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This is one of many, many reasons why western countries and social media companies should not normalise censorship re-branded like "fighting disinformation".

luckylion 4y ago
Not sure that would make a difference. Western societies have an issue with genocide, so Russia claims Ukraine was committing genocide against Russians. If Westerners didn't care about genocide, Russia would've claimed something else, Putin certainly has no issue with genocide. So if our thing du jure wasn't misinformation, I'm sure they'd just claim they're using their powers to combat hate speech or whatever else is culturally okay. If there's really nothing available, there's always "we need to protect the children from predators who are trying to abuse this dire situation". In the end, it doesn't matter if you're in power. Your tribe will always be with you, no matter the reason you're giving, and the opposition will be silenced.
- hkpack 4y ago
  You probably don't understand nuances of why Russia says what, it is not only about the western values, but just a very effective tactic in the information warfare. I know about at least three major points: * Russia always blame other party of the crimes it about to commit. It ties the enemy and allies into the "you did, no your did" kind of arguments. This also helps to push all sorts of fake narratives into the enemy population. We witness this over and over. * It is a power play. Russian people enjoy very much the fact that their officials can say and do whatever they want, and the world can do nothing. This gives Russians true joy (as witnessed first hand). It also demoralises enemy heavily, because instead of pointing to the obvious crime, "not everything is so clear" now. * It cements alternative history. For example, children in school all over Russia will learn about the current events based on the "official" alternative reasoning.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    I believe the Western values are what makes it an effective tactic, and it's the same reason why they're calling the Ukrainians Nazis while simultaneously running towards fascism: if you say that X is a Nazi and is committing genocide, you'll have a visceral reaction in the West that creates sympathies/doubts of other narratives in at least part of the population (this will not work the same way/to the same degree in non-Western societies). If the West was fascist, I'm sure Russia wouldn't be talking internationally about Nazis and genocide because it wouldn't have any impact. You're very right about the historical narrative as an internal component. Connecting current conflicts to WW2 will make people fall in line much more quickly than saying "it's about natural resources that were mistakenly buried on the wrong side of the border and also we want a land connection to Crimea". Much like Americans will always invoke freedom because it's part of their national identity and people are less likely to question why they're invading Iraq if you mention it. Russia being threatened by fascist forces in the West is a continuation of the existing historical narrative and neatly ties into it. It's definitely a much better PR strategy than Germany had in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom where our secretary of defense prominently said that Germany's security was being defended at the hindu kush. It's makes sense in abstraction ("we need to confront those who disregard human rights even if they're 5000 km away") but it's not concrete and it didn't increase support for the war at all.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      Maybe... but Russia has for decades carefully tended to the WW2 mythos of Soviets defending the world against nazis. The anti nazi propaganda is not only for foreign ears, but for domestic consumption as well. "Us against the world, who is out to get us. All current problems stem at its root from the blow dealt to us during the Great Patriotic War."
bilbo0s 4y ago
You're being naive. This has happened because 'western countries and social media companies ... normalise censorship re-branded [as] "fighting disinformation"'. They've literally shown the rest of the world how to do this.
PM_me_your_math 4y ago
These companies are already in the dark deep of hyper partisan censorship. Take reddit for example. Nearly every sub is a left wing echo chamber, with essentially the same comment being made, and opposing viewpoints hidden, shadow-banned, or deleted under the guise of 'disinformation' even if they are factually accurate. Some of it is partly driven by liaisons within US and other governments, and supported by media. That is both problematic and terrorizing. Media was always supposed to be a counter-balance to government over-reach, but today, media is in on the scheme.
- andybak 4y ago
  Except you can start your own subreddit and choose your own moderation policies. The inaccurately named /r/conservative has a lot of traffic and there are many more.
  - zaroth 4y ago
    I think some people tried that once…
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    That's a funny joke considering 99% of subs which don't carry water is eventually banned for "misinformation" and is filled with bad actors and sock puppets.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - atlantic 4y ago
    Being able to start a subreddit is meaningless, when right-leaning subreddits are systematically shut down, or restricted to the point of becoming inoperative, as soon as they pass a certain threshold popularity.
    - andybak 4y ago
      Citation needed
jhugo 4y ago
Sad to see this being downvoted. Rational voices have been censored on many western platforms for saying things that went against the popular narrative, the most recent obvious example being during the pandemic. Some of the things censored were batshit crazy, some of them not, but blocking discussion and letting those in positions of power decide what is "disinformation" and what is "information" isn't the way to deal with the crazy stuff.
beefield 4y ago
How do you propose western countries and social media companies fight disinformation?
- ars 4y ago
  I propose they don't. That's not their job. Block only speech is actually illegal by the laws of the country. It's not their job to decide what is true and false.
  - beefield 4y ago
    well, we see where that ends by looking at 4chan. Why are you posting here and not there?
    - ars 4y ago
      > Why are you posting here and not there? That's the point - they can post what they like, and I don't have to look at it.
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  The solution to bad speech is more speech. Not less.
  - Uehreka 4y ago
    I see your “The solution to bad speech is more speech” and raise you a “A lie can spread around the world before the truth can get its pants on”. Call or fold?
    - geysersam 4y ago
      Call. It's not about who's fastest, it's about who stays in the end. Despite us humans being a lying, cheating bunch, knowledge and access to education continues to grow all over the world. That's certainly not thanks to censorship!
newaccount2021 4y ago
Exactly! In the US we routinely have "blessed" media organizations openly discussing the need to legislate/limit threats to their ability to "control the message"...but Erdogan cuts to the chase and everyone flips out. I mean...the day Musk took over Twitter, lots of comments here were calling for twitter.com to be kicked off the internet...
alphanullmeric 4y ago
Curiously, all the people that support such censorship in western countries are actually against it in this instance. Almost like whether or not they choose to support a policy depends not on what it does but instead on who it’s being done to.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  I hope you actually went and asked everybody.
  - alphanullmeric 4y ago
    Starting with you, do you support social media censorship in the United States? And do you support social media censorship by turkey? Those are yes or no questions.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      If he considered himself a counter-example to your claims, he probably would have said so upfront.
    - ars 4y ago
      No and no. I don't support any censorship at all for any topics even those that deeply offend me. The only exception would be actual death threats and things that are illegal to do.
      - tstrimple 4y ago
        This is tautological. Death threats are illegal speech because we decided to make it illegal speech. Something we could do for other types of speech.
    - guelo 4y ago
      Do you support Elon's censorship of antifa accounts?
jim_inont 4y ago
[flagged]
- Sunspark 4y ago
  If you are unhappy living in the West, there is no reason whatsoever why you cannot move to a country with more compatible values. Russia is accepting new immigrants and that is certainly an option available to you.
- foronetimeonly1 4y ago
  [dead]
sorethescore 4y ago
Nonsense, if you tolerate disinformation you get more disinformation. Countries that fail to address it will fall and the world will be worse off because of it. The right to free speech does not include the right to a free platform or free promotion.
- bastardoperator 4y ago
  Agreed, disinformation is dangerous and it should be treated as such. Just because you say/write it doesn't mean I'm required to host it. Freedom to promote stupidity does not outweigh my right to unplug my microphone.
- thatsagreatcomm 4y ago
  Who decides what's disinformation?
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    This narrative has killed many republicans who feared getting vaccinated, and it will only kill more. One could argue that it is their own actions, but I am not keen on blaming people for their circumstances. The answer is we decide what is disinformation through our institutions and the value we place on them. Your and I's opinion on certain matters should never weigh remotely as much as an expert's on a particular topic unless we are such experts. We ought to measure the value of one's speech through the scrutiny it has to go through to be published at trusted channels.
    - d110af5ccf 4y ago
      > at trusted channels The public square is not in and of itself a trusted channel so I doubt you are talking about the same thing as the person you responded to.
      - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
        i assume you take it that twitter and FB are public squares? Well, I don’t.
flyinglizard 4y ago
However disinformation may very well lead to totalitarian regimes, propped on distorted reality and fake news. A democracy must be able to defend itself.
- candiodari 4y ago
  Democracies have always survived by making their subjects invested and empowered in the future of their country. There's a limit to how far disinformation can go, and, frankly, the only thing people are trying to achieve with censorship is moving that line the wrong way. The spread of wrong information has always been overwhelming. This is nothing new, nor is it (imho) more irritating now than is was 20 years ago. And if the history books are accurate on how bad it was 100 years ago ... This is not what's destroying democracies.
root_axis 4y ago
That's unavoidable when moderation is routinely and deliberately conflated with political repression.

luckylion 4y ago

Not sure that would make a difference. Western societies have an issue with genocide, so Russia claims Ukraine was committing genocide against Russians. If Westerners didn't care about genocide, Russia would've claimed something else, Putin certainly has no issue with genocide. So if our thing du jure wasn't misinformation, I'm sure they'd just claim they're using their powers to combat hate speech or whatever else is culturally okay. If there's really nothing available, there's always "we need to protect the children from predators who are trying to abuse this dire situation". In the end, it doesn't matter if you're in power. Your tribe will always be with you, no matter the reason you're giving, and the opposition will be silenced.

hkpack 4y ago
You probably don't understand nuances of why Russia says what, it is not only about the western values, but just a very effective tactic in the information warfare. I know about at least three major points: * Russia always blame other party of the crimes it about to commit. It ties the enemy and allies into the "you did, no your did" kind of arguments. This also helps to push all sorts of fake narratives into the enemy population. We witness this over and over. * It is a power play. Russian people enjoy very much the fact that their officials can say and do whatever they want, and the world can do nothing. This gives Russians true joy (as witnessed first hand). It also demoralises enemy heavily, because instead of pointing to the obvious crime, "not everything is so clear" now. * It cements alternative history. For example, children in school all over Russia will learn about the current events based on the "official" alternative reasoning.
- luckylion 4y ago
  I believe the Western values are what makes it an effective tactic, and it's the same reason why they're calling the Ukrainians Nazis while simultaneously running towards fascism: if you say that X is a Nazi and is committing genocide, you'll have a visceral reaction in the West that creates sympathies/doubts of other narratives in at least part of the population (this will not work the same way/to the same degree in non-Western societies). If the West was fascist, I'm sure Russia wouldn't be talking internationally about Nazis and genocide because it wouldn't have any impact. You're very right about the historical narrative as an internal component. Connecting current conflicts to WW2 will make people fall in line much more quickly than saying "it's about natural resources that were mistakenly buried on the wrong side of the border and also we want a land connection to Crimea". Much like Americans will always invoke freedom because it's part of their national identity and people are less likely to question why they're invading Iraq if you mention it. Russia being threatened by fascist forces in the West is a continuation of the existing historical narrative and neatly ties into it. It's definitely a much better PR strategy than Germany had in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom where our secretary of defense prominently said that Germany's security was being defended at the hindu kush. It's makes sense in abstraction ("we need to confront those who disregard human rights even if they're 5000 km away") but it's not concrete and it didn't increase support for the war at all.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    Maybe... but Russia has for decades carefully tended to the WW2 mythos of Soviets defending the world against nazis. The anti nazi propaganda is not only for foreign ears, but for domestic consumption as well. "Us against the world, who is out to get us. All current problems stem at its root from the blow dealt to us during the Great Patriotic War."

bilbo0s 4y ago

You're being naive. This has happened because 'western countries and social media companies ... normalise censorship re-branded [as] "fighting disinformation"'. They've literally shown the rest of the world how to do this.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago

These companies are already in the dark deep of hyper partisan censorship. Take reddit for example. Nearly every sub is a left wing echo chamber, with essentially the same comment being made, and opposing viewpoints hidden, shadow-banned, or deleted under the guise of 'disinformation' even if they are factually accurate. Some of it is partly driven by liaisons within US and other governments, and supported by media. That is both problematic and terrorizing. Media was always supposed to be a counter-balance to government over-reach, but today, media is in on the scheme.

andybak 4y ago
Except you can start your own subreddit and choose your own moderation policies. The inaccurately named /r/conservative has a lot of traffic and there are many more.
- zaroth 4y ago
  I think some people tried that once…
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  That's a funny joke considering 99% of subs which don't carry water is eventually banned for "misinformation" and is filled with bad actors and sock puppets.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- atlantic 4y ago
  Being able to start a subreddit is meaningless, when right-leaning subreddits are systematically shut down, or restricted to the point of becoming inoperative, as soon as they pass a certain threshold popularity.
  - andybak 4y ago
    Citation needed

jhugo 4y ago

Sad to see this being downvoted. Rational voices have been censored on many western platforms for saying things that went against the popular narrative, the most recent obvious example being during the pandemic. Some of the things censored were batshit crazy, some of them not, but blocking discussion and letting those in positions of power decide what is "disinformation" and what is "information" isn't the way to deal with the crazy stuff.

beefield 4y ago

How do you propose western countries and social media companies fight disinformation?

ars 4y ago
I propose they don't. That's not their job. Block only speech is actually illegal by the laws of the country. It's not their job to decide what is true and false.
- beefield 4y ago
  well, we see where that ends by looking at 4chan. Why are you posting here and not there?
  - ars 4y ago
    > Why are you posting here and not there? That's the point - they can post what they like, and I don't have to look at it.
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
The solution to bad speech is more speech. Not less.
- Uehreka 4y ago
  I see your “The solution to bad speech is more speech” and raise you a “A lie can spread around the world before the truth can get its pants on”. Call or fold?
  - geysersam 4y ago
    Call. It's not about who's fastest, it's about who stays in the end. Despite us humans being a lying, cheating bunch, knowledge and access to education continues to grow all over the world. That's certainly not thanks to censorship!

newaccount2021 4y ago

Exactly! In the US we routinely have "blessed" media organizations openly discussing the need to legislate/limit threats to their ability to "control the message"...but Erdogan cuts to the chase and everyone flips out. I mean...the day Musk took over Twitter, lots of comments here were calling for twitter.com to be kicked off the internet...

alphanullmeric 4y ago

Curiously, all the people that support such censorship in western countries are actually against it in this instance. Almost like whether or not they choose to support a policy depends not on what it does but instead on who it’s being done to.

barbazoo 4y ago
I hope you actually went and asked everybody.
- alphanullmeric 4y ago
  Starting with you, do you support social media censorship in the United States? And do you support social media censorship by turkey? Those are yes or no questions.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    If he considered himself a counter-example to your claims, he probably would have said so upfront.
  - ars 4y ago
    No and no. I don't support any censorship at all for any topics even those that deeply offend me. The only exception would be actual death threats and things that are illegal to do.
    - tstrimple 4y ago
      This is tautological. Death threats are illegal speech because we decided to make it illegal speech. Something we could do for other types of speech.
  - guelo 4y ago
    Do you support Elon's censorship of antifa accounts?

jim_inont 4y ago

[flagged]

Sunspark 4y ago
If you are unhappy living in the West, there is no reason whatsoever why you cannot move to a country with more compatible values. Russia is accepting new immigrants and that is certainly an option available to you.
foronetimeonly1 4y ago
[dead]

sorethescore 4y ago

Nonsense, if you tolerate disinformation you get more disinformation. Countries that fail to address it will fall and the world will be worse off because of it. The right to free speech does not include the right to a free platform or free promotion.

bastardoperator 4y ago
Agreed, disinformation is dangerous and it should be treated as such. Just because you say/write it doesn't mean I'm required to host it. Freedom to promote stupidity does not outweigh my right to unplug my microphone.
thatsagreatcomm 4y ago
Who decides what's disinformation?
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  This narrative has killed many republicans who feared getting vaccinated, and it will only kill more. One could argue that it is their own actions, but I am not keen on blaming people for their circumstances. The answer is we decide what is disinformation through our institutions and the value we place on them. Your and I's opinion on certain matters should never weigh remotely as much as an expert's on a particular topic unless we are such experts. We ought to measure the value of one's speech through the scrutiny it has to go through to be published at trusted channels.
  - d110af5ccf 4y ago
    > at trusted channels The public square is not in and of itself a trusted channel so I doubt you are talking about the same thing as the person you responded to.
    - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
      i assume you take it that twitter and FB are public squares? Well, I don’t.

flyinglizard 4y ago

However disinformation may very well lead to totalitarian regimes, propped on distorted reality and fake news. A democracy must be able to defend itself.

candiodari 4y ago
Democracies have always survived by making their subjects invested and empowered in the future of their country. There's a limit to how far disinformation can go, and, frankly, the only thing people are trying to achieve with censorship is moving that line the wrong way. The spread of wrong information has always been overwhelming. This is nothing new, nor is it (imho) more irritating now than is was 20 years ago. And if the history books are accurate on how bad it was 100 years ago ... This is not what's destroying democracies.

root_axis 4y ago

That's unavoidable when moderation is routinely and deliberately conflated with political repression.