Defending Freedom and Democracy Sure Requires an Awful Lot of Censorship | Hacker News Reader

Defending Freedom and Democracy Sure Requires an Awful Lot of Censorship

caitlinjohnstone.substack.com

51 pointsk1m46 comments

Lots of zingers flying around these days. Snake Island, Ghost of Kyiv, we are getting a daily dose of things that are walked back.

As much as Ukraine is turning into a humanitarian crisis, the silence from many other humanitarian crisis that are also ongoing is deafening (the Yemen civil war comes to mind).

Be extra vigilant - these are not normal times and when Russia and the USA face off like this, there is going to be a lot of manufactured consent flying around.

It's pretty clear who the aggressors are, and who is the evil dictatorship starting an unjustifiable war, but don't assume that just because you agree with "the good guys" that the truth will come easy.

The Russian state media are reporting lie after lie - see some of the real footage from the war that you can easily find anywhere online and compare to what they are reporting. You don't need to be an intelligence expert to see that the Russian media is spreading outright lies and propaganda. Stopping this propaganda is the right thing to do.

If they are such obvious lies then people will figure it out on their own - why do we need to censor them?

>> The Russian state media are reporting lie after lie - see some of the real footage from the war that you can easily find anywhere online and compare to what they are reporting. You don't need to be an intelligence expert to see that the Russian media is spreading outright lies and propaganda. Stopping this propaganda is the right thing to do.

> If they are such obvious lies then people will figure it out on their own - why do we need to censor them?

Enough people will be fooled, which is why they spread the lies. They're not stupid.

You're also kind of twisting the GP's meaning. He's not saying the lies are obvious on their face, but they're discoverable by a layman from critically comparing sources. However a lot of layman (most?) don't compare sources.

How do you know which is true? Are you just assuming Western sources are true and any contradiction is evidence of a lie?

This is reasonable to ask because Western sources have (also) been lying a lot, e.g. presenting photos taken last year as the Ukrainian president fighting on the front line today. So we have two lying groups and no obvious ways to figure out what's true. Occasionally you get lucky and e.g. reverse image search saves the day, but mostly, there's no way to detect lies.

> How do you know which is true? Are you just assuming Western sources are true and any contradiction is evidence of a lie?

RT and its friends have a pretty well documented history of deliberately and strategically spreading lies and disinformation (e.g. when MH17 was shot down, they sprung into action spreading all kinds of lies and conspiracy theories to obscure the Russian involvement). Western sources may get things wrong from time to time, but they're at least trying to get things right.

I agree it’s not good to censor RT and similar, though I do remember Churchill’s comment that in wartime “truth is so precious that it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies”. RT are scumbags and it’s been depressing to see some of my stupider/more self-serving academic friends go on there to pump their personal hobbyhorses. But they don’t need censoring, just our contempt.

The article would be better if it didn’t make spurious and unsupported assertions about how NATO “had a hand in starting” this conflict.

Russians are brainwashed into believing they have the right to decide what people in nearby countries do. You can see it even in comments here.

"NATO expanded towards Russia" is used as an excuse for invading Ukraine.

Doesn't matter that NATO expanded because these countries wanted to be in NATO. And that's PRECISELY because Russia routinely threatens them. NATO is hugely popular in Eastern Europe (with the exception of Balkans), much more than in the Western Europe.

Why should Russia have a say in what defensive organizations a country can belong to?

Why does the west then have a say in whether North Korea builds nukes? What was the Cuban missile about? What gives the US the authority to build military bases all over the middle east, then assassinate a general in Iran when they retaliate?

The blind hypocrisy annoys me. If Mexico started building missiles near the border for defense you can bet the US would throw a fit.

1. there's no nukes in Ukraine nor new NATO countries, so it's not comparable

But that's irrelevant, because

2. why should people in Ukraine be killed because USA did something in 60s? How exactly USA doing something bad justifies Russia killing Ukrainians?

Also

3. how far back are we allowed to go with these? If 60s are OK, then can we go back to 40s? Russia murdered hundreds of thousands of captured prisoners back then. Does that make it OK for EU to kill some Cubans now? In 50s they also killed a lot of people, mostly anti-nazi resistance members who wanted independence for their countries. Then there was the whole Brezhnev doctrine and they invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Or maybe we can only go back to 90s? Russia sent KGB forces and army to invade Baltic states. They killed some people and went back after massive protests.

This kind of "ethics" you present is why we had world wars. It's absurd, and I hope you realize that.

BTW: have you defended USA invasions of Iraq by saying "but Russia invaded Czechoslovakia so it's fine"? Why not?

In the 60s? The US is still occupying Guantánamo Bay. It's ongoing.

It's not about actions of the USA making the actions of Russia okay (or the other way around), it's about the hypocracy of one condemning the other.

> it's about the hypocracy of one condemning the other

What do you mean by "one"? I'm not American. And even if I was - why can't I condemn one crime if I wasn't condemning another?

Your logic: "Are you against murder? You can't because you said nothing when that other particular person died. So now shut up and don't complain that your neighbor is being murdered. Otherwise you're a hypocrite."

So far, every time I have seen the discussion of hypocrisy, it has been in direct reply to a person trying to discuss the [lack of] justification for invading Ukraine. In those cases, "it" (the conversation) is not about hypocrisy.

Further, a nation isn't one person. Even a government isn't one person. Hypocrisy is hard to prove, and easy to throw into a conversation.

If I were in a life-or-death national crisis, under attack in my home, I would be demoralized and furious with those taking the opportunity to make accusations against those trying to support me of hypocrisy on such a broad political scale ("that country is being hypocritical"), based on conflicts past.

As a topic in a void, it's a legitimate accusation. But it seems so disrespectful to human life and human rights, given the context of the present.

My point was that other countries have reacted harshly when their borders are encroached upon... border security is a valid national concern.

This is the same concern Russia had re: NATO troops in Ukraine. It was repeatedly dismissed during the _years_ of negotiation leading up to now.

I'm trying to point out the hypocrisy in this view to better understand what happened objectively and how it could have been prevented. Not to take sides, as if my personal condemnation of Russia makes any difference to someone in Ukraine right now.

You might think Johnstone's assertions are wrong, but you too are lying when you say they are unsupported; in the sentence you are referring to, she linked to her own previous article which explains the history https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/experts-warned-for-y... as well as some guy named "Aaron I Killed" on Substack https://mate.substack.com/p/the-ukraine-crisis-sponsored-by-... and, more credibly, a FAIR backgrounder by Bryce Greene https://fair.org/home/what-you-should-really-know-about-ukra....

These do in fact support the assertion. "Aaron I Killed" in particular seems perhaps partisan enough that his assertions should be handled with tweezers. The FAIR article is pretty solid and reliable; the only criticism I'd make is that, as progressives often do, it overstates the importance of the neo-Nazi movement in both Ukraine and in the US, for example neglecting to mention that the Ukrainian neo-Nazis lost all their parliamentary seats in the last election.

I haven't been watching RT so I don't know firsthand how much they're lying, but see a lot of secondhand reports that they're lying an enormous amount, and those seem reliable.

It’s a good idea, and IIRC part of this site’s guidelines, to “assume good faith”. If you find the linked articles more convincing than I do in making the case that NATO had a hand in starting this war, then maybe say “I disagree” rather than “you are lying”.

Normally I would do that, and I considered that, but the only possible alternative to you lying in this case would be that you didn't notice the three separate rather conspicuous links in the sentence you quoted, or didn't realize they were links to supporting information, or that they weren't there when you read the article, perhaps because Johnstone added them after you read it. This seemed extremely implausible to me.

If that were the case, presumably you would have said, "I didn't see those links" instead of just "It’s a good idea, and IIRC part of this site’s guidelines, to “assume good faith”. If you find the linked articles more convincing than I do in making the case that NATO had a hand in starting this war, then maybe say “I disagree” rather than “you are lying”."

Therefore the presumption of good faith in this case has been comprehensively overcome. Blitzkrieged, really. And you still haven't expressed any remorse, just complained that it's ill-mannered of me to point out your lie.

Perhaps I shouldn't have talked about my evaluation of the reliability of those three articles, because the point about your lying is that, even if all three of those articles were nothing but lies, Johnstone's assertion still wouldn't be "unsupported", as you falsely claimed it was. It would be "supported only by lies".

But I mentioned my evaluation of the reliability because I think the question of whether what's going on in Ukraine is much more important than the question of whether you were lying about what Johnstone said.

Which, to be clear, you were. Please own up to it and don't do it again.

Or, I read the links and thought their arguments were ridiculous. I’ll stop this conversation here: I see no point in arguing with someone who won’t offer me the basic assumption of good faith.

The assumption of good faith has to be earned, it's not a right. On this site users are mostly anonymous and so there is a rule that you assume good faith by default but that is not a license to say whatever you like and then get upset when called on it. It's especially vital for upholding the default assumption of good faith that people try hard to be precise in their words. In this case you said clearly that the assertions were unsupported which doesn't mean "supported but I don't like it". You did in fact say something untrue and if that's because you use language badly, that's a problem you are creating for everyone else. So stop it - admit your claim was wrong and move on to explaining why you don't like the support used.

That's not a valid reason for asserting that the links weren't there at all.

Agreed, Without RT we would have even less insight into the monster the NSA has turned into

>Churchill’s comment that in wartime “truth is so precious that it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies”.

1) We're not currently at war

2) Don't forget that the man you're quoting is responsible for the end of the British empire and arguably got Britain into a war with Germany unnecessarily (remember that Hitler's ideology was heavily based on race and he saw the British as close to the Germans. He even intentionally let their army go at Dunkirk because of this.)

I think your second point is the silliest example I have yet seen of guilt by association.

> 2) Don't forget that the man you're quoting is responsible for the end of the British empire and arguably got Britain into a war with Germany unnecessarily (remember that Hitler's ideology was heavily based on race and he saw the British as close to the Germans. He even intentionally let their army go at Dunkirk because of this.)

What now? You seem to be talking like those were bad things.

If you think Britain is a force for good than taking power away from it would be bad yes.

> If you think Britain is a force for good than taking power away from it would be bad yes.

You're presenting a false choice there.

I'm more interesting in your perspective on this:

>>> ...and arguably got Britain into a war with Germany unnecessarily (remember that Hitler's ideology was heavily based on race and he saw the British as close to the Germans. He even intentionally let their army go at Dunkirk because of this.)

You seem to be implying that you think Britain should have let Hitler build his reich.

OP makes a clear case here.

Appeals to universal values are fatally compromised by exceptions.

If a rule doesn't apply under all conditions then it becomes of matter of importance to determine who decides when they should be suspended. This reveals universalist values as hypocrisy, they are local values applied to others, for political purpose.

Its like a cop says 'don't steal cars', then goes ahead and steals _your_car, only to show up the next day and says 'don't steal cars'

Institutional distrust emerges this way

> Appeals to universal values are fatally compromised by exceptions

Only the willfully naive don't understand that exceptions are necessary. Just like a democracy cannot tolerate elements/parties that want to overthrow democracy if it plans to survive, a society cannot tolerate pervasive (and untrue) war propaganda from foreign enemies lest the actual domestic free press becomes so buried under a pile of manure that everybody throws up their hands and says "the truth cannot be known".

Yeah, because the censorship is working so great. How could I be so naive to not believe that.

The west did arm Nazis in Ukraine by the way, the US senate voted to supply the arms. This is a fact but there is also a context. And I think people should look into it.

I would suggest only the wilfully naive accept universalist values as true. Feel free to propagate them onto other people, but let's at least be honest that is what we are doing.

Example: when was the last time US was sanctioned for invading another country? Didn't happen, won't happen.

Yeah "Both-sideism" is BS

Complaining about some warnings when Russia is blocking Twitter and others is just naive

Blocking RT is just tit-for-tat and sanctioning.

During a war, controlling propaganda sources is important. And if you think there's no war, or that the west is not a target, you're wrong.

Funnily enough anti-vax content on these past days seem to have calmed down or even stopped. Funnily enough.

Cynical takes like this only make the author sound like a complete moron who never studied any XXth century history or just a plant

Yeah, cancel people for allegedly saying the N-word, but when a whole TV channel is financed by actual dictator invading countries and killing thousands of people, and is spreading his excuses for doing so - just leave them be because "freedom of speech".

I think people need to understand, that there is no "absolute truth" but rather a view point on both sides. And to protect each system of values, implicit (by ignoring) or explicit (by blocking, invalidating) censorship takes place and both micro and macro level. People find rationalization for their system of believes and governments take use of that. Ignoring that would be just another narrative to ignore western own violent history. Everyone simply tries to protect their own interests in the national and economic conflict of powers. - Think about why is narrative around Russia so much different than any other NATO or US "intervention" in the past? - Why is TikTok controlled by Chinese gov, worse than FB, with majority stakes with a single man, controlled by US?

For the largest portion of the world, in both cases, those are all foreign governments protecting their own interests.

If anything I feel sorry for both Ukranian and Russian people who didn't have a choice not to be part of this conflict, each suffering in their own way.

I am reading Clark's Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/>). Right after hearing about YouTube shutting down Russian state media channels, I was surprised to learn in the book of the extent of the freedom of the press in late 18th-century Prussia. A British visitor wrote that people were as free to speak as back home, citing a work that was very critical of the king in the context of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars, despite the existential threat to Prussia from France, at least four newspapers that celebrated Revolutionary France as the next step in human freedom were allowed to publish.

It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech. Even liars deserve the opportunity to speak. This is especially true when there is no formally declared war between the US and Russia.

I see the argument against censorship, in principle.

> You'd think the truth would be more robust than that. You'd think freedom would extend farther than that. You'd think democracy would be more tolerant of dissent than that.

Yeah, I'd think that. I wish it was true, but in practice it's not.

> If perhaps we have foolishly consented to a reality where the most powerful people in the world get to control the information people consume in order to shut down dissent against a murderous and oppressive globe-spanning oligarchic empire.

We really don't have a choice. The reality is that one side is perfectly fine with using misinformation as a weapon. And it's really effective! What is foolish is to do nothing and hope truth will prevail automagically. What are alternatives to censorship that can be used today?

there is a difference between censoring dictator-state propaganda and censoring single citizens. On top of that, let's add that official state opinion about something (especially about war enemies), with punishment for different opinions, is typical of totalitarian state. In democracy one would have the statement of the russian dictator publicly commented by joirnalists. Here we have cancellation of statements. And this applies down to single citizens. Are we dropping our rights down the toilet? Anything makes you think this will be limited to russian war? How would you elaborate an informed opinion if everything gets canceled?

Do you have any single example in history where this censorship was required?

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

A pretty sound argument can be made that the reactions of the international community are consistent with intolerance of the intolerant (in this case, a superpower that decided to invade a neighbor without cause or provocation).

The hate mail to and vandalism of innocent businesses e.g restaurants (Russia House in DC for instance) needs to stop, but RT is a state media arm and is thus complicit by nature with its parent government's decisions. Since nobody within the apparatus is choosing to rebel against state-sanctioned intolerance of another country's sovereignty, it's clear the whole organization needs to be addressed.

> A pretty sound argument can be made

No, it cannot. The US and Europe accusing Russia of acting without provocation is like a serial killer with 600 dead girls buried in his basement complaining to the cops about his noisy neighbor.

> intolerance of another country's sovereignty,

2003. Iraq. Ukraine was a part of the "coalition of the willing" which invaded the sovereignty of another country.

"Noisy neighbour"?

Here you are again, completely dismissing that Russia is killing innocent civilians as we speak.

I am losing my ability to give you the benefit of the doubt here. Why are you constantly minimising the crimes Russia is committing right this moment?

Prescience of the Great Fire Wall I suppose.

yeah, it’s full throttle on domestic propaganda. it looks like NATO is eager to go to war with Russia. NATO could have avoided this war easily by giving some symbolic win to Russia, placing some sanctions and moving on. but they don’t budge which usually means real war is coming.

EDIT: what I meant was NATO prob had a way to prevent the Ukraine war but chose not to: allow Russia to veto NATO membership as they demanded but at the same time impose the same drastic sanctions on Russia. this just avoids the war in Ukraine, leaving the rest the same. the sanctions would aim to push Russia to drop its veto and other demands.

So Ukraine should just slowly give more and more of its territory away to Russia for free until it stops existing? The rest of the world should continue to ignore Russian aggression on foreign soil?

NATO isn’t at war but this is an absurd way to look at things and I can’t imagine a good faith argument for what is literally a policy of appeasement, and that didn’t work out last time either.

If NATO wanted to go to war, they'd have supported the Ukraine directly from day one and the world would be a different place now.

To be honest, I also thought this would end with the two Eastern regions falling under Russian government and that'd be the end of it. Russia did already annex Crimea in 2014 though, and now they're basically trying to disarm their neighbour and make sure it isn't attractive enough to join NATO/EU.

Sounds easy to give Russia a symbolic win, but where does that stop? Is all Russia needs to do fight a war, take a province and wait out some sanctions? At what point do you realise they're not going to settle for a few pieces of the pie?

Easily avoided the reconstitution of Mother Russia? How? By killing Putin? Not so easy, I think.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com