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It’s a clear way to project soft power: make sure your message and culture can get through.
by Waterluvian 8mo ago
It’s a clear way to project soft power: make sure your message and culture can get through.
- nomilk 8mo agoIt might do that too, but access to information is just so utterly critical, and exponentially moreso in circumstances where government brutally cracks down on it, as we saw in Egypt during the Arab Spring and we're seeing in Iran presently.
- jasonvorhe 8mo agoThen again, Egypt was definitely driven by Western agitators, as was the case Iran recently. Iran probably got Russian tech to trace starlink users during the blackout which put a target on many Western assets in Iran. I'm not saying the Iran government didn't also kill and torture independent actors nor that I support state violence (against its citizens, in this case). Just saying that any government will use violence to stay in power and to ensure regime change doesn't happen outside of whatever system the state upholds.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- linkregister 8mo agoEvidence to the contrary abounds regarding Egypt. Secretary of State Clinton famously rejected the popularly-elected Muslim Brotherhood government and pledged support to Mubarak. This tacit approval led him to have a successful coup against the popularly elected government. If by "western" you meant some other power then you should be specific. Western as a term is imprecise and can be interpreted differently depending on the audience.
- ch4s3 8mo agoThe claim that Iranian protesters were western agitators is a pernicious lie.
- roenxi 8mo ago[flagged]
- ch4s3 8mo ago> If they didn't have a hand in the protests, that seems like a stunning failure on the part of the US State Department to support their own policies This is nothing but evidence free speculation. What you’re doing is undermining the validity of the protest movement and parroting the line of the Iranian government. It’s disgusting. Take this shit somewhere else.
- roenxi 8mo agoIt's hardly evidence-free, this stuff [0, 1, 2] has been making international news headlines for months. And the last time the US was involved in toppling Iran they used paid-for protests [3] so it is barely speculative to say they'd do again what worked last time. That is just common sense on their part. If they haven't done that, then people will be fired in the US executive for incompetence because that is the cheapest way to achieve their rather clear goals of rolling Iran's power structures. If you don't believe that they did that, who do you think is responsible for that failure on the US government's part? It is unfortunate that the US's actions right now undermined whatever validity you feel the protests had. I certainly agree it is disgusting - and also bad for US interests so it is curious why they're doing it. Take it up with them if you have a problem with the idea, I'm not a US general or policy maker. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_war [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_strikes_on_Iranian_nuclear_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_strikes_on_Irani... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_buildup_in_the_Middle_East_during_the_2026_United_States-Iran_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_buildup... [3] https://theconversation.com/how-the-cia-toppled-iranian-democracy-81628 https://theconversation.com/how-the-cia-toppled-iranian-demo... / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
- 8mo ago
- NuclearPM 8mo agoAccess to information is dangerous when the information is controlled propaganda.
- ceteia 8mo agoWould educating people instead and giving them more options for information, not be better than banning access to information?
- whattheheckheck 8mo agoFor real... the species is not going to last long if a subset of it gets to control the information flow of the other part... literally unsustainable
- ffsm8 8mo agoIntuitively yes, but it's possible that this is one of our biases speaking From my memory (might be mistaken) there have been attempts to somewhat study this via polls etc, and determined that coverage via propaganda (specifically Fox News) is less helpful then randomly guessing what actually happened... But ymmv, social studies are always hard to trust, because it's borderline impossible to prove cause and effect
- ceteia 8mo ago[flagged]
- ffsm8 8mo agoYour phrasing implies someone spook out against that, but nobody did?
- AnthonyMouse 8mo ago> From my memory (might be mistaken) there have been attempts to somewhat study this via polls etc, and determined that coverage via propaganda (specifically Fox News) is less helpful then randomly guessing what actually happened... Ironically the studies of that nature are often themselves a form of propaganda, because it's entirely straightforward to structure the study to produce your preferred outcome. There is a well-known human bias where people use information they know to try to guess information they don't. If you're given three random people and the only thing anyone has told you about them is that one is a drug addict and then you're asked to guess which one is a thief, more people are going to guess the drug addict. So now all you have to do is find a situation where the thief isn't actually the drug addict, let the media outlet tell people which one is the drug addict, and you'll have people guessing the wrong answer a higher proportion of the time than they would by choosing at random.
- exe34 8mo agoWill it work when the US government is the one cracking down, banning interviews, etc?
- Mikhail_Edoshin 8mo agoAnd lies.
- b112 8mo agoAnd truth.
- MASNeo 8mo agoWorse, half-truths and half-lies.
- gdubya 8mo agoAh, a new "WTF": Worse Than False!
- GoblinSlayer 8mo agoThat's why diversity of sources is the only way to escape censorship: you get one half truth from one source, another half truth from another source, then two halves make whole truth.
- ben_w 8mo agoThat's also trivial to manipulate; control the narrative, and you control the Overton window. People picking the middle of two fake options are still under the influence of whoever chose those options — just ask any stage magician.
- GoblinSlayer 8mo agoNarrative is controlled by censorship.
- ben_w 8mo agoAnd/or propaganda. Everyone can feel censorship, everyone can learn what they're punished for saying. Propaganda, though, that can feel like learning, like personal growth and development. If censorship comes with a stick, propaganda is a carrot. And today, we have as much of a problem with metaphorical obesity as with literal obesity.
- locknitpicker 8mo ago> It’s a clear way to project soft power: make sure your message and culture can get through. You're talking about an administration that actively tries to censor candidates of opposition candidates through both state regulatory institutions such as the FCC and business collusion, a typical play out of the fascist playbook with state and oligarchs colluding to strong arm their political goals. It's also the same administration who is actively involved in supporting other dictatorial regimes and destabilize Europe, including with very explicit and overt threats of war of invasion to annex territories. It's also the same administration that is clearly a puppet administration controlled by another totalitarian regime - Russia. There is no soft power in this stunt. Only further self-destructive actions to further kill the US's relevance as an European ally.
- iso1631 8mo agoYet the US president unilaterally shut down Voice of America because he didn't like its message Freedom of speech for me, not for thee
- lostmsu 8mo ago> US president unilaterally The whole truth here would be that technically he did not do it unilaterally but as a representative of his voters, so basically almost as far from unilaterally as possible.
- lovich 8mo agoThat is not what unilaterally means when the US government takes action. It means none of the other decision makers or branches were involved. Don’t be obtuse
- refurb 8mo agoHuh? Voice of America is a basically a government organization blasting out US propaganda. The president runs VOA, it's not some separate entity he decided to censor.
- pousada 8mo agoSo far the current admin has been very successful in obliterating all the soft power the US built up through the decades.
- deadbabe 8mo agoI have no idea why they would do this, but I often wonder if maybe soft power becomes less valuable in a world where more countries are able to empower themselves on their own. Perhaps soft power itself is only valuable as long as this asymmetry is sustained. Otherwise, it’s all about hard power.
- gunsle 8mo agoExactly. We are heading out of a time where soft power is stronger than hard. We are going back to the days of hard power being the only thing that really matters. As resource competition becomes more intense, and economies stagnate, you can no longer afford to play “nice” with your countries’ future. It’s pretty annoying to me a lot of commenters on the internet are apparently too ideological or immature to grasp that.
- pousada 8mo agoHard power was always stronger. That’s why the US was so successful in the past century - they just have a lot of weapons and little hesitation to use them. It’s a pretty bellicose culture too. I still think that soft power helped the US tremendously. For all their faults i really had a very positive view on the US, most of it was coloured through soft power. “Inventing” modern democracy, liberating EU from the nazis, Rock’n’Roll, hippie movement, Hollywood, early internet culture - all that overshadowed the imperialism. Now the mask has come off. And I believe you are right that it ultimately may not matter too much. But then again I doubt the US will be able to style itself again as the “good guys”, the ones who spread democracy to all the oppressed people and and so on without significant effort.
- deadbabe 8mo ago
- hsuduebc2 8mo agoAmerican culture can access Europeans at any time. Europeans consume American culture daily.Just to clarify. Website banned are often hostile propaganda or extremists. This is only cringy lousy provocation for appearance of moral superiority. Coming from a government notorious for spying on it's citizens it seems pretty ludicrous.
- dmix 8mo agoEurope should just create their own social media companies where the government can act as a moderator of content then.
- hsuduebc2 8mo ago"Europe" is a continent made up of independent nation states. Each of those nations has chosen to have its own rules about what is and is not legal, which is the right of every country. Those nation states want companies operating within their territory to follow their rules. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it is up to each individual country. At the same time, I do not understand how what you wrote is in any way relevant to the topic.
- dmix 8mo agoEU gives out tons of grants for tech and the W project was already being spun as a European social network (despite not yet being funded) https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1qiauhd/bye_x_europeans_are_launching_their_own_social/ https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1qiauhd/bye_x_europ...
- hsuduebc2 8mo agoSorry, I clearly misunderstood the intent of your comment. I thought you were saying they should just build their own platform if they want to moderate it. My mistake. In any case, you’re right. The only concern is that projects like this that start in Europe often end up being acquired by American companies, so I’m worried it could end up the same way.