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Then won’t foreign governments just ban freedom.gov? This problem has already been solved with networks like Tor and I2P. It seems like it would be more strateg
by jadenPete 8mo ago
Then won’t foreign governments just ban freedom.gov? This problem has already been solved with networks like Tor and I2P. It seems like it would be more strategic to fund those projects instead.
- badgersnake 8mo agoYes. And then, if he doesn’t like the regime because they haven’t done him enough favours the orange one will rage about it on his social network.
- nickorlow 8mo agoUS can probably use their soft power to influence them not to do that. Also would imagine the US gov could also set up some more censorship resistant access methods.
- ohyoutravel 8mo agoWell, maybe USAID could have helped here. Or a robust State Dept.
- chatmasta 8mo agoWait until you find out who funded Tor development...
- paulryanrogers 8mo agoThe US Navy. Why would that be surprising?
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- copperx 8mo agoWhich soft power are you talking about?
- kulahan 8mo agoSure, it's decreasing under Trump, but to pretend the richest, most militarily powerful, most culturally influential nation on the planet somehow doesn't have any soft power is... certainly a choice.
- pornel 8mo agoRepublicans are spending all of US's remaining soft power on stealing Greenland. If it ends with the Navy showing its non-soft power, Europe won't have any fucks left to give about some website.
- kataklasm 8mo agoWe already don't. We want the Americans to pack up their bases and fuck off. Ami, go home! They've done enough work to stir up chaos and war all over the planet in the last 7 decades.
- viking123 8mo agoYeah they should pack up and leave seriously, go serve Israel and attack Iran, I want no part in that.
- frumplestlatz 8mo agoYou’re entirely free — at any time — to leave NATO, develop your own replacement weapons programs, and fully fund your own defense. I suspect most Americans would actually be quite supportive. You’ll just have to figure out how to actually pay for it.
- jjtwixman 8mo agoThe only country Americans care about is Israel, it doesn't really matter, we get it. We don't care. Please close Ramstein :)
- 8mo ago
- crossroadsguy 8mo agoAt this point US has close to zero (if not negative) "soft" power.
- rtkwe 8mo agoTrade and tarriff relief are an option still. Despite how shitty the US has been and the distrust that will cause in the future access to US markets will be very attractive until the economy collapses. Soft power isn't just from countries liking you after all.
- happymellon 8mo ago> Trade and tarriff relief are an option still. That surely is running out of steam. Everyone's got whiplash from trying to watch America and it's tariffs. How do you know it won't be applied anyway, or forgiven for whatever flavour of the day policy it changes to. There is very little point in conceding to it when you'll have another opportunity for something else that might be more amicable before the inks dry on that tariff.
- crossroadsguy 8mo agoAccess to US market? Is that a joke you are trying to crack? An “access” that literally depends upon how loud the orange fool farted on the commode that morning — that access and that market? I mean do you really not see what’s happening or you are just being a nice contrarian? Because this baffles me.
- rtkwe 8mo agoIt's still a very rich market and I'm mostly looking to a post Trump world. I completely understand other countries are going to be much more dubious about giving things up permanently for long term promises but things like not blocking sites or allowing US access to the markets both of which can be easily in response to another Trump-esque flailing is a much easier ask and negotiation. I'm not saying things will return to the pre-Trump semi-hegemony but I do think it's over the top to think the US economy will have zero soft power in the years after Trump too.
- ascorbic 8mo agoNo government can stand up to the might of La Liga
- shaky-carrousel 8mo agoIn the same way they used their soft power to influence them not to block twitter and facebook? Because that power is slowly going from soft to limp...
- nickorlow 8mo agoThis comment generated a lot of activity. It's very interesting watching the vote count of it move with the daylight (it went down during night in US/day in EU, and went back up when the US woke back up)
- zmgsabst 8mo agoSure — but the UK or EU has to accept the constant rhetoric of “you clearly don’t support free speech, you block freedom.gov” when discussing with the US. I don’t think it’s meant to be a perfect solution; I think it’s meant to be a political tool. Also, the US does fund Tor — originally US Navy + DARPA, now through Dept of State. Entirely possible that they’ll eventually operate a Tor onion site for freedom.gov too.
- calmworm 8mo agoThis is grade-school level mind games. Is it really that easy?
- thomasingalls 8mo agoI'm not convinced that this whole discussion section isn't astroturf... some real out there opinions popping up in here
- globular-toast 8mo agoWhen did you stop being a child? Can you point to the actual day it happened? Guess what... It didn't happen to anyone else either.
- zmgsabst 7mo agoLate reply, but it’s not about mind games so much as rhetorical artifacts to actuate the levers of power. When the US issues reports saying the EU is actively working against US values both within the US and globally, that report can be elevated by later US administrations to justify military drawdowns, exiting NATO, etc. The EU should produce counter artifacts demonstrating they do align with US values, but instead they responded as if this was a power struggle. Your comment about “mind games” suggests too simple an interpretation: This isn’t about what people believe is true, but what facts are available to the machinery of government policy making — much like litigating semantics and debating evidence inclusion within a court case. This is about constructing the sentence: “The EU’s widespread blocking of the freedom.gov free speech platform for the past decade demonstrates a divergence from American values that means NATO no longer functions as an effective vehicle for American vision on the global stage.”
- scythe 8mo agoIt's a propaganda maneuver. And it's obviously just as critical of China as it is of Europe. The State Department's public voices may be immersed in the culture war but there are probably a few cooler heads left who have learned to keep out of the spotlight.
- carlosjobim 8mo agoMaybe that's the purpose? Pushing European and global "allies" to show their cards. Some citizens will support more censorship, while some will start questioning. It's good to know where your rivals stand. Also it is cheap, easy, non-controversial domestically in the US, and ethically coherent with American values.
- sp527 8mo ago> ethically coherent with American values I'm a lifelong US citizen and burst out laughing at this. What values? What coherence? Do you mean the NSA man-in-the-middleing all that traffic and leaving a backdoor for Mossad? Imagine the most despicable possible invasion of privacy and the most reprehensible shadow oppression and manipulation of an uneducated populace you can conjure up. Now imagine something way worse than that. This is America.
- carlosjobim 8mo agoFreedom of speech. I didn't expect to have to spell it out.
- sp527 8mo agoYet another illusion. A lot of Americans are very good at finding ways to persecute people for having an opinion, often using economic consequences as a cudgel to enforce groupthink. And, at this very moment, the government is compiling lists of people it regards as enemies, purely on the basis of their "free" speech.
- krior 8mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
- microtonal 8mo agoYou mean the freedom of speech that gets you shot when you protest the gestapo? Where critical late night shows get cancelled because a small group of Trump-aligned people control most media? Seriously, the world is looking in amazement how all the talk about free speech and democracy was purely performative. The US becoming Hungary (or maybe Russia). https://rsf.org/en/index https://rsf.org/en/index
- jjmarr 8mo ago> This problem has already been solved with networks like Tor and I2P. It seems like it would be more strategic to fund those projects instead. The US government is responsible for 35% of Tor's funding[1] and has been its primary sponsor since Tor was invented as a side project in the US Naval Research Lab. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tor_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tor_Project
- krige 8mo agoIs, or was? I vaguely recall Doge gutting this among many other things?