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> The question is, why is DDG okay with amplifying Ukranian/NATO propaganda and not Russian propaganda?

Because one side is busy shelling and starving civilians right now? Are you seriously suggesting that "NATO propaganda" (WTF?) and Russian propaganda are somehow equivalent?

There is very, very obviously a "bad guy" here, and most of the world (even outside the US/NATO sphere of influence) seems to agree on this point.

Here's an unclassified 82 page report on NATO information operations [1], which designates a role for a Deception Officer and indeed defines that,

>Deception involves measures designed to mislead adversaries by manipulation, distortion or falsification.

Nor is the overall function limited to the "adversary", for example on page 23 you can read that Info Ops are performed to create "desired effects on the will and understanding of...approved parties", which include "potential adversaries, decision makers, cultural groups, [and] elements of the international community".

I'm not saying that NATO is necessarily in the wrong to do these things in this situation, but it's certainly a bit naive to think that both sides are not fighting in the information space.

[1] https://info.publicintelligence.net/NATO-IO.pdf

“ Because one side is busy shelling and starving civilians right now?”

well technically the ukranians were doing the shelling first, starting on february 17th, killing ethnic russians in donbas. but you probably dont know that bc of the censorship. so basically you want propaganda amplified because you arent aware it’s propaganda, and have no way of figuring out it’s propaganda bc you want everything else to be censored.

“ There is very, very obviously a "bad guy" here, and most of the world (even outside the US/NATO sphere of influence) seems to agree on this point.”

no not really, china and india dont agree and thats half the world

> well technically the ukranians were doing the shelling first, starting on february 17th, killing ethnic russians in donbas.

Many sources argued both in advance and at the time that these were false-flag attacks designed to create a pretext for the invasion. (Eg, https://www.voanews.com/a/shelling-mortar-fire-intensify-in-...)

So the accusation of propaganda can go either way.

But that's exactly the point. DDG is in no position to verify any of it. We need to learn this cycle on our own skin: Read something, get outraged, then read a study proving it was false, learn not to get automatically outraged. Repeat.

Censoring is keeping adults in informational childhood state.

> Because one side is busy shelling and starving civilians right now?

And Ukraine had been doing that since 2014 to Donetsk and Luhansk

What does that make them? "Good guys"?

What about US helping Saudi Arabia commit genocide in Yemen what does that makes them?

What was presented as shelling of women's hospital by Ukrainian side is presented as shelling of evacuated hospital building that was being used to station troops.

I'm not going to try to answer the question who is lying here. But I do prefer to see both sides' cases. I think it could help with the tribal ecstasy everyone seems to be in at the moment.

A few years ago it was already apparent that there would be a Russian reaction to some western dealings within Ukraine. It became true and was obvious. The only surprise is the decisiveness and direct invasion, the rest should not be something that fell out of the sky.

I can't agree more.

As a child I was brainwashed by US propaganda living on the western side of the Iron Curtain. The 'home of the brave and land of the free'. How lo g it took me to remove this naive Hollywood image of our friend the US from my mind.

It took many long evenings of talking to actual people from the US while in university to learn more about the individual truths and lives instead of my rose tinted image.

To me personally for many years now the US were the biggest danger to peace on this planet. Now - taking a page from their playbook their old arch enemy is rearing its head and using the frigging same arguments the US used back in Iraq to sow war on European soil.

I am already only "allowed" (I know I can access other sources - it just isn't easy nor mainstream compatible) to watch western news.

Russian propaganda is more or less banned from German viewers (with RT and others being banned). I am not allowed to try to glimpse the way Putin wants to be seen internally.

And now - after Bing and Google - DDG follows suit and declares me too naive to be able to deal with Russian propaganda while still listing all the Western BS that should fill my head instead. Because in the end most 'news' currently is nothing but propaganda. Most news have an agenda.

There is nearly no good signal. Nearly only noise.

But few of the best sources to understand the mindset of the power elite in Russia I read in the last months were Russian sources read with the knowledge of the intended reason of publication. Aka reading it as the propaganda it is.

> Russian propaganda is more or less banned from German viewers (with RT and others being banned).

is rt.com also banned?

I just tested with three providers (two mobile, one landline). In all three cases the requests timed out.

Yes, the EU required internet providers to ban RT and other Russian state media. Elon Musk notably tweeted that Starlink was going to attempt to fight the censorship.

Interesting. I thought only authoritarian regimes decide for citizens what they should or should not watch.

Given the information controls since Vietnam we have been lucky so far. This may well have been triggered by regulatory grumblings and could be a sign of greater US involvement.

At least to me it feels similar to how big tech does weird things under gag orders.

I can guess once this is in place we can expect government mandated rationing with chips diverted to weapons.

The Iraq war was wrong and stupid, it should never have happened. But that's just whataboutism. It doesn't make the Ukraine war or Russian disinformation any better to point out that the United States have messed up spectacularly more than just once.

One difference, though, is that GWB never put anyone in prison for talking about the Iraq "war" or about how much the US government lied about WMD.

> Is it because NATO is the "good" guy and Russia is the "bad" guy?

I don't know that NATO is the "good" guy, but Ukraine is in this story (and they're not part of NATO). I'm saddened that it took about 2 days of everybody being in shock about the war until all the Russia apologists started re-emerging. One nation is brutally attacking another sovereign nation in complete violation of all international law and at the same time threatening the world with nuclear war. To me it's clear who the "bad" guy is.

The central point is that you need access to information to determine if a war is wrong and stupid. It is clear how censorship and propaganda can alter perception of who is the the good or bad guy.

And what happens when you can't tell what "information" is true in any reasonable timeframe, making it impossible for normal people (or actually anyone at all) to discern fact from fiction? Tough titty, those people just get to believe misinformation? It's not anyone's responsibility to suppress lies? I will never agree with that position. In a better world, the truth can be identified just by reading carefully. This isn't that world.

Who’s who to decide what’s True and what’s False? No one should be in that position of power, only you. You want to be taken care of, but your caregivers are wolves in disguise. Power breeds parasites. Long live anarchy

>And what happens when you can't tell what "information" is true in any reasonable timeframe, making it impossible for normal people (or actually anyone at all) to discern fact from fiction

My sweet summer child...

We crossed that line a long time ago. Everything is already lies and half truths.

Giving one group a monopoly on “truth“ doesn't help.

Every president the US has had have no problem standing in front of the country and telling bold-faced lies

The only way to get any semblance of truth is to pick through the the misinformation from multiple sides.

Having an official narrative and disallowing alternatives only prevents this process

Giving up completely doesn't help either, my sweet summer child. Pretending we can just let anyone say anything unchecked isn't actually a solution, it's a dodge because you don't want to have to trust. There's no way around having trust.

>There's no way around having trust.

Yes there is. The alternative is open information and critical evaluation. This isn't giving up.

I consider trusting censors to decide what information can be consumed to be giving up. Blindly thinking whatever you are told is the truth.

Who do you trust to limit the information you consume?

If a war is just a TV news about no-one-really-cares part of Europe it's easy to treat it as another topic for debate and partisan discussion about USA. Because from my perspective this is main shift of the discussion - Russia, Ukraine, other bordering countries and their complicated history - they are being pushed away to discuss USA politics.

I see refugees every day, on train station and in line near passport office, and I know how Russia influences politics of my country for years, and well, not for the better. I'm also not the biggest fan of USA, but it's really weird seeing how the whole story about Russia influence becomes basically "USA was worst".

As a sibling said: there is a side with justice and truth on their side, and it’s not Russia.

Russia attacked Ukraine. Russia has been bombing, is bombing, and continues to bomb residential areas, hospitals, and schools in Ukrainian towns. The lies that the Kremlin spouts are so far-fetched that some Right-wing outlets here in the US parrot those lies as truth - “Nazis”, etc.

Russia also has a very powerful misinformation machine that is working now more than ever.

So I’ll take a little amplification of Ukrainian/NATO propaganda. At the very least, their claims of self-defense more than check out.

The whataboutism is incredibly strong here.