So at what point does the level of censorship become comparable to that of the dictatorships that we busily decry? If anything we are doing a better job at it. It's scary how commonly this has become accepted, all for the greater good of the stupid masses apparently.
A private company elected not to carry pro-Russian propaganda during a brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. That's... very different to state censorship.
I never understood how this "it's an action by a private company, hence... we should ask no questions about it?" thing works.
If there is a good rationale why a government should not install censorship, don't you think there might be similar good reasons why a powerful media company should not install censorship?
If I look at the things people on Reddit are saying about Russia these days I get the uneasy feeling that the average Russian may actually have a more nuanced opinion on world affairs than them. So whatever the Western media are doing, it's working very well.
This is disingenuous, the "state" is still at the center of it.
Consider how Google was happy to censor when it came to doing business in China. Is that just a "private" company making "private" decisions?
It's similar in the US. Consider the 2020 big tech antitrust congressional hearings.
Congress can go after big-tech anytime it wants.
Likewise if big-tech wants to successfully lobby for favorable policies, then they'll want to stay in the governments good graces.
This is the "carrot and the stick" of how our country projects power domestically. Its through soft influence of industry.
We did the same during Covid times. We were never able to federally mandate the vaccine, but we got all our big companies to do so, which is just as good from a policy standpoint.
Google / Youtube would probably piss off a lot of people in washington if they didn't censor these videos.
CIA is basically an "economic interests" vector, right? This really meshes, your statement about using the big corporates as state instruments on the sly. (I guess that's not all that different to Chinese 'state owned' enterprises. They're just more overt. West operates more covert and deceptive. A continuation of a trend, heh :))
What's your thinking about the second-order effects, larger ramifications of this?
Hard to say. Probably further erosion of individualism in the west. Foreign interference will be used as a pretext to railroad policies like digital currency, digital ID, etc. This is of course a slippery slope to the China model of mass surveillance and social credit scores.
How this mixes with the constitution and western values is uncertain. You can still have free speech and human rights in such a system, its just that much more fragile.
That, or foreign interference prevails and our enemies trick us into civil war and we destroy ourselves that way.
Is it pro-Russian? I haven’t watched it.. and now I can’t watch it. I just have to take YouTube’s word for it that I’m not old enough to watch and never will be.
Disregarding this video however, I guess “private company sponsored censorship” is the vogue for capitalist governments
While “state sponsored censorship” is vogue for authoritarian governments
One is outsourced, but the result is much the same. I’m sad that people on HN are constantly cheering one form of censorship when they should recognize the third order effects
A lot of HN dreams of getting to be the censor and given the makeup of the audience here, many will, if they aren't already. What I don't understand is the arrogance in believing the choices of what to censor will always be their choice or inline with what their ideology drives them to censor. Power has a way of shifting quickly and dramatically. Those helping to lace up the boots on someone else's neck often find that same boot on their neck not long after.
3-2-1 until anything that has ever been said in favor or RU and in criticism of the US will be framed as propaganda. Everything is propaganda. All art is propaganda (Orwell). But not all propaganda is false. Propaganda is telling you the truth 99% of the time and sprinkles in the strategic lies (Jacques Ellul[2]). In a hot war that "trust switch" is flipped and it's suddenly 50% lies, and nobody shall dare to question the "good" guys.
I'm absolutely against the Kremlin regime, but hope they get their asses handed by a thousand Bayraktars and tank-stealing farmers. But I wouldn't immediately throw under the rug all the horrors the US has inflicted on the world with it's foreign policy. And let's not forget that the main benefactor of this infowar is 100% "our good guys" who would only report news accurately and never have done differently (aehm Iraq war, Brexit, etc).
I know propagandists are ruling my thoughts already 2 weeks into the conflict, because I see myself cheering for as many dead Russian soldiers as possible, and a smile comes over face when I look at the horrors of war, as long as the propagandist shows me my heroes are winning, but totally forgetting that the RU "elite" soldiers[3] are often just kids & petty criminals who live on the streets.
I don't believe for a minute that the criticism that has been aimed at the West for all our previous wars is 100% unjustified. And painting Oliver Stone as peddling RU propaganda is just wrong when he has a history of sticking his finger into every wound and fragile ego of those in power.
I don't cheer for dead Russian soldiers. I weep for them. It is a terrible tragedy that they had to die. And yesterday 1200 Ukrainian civilians died in Mariupol.
The video is propaganda because it mixes some real events by trying to present that all Ukrainians are like that or at least that the Ukrainian leaders are like that. It instigated war and now unexperienced Russian boys are being killed. And in Russia it is even forbidden to tell that there is a war going.
It is very difficult because these are complex issues to which many people have emotional reaction that prevents seeing detailed picture.
For example, the current scare that Ukraine has bio labs to study different biological agents. That's a normal thing, every country studies viruses and bacteria etc. for public health reasons. Some of those labs need very good containment to protect the public. Due to the war there is a risk of breaking containment. But someone reports it as “bioweapons” and now everybody is scared and think that the US is developing biological warfare in Ukraine. It is almost impossible to counteract this misinformation. It can and will be used for propaganda purposes.
The U.S. House of Representatives has admitted an ugly truth that the U.S. mainstream media has tried to hide from the American people: that the post-coup regime in Ukraine has relied heavily on Nazi storm troopers to carry out its bloody war against ethnic Russians, reports Robert Parry.
And then a few years later armed Jews to kill Nazis after being denied sovereignty?
Ukraine definitely committed its share of war crimes in WWII. They killed untold numbers in a genocidal campaign to ethnically cleanse Poles.
Soviets raped. Americans raped. No one in WII has clean hands.
What matters most is matters today. A narrative of state-sponsored neo-nazis were used to justify the horrific invasion of Ukraine. It's a scapegoat and entertaining such a fantasy is dangerous for the people of Ukraine and the world.
a) this is not censorship, yt is a corporation and not government
b) it is Russian propaganda (if you dare, watch it and compare facts, one for all: Babn Yar masacre)
c) Oliver stone is producer, but definitelly not a journalist; facts are bend to fit needs
Overall review: if you love totalitarian systems, it will be your coup of cofee. If you love to study propaganda, this is masterpiece to watch. If you are a person grown up in totalitarian system, it brings memories up.
Otherwise it's piece of shit.
Ok. The thing is that dominant social networks (including HN) have been censoring dissent points of view to Bidden's handling of Ukraine's problem. This video may have several truths in it or may be none, but if you are going to disqualify it. You have to give evidence that what is said is incorrect, incomplete biased, etc...Otherwise the one buying propaganda is you...
Do you have any articles that is not written by RT contributes that covers this? Mintpressnews seems to be at best a news site funded by the Syrian regime. So it would be nice to see articles by a more independent source.
I don't know about the election illegitimacy claims and I doubt the bioweapons claims are anything but propaganda, but the Azov Battalion and other groups like the Aidar Battalion definitely have neo-nazi leadership and likely have intent to ethnically cleanse the east of Russians.
Andriy Biletsky, one of the founding members of the Azov Battalion described his political mission to "be the leader of the white races against a world of jew lead subhumans". They openly use Nazi symbolism, distribute neo-nazi propaganda magazines, and provide terrorist training to foreign neo-nazi groups. The Ukrainian government's response to this was to legitimize them, give them arms production plants, incorporate them into the military and even give them policing permits.
They claim the group has 'depoliticized', although the neo-nazi leadership, distribution of neo-nazi propaganda, use of nazi symbolism and ethic hate related crimes have not ceased.
Azov is big in propaganda due to being one of the first in the door among volunteer militia, and being... well, Azov. It's telling however that the closest thing to a parent organisation pretty much lost all political gains it made since Euromaidan (they now have 1 single-vote region in last election, an election won by ethnically russian jew who speaks russian with family) and even just after Euromaidan they were rebuffed in various escapades even by government, despite the desperation of early war.
Consider the list of people interviewed about Revolution of Dignity - Vladimir Putin, Viktor Yanukovych (Putin's stooge, who was supposed to win election through electoral meddling and hacking which failed spectacularly live on stage), concentrating the idea of Ukrainian nationalism to start with Cossacks instead of Kievan Rus (a "viking" state centered around Kyiv, the other "viking" state being Novgorod of old).
Also, as much as I hate Azov battalion it's ~600 people today (vs. much smaller numbers in 2014), not some giant unit.
It also peddles conspiracy theories about US involvement, when the reality was that West might have provided observers that helped prevent electoral meddling (I'd give credit to Ukrainians, honestly), the history of western involvement in Russia-Ukraine war since 2014 till quite recently was mostly pushing Ukraine into appeasement.
