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Ironically, Russia probing defenses in Europe is functioning like Chaos Monkey — revealing vulnerabilities and triggering hardening.
by kemiller 10mo ago
Ironically, Russia probing defenses in Europe is functioning like Chaos Monkey — revealing vulnerabilities and triggering hardening.
- ls612 10mo agoIt’s certainly doing the first, not so sure about the second.
- Nextgrid 10mo agoThe main vulnerability of the Western world isn't technical, it's that we voluntarily surrendered our communication and social fabrics to advertising-driven businesses that will happily host and promote anything as long as it generates engagement. This makes it trivial for foreign agents to sway public opinion where as back in the day influencing media required actual capital and connections. Unfortunately, a lot of our own people (and especially politicians) make money out of this situation so there's very little incentive to change this. Just look at the reaction every time regulations designed to curtail Big Tech ad-driven monopolies (EU DMA, GDPR, etc) are discussed. Our greed is what makes us vulnerable.
- terminalshort 10mo agoWho is the "we" that you think surrendered control here? Freedom of the press necessitates that anyone can publish freely even if what they publish is foreign propaganda.
- Nextgrid 10mo agoI wasn't talking about press, I was talking about how ad-driven social media became effectively the only communication tool and we still refuse to enact/enforce effective regulation to curb its hegemony.
- terminalshort 10mo agoIt became the primary communication tool because that is what people chose to use when presented with the alternatives. If you want to force people to use different channels then that is a violation of freedom of the press.
- TheOtherHobbes 10mo agoAccording to Reporters without Frontiers, the US ranks 57th out of 180 countries on press freedom. It's really not the model we should all be aspiring to.
- bethekidyouwant 10mo agoI mean, I guess the press is freer in Norway but it’s a backwater and no one cares what they say
- petre 10mo agoThe current US president cares enough to have writen a letter to the Norwegian PM whining about the Nobel he didn't get and of course, Greenland. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/trump-letter-to-norway/685676/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/trump-letter-to-no...
- bethekidyouwant 10mo agoAnd you quoted the press of the abysmally free USA…
- herewulf 10mo agoI suppose you would rather read about it på norsk?
- Nextgrid 10mo agoAgain I am not talking about press. I am talking about communication tools. Yes the free market has decided that these tools are the "best" option as long as the negative externalities (such as exposure to malicious actors - foreign or otherwise) are not being priced in. We need adequate regulation to price in such externalities. For that matter, press and conventional media is subject to many regulations that don't apply to social media. Conventional media wouldn't get away with even a sliver of what social media is allowed to get away with time and time again.
- TheOtherHobbes 10mo agoBeing subject to the topic promotion and suppression technologies [1] and bizarre political whims of billionaire media owners is an unusual definition of "freedom." [1] See for example: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship-palestine-content https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship...
- terminalshort 10mo agoAll media is subject to the whims of its owners. That's freedom of the press. The only other option is that the government tells the owners what they can and can't publish.
- adrianN 10mo agoAnother option is that the government limits the power individuals can have. How many people control, say, 80% of the media? Do you need more than one hand to count them?
- terminalshort 10mo agoHow do you define "control" here? Social media, which everyone here is complaining about, is by far the most open and democratic form of mass media that has ever existed.
- adrianN 10mo agoI’d argue that social media stopped being democratic as it introduced algorithmic content selection. But today perhaps a bigger problem is bot farms shaping public opinion.
- petre 10mo agoBots don't count as people. They're not represented demographically. They also don't have voting rights. Yet they're spreading propaganda to influence how people vote. So one could argue social media is rather anti democratoc.
- megous 10mo agoThere are about 50 people on EU sanctions list that tried this, who can't travel, or engage in any normal economic activity.
- direwolf20 10mo agoI think "we" is everyone.
- dns_snek 10mo agoCan you name a single country which meets this definition of "freedom of the press"? It's not the US, the UK, or any of the EU countries, certainly not Russia, China, or India.
- antonvs 10mo agoThese things are not an inevitable consequence of freedom of the press. Commercially-influenced legislation like the Communications Decency Act, which largely absolves platforms for the content of the material they publish, have pushed us in this direction. One could certainly imagine legislation which puts society's interests first to improve the situation. The real problem is the almost total capture of the political process by money, which weaponizes the legislative branch against common citizens in the interests of corporate owners.
- tosti 10mo agoIf s/engagement/revenue/ then yes.
- whynotmaybe 10mo agoThe second isn't publicly promoted.