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Comment by aa-jv | Hacker News Reader

It is extraordinary to me that we in the free world consider that censoring the Russians is how we are going to 'bring them to heel'.

If we can't hear their arguments, how can we convince them of the errors of their ways?

We are either cowardly trying to hide from what they are saying, or the narrative is being controlled in order to make sure only "the official truth" is told. Which is as good as having martial law declared - on ourselves.

Given our own proclivity (the West) for telling lies and then murdering millions of innocent people, I think this cynical move is very telling. We are not as free as we think.

Why are "we" the ones who can tell the world "what the Russians want", when we are in fact censoring them at every outlet... why don't we just listen to what the Russians, like - officially, want? What are we actually afraid they will tell us?

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Russia has a habit of pushing people out of windows who disagree with them. They have poisoned opposition leaders on foreign soil. They used chemical weapons in Syria. And they sent a few hundred mercenaries to attack a military base knowing full well it was held by US soldiers. Also they just passed a law to punish anti war protesters with 15 years in jail.

The West is by no means perfect. But Russia has been abusing the goodwill of the West for decades with little push back. They finally crossed a line that the West collectively agreed was too far. I personally think we should have put these sanctions on them in 2014, and maybe we could have avoided this war.

None of these reasons justify the repression of free and open media.

Cool, tell that to Russia, because the free and open media is being persecuted there

Whoever feel like consuming manure can access RT using a VPN

No whataboutism, please.

It is our access to media that is being repressed.

We no longer have access to media that we used to. WE are losing a free and open society, not the Russians.

You say "free and open media" and refer to RT, which is state sponsored media from RT. Media from a country that kills journalist and bans independent media. You're so angry at the EU for banning state sponsored media. Where is your anger at Russia for killing journalists and banning independent media?

Whataboutism works both ways, come on.

It is OUR access to media that is being censored - it is OUR free media market that is being repressed. Russia isn't doing this to us, we're doing it to ourselves.

YOU say their media is from a country that kills journalists (as does ours) and bans independent media (as does ours) - it can be said about any of the major powers today. This is precisely why we must question what we are being told - but we can't do that if we don't have access to the original sources on the subject.

I don't believe RT propaganda is necessarily going to sway my opinion about anything, any less than CNN would .. but thats a decision I want to make for myself - I don't need autocratic talking heads making it for me.

> autocratic talking heads

Hold your horses. You are talking about democratically elected governments here. There's nothing autocratic in this action, it is democratic in nature. The courts might still overrule it and require a parliamentary vote or a referendum, and I am almost sure it will pass.

In a way it is similar to children programming. When you turn 18 you don't magically become aware of what is going on. But most regular programming for most people by that age can no longer hurt them or break their psyche. However, footage explicitly designed to fool can instill FUD on many people, possibly even the majority. I think banning outright propaganda machines is justified. Too bad there is no legal framework for that, but it should not prevent an executive action when the need is dire and the intent to violate is obvious.

Who voted to ban Russian media in the West?

I am sorry for not being more clear, but it is an executive action performed by democratically elected government. It can still be overruled in courts. If it is not, and people of those countries disagree, they can always vote for a different government in the next election.

This is a common democratic process for something that needs to be done urgently when existing legal framework does not allow it, and developing the said framework would take too long.

I'm not sure how listening to Goebbels is useful to convince nazis of the errors of their ways.

I'm not sure I support the banning of RT either, but pretending that RT is anything but pure propaganda is delusional.

There is no such thing as 'pure propaganda'.

There's only things 'our side do not agree with'.

CNN is pure propaganda, too. It is extremely vulnerable to corruption and agitprop outside the normal scope of journalistic duty. But, I think Russians actually are not afraid of tuning into CNN, like Americans are - deadly afraid, it seems - of watching even a minute of RT.

It really seems like mass hysteria, being exploited to ensure only one sides narrative is understood by the world.

There is such thing as propaganda. It's when somebody explicitly controls what you can and what you can't say (among other things). CNN may be biased, sure and I have no problem with that (as with Foxnews), but with RT I have issues with.

But again I'm not sure I support the ban of RT, just on a point of principle and because those bans were already used as rationalizations to close last independent media in Russia.

It's also doesn't come across as a position of strength. More like hysterical reactionary thrashing about.

>There is no such thing as 'pure propaganda'.

Why not?

I find this "all opinions are equally valid"-style argument quite astonishing. And while pure censorship is bad, surely so too is the indirect style of censorship enforced by flooding the airwaves with false information to the point where people lose their belief in anything.

What defines 'pure propaganda' - things that are 100% not what "your side" agrees "the other side thinks"?

There is only propaganda. There's not such a thing as impure propaganda - unless you think there are 'worthy victims' too, hmm ... ?

Ah ok, you were just being pedantic. Fair enough.

You clearly haven't used the site. It's very much not pure propaganda. It's not even Breitbart level. Quite a wide range of content. Some good balanced journalism even. That's what makes it effective.

not sure if i ve seen a lot of 'balanced' content. Despite being a russian channel you ll never understand what s happening in russia because it's as if their government has never made any mistake at all. But it's generally a perspective, and watching it helps to understand what kind of propaganda makes most russians support this war

"why don't we just listen to what the Russians, like - officially, want?"

It's not like the Russian government is being deprived of the ability to express its official narrative. It controls the media in Russia, and can freely express itself there.

The world has been globally networked for some time, so it's easy to look at Russian websites in Russia, should anyone wish.

That's not true at all, and I think you're being disingenuous. RT in English used to be an easily accessible channel that provided another point of view for many mainstream, internationally relevant events - and now it is gone, completely.

Extraordinary how blood lust and war hysteria led us to drop our facade as a free, open and honest society so quickly.

> It's not like the Russian government is being deprived of the ability to express its official narrative. It controls the media in Russia, and can freely express itself there.

"You're not censored, you can always go in your lone cellar and scream your opinion in there".

We're clearly suppressing the Russian side. Not unusual and not necessarily bad in a cold (?) war, but let's not act like it's not happening.

Even their editor in chief resigned because she was sick of her government's actions and that she had to spread more lies about what they were doing. Maybe that tells something us about RT?

Also - when they ban every outlet of free media in Russia, why should we have to allow to operate and spread lies elsewhere?

What arguments are they bringing to the table, exactly? You seem to be quite keen that they can continue broadcasting lies while they invade a sovereign democratic nation. I wonder just what pushback against Russia you do support. It’s not like nobody can get the official RT story in the west if they want to. Unlike Russia, the West hasn’t banned anyone from looking up or sharing Russia’s official line on this whole thing. You’re free to post about the West murdering millions of innocents while Russians are shooting civilians *right now* - https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t9exxk/russians_ki... - so your cries about your speech being threatened feel a bit hollow.

>What arguments are they bringing to the table, exactly?

How will we know if we can't see it?

> What are we actually afraid they will tell us?

It's the wording used... For example "Ban russian oil and gas from our country" sounds like a good idea... "Ban russian oil and gas, pushing energy prices up 50% and costing every citizen $3000 every year in increased prices while causing a real risk of economic collapse" doesn't sound so great...

I think you are considering RT journalism, it's not. It is not free to report fact. If it were free to do so I'd agree with you that it is valuable for understanding and for having dialog with Russia. We know RT is not free because of the crackdown of real Russian independent media. The way RT is now just reflects the desires of an autocracy whose stated goals are in opposition to the world order and whose tools are misinformation, violence and terror. Giving them a platform is not helpful.

Given the crackdown on Russian 'independent' (meaning: western) media came after the RT ban, it is reasonable to expect it happened in retaliation to the RT ban.

> I think you are considering RT journalism, it's not. It is not free to report fact.

They are probably as free as Pravda and Izvestia were, i.e. not at all. Life as a journalist worthy of that claim in the new Russian Empire seems to be short and brutal.

But...

I think you are considering CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and Fox, New York Times and Washington Post (etc.) journalism, they're not. They're not free to report facts. The censor doesn't live in the White House but in the editor's office, the board room and all too often on Twitter. Step outside of the lines and you'll find yourself ousted. At least you get to keep your life so the comparison is not wholly accurate but that there's something rotten in the state of the media is clear.

Not to mention misinformation is across most media outlets. Not only RT.

What do you gain by hearing Putin's lies that Ukraine is just shelling itself?

People think that they're somehow magically immune to propaganda. You are not. Propaganda is like a virus for the mind. You hear it, you internalize it, it slowly warps you. We should not tolerate Putin lying to our people or to anyone for that matter.

I gain nice memes and some schadensfreude when they bitch about their lives.

And what is going to be gained by allowing RT to be uncensored? Their official ""truth"" is that Ukraine is full of/run by Nazis, thus Russia invaded. They've already told the world that. What are you expecting to hear?

Besides, there are other channels for real official truth. Not that Putin will give it.

>What are you expecting to hear?

I want to hear what the Russian people are being told, and I don't want to hear that from 'my sides talking heads', I want to hear it from the perspective of the Russian peoples' own media - without an autocratic authority figure well-known for war-profiteering telling me what to think, I'd rather like to make my own judgement.

Are 'we' so stupid as to not trust our own peoples' ability to observe "obvious propaganda" and come away unaffected, or is it rather that, by censoring Russia, we admit that our own education systems have failed so dismally in the West, that we simply can't trust "The Stupid People" not to fall for 'obvious Russian propaganda'?

I think there is very much an autocratic bent to the reasoning so far.

RT in Europe is in English, not Russian, so it's not what Russian people are being told

So? I still want to see, for myself, what the Russian Propaganda Machine is doing. Why should I be blinded by the prejudices of autocrats?

Besides which .. RT is available in Russian all over Europe, so unless you have further evidence that RT-Europe != RT-Russia, this is irrelevant.

> I want to hear what the Russian people are being told

Me too, but I don't think the Russian people are the main audience for the English, Spanish and French versions of RT. We'll have to rely on translations, from other sources, of the actual Russian news to find out what the Russians are being told.

After a declaration of war, I think it’s okay to restrict the propaganda arm of the enemy for the same reason that putting up pro-Nazi posters in the middle of London in 1940 would also have been restricted.

I tend to agree. But where is the declaration of war by Western governments?

Anyone who does something we don't like is a pretty large set of governments.

Russia is not an enemy of any EU country at this time. If we were at war with Russia, I would entirely agree that blocking their media in the EU is justified, and I also agree that any blocking of their media in Ukraine today is justified.

But outside of literal war, free speech is more important.

Russia literally put a list naming every EU country and others as unfriendly yesterday

Source: https://twitter.com/rianru/status/1500785501309222912

Russia has waged a fairly aggressive indirect war with the EU and the US for a long time, I'm afraid. RT was one of those means, as were network attacks, as was the illegal financing of radical anti-constitutional and anti-democratic parties all over Europe and the US to destabilize political systems, as was the instigation and support of violent groups. Western governments and intelligence agencies have been way too lenient with Russian intelligence efforts in the past 10-20 years.

Now that Russia has introduced a law that can jail journalists with 15 years in prison for mentioning that there is a war in Ukraine, it's plain obvious that RT and other Russian state press has nothing to do with journalism. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't remember having seen any local language Soviet TV channels officially being broadcast via Western European infrastructure during the Cold War either. You could only watch them e.g. near the border to the GDR... and nothing of value was lost.

Radio Moscow was available in a lot of languages (64 come the 1970's) back in the days of the Soviet Union. I came across it regularly when "surfing the waves" on my old tube radio back in high school (1980's), the signals were quite strong and that "Moscow Nights" tune made it easy to identify.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Moscow

Nobody suggests jamming Radio Moscow, though. BBC radio can be received in Russia, too.

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