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Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democrats have plenty of blood on their hands in demanding censorship. Remember the accusations of racism that were used to shut down the lab leak theory? Or the demands to censor scientists with any dissenting viewpoints over Covid? The cover up of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal that resulted in journalists from the Post being banned? The "war on disinformation" their obsessed with is not any different from a "war…

Division is the goal of the adversary. We should stop arguing for no good reason if we don't have to.

It's the censorship making the division worse.

Social media already has a big problem with filter bubbles. If you go to a place where 99% of people there are one party's partisans and try to rebut their misinformation, you get dogpiled. People insult you and sling baseless accusations of racism, which deters people from attempting to debate when they're highly outnumbered. So any place which has any partisan bias gets an even bigger one until everything is totally polarized.

Platform censorship makes it even worse because the platform's censors will be in one bubble or the other, their censorship decisions will be biased in that direction and push anyone on the other team onto other platforms and we end up with entirely partisan platforms that never talk to each other, and are thereby both highly misinformed about different sets of things.

Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#112
post #9

It's good to remember that the previous American president also waged a war against every media outlet he didn't like by claiming they were "fake news." It's the same authoritarianism in different stages. And if you think nobody in America wants to jail journalists and media CEOs, go look at any forum with a substantial amount of Republicans talking freely.

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Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#113
post #96
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> During the BLM protests, there were hundreds of assaults and detentions of members of the press, along with an enhanced surveillance apparatus. That these actions didn't go through the strictest official channels doesn't mean that they didn't happen. Trump's commentary on the violence against the press: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/19/media/trump-velshi-msnbc-shot ... I agree that local police assaulting journalists…

> The Trump admin didn't do those things despite all of his bluster. Yes, it's an administrative motte & bailey. Police support, individual and organizational, for Trump is incredibly high and their loyalty to him transcends official channels. He's explicitly endorsed violence against journalists, brutality towards suspects, and celebrated the execution of Michael Reinoehl. While he didn't have direct control over th…

Again, encouraging bad actors is 100% different from using the full power of the executive branch to persecute journalists which he did not do, and Russia does.

Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your saying Democrats are not in favor of censorship? Are we just going to pretend this is a one sided issue and they were not guilty in trying to cover up the lab leak theory or going after journalists who try to write stories about hunter bidens laptop? I don't see how pointing how both parties are guilty of engaging in censorship is wrong. I am advocating for the position that censorship is a tool used unfairly…

Your second paragraph stands alone on its own well without the first. I think human flaws spread around pretty evenly. It's actually a pretty good starting point for thinking humanizing the person you are disagreeing with and establishing common ground. If it's okay, I don't want to talk about the lab leak or laptop here - I don't want to distract from the separate topic of this law imposing 15 year prison sentences…

FWIW I despise censorship, irregardless of which party it comes from, and can tell we both see a lot of flaws in human nature in general so don't think we are far off in disagreement here. Journalists should be left the fuck alone, certainly.

Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#115
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am American, I live in a free country: I can go to a main square and call president (Reagan/Nixon/whatever) an idiot and nothing will happen to me!" - "Well, I am Soviet citizen, I also live in a free country: I can go to a main square and call president (Reagan/Nixon/whatever) an idiot and nothing will happen to me!"

I loved when Reagan told Soviet jokes, that was one of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3z3eSVG7A The YT comment section actually has a few gems too.

Heh. The one where he has two Russians arguing and one asked whether the SU was at the pinnacle of communism and his buddy’s answer was hell no, things are gonna get a lot worse!

Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#116
post #38
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally laughed out loud when I hit that line in Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn was brilliant.

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Even if he was an antisemite at one point in his life or even his entire life, how does that change what the original poster said about him - that he was brilliant?

I'm genuinely curious because I've seen this kind of knee-jerk response across many avenues (e.g. x is an antisemite, is hitler, is a facist, is a commie, is a trump supporter) and I don't understand it.

In the medieval era most people participating in European civilization would qualify for the modern definition of antisemitism. Should I simply disregard the good works of writers and thinkers from that time period and geography?

If anything I am pro-semite but it's a struggle for me to grasp why the antisemitism of an individual should affect my opinion of their work or ideas. Even though I don't approve of their opinions regarding a people group it simply does not follow that I ought to dismiss everything they have ever said.

Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#117
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, the blue camp is different only in rhetoric: if the red wants control in the name of national security, the blue wants the same control in the name of grotesque moral rightnessess. Fake news is a good summary of our media today, it just applies to both camps.

Bullshit false equivalence. I notice that Democrats aren't forming white supremacist militias, plotting to kidnap state governors, attacking Congress specifically to overturn the results of a national election, etc.

If you only apply 'guilt by association' to your opponents, but not to yourself and your tribe, then your worldview will be built on a foundation of cheap rhetorical tricks.

Remember when Hillary's mentor (Mr. Byrd) was a former KKK Grand Dragon (and Democrat Senator)? Or when that democrat attempted to assassinate a dozen Republican lawmakers on a baseball field? How about the one who killed five cops in Dallas? Or the ones who engaged in (or cheered on) the 2020 riots that did billions of dollars in damage (including a months-long attack on a Federal courthouse in Portland, complete with firebombing!)?

All of this finger pointing bullshit is a distraction, intended to scare stupid people to the polls.

Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#118
post #9

It's good to remember that the previous American president also waged a war against every media outlet he didn't like by claiming they were "fake news." It's the same authoritarianism in different stages. And if you think nobody in America wants to jail journalists and media CEOs, go look at any forum with a substantial amount of Republicans talking freely.

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Avowed leftist here: Let's just agree that both the Dems and Repubs ban/seek to stifle opinions they don't agree with. Someone wants to ban Maus, someone else wants to ban Joe Rogan. Both parties want power at the expense of "freedom".

Censorship is part of existing as part of a society though. There are people who seek to actively hurt others using words and media, and the whole idea of a state is to (pretend?) to act in the common good. At this point the internet gives everyone a platform (look at us right now, there's a near 0% chance we would have ever spoken in physical real life) and makes a TON more noise that makes finding the signal harder, which means both sides can find plenty of examples of the other behaving badly to "whatabout" whenever someone points out their own bad behavior.

TL;dr- Everyone wants censorship, even if they pretend they don't, so let's not pretend it's actually either side. If anything, your point just proves that Dems/leftists might have more power in the US to influence these things, but that doesn't prove they have more desire to influence them than the right.

Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#119
post #3

Two out of the last three remaining somewhat independent media that were still operating in the country (already under major restrictions) were also shut down, TV rain just did their last transmission and walked out of the studio crying: https://youtu.be/e4an0MlF27k?t=11397 Twitter and facebook are being blocked. Youtube and group chats in telegram/signal/etc are the only things left right now. 7670 people have been…

> Twitter and facebook are being blocked This is the silver lining as people on Reddit are reporting a marked decrease in right wing trolling in all their social media

This is something I'm very interested in. Is the average Western consumer of COVID misinformation, racial hate-baiting, etc. seeing a sudden decrease in new "content" to share?

Does anyone know of any organizations studying the ongoing levels of creation and engagement with that type of content?

Re: Russia to punish ‘fake news’ about Ukraine war with 15 years’ jail

#120
post #9

It's good to remember that the previous American president also waged a war against every media outlet he didn't like by claiming they were "fake news." It's the same authoritarianism in different stages. And if you think nobody in America wants to jail journalists and media CEOs, go look at any forum with a substantial amount of Republicans talking freely.

Quoted post unavailable.

> shutting down news media that they disagree with

I suspect what you mean by this is "outlets claiming to report 'news' but actually spreading misinformation".

That's quite different from "disagreement".

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