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Comment by laurent92 | Hacker News Reader

Note that Europe also bans media they don’t like, namely RT News and Sputnik, along with severe guidance on content with regular threats of fines or deplatforming, coming from governments such as CSA in France. Censorship has absolutely a role in democracy.

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I think the difference is that western media generally can and do publish at least some critical pieces. The same can't be said in Russia right now. It's a whole different level.

Exactly. Just before the war kicked off, the BBC was doing nothing but hammering the UK prime minister on various matters. How many Putin critical articles did RT or Sputnik news post?

They don't criticise Putin. They write about the criticism he receives. Kind of like a news outlet would.

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/05/the-predictable-demise...

Any writing "about the criticism he receives" is to deflect it. The state run channels are never critical of Putin because he controls the channels.

And, just to be clear, "can't be said of Russia right now" really means "publishing information that disagrees with the official line is punishable by up to 15 years in prison".

https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2022/03/04/i-vse-ravno-15-l...

Translation:

https://novayagazeta-ru.translate.goog/articles/2022/03/04/i...

The same happens in the "free" and "democratic" EU too (which I belong to):

https://www.la.lv/par-dezinformaciju-un-krievijas-agresijas-...

Translation:

https://www-la-lv.translate.goog/par-dezinformaciju-un-kriev...

That took me by surprise.

That is not the same.

It's pretty similar. Latvia is not in a state war and is banning certain political opinions. No matter how vile, that is a line that should never be crossed outside of literal wartime.

It's not just the media. Most western countries have entire opposition political parties. And regular citizens bad mouth their leaders all the time with no fear of repercussions. I directly hassle the leaders of my country on their official twitter accounts.

There could be a small chance that not being moral absolutists on this issue could be a slippery slope, but it's still not the same.

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