-14

Total censorship becoming the norm in the political West (infobrics.org)

submitted 1 month ago by multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If hundreds of millions of Americans and Europeans knew what was actually going on, they'd certainly be against the policies their unelected bureaucratic oligarchies are imposing, both at home and abroad. Precisely this is why knowing the truth is all the more important. Unfortunately, it can indeed be dangerous to think and speak freely at this time, and we can only expect more censorship and more "thought criminals", as any deviation from the official narrative is "dangerous for our democracy".

top 23 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes, this is absolutely true. The hegemonic narrative is completely in favor of genocide while those who resist are violently attacked. Just listen to NPR, NYTimes, etc. Just watch the campuses, protests, social media, firings from jobs, academic attacks, etc. Politicians literally tried to legislate that anti-zionism is anti-semitism. That's how bad the attack on reality has become. It's a cyclical occurrence, but it's more overt and overwhelming than ever.

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 1 month ago

This is just right wing and conspiracy theorist bs. I'm not saying there is no censorship but this is misinformation designed to confuse people, sow distrust, and make them susceptible to more misinformation so they can be influenced politically.

This kind of shit really took off in 2020 and if you're still falling for it, please take your life back in control. If we're gonna criticize the West, let's take a fact-based approach.

[-] pancake@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 month ago

Countries anger and provoke each others' populations by pointing out the bad stuff, and defend against that by censoring or otherwise cracking down on dissent. Articles like this are just attacks against us in this process, true, but I think specific ones like this are still useful, when critically understood, to help us realize that not only the countries we don't like use those authoritarian tricks, but more or less every one (and those countries that don't are couped by one or another who does).

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml -2 points 1 month ago

Oh so you hate censorship, but you just don't want to see the evil wrongthink. I see, I see.

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 1 month ago

Oh I do. But I want journalists to tell me about it, not propaganda outlets. This article is written to make me angry, not to emancipate or enlighten me. It wants to manipulate me.

If I may recommend a book, Doppelganger by Naomi Klein. It's about exactly the difference between

investigative journalists that do their due diligence to uncover actual conspiracies
conspiracy nutjobs that just believe and share every conspiracy they hear, and ironically, often end up serving oligarchs by doing so.

If anger becomes more important than truth, we become tools in the hands of the powerful. Choose truth

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 month ago

The difference between journalism and propaganda to you is whether a western source is saying it or a country which is no longer controlled by the western financial apparatus. You weren't trained to question.

Oh you mean the book that Klein felt obliged to promote when feigning an apology for lashing out at the left for not condemning Hamas?

It's absolute schlock. I don't know what convinced her that people on Twitter are worth writing a book about, but the quarantine really had a deletrious effect on some people.

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The difference between journalism and propaganda to you is whether a western source is saying it or a country which is no longer controlled by the western financial apparatus

What makes you think this?

I haven't been trained to question, that's true. I learned. You only learned to be scared apparently, and you're currently in training to dismiss facts altogether. I suggest you drop out of that curriculum

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago

Mister Potatoes I suggest you unlearn your tendency to label articles that point out glaring contradictions and omissions in Western narratives "unjournalistic propaganda" before deploying this kind of language about how open minded and educated you are

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 1 month ago

Your post got rained in downvotes despite being posted on lemmy.ml. Clearly I'm not the only one who can tell this is trash

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You expect me to take internet points and alt accounts complaining about everything that doesn't agree with the state department narrative seriously! I appreciate you admitting it! Now, let's see if you can attack a single point raised in one single article that I post instead of whining about how nobody should disagree with liberal dogma. I highly doubt it.

Every downvote I get on these articles and comments is a merit badge that says Ruined Another Liberal's Day. You're going to have to live with us being right forever! You think your word games can actually alter reality, up until it passes you by.

You deny how bad things are for Ukraine even more than Kiev does at this point! Keep your salt stained messages on the timeline proving how delusional you were when things really crumbled!

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 1 month ago

What the fuck are you even talking about? I've said nothing about Ukraine. Do you call everyone who disagrees with you a liberal? That is a rude insult to sling around in these parts.

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

What do you think precipitated the dramatic censorship of social media and search engines? Have you been living under a rock for almost three years? Did you also put this URL into "Media Bias Fact Check" to decide whether or not to read it or did you see that a Russian wrote it and panic?

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 1 month ago

I didn't need to put this into anything because the writing style tells me everything I need to know. Highly opinionated. Essays posing as news. Opinion underlaid with paper-thin "arguments". It's the same that was around during covid spreading misinformation about vaccines and masks. The disinformation itself is not the goal. The goal is to capitalize on people's fear and isolate them. Make them easy to manipulate later on.

It's not a new strategy either. Fear and hate have always been tools in the hands of the powerful. If you think the West has a monopoly on that, you're sorely mistaken.

Fuck Westerm hegemony and capitalism, sure. But also fuck Putin. Fuck all oligarchs.

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

Again you wrote a reply guy screed without engaging with a single word that was written. We are getting closer to making you read though, as you are now offended by "writing style". Of course, all of your liberal opinions are fact, everyone else's are Russian Evil Antivax Hate Propaganda. Do you have any more invective to heap on the piece without daring to attempt to refute a word?

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 1 month ago

I can handle nonsense but please don't call me a liberal.

Can you point to the part you want me to engage with? Half your comments are you fantasizing about me so I'm not sure what you're even trying to tell me.

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

One important factor in the whole discussion over whether we take western propaganda seriously, whether we take the censorship to be benevolent, which I'm seeing completely neglected, is how we're dismissing it because of all the lies which western governments have told in the past, we're not just dismissing it because it's state affiliated, or propaganda, all journalism is propaganda. When former CIA officers tell us that the purpose of the organization is misinformation I think we would be wise to listen to them, if only on that point. With a little bit of reading we can easily discover that western propaganda is based entirely in taking embedded reporters who serve alongside the Israeli military, the Ukrainian military, and other allies at face value, or taking statements by the US and its allies at face value without investigation or waiting for them to provide any evidence for these claims. Due to a monopoly on media distribution and high-ranking universities they don't have to make any contact with reality to be taken seriously. Quite the opposite, the more uncritically they repeat what they're told the more prestige is heaped upon them.

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 month ago

whether we take the censorship to be benevolent,

I do not take censorship to be benevolent. Fuck censorship

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 month ago

I am speaking directly to you about what you are doing and saying there is no fantasy here I am describing you.

That's not how it works you're the one complaining about the article you have to find a point that was made in the article that you disagree with you need to supply the evidence that refutes the point otherwise you're just thoughtlessly dismissing it because that affirms your liberal worldview.

Of course there are other reasons that you could dismiss the article such as actually pointing to something that made the source unreliable that they'd said in the past. But I don't think you can do that either.

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 month ago

alright sorry for leaving you hanging, I got some time gonna answer now.

you’re the one complaining about the article you have to find a point that was made in the article that you disagree with

That's fair. Although I'm not really disagreeing with the content of the article. For one, it makes many claims itself that are not substantiated.

And yet, despite constant blabbering about "freedom and democracy", there's (un)surprisingly little actual freedom in the belligerent power pole.

Agreed, but there's no example. This is just narrative.

Worse yet, if new laws in the United States and European Union are anything to go by, there's going to be less of it than ever before

Agreed, but again it's just narrative no examples. I can think for myself, I'd like to know why this is the case.

I could keep going but this goes for both of the first paragraph. Every sentence is loaded with narrative, while depriving me of any actual information.

Then it gets juicy.

Back in 2020, the near-universal crackdown on actual free media

Back in 2020, covid caused a shock to the global population, making them susceptible. Fake news and medical misinformation ran rampant, and there was an outcry against it, as conspiracy-crap isolated people even more. Russian state-sponsored propaganda quickly picked up on this, and capitalized on fear and shock in order to lure people into their propaganda. I investigated some of the "news outlets" spreading medical misinformation back then, and the articles were just like this one. All narrative, very little actual information. Just enough to confirm peoples beliefs and then a little more to influence them. Drago is basically admitting he was part of that.

Maybe it's not about covid, maybe it's about something else. Anyway Drago makes no attempt to tell us what his great journalism was about.

Then the article finally has some proper information about WikiLeaks being under attack. No complaints here

Uncomfortable truths, otherwise known as "evil Russian disinformation",

for real? wow. Once again not a single bit of information. Which truths? What is the great journalistic effort that Drago seems to want my recognition for?

Thousands of British citizens are arrested every year for social media posts.

The source for this is... a twitter post? really? I'm not saying it's not true I'm saying this article is not journalism. It's an essay at best, and a shit one at that.

In the meantime, "evil" Russia allows actual free speech to journalists from countries that banned virtually all Russian media.

And the source for this is... links to Telegram channels? lmao

The case of Tucker Carlson

Another reminder that this is a far-right propaganda author. Tucker Carlson is a white supremacist piece of shit and his intentions were clear.

"Russian disinformation" (i.e. the truth)

come on you have to admit this is hilarious.

Basically, the information conveyed in this article is next to none. There is only narrative. The article barely provides no evidence for its own narrative, and then you expect me to bring evidence to refute the narrative. I'm not here to do the authors job for him lol.

I'm not even trying to refute the article. Like I've said many times now and you fail to understand, I don't disagree with the opinion that censorship is becoming a bigger problem in the West. But the article isn't trying to inform you. The article is trying to manipulate your opinion.

[-] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 1 month ago

No, I mean the Naomi Klein that voices pro-palestinian opinions in the book. Here's a highly israel-critical interview.

This is what I mean. Blind dogma and hatred will make you turn against those who should be your allies.

[-] multi_regime_enjoyer@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

She's not an ally LMAO, plenty of "pro-Palestinian voices" also "advocate" for Palestinians by repeating Israeli propaganda. You must think everyone who criticizes Netanyahu is on your side. 🤕 I hope she sees this bro. Then you can both discuss how much you respect Israel's right to "exist" and "defend itself"