Comment by 2Gkashmiri | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 2Gkashmiri | Hacker News Reader

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look. i want to ask a simple question. "anti-western agenda" is fine and good but have you ever looked at that? is the american media not involved in anti-russia propaganda? or anti-iran propaganda?

do you think their propaganda might just be reciprocal to what you people are doing?

sure. pictures and videos of guantanamo bay are everywhere, so are the works leaked by wikileaks. they paint a similar picture of the american exceptionalism the way russians and the chinese do to their own people.

remember instead of trying the culprits of that helicopter video leaked by wikileaks, the us government is shooting the messenger and not targeting the message itself.

what i am saying is, every side of this mess has dirty laundry. there are no good or bad sides. you are taking one side because you live there or whatever.

how is it free speech if "russia today" is banned by youtube or facebook or twitter in the US or EU but if russia blocks facebook or CNN in russia then its "attack of free speech?" you want your agenda, your propaganda be heard by your enemies but you dont want your people to know the enemies agenda. sure fine. you can do that but its not exceptionalism.

[how is it free speech if "russia today" is banned by youtube or facebook or twitter]

Here's the thing about free speech in America that people miss in these arguments. The U.S. government can neither compel nor deny your right to say or platform your speech as long as it isn't a call to act as a threat of violence or hate speech. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are private companies and don't need to platform anyone they don't want to, technically. They might be sued for discrimination, I guess, but not for infringement on your right to free speech. They aren't viewed as a "public square", as they aren't funded by the government.

> you want your agenda, your propaganda be heard by your enemies but you dont want your people to know the enemies agenda

Huh? The comment you are replying to literally argues for less restrictions on information.

> how is it free speech if "russia today" is banned by youtube or facebook or twitter in the US or EU but if russia blocks facebook or CNN in russia then its "attack of free speech?"

Free speech does not include using speech to lie and defraud.

The Russian State controls the Russian media and what you get is and only is propaganda. It is there purely to defaud and deceive. This is not about freedom of speech, it's about crime.

If you meet a man lying through his teeth to sell you fake insurance, you do not protect his actions on the basis of freedom of speech.

Free speech in the U.S. does include lying about politics. Republicans and Democrats are free to lie about the policies of the other party. You would not want to make adjudicating what political statements are lies a judicial matter. That is the job of the media and the voters.

well who are you to decide?

>If you meet a man lying through his teeth to sell you fake insurance, you do not protect his actions on the basis of freedom of speech.

strawman argument. media isnt selling you fake insurance. even if it did, you have the power to change the channel and not buy it. by not allowing the fake salesman on the street, you are not letting market forces to decide for themselves.

why do you fear market forces would favour their lies over your alleged "truth"? if that is the case, the end users must surely be able to see white and black. let them decide.

> why do you fear market forces would favour their lies over your alleged "truth"?

Plato gives Socrates' answer in Gorgias. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html

> Free speech does not include using speech to lie and defraud. > If you meet a man lying through his teeth to sell you fake insurance, you do not protect his actions on the basis of freedom of speech.

The same rhetorics is used by Russian government when it tries restricting pro-western sources.

And it's not like they don't have a rather solid ground for it. Anyone living in Russia and reading western reports on it knows how much the real life is different from and image painted by journalists in some captivating (almost mythological) narrative way.

Does this mean that Russian government does good when it restricts access to information? Or does it rather teach us that universal unrestricted accees to information is imperative, and people should be able to make their own decisions, rather then consume what was provided by a local journalist?

> Free speech does not include using speech to lie and defraud.

It literally does. It also includes "hate speech" and all kinds of other stuff we find abhorrent. Otherwise it's not free speech.

> Free speech does not include using speech to lie and defraud.

The social media is full of misinformation published by the Ukrainians, eg:

https://observers.france24.com/en/europe/20220301-video-debu...

https://www.bbc.com/news/60554910

https://www.bbc.com/news/60554910

So, should we cut off Ukraine's internet access?

And we barely see any information from the Russian side. Is it not better to see the propaganda and expose it? Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

None of your links say that the Ukrainian government or state-sponsored media engaged in misinformation. It's not even clear that it's of Ukrainian origin.

> Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I used to believe that, too, but there's evidence that silencing misinformation results in less misinformation overall.

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