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> Ukraine was invaded by its neighbour. Russia started a war. > The war isn't something that Ukraine wanted, but it was forced on them. I rate both of these c

> Ukraine was invaded by its neighbour. Russia started a war. > The war isn't something that Ukraine wanted, but it was forced on them. I rate both of these claims to be indisputably true. > Would you deem tweets that encourage donations toward Ukraine's military defence to be "promoting war"? > How about tweets that boost morale of their defence forces (well-produced propaganda videos, etc), [are they promoting war]? The answer to both of these questions is indisputably yes. War propaganda from the side which I support is still war propaganda. It doesn't stop being war propaganda just because it's also in the right. Remember "loose lips sink ship"? It was a WW2 American propaganda slogan designed to address German u-boat aggression. America was plainly on the right side of that conflict, yet those posters are still cited today in American classrooms as an example of war propaganda, because that's indisputably what it was. Morally in the right and war propaganda have never been mutually exclusive.

lloydjones 4y ago
To be clear: I am not disagreeing that slickly-produced videos are propaganda. Or that tweets in support of Ukraine's efforts / donations / etc are "supporting the war". I am, rather, disputing the "both sides"-type thinking of the person I replied to, who seems to imply that stopping ALL talk of war (regardless of whom it is in support of) is desirable.
- stametseater 4y ago
  > stopping ALL talk of war (regardless of whom it is in support of) is desirable. It's a private platform isn't it? By conventional logic, twitter has the right to decide what sort of content they promote. If a fashion magazine or a twitting website decide they don't want to cover a war, that is a perfectly valid business decision. It doesn't really matter anyway. Twitter isn't as important as the media says it is. Only a small fraction of the population actually use it, but it just happens that this small fraction includes people in the media, so they think it's much more important than it actually is and give it undo coverage. And no, I don't think that makes twitter actually important in a round-about way, because when most people see "somebody tweeted something" articles they roll their eyes at the media scrapping the bottom of the barrel for news. The media is blind to their twitter bias, but most others cringe. If Elon Musk ends up running twitter straight into the ground, nothing of value will be lost.

lloydjones 4y ago

To be clear: I am not disagreeing that slickly-produced videos are propaganda. Or that tweets in support of Ukraine's efforts / donations / etc are "supporting the war". I am, rather, disputing the "both sides"-type thinking of the person I replied to, who seems to imply that stopping ALL talk of war (regardless of whom it is in support of) is desirable.

stametseater 4y ago
> stopping ALL talk of war (regardless of whom it is in support of) is desirable. It's a private platform isn't it? By conventional logic, twitter has the right to decide what sort of content they promote. If a fashion magazine or a twitting website decide they don't want to cover a war, that is a perfectly valid business decision. It doesn't really matter anyway. Twitter isn't as important as the media says it is. Only a small fraction of the population actually use it, but it just happens that this small fraction includes people in the media, so they think it's much more important than it actually is and give it undo coverage. And no, I don't think that makes twitter actually important in a round-about way, because when most people see "somebody tweeted something" articles they roll their eyes at the media scrapping the bottom of the barrel for news. The media is blind to their twitter bias, but most others cringe. If Elon Musk ends up running twitter straight into the ground, nothing of value will be lost.