Does the EU's ban on RT also ban Tor?
yanmaani.github.ioNo. You have misunderstood.
For starters, it'd be hard to argue that RT is "operating" within the EU if the only way to access their content was via TOR. It's not; you can still just view their website as far as my colleagues are telling me.
The thing that's being denied here is their ability to operating business and broadcast - already a very highly regulated thing in most (all?) countries, within EU borders. In practical terms this means having to access RT servers probably outside of the EU, broadcast signals can't be sent within it for that channel, etc.
The internet is not broadcasting.
Were this intended to stop people from viewing it online as well, it would specifically call out RT as Illegal content in some way, so as to invoke one of the possible reasons to actually block their website.[1]
EU rules on open internet give you the right as a user to access and/or distribute any online content and services you choose. Your internet provider cannot block, slow down or discriminate against any online content, applications or services, except in 3 specific cases:
- to comply with legal obligations, such as a court order blocking specific illegal content
- to preserve the security and integrity of the network, for example to combat viruses or malware
- to manage exceptional or temporary network congestion
[1]: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/internet-tel...
[2]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
You seem overly focused on the term "broadcast" while the text of the law seems to pretty explicitly include any means of distribution, including video hosting sites, video watching apps (including P2P?) And ISPs:
> transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed.
Since this is a legal obligation, I fail so see how EU protections against ISP censorship would apply. The "court order blocking illegal content" is an example, not an exhaustive list of the ways a legal obligation to censorship could pertain.
I specifically wasn't solely focused on that, in fact that's pretty clear from what you're responding to regarding ISPs and freedom of access.
It really hinges on whether you believe the law is saying "transmission or distribution" here means that you cannot under any circumstances allow a user to access the content. This language is specific and I don't believe has ever been used in the EU to mean that.> transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed. Since this is a legal obligation, I fail so see how EU protections against ISP censorship would apply.My read on this is that this is designed to prevent situations where ISP, cable, satellite, et. al. providers have more direct involvement in its transmission or distribution. Consider cases where companies offer a streaming service that sometimes includes news channels (e.g.: Netflix), or ISPs that offer their own streaming services doing the same. In those cases, those companies are taking an active role in deploying the content, so they would fall under the umbrella of transmitting or distributing it.
This is why I linked the regulatory article itself.The "court order blocking illegal content" is an example, not an exhaustive list of the ways a legal obligation to censorship could pertain.This is also in the context of a blog post wondering if TOR is now illegal because of this. Would that make VPNs illegal as well? How would the EU even consider shutting down VPN service providers in other countries?
I will gladly stand corrected on this if I'm wrong and the ultimate result here is that RT becomes inaccessible to the EU based on this law.
However, it will not affect TOR any more than it would affect VPN providers, anyone offering VPS services, etc.
You didn't use the term "distribution" in your original comment and included phrases like "The internet is not broadcasting." that made it seem like you were portraying that as a critical distinction.
> However, it will not affect TOR any more than it would affect VPN providers, anyone offering VPS services, etc.
I agree it is almost certainly true that TOR and VPN usage won't be banned, if simply for practical reasons. It seems somewhat more likely that VPNs that are subject to EU jurisdiction will be requited to block RT as well given the language about "activities the object or effect of which is to circumvent prohibitions in this Regulation".
However, I am not very convinced that this won't including ISPs blocking access to RT and possibly sites that host RT videos. It's possible that this is just to force YouTube, et al, to block this content in the EU, but leaving RT itself easily accessible seems to defeat the goals of this legislation so I am a bit skeptical here.
Regulation:
> it is necessary, consistent with the fundamental rights and freedoms recognised in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, in particular with the right to freedom of expression and information as recognised in Article 11 thereof, to introduce further restrictive measures to urgently suspend the broadcasting activities of such media outlets in the Union
What. Don't gaslight me with sentences like this in a official document from the EU. They are saying x and !x at the same time in one paragraph. Freedom of expression, and information?!
I suppose we should remember that it's not censorship if a private company does it. Private companies are free to conduct business with whoever they want, and the EU is not a government institution and as such is not capable of performing censorship. /s
https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/11-freedom-expre...
> The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
They're saying Article 11 already accounts for these scenarios. (I'd presume they learned from the US experience, where it was left to the courts to provide the "ok but there are obviously exceptions" relief valves to the Constitution.)
> (I'd presume they learned from the US experience, where it was left to the courts to provide the "ok but there are obviously exceptions" relief valves to the Constitution.)
If so, they learned exactly the wrong lesson. It was wrong for the US courts to do that, but at least they were acting on their own and not claiming some justification in the text of the Constitution. It's far worse to have these exceptions undermining basic natural human rights written directly into the EU charter. The inclusion of Article 11 essentially makes the rest of the charter pointless—you have "guaranteed" legal rights, except when those in power decide that you don't, for what seem to them to be good reasons at the time. I doubt there is an example of any systematic infringement of rights throughout history which wasn't cast as being in support of "public safety" or "national security" or "protection of health or morals", or some variation or combination thereof.
You're describing two systems with the same end result - rights, but with exceptions and limits. One of the systems is simply more honest about having such a setup, and it's not the American one.
I'm saying both systems have the wrong end result—the EU one by design, and the American one due to defects in the courts.
Being wrong by design is worse than having some implementation issues.
"Rights, with no wiggle room for edge cases or accounting for conflicts between rights" is "wrong by design". So's a giant, ever-expanding defined list of edge cases; I've run a popular web forum and that one leads to "ah but I didn't do exactly the thing listed in Article 73 section 48 part ZY" nonsense.
Our legal systems permit the resolution of conflicting rights and responsibilities. I'm glad that exists, but I'm also glad the Europeans took the American Constitution's failings and made it clearer that it should exist.
"Rights with wiggle room" are not rights. When someone else gets to decide that your "right" will be curtailed because of some "edge case", that's known as a privilege, not a right. Likewise, your concept of "rights" is flawed if it includes any possibility of conflicts. Real rights—negative rights—do not conflict with each other. If an action would infringe on someone else's natural rights then it's out-of-bounds without their consent. If not, it's permitted. Simple and entirely conflict-free.
There are flaws in the American Constitution but this is not one of them. The failing lies in the courts, for making up exceptions contrary to the law and to natural rights, and in the EU for codifying those flaws into its own legal system.
> "Rights with wiggle room" are not rights.
Sure they are.
I have the right to free speech, but your rights mean I can't exercise it by shouting at 3am in your living room.
I have the right to free exercise of religion, but I'm not allowed to exercise the Sacrament of Nuking Chicago as part of my services.
Deciding which rights win out in these scenarios are where the courts come in. Europe acknowledges that; the US kinda had to "discover" it as an option and invent space in the Constitution for it in spots.
The way to read this is:
- they think the restriction is necessary;
- they have considered whether the said rights outweigh the need for the restriction, and believe they do not.
> Freedom of expression, and information?!
You conflate a number of things here. First of all, Russia Today and Sputnik are no EU citizens or corporations, they are entities of the Russian government. Therefore, they are not protected from being banned or censored in the EU. And for what it's worth, their actual journalists still can work in the EU, and publish their work, just not under the banner of the two banned entities - that's assuming they want to work for the dictatorship, which many seem to not want any more [1].
Second, the "firehose of lies" that Russia Today and Sputnik have used over the last decade to sow distrust into virtually every aspect of our lives is an attack on freedom of expression here. Hard to use your freedom of expression if you end up getting death threats from a bunch of propaganda-brainwashed trolls (see e.g. the recent thread about a German anti-vaxxer, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30288582). Citizens of the UK can't enjoy any EU-guaranteed human rights any more because Russian propaganda and dark money goaded a tiny majority towards Brexit.
Third, Russia is a country that has committed what can be seen as acts of hostility towards the EU. Not just the mentioned propaganda warfare, but also cyberattacks, violations of airspace, or the string of attempted and successful murders of Russian dissidents using highly dangerous radioactive and chemical weapons. The European Union is under no obligation to support any rights of any entity associated to an enemy, an enemy that broke all rules of diplomacy and international law.
[1]: https://www.t-online.de/finanzen/unternehmen-verbraucher/id_...
Are you seriously expressing outrage that the legislation describing the limits to the freedom of expression is in the section about freedom of expression?
Censorship does not have to be public. Private companies can and do censor things all the time. They have that right. Freedom of speech is freedom from government censorship, not private censorship.
> Freedom of speech is freedom from government censorship, not private censorship.
That's not a universal definition, no. E.g. in the EU Facebook and Twitter have lost cases where they blocked posts for "ToS violations" and were ordered to restore them on free speech grounds. (whereas apparently in the US the perspective is more that banning corporations from banning people is violating the corps free speech rights, and doesn't see as much of a balance there)
It is a universal definition, as natural rights are universal. What it is not is a legal definition, but you are attempting to make a legal argument.
And the restriction the comment I replied to made is not part of the universal definition, but based on legal interpretation in parts of the world.
> "Freedom of speech is freedom from government censorship, not private censorship."
I really detest this line of thought. What good are the concept of human rights when people declare that private companies by definition cannot infringe on them?
Interactions with companies are fundamentally voluntarist. Not in the sense that you can’t end up with a corporate dystopia; but rather in the sense that a motivated populace can destroy a corporate dystopia just by demanding legislation, without fighting a literal civil war, the way they’d have to do for a government dystopia.
That's a pleasant fiction. Just like the fiction that the large company and the job-seeker are on an equal foot when contracting... Unfortunately, there are such things as corruption, lobbying and regulatory capture everywhere. The bigger the companies, the bigger the corruption, lobbying and regulatory capture, up to the point where, shazam! you're not in a democracy anymore.
The government can take your life, property, family, and history.
I don't think it is unreasonable to hold "the government" to a different standard than "other people" or "corporations".
There is nuance to this, as there is with absolutely everything, but "monopoly on violence" is a big distinction.
Because your rights end where other peoples' begins, and controlling what a company allows or doesn't allow on its platform is compelled speech, which is unconstitutional in the US. For example, a baker has the right to censor you by not allowing you to order a cake that says "Heil Hitler" on it.
> "Because your rights end where other peoples' begins"
Understandable, but what happens when rights conflict in the other direction? Why doesn't my ISP's right to block access to parts of the Web end where my right to consume information begins? Why do we place more importance on the 'rights' of an abstract non-living corporation above the rights of actual citizens?
> "what a company allows or doesn't allow on its platform is compelled speech"
Would this make things like Net Neutrality and public broadcasting laws likewise unconstitutional? The government always requires this for several things deemed to be in the public square. I see no flaw in bringing parts of the Internet's infrastructure into it.
> "a baker has the right to censor you"
Scale and scope matters. We're not talking about a mom and pop shop choosing not to do business with you, we're talking about multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies.
>Why doesn't my ISP's right to block access to parts of the Web end where my right to consume information begins?
For the same reason that a restaurant refusing service to you is not a violation of your right to food. You can still consume information without a contract under a specific ISP.
>Why do we place more importance on the 'rights' of an abstract non-living corporation above the rights of actual citizens?
We don't. The rights that protect corporations are actually protecting the people involved with and interacting with that corporation. Rights don't only exist exclusively for individuals, they can be expressed by groups and protect people in aggregate. The freedom of religion, for instance, would be meaningless if it only applied to the "abstract, non-living" concept of "religion," or could only be exercised by individuals, and not religious organizations.
Would this make things like Net Neutrality and public broadcasting laws likewise unconstitutional
These are a trade the provider makes with the government to abide by certain rules such as content neutrality and in exchange get many advantages from the government. For example, common carriers are exempt from state and local barriers to entry and receive universal access subsidies. While I wish US ISPs were common carriers they currently are not.
This is not about the US and you are misinterpreting the baker's Supreme Court case anyways
I'm also not referencing it. The gay wedding cake case was decided on the basis of the baker being directly targeted by the local government.
It's depressing how utterly normal this level of censorship has become in Western society. Ten years ago there would have been at least a modicum of ho-hum about decisions to ban foreign media.
I've watched RT on a few occasions and I never thought their reporting outright propaganda. It does have a clear non-pro-West bias which gives you a dose of awareness that Western reporting is biased too.
What is your point? That Russia state TV should be available everywhere so everyone can watch Russian propaganda?
Yes. One man's "propaganda" is another man's news. It's an assault on Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.
I also note other news networks have been happily spouting anti-Russian propaganda as well (i.e. "Ghost of Kiev", "Miss Ukraine Fighting", and the "Snake Island Martyrs" to name but 3).
I also note none of the Western Media talk about shelling, murder, and rape of the ethnic Russian civilians in the Donbas since 2014. They call it "propaganda" now but 6 years ago these same western media outlets reported that "Fascist Azov Battalion Ukrainian Military were shelling and murdering Donbas "separatists" (now western media calls them terrorists).
News shouldn't have bias, full stop. news should just report the facts and let the viewer/listener decide. However, bar that both sides should have their voices herd in a democracy.
> News shouldn't have bias, full stop.
Sorry, but this sort of absolutist thinking is just naive. Nobody ever won a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for "just reporting the facts, full stop". Good journalism requires context which is messy and, indeed, political.
That said, propaganda isn't good journalism – it doesn't provide context so much as manufacture it. That isn't to suggest that propaganda is necessarily obvious. Bias lies on a spectrum, with facts-only reporting on one end and propaganda on the other. But just because grey areas exist doesn't prevent us from identifying the black.
It would be illegal, for example, for a publication to knowingly engage in defamation. As a society, we recognize that a publication's right to freedom of expression does not outweigh the harm dealt to an individual subjected to baseless harassment. Similarly, if a "news" organization is so divorced from the facts as to make its audience more ignorant of the actual happenings, then we as a society should recognize the harm caused by that organization and sanction them appropriately.
> Good journalism requires context
Almost uncanny how that context always leans in a certain direction, almost like all the MSM were owned by the same people.
I haven't watched RT in the recent years, so I can't judge that instance (but I have do admit that, unless there is some heavy misrepresentation going on, I can understand why they want to ban it. That's without judging the ban as good or bad, which I find exceedingly difficult; and I don't want to [and will not] engage in that discussion, at least not without thinking more about it and considering the facts and implications).
However, I think you're [technically] wrong about "news shouldn't have bias". I'd like to start by pointing out that there is a huge gap between biased news and propaganda. A conservative and a liberal news outlet might report on the same thing with different point of views and come to different conclusions (why did it happen? is it good that it happened? what effect has the thing happening? and so on). That's bias; and it's not even too bad a thing. Reading multiple outlets with different biases will give you a good idea of what different people think about an event, allowing the reader to keep an open mind and engage in a more fruitful discussion. Good journalism will even do that for you, by mentioning opposing views without discrediting them. That's the reasoning behind "I think you're [technically] wrong".
Now, what you have in mind goes beyond simple bias. Given the example, either outlet might use their news to push their own agenda, and in my book that's dangerous and on the verge of being propaganda. They might also knowingly misrepresent the facts to do so, or outright invent things (or leave out important bits), which I'd classify as full blown propaganda. Yes, a lot of popular/mainstream "news", especially in the US (but also in the EU), are closer to propaganda than to being just biased (or are propaganda, think "stolen election" narrative). So one man's "propaganda" is indeed another man's news. Or, more precisely, some man's "news" is propaganda.
Yes, exactly. If we are talking about media in general I can think of only very few examples that should be banned (like CP). I don't need anyone to decide what I'm allowed or not allowed to consume. If I want to study russian propaganda or american propaganda or "Mein Kampf" than that's what I should be able to do--without any censor.
If someone wants to watch Russian propaganda or RT, they should be free to do so. Just like you are free to browse western media sites.
This choice should be up to the individual and their beliefs.
Yeah let people consume junk all they want. Just don’t be surprised when Jan 6th happens again.
You think that if you only close enough TV stations these people are going to start watching Rachel Maddow?
Lol, yeah January 6th truly is the important event here. Truly the benchmark for the worse that could happen. What a completely self centered comment, like I'm sorry but you realize we are talking about a war and you still managed to bring up January 6th as if that was even remotely comparable or similar to what is currently happening?
WTF? Where did I say Jan 6th is the worst that could happen? I just said it is the sort of shit that happens when you let people consume propaganda. Of course that what is happening right now is way worse, as other things in the past have been.
Sorry for the tone of my comment, I think I'm just tired of seeing Americans referencing that event everytime something bad happens as a benchmark for the worst thing ever (I'm exaggerating of course). But I can see that your comment didn't imply that, so again sorry for being rude.
Yes, because the protests on January 6th were literally the worst thing to ever happen in the United States, way worse than 9/11 or the Japanese Bombing of Pearl Harbour. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden told me so. January 6th was WAY WORSE than the riots and arson that took place in multiple cities the previous summer. Those were "mostly peaceful" where as the Boomers on Jan. 6th are terrorists and should be held without trial indefinitely.
Please point me to the place I said Jan 6th is worse than what is happening now, or where I said it is the worst thing that could ever happen
Sure, as long as Russians have access to the rest of the world's news for a contrasting dialogue.
Something makes me suspect that you never ever watched RT for even 5 minutes. Am I right?
Would you apply the same standard to BBC? If not, what's the difference?
The difference is, RT is pure, unadulterated, lie. It's government-sponsored infowars. It's under complete control by FSB/KGB and serves exclusively as a platform for launching russian PsyOps.
Source?
Ok so the difference is an ideological fantasy you've invented
We do apply the same standard. It just happens that BBC is not propaganda television
How can you tell?
The UK government hates the BBC, for starters.
Because the stories they tell line up (generally) with non-government controlled news media.
You know that goverents frequently distribute their propaganda through media outlets that are not state owned, right?
You know these media outlets aren't legally required to do so, right?
You don't have to be legally required to spread propaganda to be effective at spreading it.
Seriously, relying a on state media matching non-state media to determine if either is propaganda is an ineffectual strategy. You need to find reporting that contradicts the media source and then try to independently verify the disputed information.
What if the people who own these media outlets and the people who control the government share the same interests?
Who are you to decide what’s propaganda for me?
IMO they should be closed after due process. Not by administrative decision, i. e. censorship. If they were closed because after a short trial, a judge determining that they were spreading disinformation systematically, that would be completely fine.
But some administrative authority claiming that it should be closed, then getting it closed in a few hours? with hundreds of actual professional journalists getting shown the door as a consequence? That's just the sort of shit Putin does. I want my country to do better than Putin in all matters, please.
Have you not encountered this sort of "information cannot be harmful" type of free speech absolutist before?
I disagree with these sort of bans on speech as well, and it has never been because I naively believe that the speech is harmless. It is because I believe that granting the government the authority to pick and choose which speech is harmful is far more dangerous, and prone to abuse. It is because I think it is beneficial for reasonable members of the public to be able to see what garbage the other side is being indoctrinated with. It is because I believe that the portion of the public who is mostly likely to believe the harmful speech will see the censorship as more proof that they should. Most importantly it is because I believe that sheltering people from harmful ideas might protect them in the short term, but won't prepare them to deal with the seductiveness of harmful ideas that sound right when they do slip through.
> I've watched RT on a few occasions and I never thought their reporting outright propaganda.
This is the problem. For effective propaganda you don't want it to be easily detectable as such. Therefore the majority of your material isn't directly propaganda. I read somewhere it's 5-10% is the payload. You don't make that obviously propaganda of course too.
On a channel like RT or Sputnik this is how you are going to operate - not least because those channels are for an external audience, who does have other sources.
Inside of Russia your propaganda probably works roughly similarly, but you can have more of it, and you can be more confident the audience doesn't regular access other sources. In a time of war you can go full propaganda.
I've watched RT in the past and been surprised by some of the reporting, and covering things that seemed not really covered by regular sources.
The problem is because of what it is it's very hard to know what's real reporting and what is propaganda payload.
So I avoid it.
I don't think there is a problem limiting it's availability. Right now it's super freely available.
What's the bar you might ask? That's hard. Partly it's intent, and that's hard to prove. You could also work out how much and how bad the propaganda is on a channel. Again not necessarily easily.
Really though the problem here is a trust problem with Putins Russia. It's well documented their activities in disinformation and with election interference.
They are not currently a good actor. This is covered in part of Hypernormalization documentary (and others).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT0bzehQgO8
If you believe this is the case (as I do) then the bar for their restriction is actually pretty low. I think it's in the interest of the world that access to propaganda vehicles, such as RT and Sputnik, should be limited.
> I've watched RT on a few occasions and I never thought their reporting outright propaganda
Now watch it more often and you'll notice even more bias and outright wrong translations of interviews, along with well cut footage.
Now make it the only source of news (well, along with other channels, RT is not the only one) for Russian speakers and you'll understand why they're seemingly stupid - every single Russian outside Russia I've spoken with believes in some dumbass shit like Covid conspiracies, or "the West" always antagonizing Russia, or Putin being a good leader, or the war being justified, or there being no war.
It's not only RT, these people actively go to Odnoklassniki (Russian Fecebook) or Russian Fecebook sites for their news.
It would be fine if these news are accurate/neutral. But they're always against "the West" (which now includes half of Asia, so I don't even know anymore).
If one guy seems like an asshole, he may be an asshole. If two guys are assholes, you may be unlucky. If three guys are assholes, maybe you're the asshole.
IANAL but to me, this looks (hopefully unintentionally) much more insidious (emphasis mine):
> It shall be prohibited for operators to broadcast or to enable, facilitate or otherwise contribute to broadcast, any content by the legal persons, entities or bodies listed in Annex XV, including through transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed.
So one way to interpret this is that all ISPs are currently violating this simply by enabling end-to-end-encrypted communication. Any service that would enable or facilitate sending RT streams (ie encrypted communication) are violating this.
Heck, even hosting a blog platform where someone posts a screenshot of the RT website would be in trouble. Cloud providers might have to close the accounts of a significant portion of their customers to cover their behinds.
This article must be revised (or even revoked). I’m certain that it is unconstitutional in more than one EU country.
IANAL, but as far as I know, EU laws are more important than national laws (you can search "Supremacy of EU law") except in Germany, so the question is if it violates the equivalent of the constitution of the EU.
According to EU officials, it does not.
I've sent out some e-mails, if what you say is true I will amend it.
> except in Germany
It applies everywhere. Germany and Poland courts said that they interpret this principle is against their constitutions. The consequence is that they need to either:
- Change their interpretation of their constitution
- Change their constitution
- Leave the EU
It's a basic principle of participation in a Union. Germany's or Poland's case is the same as if a State of the US decided that some federal law or the US constitution doesn't apply in that territory because their constitution prevails or that the state supreme court can overrule the decisions of the US supreme court.
The EU case is much easier than the US, of course, because EU Member States have the right to unilaterally decide to secede. So they can always just leave if they really don't want to comply with EU laws. They have no excuse whatsoever to whine about them.
> - Change their constitution
That isn't possible
> - Change their interpretation of their constitution
The BVerfG tries really hard to interpret the constitution in a way in line with EU regulations, but it reserves the right not to (if they're "ultra vires" - beyond their power).
> - Leave the EU
Not going to happen.
> It's a basic principle of participation in a Union.
Note that the supremacy of the German constitution over EU law was well known at the time of signing the relevant treaties and all parties agreed to proceed anyway.
> Germany's or Poland's case is the same as if a State of the US decided that some federal law or the US constitution doesn't apply [...]
The EU is not a nation state.
There are some significant asterisks
The first is that it's not that EU laws are more important, it's that by ratifying the EU treaties the members have ceded the power to act in some areas to the EU as a whole.
This applies uniformly to all member states, Germany included.
The issue that can arise is when there's a disagreement on whether or not a specific power was ceded or not, the problem being that on the one side we have the national constitutional (or equivalent) courts which are the ultimate authority for the member in question, while on the other we have the ECJ which is defined as the ultimate authority in what the Treaties say
What you're probably referring to is the recent case in which the German ConstCourt said that a judgement by the ECJ was incorrect and adopted its own, it was then resolved by some judicial diplomacy. That issue remains and it's arguably inevitable whenever multiple levels of government share power.
A further asterisk is that this is a freedom of expression issue, which is handled at three distinct levels.
At the EU level the law is likely to be found partially in contradiction with the Charter of Fundamental rights (which only applies to EU law and EU institutions or national institutions executing EU law), I don't think the broadcasting ban in itself would be but I'm pretty sure that someone posting clips of RT for instance would be found protected by the charter
However there's also a national level since the EU doesn't actually have any own enforcement, therefore the individual countries will have to adopt actual punishments and enforcement mechanisms which are then subject to respecting the national freedom of expression requirements (fundamental rights are generally of constitutional significance, so they're at least equal in precedence to EU treaties), technically the EU commission could start an infringement procedure if it deems the actions taken unsatisfactory and that process ultimately ends at the ECJ, however while the ECJ could tell the member state it has to effectively ignore their own court (which the member state can't do anyway) but since that would lead to an unresolvable constitutional crisis the ECJ is unlikely to pick that hill to die on and it has a pretty convenient clause in its mandate saying "we will respect each country's constitutional identity" which would be easily applicable here
Finally there's the ECHR, which is another international court, integrated in the member states legal system by its own treaty (confusingly the acronym is the same for the court and for the treaty) with the sole purpose of serving as a baseline for fundamental rights. The EU is not a party to the ECHR treaty (accession stalled) but all of its members are, so if any member were challenged in this court and said "we're violating article 10 because of this EU law" the ECHR would say "cool story, don't care" (if it finds a breach). This is not immediately a precedent for other countries, but others would likely file similar motions
More realistically however this is just going to be interpreted to prevent the sanctioned entities from setting up shells companies to evade it
Ha! Why so modest that you stop at just digital services? Surely with that wide an interpretation farming can be seen as "facilitating" the production of content by RT as it helps keep food prices down.
I'm the furthest thing from a lawyer, but "knowingly and intentionally" sounds to my lay self like it's a test of mens rea. If I were operating a Tor node in the EU, I would probably assume until stated otherwise that operating a Tor node remained legal, as long as I wasn't operating that node with the intention of circumventing the ban on RT.
Agreed. There are already tons of laws on the books that prohibit "knowingly and intentionally" contributing to a crime. If simply being aware that a service you provide could in general be used to commit a crime, and likely was being used to do so, given the large number of users, then not only would every Tor node operator be considered an accessory to drug trafficing and child pornography, but every ISP would as well, and this new law would be the least of your worries. At least in the US, that wording implies more concrete knowledge of specific actions.
That said, like you and the OP, I am not a lawyer, or even a citizen of an EU country.
"Knowingly and intentionally" seems to apply to the operation (e.g. "you know that you're running a Tor node") - "circumvention" is on the basis of "object or effect". (For ESL speakers: "object" means "goal", "effect" means "result", and Tor obviously has a final, de-facto result of unblocking RT)
In cases like this the government would have to prove the intention to circumvent the RT ban which is pretty much impossible in the case of tor.
This sections is essentially targeting people who would for example start a "not-rt.eu" broadcasting rt content.
Instead the more important question is whether people running tor have to take measures to block access to RT as they may be ISPs.
This is an overly broad reading. The hypothetical Tor operator's object (i.e. intent) is to run a Tor node, the contents of which they are entirely agnostic to (and may be formally agnostic to, if the traffic is additionally encrypted).
To use some abductive reasoning, think about how this would apply generally: the law is clearly not written to ban encryption, even though your interpretation would suggest that any encryption amounts to intentional circumvention. If that sounds wrong to you, it's because you've confused the intent/object that the law is concerned with.
No, encryption isn't going to help, because they can still block on IPs. Encryption plus eSNI helps, and if, for example, Yandex.Cloud sets up a big "shared host," I fully expect that to get the Kharkiv treatment, like Roskomnadzor tried a few years ago with Telegram.
Tor operators can see the IP, they can see the DNS, and their operation has the effect of unblocking RT.
Who can still block on IPs? An interior Tor node doesn't have the information available to do that.
I think you missed the point of the abductive argument: you're describing a cat and mouse game, one that is fundamentally unrealistic. The more realistic scenario is that the intent described in the article has nothing to do with encryption, Tor, or anything like that.
If you ran a tor node and piped the content of RT to newpipetoRT.com you're in violation, but having a tor node might be comparable to operating a ham radio relay. If someone in Moscow transmitted RT encrypted over radio and decrypts it in Germany, the radio relay wouldn't necessarily be in violation.
We live in a networked world. There's an unbroken physical connection between your hardwired ISP connection and every device connected to Russia (less so with starlink and woman and 5g, but still. )
It's resilient by design, and damaging that, even for good reasons, has secondary consequences.
Going after tor nodes would be overreaching and shortsighted.
WiMax* not woman, oops.
In a time of active war, people's opinions shift. I wonder if this is a temporary or permanent ban. It seems like a short-term solution to keep a lid on Russian propoganda, which seems sensible if it is to be lifted after the conflict. Seems silly not to fight in the same propoganda battle Russia is so willing to engage in, it's like not developing cyber weapons when your opponent is using them against you.
Yeah this is censorship and at best it's indicative of a "nanny state" and at worse it's Orwellian. In short, it's bullshit.
So china banning western media is not censorship and if Russia bans all western media it's not censorship too. Or does it work only one way?
Not really surprised by the double standard but it's pretty obvious this time.
If it's western it's "news" and if it's non western it's "propaganda". This is the modern equivalent of Stalin's iron curtain
How does this complete silencing of a country not disturb anybody?
How is this a "complete silencing of a country"? RT is a government propaganda outlet, not all Russian media, and not the Russian people.
I would be more concerned about the "friendly" propaganda tolerated by EU/European governments than the blatant Russian propaganda. Not limited to the Ukraine war.
That's a general accusation, but what exactly are you referring to? Can you provide examples?
> blatant Russian propaganda
Propaganda isn't so blatent; it's used because it works.
Just take a look at Reddit since the last two weeks:
https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/t35933/captain_ukrain...
https://old.reddit.com/r/cats/comments/t1j650/these_are_my_u...
https://old.reddit.com/r/meirl/comments/t3oykr/meirl
https://old.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/t31tek/ukraini...
https://old.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/t2fb00/ze...
https://old.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/t22d53/ps...
https://old.reddit.com/r/HolUp/comments/t2y9xh/volodymyr_zel...
Notice how most of them are posted on subreddits that have nothing to do with politics, and they actually bạn all political posts and memes in “normal” times.
How does all this seem sane and not blatant or disturbing at all?
> How does all this seem sane and not blatant or disturbing at all?
I'm not sure what you mean by "sane" - are you referring to something in this conversation? How is sanity implicated? Also, did someone say it's not disturbing?
It may seem blatent, but: 1) That's the propaganda you recognize; the problem is the propaganda you don't detect. And 2) while the content might be obvious, the intent might not be. For example, you could see Trump using blatent lies, but the intent was (IMHO) to confuse and divert enemies by putting them on the defensive, and to sow chaos by creating a sense of fear and alarm - to make you feel that things are insane and disturbed.
FWIW, you can't try to divine the motives of propagandists in that way. All you can look at is to say, what are the effects and who benefits? There is some truth, as the propagadists are acting in their own interests (when they are successful).
Because if we don’t remove Russia from the world completely we are approving their invasion and keep the door open for further invasions. Only solution is to segregate whole country and all their allies from the world until they remove their leaders from positions of power
Have sanctions ever worked for that? Iran has been under strict sanctions for years - they haven’t removed their regime, but the people there do burn American flags in the streets… Also in Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea it doesn’t seem to have helped… I don’t have any better ideas, just doesn’t seem like sanctions really work at all as either a deterrent or punishment…
I hate that innocent Russians are suffering from this and will suffer for years to come. But even if the sanctions won't help overthrow the regime, they will certainly make it harder for Russia to keep funding their war.
Yes. It sucks we can’t just target the bullies
Russia is a modern country with quite a lot of wealthy people. Maybe this time they can put up enough pressure to change the leadership. Anyway this is all we can do without starting a world war
Isn't this just a repeat of the cold war where one side didn't trade with another? All while pointing enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 4 times over.
Not sure if this strategy is the safest option globally. Russia wants a buffer from nato give them some assurance.
What assurances do they need? Western world has had peace for decades and only Russians have been the aggressors in any form. They are not getting any kind of buffer in fact do to this invasion they have forced Finland and Sweden to join NATO or face the same fate as Ukraine within the next decade.
What russia is doing right now is wrong but Please read the NATO Bucharest Summit Declaration.
It has long been clear that Nato expansion would lead to tragedy. We are now paying the price for the US’s arrogance
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/28/nato-e...
You're right, absolutely nothing of note happened in the middle east 2001-2020 /s
TIL Middle east is part of the Western world
The Western world and the Middle East were both at war.
Well, if you don’t count the Yugoslavia, the Bosnian wars, etc. as being in the ‘Western world’…
^ Because if we don’t remove Russia from the world completely we are approving their invasion and keep the door open for further invasions. Only solution is to segregate whole country and all their allies from the world until they remove their leaders from positions of power
How can you even think about segregating Russia, if China and India aren't onboard? Yes, these two countries are not going to sanction Russia. Or do you want China and India sanctioned too, remember if you sanction everybody then you are sanctioning yourself.
My concern is that with this, you're not just segregating Russia from the world, you're segregating the EU from the world. You're going to get a new Iron Curtain, only this time, the restrictions are going to be on both sides.
We don’t need Russia. Even China has told Russia to stop the war. Only thing Russia has is gas and we shouldn’t be using fossil fuels anyway. Building of new green nuclear plants should have already been started. If you have fucked that up (like Germans) then that means you need to start hurrying
I am not talking about the economy, I am talking about the Internet. Cutting RT off from the European Internet requires cutting the EU off from large chunks of the global Internet. If Russia responds, that would have the potential to get very ugly.
"Russian exports account for 20 percent of potassic fertilizers globally. Exports from Russia and Belarus account for a combined 40 percent of potassic fertilizers globally."
You're turning around cause and effect. The EU imposing sanction is segregating the world? How about Russia invading Ukraine?
Also read the precanned article that was accidentally released by Russian state media, this is not about Russia feeling threatened this is about Putins fantasies of a "great Russia" in the borders of the USSR
Because it’s economic warfare and pretty fuckin based.
All they can do is brutalize civilians with military force.
The West (aside from arming local militias to the teeth) is mobilizing the civil society.
No boots on the ground, not even much impact to our lives beyond the inevitable supply shocks. We are sticking it to Putin from our sofas, via democratic government.
It does bother me and frankly I'm surprised by the lack of backlash.
That said, RT alone surely must have caused many Covid deaths due to the doubts about the vaccinations and other measures they have been spreading in the past years.
The Russian government with its propaganda has caused a few millions of covid deaths worldwide, supported fringe groups and conspiracy theorists that lead to an insurrection, stole from foreign countries by installing puppets (Schroeder/Trump/GOP), supported Brexit, and has caused so much damage to humanity, sent thousands of kids to their death, is actively killing civilians and levelling cities.
It is a plague that needs to be eradicated. That isn't silencing a nation though, that is silencing a cancerous government that is infecting every nation it can.
You know what disturbs me? Invading a sovereign country and murdering 2000 civilians. That really disturbs me.
Banning a news channel dedicated to defending the murder of 2000 civilians? Not so much.
I'm concerned about the EU, an economic union, thinking it has the authority to rule on this matter.
The EU is more than just an economic union and always has been.
It's also pretty clear that they do have the ability to shut out a company from doing business within their borders, so I'm unclear why media corporations should be getting a free pass compared with other industries.
That is an extremely coarse brush. - The way they have chosen to go about preventing this business from operating in the EU involves heavy-handed technological measures.
I find it worrying. Even if Russia is in the wrong here, I do see an RT ban in particular as a dangerous move. Even in wartime I do think it's important to be willing to listen to the other side. They may be wrong about the big picture, but there could still be an interesting tidbit or two to takeaway. All this talk made be go check RT out and one thing I learned is that the flight ban has left Russian tourists stranded. Allowing them safe passage home does not seem unreasonable.
I also see it as turning up the tension in a way that may be hard to dial back down later. When you are cutting your self of from information, you are also cutting yourself of from the information that lets you reevaluate that decision.
You're aware that RT does not present "the other side", right? As in they don't provide an alternative valid-even-if-misguided/conflicting view. They provide what Kremlin wants them to publish. There are other Russian publications which are still Russia-censored, but are actual news reports which will give you similar information to what you've found.
This is not "we ban Russia's news", it's "we ban Russia government publications pretending to be news and benefiting financially from it".
I'm aware Deutsche welle and RT are financed by their respective govs, can I now click OK and enter the site?
>You're aware that RT does not present "the other side", right?
You just described most american media
A determination subject to whom?
1. RT does provide a view, and I would like to hear it, thanks. 2. Who decides what are the "actual news reports"? Who decides that RT is not "valid"?
> Who decides what are the "actual news reports"?
Ofcom for example: (yes, I know they're not EU anymore, first example I remembered, but in general government orgs tasked with media oversight) https://pressgazette.co.uk/ofcom-rules-against-russia-today-...
You can still find the material yourself if you're interested. It's the broadcasting that's being limited. Worst case, contact someone in Russia to send you screenshots. Your rights to seek that information are not affected. It's just that EU entities are not allowed to specifically help you.
If you want to read that view though and skip the pretense, just check https://twitter.com/russia or https://twitter.com/KremlinRussia_E or dedicated government websites.
You may read RT and see the other side of things, weight both sides, choose which is right, other people, will buy straight into it. I see a lot of people affected by russian propaganda in my country, they currupted the stupid people easily.
This is a pretty good example of Betteridge's Law[1]. The EU's ban on disseminating RT through a medium does not amount to a ban on the medium itself.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
If you like laws, how about Cunningham's Law? :)
No, but I am aware of this, I even thought to mention it, and I sorely hope that I am proven wrong. However, my concern is that the ban explicitly does apply to the medium itself.
In particular, article 12 bans participation in "activities the object or effect of which is to circumvent prohibitions". Can you think of any reason for why Tor would not be considered to circumvent the ban?
The simplest answer to this is to look at what the previous regulation (the one being amended by this one) says[1].
Article 12 is completely unmodified except for the scope of parties involved. Since the original (2014) regulation didn't ban Tor, I think it's a safe assumption that this one doesn't either.
The more detailed answer: the article actually reads as follows:
> It shall be prohibited to participate, knowingly and intentionally, [...]
"Knowingly and intentionally" is the operative phrase here. In order to show that this article poses a threat to Tor's legality, you'd need to show at either Tor's operators or Tor itself intentionally provides service to RT. This is a stronger standard than passive service, the kind Tor actually provides.
[1]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
The previous regulation didn't ban broadcasting, or anything relating to it.
Re: "knowingly and intentionally," I will repost my comment <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30537459>:
> "Knowingly and intentionally" seems to apply to the operation (e.g. "you know that you're running a Tor node") - "circumvention" is on the basis of "object or effect". (For ESL speakers: "object" means "goal", "effect" means "result", and Tor obviously has a final, de-facto result of unblocking RT)
I responded to the second part above, below your linked comment.
For the first: broadcasting is an intentional media activity. You're right that this new regulation adds a ban, but it's not clear that said ban undermines the intent required in Article 12.
To be clear: it's a form of government censorship. But, on my reading, it's not a particularly broad form or itself a stepping stone to banning Tor. The EU seems perfectly content to broach that problem with separate regulation.
> Can you think of any reason for why Tor would not be considered to circumvent the ban?
Because plenty of people use Tor for accessing things which aren't covered by this particular ban? Sure, many of them may be illegal in other ways, but not all of them. If using Tor isn't enough in itself to prove you're buying drugs, why would it be enough to prove you're accessing banned content here?
I don't get the problem. You won't be prosecuted for childporn that happened to go through your node as well right? So why would you be prosecuted for having Russian traffic?
I have been blasted with propaganda and lies from the west for almost a week now.
Things that never happened: - Ghost of Kiev - Sunflower Seed Lady - Snake Island Defiance - Miss Ukraine Airsoft Fighter
Then I get sources of info closed off to me, I find that exceedingly concerning. The west is winning the information war, but at the cost of the truth? I’m of a mixed mind for sure.
What is actually concerning you? I don't think we actually need all the information at all right now. Ukraine is fighting an uphill battle and they are holding longer then anyone expected. If that's the price of the truth, im happy to pay it. The truth will get out eventually anyway.
> The truth will get out eventually anyway.
same thing can be said about so-called "news" from RT, no?
The fight is happening in Ukraine and what happens there is what is important. I don't care what is being posted / reported and what is not, I care about the people of Ukraine and that democracy will prevail.
sure, nobody says all Western news are lies, same goes for RT, but only one side is being censored here for me as third party getting information from all sources and making my own mind
I don't think all of the things you have listed have been proven to be false? Do you have sources on any of this?
I'm pretty sure sunflower lady is definitely real, there was a video.
It was staged, so doesn’t count.
Western fight against Russian rules by implementing that rules. This is pure hypocrisy and will do more harm in future, just like covid propaganda and censorship around vaccines.
We are loosing our freedom and values every day. Because of our safety, of course.
Nah. But in all seriousness, this is totalitarian ruling. Wtf eu? RT might be a trash fire propaganda news but the EU ain’t at war with Russia. If the people want to listen to the propaganda, and I’m sure there were listener equivalents in neutral places either via SW or MW broadcast in ww2.
Making it illegal to route packets to them and to circumvent the block? Garbage tier laws.
EU and Russia are at war in all but name. One of the key challenges in such situations is combating enemy propaganda, and so not letting the Russian state controlled broadcaster play in your country 24x7 is a no brainer.
Plus it isn't just about the content. Running a TV network can be a massively profitable business, and in this case the money is going out of EU citizens' pockets and straight to the Russian government. Pretty contradictory to impose sanctions and spend money arming Ukraine while also giving Russia a free revenue stream.
No. They are not at war "in all but name". War is a brutal thing, involving the deaths of thousands of young men. The EU is not by any stretch at war with Russia, nominally or otherwise.
The entire point of a free country is that people can handle the information. If not, why even bother?
Who do you think is supplying Ukraine with the weapons that are causing half these deaths? Who is feeding them real-time intelligence? The Russian economy is crippled by EU sanctions. Their foreign reserves are frozen. Russian planes cannot fly into EU airspace. Russian oligarchs are having their assets seized across Europe. Diplomats are being expelled on both sides.
These are not the actions between neutral, peaceful countries, but a full-fledged proxy war.
Europe, Europe, and Europe. But it isn't actually a war. A war is a horrible, brutal thing. Wikipedia tells us:
> War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, aggression, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces.
When you describe what the rest of us would call 'poor relations' as war, it raises the question of what you call it when thousands are drafted and brutally slaughtered. If this also is to be called 'war', then it raises the question: if you're already at war with them, what difference does it make if you decide to draft a few million young men and send them over there? Or for that matter a few strategic offensive weapons (colloquially known as nukes)?
Alternatively, you may contend that what everyone else calls "war" you call, let's say, "war 2". But in that case, your definition is unique to you, and is not terribly useful for communicating with other people.
This is a tiresome distraction; okay, so by your definition of war, this kind of proxy war doesn't count. Fair enough, your definition of war is reasonable. We'll call the state between Europe and Russia "war prime" or whatever, since apparently no one disagrees with the actual state of affairs, just what to call it. Now we're back to the initial exchange, which was:
Person A: Why ban Russian state media? Europe and Russia are not at war. Person B: No, but they are at "war prime", which has some properties of war, including banning enemy propaganda.
Did creating the extra word to split the hair help resolve that conversation? It doesn't really feel like it to me. It seems like what most people would prefer the conversation be about is whether or not it makes sense to ban enemy propaganda in a state of "war prime" (or war, for that matter).
I think Europe has pretty clearly shown (by their actions) that they are mobilizing the machinery of war. They don't have (many) people currently in harms way, we are content letting Ukrainians fight it out for now, but the machine is humming.
The machine of war isn't monolithic, and what you're seeing is that certain parts of it (like shutting down opposing propaganda) can be started without other parts (like literal fighting) being needed.
The terms cold war and proxy war have been around for a long time and are understood very well.
> War is a brutal thing, involving the deaths of thousands of young men.
Just want to point out that most EU millitaries, along with the Ukranians and the US have women as well. So there is death all around, no matter the sex.
That is extremely misleading, men suffer from intense misandrism. Ukrainians men are forced to stay captive in their cities to fight while ukrainian women are allowed to save their lives and flee the city, because they own a vagina.
No, women are allowed to leave Ukraine because, for the most part, they are responsible for raising the next generation of Ukrainians. The number one long-term job of any society is ultimately to raise the next generation. If you don't do that, the society doesn't exist in one or two generations' time.
What you consider misandry is in fact a feminist issue. Women often don't choose a life of childcare; it's something that can be forced upon them, because if they don't do it, no-one else will. Men get to choose whether to get involved. If the share of childcare was more equal, then there wouldn't be a reason to restrict leaving the country on a gendered basis.
Just guessing, but maybe you're in the US so it feels a little bit different to you...? This is what's it's like now in Denmark:
- We literally have 1 hour and 30 minutes of war updates before the half hour evening news every night.
- We've just delivered a huge batch of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.
- We've basically sanctioned 90% of what is possible to sanction from Russia with more sanctions coming every day, plus private companies getting ahead of themselves to exit Russia the fastest, e.g. Maersk.
- People are volunteering to fight in Ukraine and our government has officially OK'd it.
- We're already taking in refugees coming in buses from the Ukraine.
It sure feels like we're at war here in all but name.
Germany’s center-left government just committed to massively upping defense spending, and Germany’s neighbors are apparently fine with it.
Never thought I’d live to see that happen.
Russia is already sending same threat letters with "safety guarantees" to European countries. On March 4th they are planning a big gathering for another speech of Putin. Russia is making changes to ODKB rules (shitty version of NATO among the post-soviet countries), that introduces the definition of "coordinating member" of this military alliance. They are about to start a 3rd world war.
Even though this isn't a shooting war for the EU, there are certain steps that might seem contradictory to the liberal principles that we normally claim to adhere to. Russia has been declared an enemy, even if that exact term might not have been used.
In a conflict enemy propaganda will be shut down, and enemy assets will be targeted. This means severe economic sanctions, blocking RT/Sputnik, and arming the Ukrainian armed forces to the teeth.
With luck, the Ukrainians will be able to end this without the situation getting out of hand. If not, this might escalate and get real ugly real fast.
I’m sure there were listener equivalents in neutral places either via SW or MW broadcast in ww2
In WW2 there was propaganda broadcast from Germany, in English and in MW to reach the UK and SW to reach the USA, by William Joyce. He was called Lord Haw-Haw because he pretended to by posh. His broadcasts were designed to demoralize the allied countries.
No doubt people in neutral countries tuned in. But that isn't really relevant. The point of the broadcasts was to reach non-neutral people wherever they might be.
He was captured in 1945 and hanged for treason.
> but the EU ain’t at war
Not officially, but they provide arms with explicit purpose of supporting one side and economically punishing the other. That's effectively a proxy war whether we call it one or not.
It seems to me that large parts of the world -are- at war with Russia. And, importantly, we manage to put a lot of pressure on the enemy without getting even more people killed.
Point reference - I try to block RT on YouTube but videos are being sprinkled into recommended list and I try to click to not show this channel anymore, but it persists. Real annoying, if I have autoplay their vids would jump on the list as well as I am preoccupied. Not sure how they are gaming YT algo.
I wonder (from a technical and legal point of view) if Youtube is blocking RT content in the EU, especially videos which are reuploaded.
They are literally threatening with nukes.
There's plenty of support for having sites like RT.
Greetings from a EU member in Belgium
I'm from the Czech Republic (inside former USSR's 'sphere of influence'), and the effects of Russian disinformation campaigns on our society are real. We are in a 'hybrid war' with Russia for at least ten years.
> and the effects of Russian disinformation campaigns on our society are real
is this not a failure of czech/european society at large instead of RT?
This is rather like blaming the host for the spread of a virus.
why is the host not wearing a mask?
Because wearing a mask (banning broadcasting of RT is invasive and against liberal values) was unfashionable and people still complain and call it totalitarian. Now Europe is wearing a mask.
Sure, we do all kinds of things to prevent viral infections. We wash hands. We wear masks. We vaccinate. For sexually transmitted things there are condoms.
We also have immune systems.
But at a lower level, when the virus makes it to the cell and hijacks its machinery to spread... That's the part i was thinking of. The cell isn't to blame for being hijacked.
What society is not susceptible to propaganda? Most Russians still think the war is just in the places where there are large Russian minorities and have no ideia the Russian government is attacking the fucking capital of Ukraine
> What society is not susceptible to propaganda?
oho, slippery slope here. by this measure most media should be banned.
One of the primary things the EU can do is turn off some sources of misinformation.
If the suggestion it's a failure of society at large because that hasn't been done before then I suppose that could make sense but if it's in response to it being done now that makes even less sense.
because idiots exist everywhere, they buy the russian propaganda like warm bread
So either get rid of the idiots or get rid of the propaganda. It is easier to get rid of the propaganda.
The West has always demonized Russia.
“Communism” equals the original sin and “communists” is basically a slur for about a century now.
After America worked so hard to unleash the most destructive weapon in human history, everyone should have cowed and crowned them the undisputed hegemons of the Earth. The idea of anyone daring to set themselves up as an antipode was extremely offensive.
Even after the fall of the USSR and the convenient appearance of Muslims and Chinese offering themselves as adversary to All That We Cherish, apparently the West can’t resist such a big and easy dart board to pin their failings upon;
Unrest in foreign nations? It’s the Russians. Division at home? Damn Ruskies again.
I wonder if some racism also comes into play here; Here we were, after so much War, with all the white nations agreeing to get along hereafter, but then there’s these “other” white people who are somehow different and don’t want to play along.
After we snuff out Russia, who will we turn upon next?
Do you think Russia are being unfairly demonised by western countries right now? Is the invasion of Ukraine, + war crimes in some way just?
Not OP. And I think so. It's outright war on all things Russian right now. Russia upset the social order of things and now they are being punished, everywhere, without impunity or due process. They will not stop until the entire Russian country is bankrupt and starving, or desperate enough to go far enough for them to escalate.
Honestly, I see this anti-Russia stuff as using the Ukraine tragedy to hide racist motivations. Way I see it, Russia is the only white nation in the world that has tried to stand up to woke bullies and is not conforming to the woke and egalitarian zeitgeist that the rest of the west is drinking. The west has just been waiting for the opportunity to launch a full on "justified" hate campaign to bully them into submission, like they do everything else these days under the guise of fairness and justice.
Sorry but it has to be said as all alternative opinions are being silenced and being removed from the world. I wanted to check this whole "RT is propaganda" claim by watching some RT and found out that it's been removed from the main distributor in South Africa. Half way across the world and some company or agency decided to jump in and ban a Russian television channel? You tell me straight that isn't retribution and/or coordinated censorship.
Of course it's coordinated censorship. Free speech is not unlimited.
By invading Ukraine and - in particular - threatening the use of nuclear weapons, Russia did the equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. Under the circumstances, the world is absolutely right to come down like a tonne of bricks on anything and everything Russian that might be used to justify those threats.
I don't think you realise the gravity of the situation.
BTW if you want alternative opinions there are plenty of non-RT ones out there. No-one's pulling China's CGTN off satellites, for example.
Not resorting to Whataboutism, but try to see how the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan (two in a row, and the subsequent occupation for 20 years no less!) by the US was seen as “just” by all the nations now condemning Russia.
Take a look at maps of NATO expansion:
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/t37zf4/countries_j...
If America was concerned about Russian nukes in Cuba, shouldn’t Russia be concerned about an alliance encroaching up to their literal border?
This is basically whataboutism. I don't consider myself well informed enough on any Middle Eastern conflicts, but if I found anything objectionable there, I'm happy to call out both the US and Russia on their BS.
BTW, "NATO expansion" was there for a reason, and you don't get to claim that the new members didn't want to join of their own initiative. Every post-communist country that wants to keep their self-determination is worried about falling back into being Russian puppets once more.
So would the US be okay with Cuba hosting Russian nukes to keep their self-determination from the US?
> “Communism” equals the original sin and “communists” is basically a slur for about a century now.
This is a very US perspective I think. Here in Germany there are many that think communism is fairer than capitalism (although perhaps unrealistic to attain). Insulting something/someone by saying something is communist or someone is a commy is not really something that happens here (except perhaps in politics).
[Edit] Just to add some perspective:
Communist parties in european parliament
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_communist_parties_repr...
Even large european countries have communist parties, some even voted into office (such as france, spain) and in the case of Spain even in the ruling coalition.
Implying this is a western view neglects to realize how much US vs. Soviet propaganda has shaped the US population.
I can attest to this. "Communist" is a slightly dirty word here in Denmark, but nowhere near the levels of the US.
I think the general consensus here is that the USSR was a shitty totalitarian state that failed for shitty totalitarian reasons. Communism was just what they called their brand of totalitarianism. In reality it was a corrupt dictatorship.
I can concur, having attended various schools around the globe growing up. In one nominally American school (actually run by Canadian Catholic brothers, but largely attended by boys of American ex-pats), calling someone a "Commie" was fighting words (i.e. liable to get you punched). In other schools if you called someone a "Commie" people would likely think you were very strange and/or drank too much of the Kool-Aid.
I consider my self a "commie", but I find Russia's government's behaviour repugnant.
It has nothing to with the average Russian, but everything to do with the Government, the dictator, and those who willingly support them.
That isn't to say the west hasn't done anything wrong. But by my account, we can pin the following on Russia:
- Installing puppets in foreign governments
- Supporting conspiracy groups that lead to an insurrection that threatened the semblance of democracy that the US had- Schroeder - Trump / GOP - Pushing for Brexit- Sent children to war
- Committed 11 distinct war crimes in just 8 days, including shooting civies and children that were fleeing, hospitals, and wearing UN and Ua colours.
Russia isn't the problem, the problem is the person at the driver seat that is actively threatening a nuclear holocaust.
>>> That isn't to say the west hasn't done anything wrong. But by my account, we can pin the following on Russia:
>>> - Installing puppets in foreign governments
>>> - Schroeder
>>> - Trump / GOP
>>> - Pushing for Brexit
What .... Trump and GOP are russia plants? got proof?
I can provide arguments in favour of the position but not definitive proof, you can decide whether all of this is just "circumstantial".
- First day of war, Trump praises Putin for his behaviour, on tape, call him a genius [1, 4].
- Second day of war, Trump doubles down, on tape. [1]
- When asked whether [Trump] made a mistake calling [Putin] a genius, Moskow Mitch dodges the question, responds that Putin is a "ruthless thug". [2]
- [Repeatedly] met with Putin with no staff / note takers. [3]
- [The first time] Trump was impeached over holding aid of $400m from Ukraine. [4]
- Trump sides with Russia against FBI at Helsinki summit [5]
- Trump veto'd sanctions against Russia [6]
- Trump says it's 'common sense' to include Russia in G7 [7]
- Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador [8]
- Trump offered to help Putin with wildfires while ignoring wildfires in US [9, 10]
And the list keeps growing, consider looking into Manafort under the light of these events.
As for Schroeder, consider that he pushed for gas, is a close friend of Putin and didn't extend lifetimes of Nuclear plants, and after leaving his position he became board member in Gazprom [11, 12, 13]
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mcconnell-calls-putin-ruthles...
[3] https://www.vox.com/2019/1/29/18202515/trump-putin-russia-g2...
[4] https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-statement-ukraine-cris...
[5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812
[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/senate-russia...
[7] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-summit-trump/trump-say...
[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump...
[9] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-trump-putin-wi...
[10] https://democrats.org/news/fact-sheet-trump-ignored-and-refu...
[11] https://www.politico.eu/article/outrage-germany-ex-chancello...
[12] https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-10562307...
[13] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-former-german-...
that's a whole lot of time spent gathering news articles. I bet you have more. I think what news show is that, no matter which side, leaders aren't particularly interested in representing their people.
This comment is misleading.
Trump didn’t call Putin genius, he called Putin’s tactics genius. Which (at first) it definitely did seem like.
Do you really believe that that minor error on my behalf is enough to dismiss the mountains of evidence?
- Trump calls Putin "savvy" https://youtu.be/UsTH-WqbEu8?t=80
- Trump defends praising Putin https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/26/politics/trump-cpac-putin...
> The problem is not that Putin is smart, which, of course, he's smart
And sorry, it wasn't a genius, it was a stupid flop filled with greed and hubris.
Jesus Christ touch some grass.
I really can’t disagree with this:
> "The problem is not that Putin is smart, which, of course, he's smart," Trump said. "The problem is that our leaders are dumb... and so far, allowed him to get away with this travesty and assault on humanity."
Trump is smart, which is why he recommended Europe arms itself and reduces dependence on Russian gas during his term. Other Western leaders are dumb, because they didn’t listen to him (Merkel, Biden - shut down nuclear, stop domestic oil production, invest more in Russia). Putin is smart because he exploited this weakness.
If dumb Western leaders were at least as smart as Trump, we wouldn’t be in this situation. I predict another dumbass similar situation with China, soon.
If Russia actually took Trump seriously as a smart adversary who could threaten their power they wouldn't have tried to put get him elected and tried again to keep him in power [0,1]. I don't believe Trump was a Russian agent per se, although it is odd how Trump's connections with Russian business (and potential to be compromised) didn't raise any eyebrows among the set still screaming about Hunter Biden. It's obvious Russia supported Trump for the same reason many Americans did - as a "bull in the china shop of the establishment."
Russia probably wouldn't have succeeded in sabotaging American politics or sewing so much discord via Trump just being himself if half the country didn't happen to also want to see the system burn, albeit to a different end (an alt-right, anti progressive populist revolution.)
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
[1]https://www.npr.org/2021/03/16/977958302/intelligence-report...
Fact check:
- Trump wanted to sell US gas to EU in 2018.
- Trump wanted to pull out of NATO -> weaker NATO weaker response to Putin's invasion in 2019.
- Germany cut nuclear because Schroeder, friend of Putin's. See links above.
What weakness did Trump "exploit" and "how"? Also, citations needed.
> If dumb Western leaders were at least as smart as Trump, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Yes, if western leaders were as smart as Trump, Ukraine would have been lost already, and covid would have ravaged Europe like it did with US.
Trump was not impeached, the vote for it failed.
> Trump was not impeached, the vote for it failed.
Trump was impeached twice, the vote exceeding the required majority of the House of Representatives in each case. Impeachment is similar to indictment in the normal criminal process: a formal laying of charges.
Trump was not convicted in the trial resulting from either impeachment by the required 2/3 of the Senate, however.
Thanks for clarifying
This is an intensely US-centric perspective.
If the West includes new joiners from behind the Iron Curtain, then let me tell you that any "demonisation" of Russia is deserved.
I'm too young to have experienced the communist times, but based on what I heard from my parents and from history, being a forcible subject to Russia sucks. And this is exactly what Russia is trying to achieve in Ukraine (if not just outright destruction instead).
I was willing to give Russia a loan of trust and see how its post-USSR identity evolved. Unfortunately, it seems like that hope wasn't met with reality.
It is made illegal precisely because it is not trash fire propaganda. Read some coverage of this crisis on there and judge for yourself.
Russia today does some good reporting which is what makes it dangerous because false information or misleading reporting is mixed in on purpose under control of political russia.
[citation, from a non russian-state owned source, needed]
Those who need garbage propaganda and are trained to handle it without manipulation, can use a VPN. Most people don't give 2 thoughts.
This article is about such VPNs being potentially banned.
China couldn't block tor. Russia can't block tor.
Where will you go when they block the VPNs?
A Web3 blockchain distributed serverless onion network
Yes, and I earn money to pay my bills from global business dynamic economy enterprise trading.
How are you to get on the Tor network?
It works, the people who wants to protect their interests are mad and are complaining about it on hackernews
Soon your crypto portfolio will vanish too ;)
I believe those propagandising on behalf of an enemy - ideological or armed - without fully understanding their goals are called "useful idiots". Watch and marvel at how this term gains meaning on this thread.
Like spreading a meme about a fighter ace that never existed? I’ve seen a lot of that, it’s wild to see misinformation spread like wildfire.
Pardon me, but how exactly is spreading an image of a war time hero - that frankly if real or not is needed - the same as spreading the notion that the west needs to be unraveled, the american capitalism destroyed (sure it needs improvement, but total obliteration?), countries erased, and that entire ethnicities shouldn't exist?
“that frankly if real or not is needed” You may be cool with people lying to your face because they think you need it.
I expect more from a democratic government
Why do people here cry for freedom of speech ? We've had fake information laws in about every state in the last years. And now that it's not only banning some youtube accounts about covid but also fake information of russia about the war they are waging (and people they kill), you're surprised ?!
1. many (most?) people here are American, which has very pro free speech laws
2. fake news sucks, but do you really want a government agency deciding what speech is approved or not?
You surely do have laws against incitement of the masses, don't you ?
One example: In Germany it's forbidden by law to deny the holocaust, use nazi symbols, greetings or other media from that era.
And some state sponsored TV telling your they're saving people or helping some states while raiding their homes, killing them and using thermobaric weapons is ok ? That this won't create an uproar among all families and relatives ?
You have at least laws against defamation and this is nothing else than lying and laughing into the face of people.
What you certainly do is restrict youtube channels of joe rogan, trump and facebook ads for elections. And nobody did sue for free speech or won a case. So the general direction is pretty clear.
While I'm often one to point out the flaws in "ultimate freedom of speech" that many people parrot here, there is a tangible difference between being politically and philosophically pro-free speech and the way the laws are written.
You can simultaneously believe that free speech is important but that you shouldn't be able to just print lie after lie after lie about a person without repercussion.
I think that's an attitude I can support.
Another fact is that russia did forbid some german media (deutsche welle) to broadcast, so it's certainly also revenge..
which was response to Germany banning RT first
RT was never banned in Russia (well before the EU decision at least). It was never allowed to broadcast because it would have to get a German TV license. I didn't get one instead it good some from Lichtenstein (?) for broadcasting which is just not how that works.
TLDR Germans de facto banned it, if they had no problem until now with the licensing
No minister or administrator made a decision to deny RT some license. All they did is to enforce in an indiscriminate manner German law. Other stations which broadcast without license would also be treated in the same way.
sure and this enforcing right now during Ukrainian invasion is complete coincidence /facepalm
that's not true - and RT is state sponsored, DW isn't
ROFL
Literally first sentence:
"Deutsche Welle or DW is a German public, state-owned[1] international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget.[3]