As if it's wrong to point out that tweeting and a 15 year jail sentence are not equivalent.
I can't understand what this means... are there really Russian vote-bots here or something?
There's a clear intent to derail and muffle.
Welcome to the world of Russian digital propaganda machine.
They even have puppet accounts arguing with each other, as was discovered by Russian media.
Empty condemnation of Russia while we simultaneously prosecute the publisher of information which helps us decide whether we are behaving in an immoral manner is not merely hypocritical: it's corrosive of the fundamentals of our society.
Right now the Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians that we murdered and the Yemenis that we are helping murder make condemnation of the Russians not just odd, but erodes all possibility of working in a fairer world.
However bringing up Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria (where Russia is inflaming the situation too), and Yemen is whataboutism. The discussion was about Russia's shitty record on press freedom.
But if we are trying to dig into the current conflict, the US hasn't invaded anyone for territorial expansion in a long fucking time. Russia has recently invaded Ukraine three times, Chechnya twice, and Georgia.
The US is deeply disruptive to any of that happening because it opens the door to the MiniMe despots being able to claim that spending stupid amounts of GDP on weapons and having a "strong leader" is the only thing which will see them safe from being invaded "not for territorial expansion" during a "long fucking time".
That's why it is appropriate, relevant and not simply whataboutism.
Russia and other states are worse than the USA because they need to be in order to claw their way up the dungheap piled up by US foreign policy. And there is little inherent in US norms or culture which would prevent similar anti-democratic and anti-liberal punishments. To back to the OP: these are all shades of authoritarianism and we see calls all over the media and this very forum in favor of censorship, war and other stupidities.
Don't kid yourself, this isn't whataboutism, it's the very subject under discussion: Russia is violating international agreements and norms and in part this is because the USA has shat all over those for a very long time.
Trump's commentary on the violence against the press: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/19/media/trump-velshi-msnbc-shot...
>“They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs,” he continued. “They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”
(https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/437610-trump-cal...)
And surely media can be bad, can harm people, can lie, but "ENEMY" is interesting.
You can make a good case that the guy damaged the discourse and eroded trust in institutions, but news and journalism have flourished in recent years.
I agree that local police assaulting journalists is awful, they should be fired and prosecuted. And I'm aware that Trump made some dumb ass comments praising that shit, but it doesn't constitute a war on the press. You're talking about some isolated disparate instances perpetrated by unrelated local police departments during a summer of protests and riots. That isn't an act of the executive branch of the federal government. The US doesn't have a strong presidential system like say for example France. The us president has virtually 0 control over any individual police departments other than threatening to yank some drug war funding.
There do exist levers the executive branch could pull to attack the press, e.g. via the FCC or by having the DOJ prosecute sources. The Trump admin didn't do those things despite all of his bluster. He basically ended the policy of aggressively prosecuting leakers and spent all day engaging with the media. Sure he's a shit bag who did crimes, but the war on the press stuff is overblown.
Yes, it's an administrative motte & bailey. Police support, individual and organizational, for Trump is incredibly high and their loyalty to him transcends official channels. He's explicitly endorsed violence against journalists, brutality towards suspects, and celebrated the execution of Michael Reinoehl. While he didn't have direct control over the state police, he spoke directly to them frequently, and encouraged all of this.
That doesn't really mean anything on the ground. The situation in the US is 100% different. Some dumb-ass president can love authoritarian shit all they want, but don't have a ton of actual power to lock up journalists. Russia just today shut down its last non-government owned TV station. That just can't happen in the US legally, and the courts are quite protective of speech and property here. The Trump years saw numerous cases of supposedly friendly judges telling him to fuck off. And the few avenues he did have to legally attack journalists, like prosecuting their sources, he didn't use unlike the previous administration.
Frankly he's just a stupid demagogue, and a symptom of the erosion of trust in institutions. But he didn't wage war on the press. THere's no evidence to support that outside of his bluster. He belongs in jail, but not for this.