In the 2000s and 2010s Russia lowered bandwidth on Western social media (and webmail) platforms to promote local alternatives. It worked and most Russians are not on Facebook, twitter and reddit.
However Russia failed to suppress and replicate YouTube that is the only massively popular Western platform in Russia.
>In the 2000s and 2010s Russia lowered bandwidth on Western social media (and webmail) platforms to promote local alternatives.
> It worked and most Russians are not on Facebook, twitter and reddit
As a Russian, it's the first time I'm hearing about it. Do you have a source? My impression was that the early local alternatives became more popular because they were better tailored to local realities (better localization, more detailed maps and suggestions etc.), it happened way before the government started slowing down some social networks in the late 2010's. For example, Google search initially failed to account for grammatical declension of Russian, and Yandex beat it by several years (i.e. Google would simply match words as is). Google Docs wasn't aware Ё is a letter and its spellcheck marked all words with it as a spelling error. Or when it tells you the best shop nearby to buy toothpaste is in Oklahoma. There was simply lack of investment in Russian localization because our market wasn't very important to the US. I was one of the early adopters of VK (Facebook's alternative) in 2006 and I remember Facebook wasn't even on my radar (I don't think I heard about it that much), a friend of mine simply sent me a link to VK, I got hooked and invited many more friends of mine. Zuckerberg visited Russia to promote Facebook in 2012 for the first time (the year they finally started a campaign to improve localization for Russia), but it was 6 years late. Youtube's alternative, Rutube, failed because they had nothing new to offer (in fact, I tried to use it, and it was a miserable experience) and Youtube was already widely popular. I honestly don't know why Twitter never took off here, no one uses it and there are no Russian alternatives either. What I want to say is that the local alternatives became popular long before Kremlin's crackdown on the Internet, it happened pretty organically.
I wasn't able to find anything about Russia throttling Twitter, Facebook etc. in the early 2000s, in order to stifle or control competition. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but I couldn't find anything about it.
Russia has throttled access to Twitter, listing pretty silly reasons, when really it was because they were in a lawsuit over Twitter not removing content they found objectionable. Here's a source for that: https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-net/2021
Facebook founded in 2003 and got its name in 2004. Wasn’t noticeable in Russia until 2010s, was cloned and outcompeted by VK. Still popular only because Vk is now controlled by government (VK is simply a better platform).
Twitter was founded in 2006, so in the early 2000s it simply did not exist. Has never been a big thing in Russia, even when Medvedev got an account.
Government started paying any attention to social networks only after Medvedev was elected (or was that actually LiveJournal?), but I’m not sure they were taking it seriously until 2012, when Bolotnaya happened.
That's nonsense, top to bottom. There were no technical means for that, not to speak of the intent (the censorship laws were implemented in 2013). The centralization which made slowing something down technically possible only really began in late 2015 or so, and wasn't ready till 2018. The reason most Russians aren't on Facebook is VK and OK. Reddit just never took off because there were plenty of domestic alternatives long before it, and Twitter is super popular. And 'Russia' is not a single entity.
Hi, Russian here, located in Moscow.
I don’t root for our president and current operation in UA is not something I like.
I had to say words above, sorry, and that words are true since I am mostly committed to western values.
Facebook would be restricted in Russia because they don’t allow gov to publish their views, opinion and their “truth”, like any other gov can.
There are also intentions to block youtube and any other platform, which have many russian users and which block different “zvezda”-like channels/accounts. I also think no any real user watches “zvezda”-channel on youtube or any other internet-platform.
Additionally, I think that “if you own a house, you could no be required to allow anyone to live with you”
And I forgot to ask a question.
Why do you think that we all should feel pain of sanctions? Because we are not able to stand against gov? Well, we are not able. And I think noone would be able if there is such a law and permissions of authorities. And for sure we, who know English(ok, not as good like any EU-person knows) and not working in gov-structures are the most small part of russians who have different opinion
>> Why do you think that we all should feel pain of sanctions?
I feel bad for people in Russia who don't want that war either, sanctions will hurt.
But:
1. Sanctions are a way to exert pressure and say "don't DO that". They're supposed to hurt. The other effective way to send that message is to use actual force. I'm sure people of Russia would prefer that less.
2. As a kid from Sarajevo, I feel Ukrainan's pain a LOT more today than yours, because they ARE being shelled and bombed and besieged and starved. You are not. Count your lucky stars.
3. As others pointed, there are choices. At this point, mostly shitty choices, all around, for all involved. I for one ran the fuck away from that part of the world. That was a personal, selfish choice (well, in reality, made by my parents, but I sure as heck supported them). Others protest secretly. Others, braver and less selfish and more idealistic, protest loudly. Yet others take up arms. Much as Canadians let alone world like to find things to complain about US (often validly), they did hash these things in a rebellion and a Civil war and again in the violent protests of the 70's... and they seem poised to be hashing them out violently again. Point being, it's not easy ANYwhere to get things even remotely right or fair or just or peaceful. I'm not selfless enough to die fighting a government; but I recognize it is an option and a choice.
So what I'm saying is, today, people of Russia are not at top of my personal priority list of people to feel sorry for. You're not absent from it, but everything is a limited resource. Sorry :-/
Sanctions that hurt the general populace are not an "effective message" for the simple reason that said general populace is not in charge of "DOING that".
My statement (about sanctions being a message or behaviour modifier) is no more of an oversimplification than yours (about populace not being in charge / not being able to modify their country's behaviour)
At any rate, if we want to engage in a productive discussion, let us enumerate alternatives and rank them. I'll start
What other means does the world have to say "please don't do that"? Which are preferred over / should come before sanctions, and why?
I don't mean this to sound antagonistic. I'm tremendously frustrated because I agree sanctions are weak, mis-targeted and won't drive sufficient change fast enough. But while I can rail against them, I don't genuinely know what else is left on the plate. One participant is acting like a violent bully. At that point, once discussion/education/negotiation has failed, there's really no good options for anybody left.
It's not that the sanctions don't drive change fast enough - it's that they don't drive them, period.
The only effective counter to Russia right now is direct military aid to Ukraine. But the rest of the world has chosen to re-enact 1938 all over again.
> The only effective counter to Russia right now is direct military aid to Ukraine. But the rest of the world has chosen to re-enact 1938 all over again.
The US aid package just announced includes security aid that is a sizable fraction of Ukraine's annual defense spending, on top of preexisting direct security aid. And the US isn't alone. Sanctions aren't the only response.
Many countries, including Canada, are sending military equipment or financial support to Ukraine. Its not an either / or proposition.
If however by direct military aid you mean soldiers on the ground fighting Russians, then a) I agree that would be more effective and b) I think it's unlikely to happen because c) if we engage in second order thinking, I don't see how it ends well for anyone in the short term. That's the problem with a Bully, they don't care about their own pain as much as other guys care about theirs. Once they start hitting, there are no great options. All options from here on suck.
Indeed. But the bully also knows that using nukes would be the end of him, even if he gets to take everybody else along. Russia would absolutely use nukes if it's actually invaded, but a conventional military confrontation on foreign territory is a very different matter.
As for being willing to take more pain - you're right, that's a big part of the problem for the West. But it needs to understand that, just like in 1938, avoiding the bully only delays the inevitable, and the pain will still come eventually.
I worry that it's not about one big red button but gradual escalation.
Somebody decides that using tactical kiloton Nukes is the way to go and other side would not dare escalate further.
A lot of people think if they do the big fearsome escalation, then the other side will back off. Everything up to this point indicates this is Putin's logic. He may be over committed now - what option other than finishing invasion does he realistically have that preserves any goals or prerogatives? In some ways the rational thing, from his perspective, is to keep escalating until other side acts "rationally" and backs off.
It's all a giant game of chicken, and I am not convinced that all state leaders anywhere let alone everywhere are rational and fearful enough.
Norwegian authorities, when questioned directly, confirmed yesterday that it is legal for Norwegians to travel Ukraine and participate.
I know some went to Kurdistan on their own expense to help hunt down Daesh war criminals and further back I think some well known resistance fighters from second world war had experience from defending Finland before going back to Norway to fight the Nazis.
> Why do you think that we all should feel pain of sanctions? Because we are not able to stand against gov? Well, we are not able.
Every person can. That's why sanctions exist: to incentivize a government to focus on its people and isolate a violent government from the world, or conversely, for a people to hold their government accountable.
What would you propose the world do instead of sanctions when diplomacy alone has clearly failed?
If the West actually wants to defend Ukraine, it needs to intervene militarily. If it doesn't, then it shouldn't try to placate its conscience with meaningless token gestures.
Governments have changed behavior after sanctions regimes were put in place. The degree and mechanisms of any causal relationship are infinitely debatable, because it's near impossible to falsify them conclusively.
> If the West actually wants to defend Ukraine, it needs to intervene militarily. If it doesn't, then it shouldn't try to placate its conscience with meaningless token gestures.
The government of Ukraine, who is both better positioned to evaluate the value of interventions and whose leaders have quite a bit personally at stake, doesn't seem to have this attitude of “intervene militarily or fuck off”, and has indeed been calling for sanctions and specific enhancements to them.
The only clear case I can think of is South Africa, but even that had its own internal movement; sanctions merely sped things up.
Besides, Russia knew of all the possible sanctions way in advance, and proceeded to invade anyway - which already tells you how much the government there is worried about them in practice.
Biden is absolutely correct: sanctions couldn't and won't prevent anything. What he's not saying, but what follows directly, is that military force is the only option that'll work.
Collective punishment is against the laws of war and the UN charter. My preferred resolution would be NATO backing off and agreeing to Ukraine as a neutral buffer state with Russia withdrawing troops.
The American foreign policy instinct is always for unrelenting brutality.
> Collective punishment is against the laws of war and the UN charter.
There's nuance that you're missing (e.g UN not empowered to sanction war crimes by a veto-power state), and your broad interpretation doesn't align with accepted practice.
That's fine but don't make it seem like there is no choice, there is plenty of evidence of people in Russia protesting and they have made a different choice than you.
And "current operation" is distancing language. It's an invasion or a war, not an operation.
FWIW I was in Poland at the time, the people there were absolutely phenomenal, and the amount of personal hardship and risk endured blew me away. Unstoppable, they would have happily run their country into the ground first. Big difference: they had relatively little left to lose, Poland had been bled dry by the Soviets over decades. By contrast Russians today have far more to lose, or so they may believe, when in fact they probably have more to lose from Putin's continued presence.
A dictator is one thing, an unhinged dictator quite another.
I agree. Unfortunately those prosecuting this war knew that sanctions were coming, and will be largely/wholly unaffected by them.
It is only normal people, most of whom are against war, who will suffer as a result. Doctors who can't source medicine, workers who can't pay their staff, et c.
These sanctions will not negatively affect Putin; he has expected them for years and indeed has been explicitly preparing to cope with them.
That's true but the sanctions do send a message, especially if those sanctions also affect the EU: that we are willing to take a hit to get this under control.
Regardless: if Russia doesn't come to its senses quickly the country will likely not recover in the next 40 years or so from the kind of damage they are doing to their stature on the international stage, this is not the kind of thing you walk away from and claim it was 'just Putin'. Time is running out, and the easy solutions have all already been pre-empted by events.
Russia is a lot more than its military dictators, it is the Russian people you are talking about harming.
Should cancer patients in Oklahoma not be permitted to buy chemotherapy medications because Bush invaded Iraq?
We banned collective punishment in the Geneva Convention because it is insane and unjust.
I have persian friends with family in Iran who can testify firsthand to how damaging sanctions are to people who have no ability whatsoever to remedy the problems that caused the sanctions to be put in place. Personifying countries is an error.
> Russia is a lot more than its military dictators, it is the russian people you are talking about harming.
Yes, and I'm sorry about that. But that is the country that is currently invading another country.
> Should cancer patients in Oklahoma not be permitted to buy chemotherapy medications because Bush invaded Iraq?
I'm out of patience for the day for silly arguments, sorry.
> We banned collective punishment in the Geneva Convention because it is insane and unjust.
That's not what collective punishment is about.
> I have persian friends with family in Iran who can testify firsthand to how damaging sanctions are to people who have no ability whatsoever to remedy the problems that caused the sanctions to be put in place. Personifying countries is an error.
Yes, this is called collateral damage. See also: photos of Ukrainian kids sheltering in the Kiev subway today in fear of the Russian onslaught headed towards their city, if you want to personify this then maybe have a look at those instead of trying to gain sympathy for the citizens of the aggressor nation.
I have sympathy for the innocent people on all sides of these invisible lines who are or will be harmed by the criminal, violent actions of a tiny minority. Nationality does not enter in to it at all.
Using techniques that will not affect those who caused the war, while severely punishing those who are not involved in the war (simply because of where they live), will not help the situation, it will make it worse.
Sanctions are a required step in this process, it is annoying but that's how it is. Skipping that step would require a far stronger response at this stage, and that is really going to punish people that are bystanders. But it may well come to that.
Isn't Iran a great example of sanctions actually having some useful effect, though? In 2015 Iran agreed to give up much of its nuclear program in exchange for lifting many of the US/UN/EU sanctions.
That's sort of a no true scottsman. Occupy wall street resulted in nothing, BLM protests were huge to no lasting effect, massive anti war protests in the early 2000's resulted in a couple decades of war. What ones recently were big enough? Million man march? That was just LBJ buying votes if you ask him about it privately.
Accountability for criminal homicide of Black people, especially by law enforcement, has definitely increased since BLM became a force. Whether that's a lasting effect is, of course, too soon to say, but it's not to be casually dismissed as you have.
None of those resulted in crippling the country, which is the level you need.
Without Russia propping him up Lukashenko would be out by now.
Think Solidarity, not BLM and get the whole country to grind to a halt. That will make a difference. By the time the police and the army have to decide if they want to open fire on their family it can be won. But for that to happen something major will have to change in Russia first.
In Canada they just had protests that crippled the country, they just took food and the ability to bank or heat themselves from the protestors until they gave up. No change. Imagine if Trudeau had a gulag.
That was a few hundred people at best. Anyway, I can see that you believe strongly that protests don't work, I've been eyewitness to protests that did work and that changed the direction of a country (in fact, multiple countries) in a massive way.
Those instances are rare, but that's an existence proof that you can't deny (and there are, historically, more examples).
Note that the support for those Canadian protests amongst ordinary Canadians was minimal.
I'd assume support for those anti war protests in a time of war is probably lower than the support for the truckers in canada (which wasn't that low, 30-40% of the population). Does that make anti war protests in russia illegitimate ? Especially since appearing to undermine a war effort is usually universally despised once a war starts. Even the iraq war started with 90% of americans rallying behind bush and supported the war, so the legitimacy of the war itself does not seem to matter a lot.
> Does that make anti war protests in russia illegitimate ?
According to the Russian authorities, yes. According to me: those people are real heroes, right now it is far more dangerous to join such protests than when the numbers are higher, especially in places like Russia.
Virtually every Canadian province has dropped vaccine passports or is in the process of doing so. This was not the case before the protests began. While it's possible that this would have happened anyway (and not even the purview of the federal government), it seems likely that protests accelerated things.
Of course, I'm not sure there are many parallels here to the situation in Russia/Ukraine.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the request here that is what folks are truly asking the Russian population to do. Someone must physically cast Putin down within Russia itself. I agree peaceful protests inside the country will not work.
This incredible high brow view is a stain on what is happening in Russia. I’m in America and I am not at all surprised that our private company’s are in the pocket of our government interests, once again. This would feel like ANOTHER provocation, if you are a Russian official. I wonder if we will see Americans realize that (at least in part) this Russian aggression is a retaliation to how the USA / EU policies have put the Ukrainian people in incredible danger for their own political motives.
To be clear, against all war and what is happening in Russia is also equally unacceptable.
I want to preface this by saying that I 100% disagree with the war in Ukraine and the Russian infiltration and my heart goes out to the Ukrainian people. Also, please feel free to correct me or argue these points!
A few ways:
1. NATO is largely an anti-Russian coalition. With many of its boarder neighboring countries being part of it. You can google the map and you will see the strategic position of those countries. In the West, only Belarus and Ukraine have not been added to this list of Russian neighboring countries. The USA & EU has been running military drills at those locations for many decades in an act of intimidation.
2. Sanctions are effecting mostly the everyday people of Russia. This is gathering more support internally for Putin’s aggression.
3. The Ukraine has a major movement toward the west in the last decade. Making Ukraine NATO would be another enemy at the boarder and this would be unfavorable for the Russian’s. Again provoking conflict in the region.
4. There has been no attempt by the USA to work with Putin or the Russian officials. Even using Russia as a scapegoat for the Wikileaks dump in 2016. And of course so, so much more anti Russian sentiment in our media ahead of this.
5. Biden and his sons involvement in the Ukraine (as reported on in 2020 by some of the US media) shows the constant strain that the Ukrainians are under. A pawn between the USA and Russia.
Open to thoughts and opinions by everyone!
Thanks for sharing that perspective. I'm curious if those NATO members bordering Russia were pressured into joining by the US/EU or felt compelled by other outside influence.
Maybe Putin's Russia should not exist in its current form?
Russian people are infested and brain washed with decades of propaganda. I hope this war and sanctions will cripple the country back into 1990s and Russian state cease to exist in its current form, regime, and borders.
Russia is seriously sick and must rid itself from Putin first
Factually incorrect, the word 'Russia' doesn't appear in NATO's charter, it is first and foremost a security pact. That Russia ends up in the position of the main party to worry about is in principle unrelated to that, but obviously it is the reality, as Russia has proven beyond any doubt now.
> You can google the map and you will see the strategic position of those countries.
Those countries were and are where they always were, and they were happy to join NATO precisely because they feel threatened by Russia, which is not without reason, they were under Russian occupation for decades.
> In the West, only Belarus and Ukraine have not been added to this list of Russian neighboring countries.
You missed Sweden and Finland.
Belarus is a vassal state of Russia, and does not have a functioning democracy. Ukraine has asked to join but this has to date not happened. The fact that it just so happened to be Ukraine that is attacked seems to lend credence to the fact that being a NATO member has its advantages and that those countries made the right decision.
> The USA & EU has been running military drills at those locations for many decades in an act of intimidation.
No, you run military drills to ensure that if and when you ever need them they will work, if you need to figure that stuff out - especially with multiple nations operating together - when you need it then you have already lost.
FWIW Russia does exactly the same thing.
> 2. Sanctions are effecting mostly the everyday people of Russia.
Yes.
> This is gathering more support internally for Putin’s aggression.
You have cause and effect reversed.
> 3. The Ukraine has a major movement toward the west in the last decade.
Which they were entirely free to make. Russia needs to 'stay in its lane'.
> Making Ukraine NATO would be another enemy at the boarder and this would be unfavorable for the Russian’s.
Note that you want to see NATO as 'the enemy'.
> 4. There has been no attempt by the USA to work with Putin or the Russian officials.
The USA is not involved in this conflict. China hasn't attempted to work with Putin or Russian officials either. And FWIW those Russian officials that were worked with were lying through their teeth, which is on the record.
> Even using Russia as a scapegoat for the Wikileaks dump in 2016.
Which has nothing to do with Ukraine.
> And of course so, so much more anti Russian sentiment in our media ahead of this.
'our'?
> 5. Biden and his sons involvement in the Ukraine (as reported on in 2020 by some of the US media) shows the constant strain that the Ukrainians are under.
Not relevant.
> A pawn between the USA and Russia.
In your mind, perhaps, but not in the mind of Europeans or Ukrainians for that matter, who mostly just want to get on with their lives, which a deranged dictator has now made impossible. This confrontation is on Russia and Russia alone, and any kind of attempts to whitewash it or to paint some alternative story is so much bs.
> Open to thoughts and opinions by everyone!
If anything the EU and the US should have done more, not less to arm the Ukraine, but they were under the mistaken impression that that would trigger a Russian response, if they had known then what we know now I'm fairly sure the situation would be completely different. But we're on to it now, and those that still aren't will wake up soon enough.
The victims are the people in Ukraine, not you. People are dying there and the country has been dragged into chaos. Russia is 100% the aggressor in this case. If you don't want to feel the pain of sanctions, you better do something to change your government. This might not appear fair to you and certainly isn't easy, but don't forget that life is currently even less fair to the Ukrainians who die defending their country.
This is such a simplistic take, considering a true dictator is in power, who has continually demonstrated a heavy, unforgiving, hand, with any concepts of democracy being laughably false (107% voter turnout!).
Multiple bad things can happen at once. Multiple people can be victims. Nothing is actually black and white.
The Russian people that didn't vote for Putin aren't associated with the army that's attacking right now, in any way, other than randomly being born within the countries borders, where one of the most powerful dictators in the world happens to rule.
Yes, because I don't appreciate complex geopolitical issues being boiled down to "Russia bad, poor Ukraine." It's complicated and messy. Don't pretend like it's black-and-white.
Contrary to what you're insinuating, this is one of the clearest cases in recorded history of conflicts. Russia is the aggressor and started a territorial war against Ukraine - already in 2014, now turned into a full-scale invasion. You need to check your moral compass and brush up your knowledge of international relations and history.
Not true. This has been eight years in the making. Civil War at Russia's borders. A fascist, neo-Nazi military terrorizing ethnic Russians. 14,000 dead in Donbas. Your "clear case" is missing quite a bit of information.
Nice try but the exact opposite is true. During the past 8 years, those ethnic Russians have been snatching other random ethnic Russians from the streets in the Donbas region to torture them for days to weeks. They're no more than a bunch of Kremlin-controlled thugs. There are plenty of eye witness reports to corroborate the horrendous human rights violations in the Donbas region by their self-proclaimed governors and their goons - and they are radical Russian nationalists aka Neo-Nazis.
> Why do you think that we all should feel pain of sanctions?
We want Russia to stop their criminal war on Ukraine. Either by government action, open revolt or a population starving in the streets. The only other option is nuclear holocaust.
I don't want to see anyone starving on the streets but massive civil disobedience or a nation-wide strike by the Russian people would be incredible to see.
Sorry, you keep repeating that linking strikes in 1980, but the freedom came 10 years later (after Soviet union collapse). Those protests gave us (I mean as a consequence, not to say they were not justified) martial law and so called "lost decade". Miserable time. I also hope for a big change in Russia after some revolution, but it is not that simple under a strict dictatorship.
Yes, it took a years, so what? Poland showed the way for all of the USSR satellite states and was instrumental in the collapse of the union. I know that America likes to take credit for this through their financing and support of Afghanistan during the Russian-Afghan war but I am pretty sure that that does not properly credit all of the players.
The protests gave you martial law and the lost decade, but they also gave you the foundation of what came after: the best performing ex sovbloc country. I'm sure proximity to Germany helped here, a lot of money got dumped into Poland but at the same time Poland worked extremely hard to get where it is today. And without those protests all that might have never happened, or it might have happened much later.
> I also hope for a big change in Russia after some revolution, but it is not that simple under a strict dictatorship.
This is true, and Russia has far bigger problems than Poland had, in spite of being plundered for decades. I'm under no illusion that such a process would be either quick or easy.
I'm reminded of reddit saying they're going to shut down the USA with protest if Trump fired Mueller. Easy to say "You all should do X!", but even in the US people said "well if I skip work to protest I'll lose my job.".
Telling others they should endure a decade of pain... Hah, would you do the same, in their position? (I guess the keyboard warriors will say yes...)
If this is the first tough and principled choice you have to make in your life then I can imagine it is hard. I've worked hard to put together a life that is worth living, but if it comes to Russia calling the shots here then I'm prepared to give that all up. You don't have to believe me.
Because people tend to copy the terminology of the regime they live in, even if they don't agree with it.
We do the same thing. IE on English Wikipedia there's an article 2011 military intervention in Libya. I can't remember many prestigious western news sources calling it an "invasion" - so neither do most of us.
> The intervention did not employ foreign ground troops.
I'm no military theorist, but "foreign boots on the ground" is the lay-person's definition of an "invasion". Absent that, it could have been a war, a police action, a military intervention, or a bombing campaign, but it wasn't an "invasion".
Theoretically, the main point here is that Facebook has an independent fact checker program, and some of those fact checkers rated Russian media posts (which would lead to a big scary overlay and a reduction in views)
I'd guess they would have used some other excuse to block Facebook sooner than later anyways though.
"independent", are you really able to say it with straight face? I'm not even talking of russian posts, it is as partisan as can be, supporting Dem agenda and suppressing GOP.
GOP voters/media, like the Russian government, are big spreaders of fake news - which is why so much of their media gets removed by fact checkers. They aren't supporting the Democrats or the GOP directly.
Interestingly, if you read the Mueller report you will see that Russia generated fake news for Democrats as well (it just didn't spread as well as on its own).
It's probably not perfectly accurate to frame this as DEM vs GOP agenda. It's closer to think of it in terms for Blue Tribe vs Red Tribe. And of course the Covid-19 stuff is the great example of this. 23 months ago you could get banned, or at least your posts blocked, for saying things that we now think are probably true. And this persists around some specific issues.
I tend to get shadowbanned for mild posts — eg, publishing the NIH grant where they describe engineering viruses at WIV or the NIH letter saying they enhanced WIV-1.
I wouldn’t describe it at Dem/GOP so much as narrative/against — but with the politics of COVID being what they are, there’s a correlation between Republicans objecting to various things and censorship.
I’m apparently a “conspiracy theorist” and source of “misinformation” because I actually read government documents. Oh well.
Telegram is main social media platform of this war. Kinda weird to connect to Russian SM to find out what other side is saying (with Google translate).
Is this the first big nation military conflict in the era of ubiquitous video streaming ?
It feels like this is de-staging the aggression, you see more details, you see more failures, it feels less impressive than past fights on TV for instance.
I was traumatized watching a go pro on a tank, with the other side having poorer footage streaming at the same time, in the same place, through live leak.
The difference here is that the conflict is happening in the part of the world where the majority of people have smartphones and Internet access, and belong to the culture where sharing "interesting things" online is routine.
The US was involved in military operations on the ground in Iraq & Afghanistan and in the air in Libya & Syria in the 2010s. Not sure about boots on the ground vs. ISIS.
A good tactic would be to point out to Russians that their government is censoring political things for them. They like to think they are free and above the hypocrisy of the west. But the key thing is the West allows it's citizens to criticise itself. The Russians do not have that freedom. It's basically becoming like China in the way of censorship and lack of freedom, to protect it's citizens and the fatherland. To sacrifice for the country.
In the west we can say "my government is bad" and give examples of a number of terrible and true and shameful things. In Russia or China they cannot even admit truth.
One tactic that we see from China and Russia is to criticise the chaotic nature of protests in the West and (again) to emphasise the hypocrisy on how the West deals with protests of the Left vs Right. The thing is that there IS a lot of truth here. But the key thing is that these protests occur nonetheless. In repressive regimes there is no freedom to protest. You cannot have hypocrisy in how you deal with political protests if you do not have political protests!
I am actually Russian too (left the country a bit over a decade ago), and I disagree.
Of course not everyone in Russia is like that, far from it. But a very significant number of actual average Russians are like that. While US coverage of any events is far from perfect with tons of conflicting info, there is no straight up "you aren't allowed to publish or see this, or else suffer the consequences" thing going here, unlike in Russia. You could criticize the government all you want, in public too.
Just the fact that you aren't allowed to, it would create an echochamber stronger than any self-induced FB echochamber in the US can suck one into. The main problem is that instead of many different echochambers, you primarily get one - the one controlled by the russian government. And your only options are being in it or not. The issue is that there are only 2 options, and you are heavily disincentivized from opting out. And the larger an echochamber grows, the stronger and more influential it gets. The chilling effect alone is crazy and suppresses people from saying anything. I was called a "traitor" by my classmates back when I was leaving the country. What a betrayal, wanting to actually get good education and live a good life outside of that place. And that was a bit over a decade ago, before russia-west relations got heated up to the current point, and years before Crimean invasion has even started.
Edit: half the replies down this exact thread in sibling comments seem to be a great illustration of what happens when the type of echochamber I described actually ends up working.
ofc the fact that I'm Russian don't make me think that my opinion is true, and yet I strongly don't like when someone describes the opinions and thinking of all Russians without exception, sometimes don't even trying to study and understand the roots of the problem between our countries.
I like to think that peaceful EU and USA continue to pump Ukraine with weapons in this fratricidal war.
I also like to think that in recent days many countries have blocked a number of Russian media while continuing to pretend that they are actually fighting for freedom of speech.
I have Russian-speaking Ukrainian friends. They have told me that there is no such pomgrom in Ukraine against them or people like them. They have told me multiple times that Russian friends of theirs keep telling them that they must be scared and they tell them that they are wrong. This is Russian propaganda that you are repeating, and has no base in truth.
I fully supported surgical separation of Donbass along the ceasefire lines. That would have stopped people suffering there, and would have been a forever reminder to Ukraine what happens when you let your nationalist radicals run unleashed and turn blind eye to their actions. What has been happening these 2 last days - indiscriminate killing of people all across the Ukraine - has nothing to do with it, and is a shame on my old country. I hope and believe Ukrainians will get victorious in the end while that catastrophe of a war for Russia will, similar like the defeat in Afghanistan, result in total crash of Putin's regime, and may be, just may be, i don't hold my breath here, some awakening of Russian society as a result of a burning shame and repentance.
Current Russian society has proven incapable of self-management as well as incapable of responsible management of such a large territory and military force including nukes. I suppose that as a result Russia, similar to Germany after WWI and WWII, may be broken up with limits on military force, giving up nukes, and other restrictions. Very probably losing that key place in UN Security Council. In short - Putin with clear permission from the whole society, save for a few brave souls, blew up any last chances for Russia to be a great country. (note: Putin is counting on China's support here agreed upon in exchange for Russian support in the future Taiwan takeover, yet that senile moron completely misses that once things go wrong in the Ukraine invasion - and they will - China will be the first to use the chance to get rid of that aggressive nuclear powered neighbor and to replace it with a docile client state comprised of the Far East part of that former neighbor)
Heh, "point to Russians". I have several friends in Moscow, and up until the last few days they were in complete denial about Putin's intentions or troops buildup. There were memes, jokes, etc.
The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.
>The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.
What makes you sure that it won't cement their position even more? Western countries hurting russia's economy via sanctions basically confirms the "evil westerners" narrative.
You just stated that the people of the whole country need to start suffering.
There already was period in our history when one politicial stated that we must all be destroyed as an ethnic group and our lands repopulated, and that was not good at all.
Ukrainians are already suffering. And Americans too will suffer from the sanctions that Americans impose. But I am willing to suffer economically to protect a free republic that truly represents its people, because they are people, just like me.
So you say that a country, which keeps putting itself into war over and over again, killing millions of people mostly based on lies they tell us, isn't evil?
The parent asserted that Nazis are evil. While I'm sure there is a range of behaviors that constitute "evil" I don't think a drone assassination campaign in any way compares to the deliberate and systematic attempt to remove all members of certain groups (i.e. Jewish people, among others) from Earth.
150,000 people in Washington, DC, protested the Iraq war when it was getting started.
It, uh, didn't accomplish much. I'm not sure that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is any more inclined to listen to protests than the Department of State was.
This can't be true, because this thread started off with
> In repressive regimes there is no freedom to protest. You cannot have hypocrisy in how you deal with political protests if you do not have political protests!
I'm Russian and It was clear that this could happen at any moment based on negotiations between the parties and other events, although the media laughed a little at this...
Denial doesn’t mean they were influenced by propaganda. Invasion just didn’t make any sense and even among the opposition there was a belief that Putin is evil but rational.
So now the conclusion is he's not rational. Now what? A non rational dictator sitting on a very large number of nuclear weapons is not a good thing for the world.
Now it’s just scary. Let’s hope Ukraine will be able to resist long enough to force Putin to negotiate peace and to forget about any attempt to reach his goals along the Western borders of Russia by military means. It’s too bad that our hope is that enough Russian soldiers will die for Russian public to notice that war is in their house. There’s no popular support for the war, but the pain of war is not yet felt.
Unfortunately there’s no other options left. Sanctions are not a short term deterrent.
> Let’s hope Ukraine will be able to resist long enough to force Putin to negotiate peace and to forget about any attempt to reach his goals along the Western borders of Russia by military means.
I hope with you but the force asymmetry is large. But so far they have been doing much better than could have reasonably been expected.
> It’s too bad that our hope is that enough Russian soldiers will die for Russian public to notice that war is in their house.
This will be one of the most carefully controlled statistics, there is no way that official channels will get close to communicating these numbers. I've been wondering if this isn't one of those areas where the tech world could really assist.
> There’s no popular support for the war, but the pain of war is not yet felt.
And likely won't be for weeks or even months.
> Unfortunately there’s no other options left.
Agreed.
> Sanctions are not a short term deterrent.
Also agreed, but they are a message, especially if those sanctions hurt the EU as well. I would be happy to shut down the heat here if that's what it took to get the EU completely disconnected from Russian gas. It would be very annoying but we'd live, my grandparents went through far worse than that. And I've been trying to figure out how I can really help Ukrainian refugees.
>I hope with you but the force asymmetry is large. But so far they have been doing much better than could have reasonably been expected.
It is not that large. I remember an estimate of some strategist that you need 5x more firepower to win a battle in urban environment (cannot find the link, sorry). Even if Russia sends 20-30% of its entire army and national guard to Ukraine, this would mean only a parity with highly motivated defenders. Russia certainly has better equipment and air support, but it may still take a lot of time and casualties will be high.
I'm not the parent, and I consider the people of Russia to be a separate entity from their government.
But, how do you see Putin getting pushed out of power, other than by the Russian people? If it is required that the Russian people push him out, is it not logical that they must be motivated, with the assumption that sanctions would not be required if they were already motivated enough?
I'm trying to understand all of this, and I appreciate your opinion/perspective.
Putin has huge internal security apparatus backing him up. He does not give a flying fuck about what people think and will not hesitate to suppress any potentially threatening activity with overwhelming force.
If you think that you can sanction / starve Russia to the point that simple people will organize, revolt and depose Putin I think you live on a different planet.
The only force that can really depose him are some competing elites assuming they have backing from enforcement agencies / military. I am not sure how you can sanction / bribe those into action.
Personally I think the West had quite a few years to sort things out between Russia and Ukraine. I think it was possible. I do not have any real proof but I suspect that instead of trying to find some meaningful compromise they were playing hard ball and are now reaping a "reward". What to do now - I have no frigging clue as the situation is out of control.
As for the subject of "suffering" - purposely starving the whole nation and keeping people hostage I think is what scumbags do / advocate.
I see. Do you think a hit to the economy could motivate any of the elites? Or are they mostly decoupled from any fluctuations in the Russian economy (foreign investments for example)?
What a ridiculous take. Yes the Russian govmt censors a lot of things. The west also does it. And more than plain censoring, which happens mostly in China, what happens the most is just building a narrative: only show what you need to be shown, diminish opposing views, augment yours, shape the narrative by building a fake opposition. These are basic strategies done since before world war 2.
The russians by and large know very well not to trust the government. But who will work best in their interest instead, will NATO? Would the US trust Europe to fix their two-party "democracy" and lack of healthcare?
"The number of annual protests has grown steadily since the early 1990s, from approximately 8,700 "mass group incidents" in 1993[1] to over 87,000 in 2005."
Those numbers are 17 years old. I think we need newer data than that to come to a conclusion.
The number of protests in Hong Kong has plummeted in the last two years. Even annual events have been cancelled because of the new laws that can land people in jail for even being near a protest site, or a historically/politically significant location at the wrong time.
Many of your points aren't true at all. You appear to be trying to make a false balance (a term I learned today) by casting doubt on the censorship and brutal repression of protests we know China performs. We have a bounty of evidence that WeChat is heavily monitored and censored. You can in fact test it today. We know that the recent anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre was heavily censored and dissidents detained and silenced. We also know that public figures who speak out against the regime are disappeared. Of the very many, I will mention Peng Shuai who spoke out against her sexual abuse by a senior Party member.
So you don't appear to be making much of an argument at all, as even a cursory glance in the history books of the last year will reveal your false balance to be as empty as your accusation of its absurdity.
> Amazing. All social media is heavily monitored and censored everywhere. We can argue degrees but it's all censored.
Nope. On WhatsApp, no message I've ever sent has been censored. I haven't heard of anyone being censored on whatsapp. (the example being wechat which i believe is equivalent).
> Like that chinese tennis player right. Or jack ma? Disappeared and then reappeared. Like magic.
You aren't making the point you think you are. You are confirming that they were disappeared for a LONG time by the gov't.
Facebook owns WhatsApp. You really think there is no censorship on WhatsApp.
> You aren't making the point you think you are. You are confirming that they were disappeared for a LONG time by the gov't.
I am making an exact point. Oh my god, a tennis player and jack ma didn't make themselves available to western press for a bit. That's so crazy. Because we all know that these chinese people belong to western journalists. Right?
People complaining about censorship in a highly censored website. That's rich. Crazy how so many "people" care about china's freedom all of a sudden.
Russian here. Most comments here are pure nonsense. The only reason Facebook risks getting blocked is because in Russia it is predominantly used by dissidents and people in opposition to Putin's regime. It doesn't block groups, events, etc at Kremlin's behest. So it should be blocked.
Upd: many commenters here clearly misread my comment, or maybe it's my poor English. "It should be blocked" means that it is in Putin's interest to block it, but better under some pretext. I am personally in a very sharp opposition to Putin's criminal syndicate.
>So it should be blocked. Upd: many commenters here clearly misread my comment, or maybe it's my poor English. "It should be blocked" means that it is in Putin's interest to block it, but better under some pretext. I am personally in a very sharp opposition to Putin's criminal syndicate.
It's ambiguous, but I definitely think most English-speakers read a sentence like "So X should happen" to mean the speaker is prescribing an action they agree with. If I was writing about what I expected another group to do while avoiding implying I agreed with their logic or was trying to raise support for the action happening, I'd phrase it without the word "should" like "so it makes sense for them to do it".
It might be reading too far into this, but this makes me very curious what differences there may be between languages and cultures in how they talk about "should", their expectations, and their own values vs other groups' values. I wonder if it's common for a sentence meaning "bad outcome X is likely [for others to do]" to be mistranslated into something read as "we should support making outcome X more likely, [it's really not so bad]".
It sounds as if you think FB should block things at Kremlin's behest, and since FB doesn't, it deserves to get blocked itself -- is that what you meant?
(Or did you mean that therefore it was logical for Putin to block FB? Or, well, maybe you wrote something different from what you wanted to write, not being a native English speaker)
Ah, I see...maybe the OP means FB should be blocked because they are not doing individual blocking at the government's request? I think it's still pretty easy to disagree with that justification too (same as I'd disagree if a US ISP was forced to block a Russian site that didn't kowtow to US requests). And it's still easy to see that the reasons given by the OP for why it risks getting blocked are disagreeable to.
The internet just feels so small currently. The technology seems to be all here to make it distributed and open it up, but the convenience of centralization and the lack of network-effects of the distributed solutions seem to be the bottle-neck that stop them from gaining traction.
I remember a lovely time when my RSS was pulling in data from a huge and various number of independent sources, non-algorythmically, all compiled nicely in GReader ... without social media flame wars hanging off the end of every link.
Not necessarily against algorithmic feeds, but would be nice if you could chose your own algorithm, or just pure chronological feeds like you mentioned.
Open protocols (HTTP and email) have even greater network effects than closed solutions (Facebook). However, you still need a strong push in the beginning, which protocols don’t usually have the funding while VC burns $100 million in an initial push.
Limiting Facebook access also ensures that the Russians abroad who carry a voice against Putin in the language of their fellow citizens also get silenced/ignored. It's the bully closing his eyes to the damage he's doing, except that he's dragging 140 million people with him.
Why Russia just don't open independent sites for it's media. People who want to know different opinions will be able to come there themselves. It's strange that they necessarily want to be on facebook and youtube...
The same reason people go on any platform — because you want to reach the audience that is specific to that platform.
Sure you could put your video exclusively on Vimeo or host it yourself but then you miss out on the massive YouTube audience that won’t discover your content any other way. Same with Facebook.
Social media is such a problem in Western nations, has sapped our attention and divided us so immensely, that I honestly wish we would also regulate and crack down on it. Not because we don’t want people to learn about what’s happening in the world, but because what we see unfolding right now makes crystal clear the stakes of Western weakness and division. We have been fighting each other on Twitter and Facebook while the world goes to hell. Enough!
> I honestly wish we would also regulate and crack down on it
It's mind boggling to read HN comments advocating for restricting people's free access to internet discourse. (Reminder that Hacker News is social media, too)
Even a few years ago the idea of anyone in the tech world advocating for regulations or "crack downs" on letting people freely communicate on the internet would be unthinkable.
I have no issue with free access to Internet discourse! In fact, I wish we had more free access to Internet discourse. What I object to is the commodification of attention, the deployment of sophisticated algorithms intended to drive clicks/views (and thus promote the most divisive and controversial viewpoints), pervasive surveillance, and so on. I don't think regulating these facets of our present-day technology, which are driven by profit motives, not by the desire of ordinary people to speak to one another, is at all incompatible with a free and open Internet.
> What I object to is the commodification of attention,
What exactly would you regulate or "crack down" on?
People are free to choose what websites they visit. This idea that evil social media companies have used technology to force people to view content they don't want to see has gotten out of hand.
> the deployment of sophisticated algorithms
Again, what exactly would you regulate away? Ban websites from showing related content? Ban Facebook from showing you things your friends are interested in? Ban Netflix from showing you shows you may like based on your previous viewings?
Would you ban Hacker News' algorithm that determines which posts are shown on the front page? Just force everything to be un-algorithmic and chronologically ordered like the new page and hope for the best?
Which do you believe, that there is no problem, or that there is no solution to it?
I believe there is a problem, and I also believe it is possible to solve it in a way that upholds democratic values.
If you don’t think there is a problem, then we see things very differently, and we’re not likely to agree. But if you agree there is a problem, why not advocate for a solution?
(lived in Russia until 2021, not authorative source of info)
All ISP providers are required to have black boxes installed on-site. These boxes can do traffic shaping (e.g. Twitter is degraded) and basic filtering based on IP addresses. I think, deep packet inspection is also feasible.
Config updates are pushed centrally to these boxes.
Russia isn't worried about Facebook's bias; Russia is worried that Facebook doesn't share Russia's own bias, at least not to the degree it would like. Russian citizens have relationships with Ukrainians, and Russia doesn't want its people to see their friends and family murdered by Russian soldiers.
Content moderation is hard and Facebook often makes mistakes and sometimes even intentionally does harmful stuff vs Russia invading its neighbor with no justification at all.
Yeah, that‘s a comparison that does make sense to make. I’m sarcastic here.
Are people deliberately missing the point or intentionally evil?
Moderating away rule breaking content that most people don't want to see is very much akin to disallowing state-sponsored war propaganda: a good thing.
Okay but we allow our state sponsored war propaganda on it.
At some point, many free speech maximalists get driven into an ethical corner. This is one of them, and we discover that all of a sudden, many of them only support propaganda that they like. (But they will bend over backwards trying to come up with weak reasons for why bullshit from RT is totally different from bullshit from Qanon.)
For like 10 years in every thread about social media someone brings up their “own political agenda” but never specifies what they mean. If the main objective is maximizing profits there can’t be a strong political agenda because with every shift in governance the way to maximize profit will also shift. This whole political debate about social networks is just stupid they are cooperations first and if there is profit to be made they will take it no matter if it’s left or right.
> If the main objective is maximizing profits there can’t be a strong political agenda because with every shift in governance the way to maximize profit will also shift
Even more simply, companies like Facebook and Twitter are stuck in the middle if for no other reason than they can't lose either half of their audience.
They're happy if a few extremists peel off to their "free speech" platforms, because it's less headache for them and they don't have to worry about those platforms appealing to the mainstream. They themselves will obviously never do anything to lose the mainstream on either side.
The parent poster never said their "side" was Democrat or Republican, only that it was Facebook's political agenda. Facebook's agenda is promoting the maximum amount of outrage so it can increase engagement. You can play all sides of the political spectrum to achieve that.
I didn't and I am not going to be coy about it, I am right of center of most issues. It really annoys me to see Facebook shut down the "truckers convoy" facebook organization even but at the same time never shut anything down relating to BLM as just a recent and obvious example. That said I don't want either shut down. I think these platforms should seek to emulating the free speech *principles* of the first amendment even if they aren't bound legally by them (today) where anything up to incitement of violence is unacceptable. Today its just a disaster where they ban/deboost people for political views that aren't left wing, banning "misinformation" that is actually true, and are funneling dark money into elections, and god knows what the hell they are doing with all the data.
All I recall was accusations by political parties from both sides.
Just because some content got popular amongst some cohort, it doesn't mean it was being pushed as an agenda. That is a problem any platform that depends on user activity to surface content will have, that you might see whatever the other side wants to share too.
Microsoft and Apple perhaps, but I suspect it's advantageous for Facebook, Twitter, and Google to remain otherwise the state propaganda apparatus would only get stronger.
It's not working great it seems. A few russian kids came on reddit expressing no hatred against ukraine, but being powerless due to the oligarchic structure of Russian politics. It might be a fake account I don't know. But with the recent risky protests.. actually I don't know what to say. It seems that propaganda is somehow deeper on non Russian groups. Lots of people in other countries are rooting for russia based on west past failures.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I assume 100% of Russian content on Reddit is manufactured. Their government has just invested so much into psyops that it successfully undermined legitimate engagement (for me).
Did you see what's going on r/Russia? You can be banned not for your comment there but for the fact you are on another subreddit. No, not for your comment there! It's enough that others are against the Russian invasion.
I'm confused; where did I say I believed literally zero people from Russia who also disapprove of Putin use Reddit?
I said I assume that to be the case, which is foundationally different; I don't know of a way to tell which is which, so in order to predict outcomes most accurately, I default to the position that I don't accept Reddit as a source for this.
I don't follow that line of reasoning. If a few Russian kids express "no hatred against Ukraine" and claim to actually feel powerless at the oligarchic structure of their country (Russia), in which way do you feel this could be manufactured psyops? What purpose could this serve as propaganda, "Russians kids don't like Putin or the ruling system"?
Wouldn't propaganda look more like "our country means Ukraine no harm, but in this case we are right because [reasons]"?
It's being used right now to soften the perception of Russia ("See look, the Russian people don't approve of this!" as a way of implicitly arguing against sanctions) right now, that seems valuable.
Also "chaos" has value. It's a big thing in how PsyOps works (from my limited understanding); when you sew chaos, you can get away with more.
> "see look, the Russian people don't approve of this! Don't punish them with sanctions!"
But there have already been demonstrations against this war in Russia, with detainees and video footage showing this. And if you don't trust the footage, I'm sure someone knows someone in Russia who can attest to this.
So we know at least some people in Russia don't support the invasion.
More importantly, in my opinion: that kind of thinking is a trap. When your hypothesis is unfalsifiable, "all Russians online are lying, no matter what they say, and even when they agree with me" how is discourse possible at all? You cannot tell honest speech from propaganda because, by definition, all speech is propaganda?
I A) said I was probably paranoid and B) I didn't say they were lying, I said I assume they are. I'm describing an effective heuristic to help me accurately predict the future. I believe using data from Reddit users purporting to be Russian teenagers seems too easy to exploit and therefore unhelpful, predictively.
You can tell lies by saying nothing but the truth :) One example that comes to mind is the time of Solidarity revolution in Poland.
It was a time where most Poles only had two TV channels (own by communists) and handful of radio stations (also controlled by communists) to choose from. Now, before the strike in Gdansk docks happened TV or radio did not cover crime rates at all. After the strike started, media started filling the news with reports of every murder, rape, burglary they could find. This created the impression that Solidarity pushed the country into total chaos, paving the way to introducing martial law, while the truth is (you can check that in police statistics from that time) the crime rates actually went DOWN significantly during that period.
Now, did those TV channels lie or not? Every single crime they reported in the news was 100% truth, but the aggregate impression they created was 100% false.
But in this case we are being suspicious of alleged Russian teenagers saying they don't hate Ukraine but feel powerless to condition their own government in Russia. I mean, that's almost an anti-Putin statement, how can it be misconstrued as pro-Putin psyops?
Well, for one it creates an impression that "common people" of Russia are against Putin (which is false, he regularly gets 70+ percent approval ratings [1]), and this might discourage more severe economic sanctions against Russia (because sanctions would affect those "common people" more than they would affect oligarchs)
I don’t understand this logic. How is it in interest of the propaganda machine to make it appear that common people are against Putin? Surely they want to portray that majority like him and support his actions (which is also why they manipulate these stats you linked).
Also, Putin and his elite don’t actually give a damn about sanctions affecting “common people” (see eg post-Crimea sanctions), so I don’t see why they’d worry so much about it as to fabricate every single post on Reddit.
More and more I start to believe most of communications are really noise to make the less aggressive camp pause and think if this makes sense at all, while the other camp marches on.
Most of the propaganda is much more obvious than that, for the most part it ends up downvoted on Reddit. In this context, the messages are more like "give up and flee, it's inevitable" (alternately: staged video of a pile of bodies, seen yesterday; large formations deploying from Chechnya, etc), "the war is because of NATO expansion", "Nazi government". Just to name a few themes.
I would also guess that 90% of propaganda you see is primarily people spreading it for ideological and non-monetary reasons, it just has to be seeded enough for the messages to be spread.
One of the fascinating trends is that the most rapidly spreading stuff is purely visual, short video. The dominance of short clips is incredible, and allows for so much subtly misleading content.
You can't win the hearts of people only by propaganda. If someone comes from a country where NATO "introduced democracy" by bombing civilians and installing a puppet government, all Facebooks, Googles and Microsofts of the world will not help for those people to support USA over Russia, which didn't do anything wrong to them.
Isolating the people will lead them to viewing us as an outside group, and people can easily be made to hate another group. Isolating the people will only make it worse.
Yea of a 140 million people they all agree with Putin. 0% disagree with Putin and even if they did 0% would use Reddit to communicate with people outside of Russia.
Well my point is that if you shut down Russian access to western services, the Russians go to Russian services and only see what the Kremlin wants them to see. This doesn't harm Putin, it effectively helps him undo Glasnost.
If the Russian people can't read CNN, they read Pravda.
It’s in the international interest to keep them up to spread propaganda and counter Russian propaganda. The withdrawal of media would make the fight very one sided in favor of Russia.
That might be a fire Russia has to go through before it gets better. A powerful counterargument is that tough control seems to work out just fine in China, but I'm not sure Russia would really be "culturally compatible" with the Chinese way
Several if not all of these companies actively censor content based on their own ideas of what does and does not constitute acceptable expressions of acceptable ideology. A healthy amount of contempt for them is fine.
And Putin was using VK for psychological warfare. It was crazy it didn't get blocked sooner -- letting an aggressive threatening dictator have instant access to spreading targeted propaganda
Saying vkontakte is ONLY propaganda is as dumb as saying Facebook is ONLY propaganda. They're social networks, and they also have your aunt's recipes and baby pictures.
More countries should follow suit, I'm tired of seeing media censored by Facebook, not to mention Youtube and Twitter in Northern Europe too. Platforms should be just that, platforms, not outlets. Now I understand many of you will want to point out that "Russia is worse" and that it is somehow different. I don't care who is worse or if Russia does it for bad reasons, it is bad enough over here that it is also the correct choice for my nation and your nations.
However Russia failed to suppress and replicate YouTube that is the only massively popular Western platform in Russia.