity. But there is no longer any mechanism to source it.
- 4y ago