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Comment by rasengan | Hacker News Reader

This is an important case. Precedence as to whether or not prejudice against freedom of opinion is ok or not is at stake.

I hope the EU will think seven times before making a decision.

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Very ironic for a country that has banned almost any form of independent media that isn't RT, to then complain that the EU has banned RT.

So by this logic the EU should ban al jazeera.

I'm not terribly familiar with al jazeera, but aren't they largely independent? I mean sure, a lot of middle eastern countries use them as their mouth piece, but I'm not aware of them being state sponsored media. Just because their reporting slant and opinions aren't always western aligned doesn't make them state sponsored propaganda like RT most definitely is.

No, they're funded by the Qatari government

So the EU should follow Moscow's lead on free media?

Isn't that kinda the idea though? The argument is that RT is already not "the free press" so the EU banning it is more like banning false advertising than limiting the free press.

It would be quite hard to argue that we're better if we would simply start doing the same.

Neat! A race to the bottom where each country can adopt every bad idea another country has.

Like all fallacious slippery slopes, the fix here is to simply limit how far down you'll go. So the EU can ban RT, but then (I know this is hard to believe) not shut down all non-state media or stop people on the street to look at their text messages.

'First they came for RT, and I did not speak out because I was not an RT viewer' seems apt here.

Fwiw I've long been surprised it's allowed (for years I mean, unrelated to any current affairs) but I think this thread is an interesting point.

It's about as inapt as it often is, since nobody is imprisoning or murdering RT.

>"Like all fallacious slippery slopes"

Think about it this way, "is this establishing a precedent"? Slippery Slope is not necessarily a fallacy. It is also one of those things where only time will tell.

The idea of the slippery slope fallacy is that you can't just identify a sequence of causal connections; you can prove anything that way. You have to present evidence that the sequence of horrible things you predict will actually occur. Just identifying a slope (or an oil slick) isn't enough.

Obviously, the argument I responded to is invalid on its own; we all intuitively understand that the EU is not going to end up managing its media the same way Russia does in some weird tit-for-tat, because Russia and the EU countries don't share the same values.

You could argue otherwise, but you'd be making an extraordinary claim, and the standard of proof you'd need to bring would be, consequently, much higher.

>"No doubt, one can hardly agree with the opinion that this is some sort of censorship," Peskov said, according to Russian state media. "This sphere - the sphere of fake news - insults and so on, is under strict regulation in many countries of the world, even in European states. This undoubtedly has to be done in our country."

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/704600310/russia-criminalizes...

conflating "banning all independent media" and "banning a media outlet that repeatedly spreads lies" is the exact thing that the liars, hucksters, charlatans, conspiracy theorists all want you to do. Do you really honestly believe that responding with consequences to people doing bad things is the same thing as doing the bad thing? We teach children this but nobody cries foul when a child is put in time out for hitting their classmate.

>""banning a media outlet that repeatedly spreads lies"

If I had the power, I would absolutely do this! But I suspect your list of media outlets that spread lies repeatedly is quite different from my own. Would you still support my power to censor as such?

RT is not independent media, nice try though. Keep fighting the good fight for fascism.

There’s freedom of opinion and then there’s allowing an enemy state at war with your ally to broadcast propaganda freely in your country. Fighting for and allowing the latter is absolutely idiotic.

Wouldn't you agree that before the soothing and after the shooting starts are completely different realities?

Once the affiliates start killing people the media becomes propaganda. Even if it was a propaganda before, you had the chance to challenge it and keeping it free is useful but once the shooting starts keeping it free means that they can coordinate with their murder professionals to sway support and ease their job.

IMHO, at time of war, banning communication channels of hostile forces is a fair game.

The EU is not at war with anyone.

It doesn't matter. EU is actively taking sides in an armed conflict.

Yes, so what if it is? Like I said the EU is not at war with anyone, so there’s no need for drastic measures which go against the principles of the union.

If you haven’t noticed, the EU considers press freedom quite important, at least if one were to judge based on the approach towards Hungary or Poland.

I don't agree that it's O.K. to have absolutist press freedoms under occupation. Media has always been part of military operations, you can't afford having military operations conducted on you when tanks are rolling and missiles are being fired and bombs are dropped.

Comparing this situation with the situation in Hungary or Poland is absurd.

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