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Comment by MaysonL | Hacker News Reader

Imagine the Russian soldiers' parents reading this, and then getting a phone calls from their sons, now POWs, but still alive.

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They wont be reading this. Russia is informationally closed and now it became crime to spread "disinformation about war". This would likely fall in that category (regardless of whether true or not).

Also, Russian soldiers are dying too. It is fair to guess they are more likely to die then become POW.

North Koreans manage to get DVDs of Marvel movies. The Russians will manage - they’ve still got actual access to the Internet.

You're assuming they're going to be trying, but they don't know they should be "managing" something.

Yes, I’m assuming post-Soviet Russia will have a little skepticism of state-run media. There’s pretty good historical precedent.

Well that's completely wrong. Putin's propaganda machine is arguably even more performant than Soviets ever had it.

Improvements in propaganda operations are significantly counterbalanced by ease of access. The Internet is a wild place, and there are lots of venues like Telegram available for largely unfettered conversations. Plenty of Russians still on Reddit; the chances of them remaining entirely unexposed to external information is slim.

You're severely underestimating how brainwashed they are. They're being brainwashed with fake history and nationalism since kindergarten. They will read the truth on the internet, and immediately dismiss it and then tell you that you're wrong about events you yourself or your parents have observed. It took me several years to undo some of the damage with one Russian person who moved here - they simply couldn't believe their state is such a horrible aggressor, in their mind it was so outlandish it must be totally fake.

I think you're underestimating how much that same sensation comes up when talking to many Americans about the Founding Fathers, Constitution, Civil War, and things like Iraq/Afghanistan.

I'm not, and I'm also certain it's nothing compared to the state of Russian public.

> North Koreans manage to get DVDs of Marvel movies

It is not like average north Korean would routinely watched Marvel movies.

If they're pirating Titanic (https://www.npr.org/2017/07/05/534742750/watching-foreign-mo...), they're probably pirating the MCU.

I love the story about soviet bootleg records pressed on used X-ray images!

https://www.x-rayaudio.com/x-rayaudioproject/ https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/32308/1/russia-x-...

I spoke with several Russians on 4chan last night.

There are many rulings against 4chan in Russia and while I'm not sure about the status right now, they used simple DNS blocks back in the day what is somewhat easy to avoid for semi computer literate people. VPNs are also obviously popular. If you end up in a blacklist it's forbidden to read, distribute etc these links.

You can check rublacklist.net for more detailed stuff and rulings.

4chan bans known VPN IP ranges. It's possible that they're state-sponsored trolls. They seem to be pretty adamantly anti-West.

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