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Comment by stemc43 | Hacker News Reader

> meduza is considered a foreign agent in Russia. I would take it's words with grain of salt

Given the Russian government has labeled numerous foreign journalists, news organisations, and even Nobel peace prize winners as foreign agents, I'm not sure it's Meduza's word we should be taking with a grain of salt.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58840084

Obama, the same person who bombed kids with drones is a Nobel peace prize winner[1], so I wouldn't go around brandishing that as a status symbol. There is definitely an element of not understanding a place and talking about it in Western media in a negative manner. Be it even China or India.

Not that I disagree with your broader point.

[1] https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/oba...

He got the peace prize before he did the droning. Frankly I think he could have won it without the droning.

In Russia, a 'foreign agent' status is just a synonym for not following the government narrative of events.

Same thing in the West.

in the west we use different terminologies. Conspiration theorist, lunatic, danger for the nation, terrorist, extremist, anti semite, molester.

it depends on the profile of the individual, it makes it more believable than a generic "foreign agent".

Those all just sound like descriptions of terrible people, regardless of the government. No doublethink involved here

if the accused people in fact are, sure. and surely too many terrible people in fact deserve the accusation, but many don't, too many were/are characterised as such purely because they disagree publicly with official views on certain events. If Snowden is some "terrible people" then ok I'm also a bad one and deserve the conspiracy theorist hat. Except that I disagree with the government's characterisation of Snowden (in his case danger for the nation) hence even also risk to be called something in the list, whatever fit my profile best.

When US government starts an official register of "terrorists", adding to it literally everyone who does not agree with its official position, we can talk about the word being similar to "foreign agent".

What do you think the no fly list is?

Is Trump on it already?

At this point, the foreign agent label is literally how you can tell what's legit.

Thanks!

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