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Comment by SanjayMehta | Hacker News Reader

Russia Today et al are banned in the EU.

This is standard European censorship of Russian media and news.

It's not banned. I am within EU and can normally access RT website. I can also access yandex, etc. Without VPN or proxies. SO, how is this "standard European censorship"? Don't believe Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots.

Yes, it is officially banned (along with Sputnik and other Russian media). It is sad that you don't know this as an EU citizen and think that formal directives of your union are Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots

"On 2 March 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a measure suspending the broadcasting activities of RT (and another Russian outlet Sputnik) in the EU"

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...

"Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine: Council bans broadcasting activities in the European Union of four more Russia-associated media outlets"

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024...

Yeah, I know about that. But it's not been implemented, so RT is in practice accessible. As are other Russian websites. I don't know what is sad about it, I'm just saying what is in real life, not what is on paper.

In real life, European hypocrisy is off the charts.

BBC got caught manipulating videos featuring Trump. 12000 people were detained in the UK for thought crimes. In one year. One little old lady was arrested for praying silently.

France went after Durov.

Russia media IS banned, hiding behind ISP incompetence doesn't count.

Come on. Wake up. We who have lived under actual socialist dictators can see what's happening.

Yeah, the EU (and also the UK earlier) were always lecturing to the third world on human rights and tolerance and media freedom/integrity, blah-blah not so long ago. So many pompous speeches made. Now, it is eye-rolling to see them backtrack hard on everything they stood for.

I see you have an axe to grind with EU. That's fine, but I'll say that I also lived in socialism, so I do have experience and perspective of what it was like. And precisely because of that, these EU bans don't worry me at all. I know the difference as opposed to many who think they know the difference.

We are sick of European hypocrisy; lecturing the "third world" on democracy, freedom of the press, human rights, climate change blah blah blah instead of introspecting on the mess within.

[0] https://www.outlookindia.com/national/explained-what-jaishan...

I could swear I have read something about the BBC and UK introspecting over this "scandal".

Yeah, right.

As my USAian friend once told me, "it's better to do whatever you want, and then pretend to apologise when you get caught."

"They didn't do any self-examination and if they did it was fake!"

Are you okay, man?

I'm okay. Thanks for asking. I suggest you ask yourself the same question.

Prove it.

You first as you're the one having issues.

It implemented on a DNS level. Easily circumvented by using a third party dns server (like Google or Cloudflare). Nonetheless this is political censorship plain and simple. EU crying about censorship in other countries is just pure hypocrisy.

Of course it's political, what else could it be? If Putin's regime is censoring western media, is it any less political? In other words, is there any censoring of news media (foreign or domestic) you would consider apolitical?

> EU crying about censorship in other countries is just pure hypocrisy.

I don't see any crying about censorship. It's a made up argument. Personally, I couldn't care less about censoring in Russia or any other country that I'm not living in.

> If Putin's regime is censoring western media, is it any less political?

Would like to point out that Russian bans came in response to the EU ban.

"The EU first banned Russian state media outlets like RT and Sputnik on March 1, 2022, as part of sanctions against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia then restricted access to Western outlets, such as the BBC and Deutsche Welle, on March 4, 2022, in response. A more recent cycle occurred in 2024, with the EU banning Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, Izvestia, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta on May 17 (effective June 25), followed by Russia's ban on 81 EU media outlets, including Politico and AFP, on June 25. In both cases, Russia's actions came after the EU's."

Personally, I think this is stupid but domestic politics sadly always trump international common-sense.

I live in a country that is in the process of banning TikTok.

I live in a country which banned TikTok. Nothing of value was lost.

I'm sure it was a value to at least some people. Nothing of value would be lost for me if Fox News was banned. It's still censorship.

They moved on to Instagram and X.

I can't tell the difference between CNN and Fox. They're all liars.

They are all liars, but if you can't tell the difference, you aren't paying attention.

If they're both lying, how does it matter if they are different lies?

No, I don't pay attention to US media as a source of real news. It's just fiction, pandering to two different audiences.

  > This is standard European censorship of Russian media and news.

There is not a single media outlet left in Russia anymore. The media crackdown is complete. They are all government propaganda now, repeating the same narratives dictated by the Kremlin and free only to choose the wording. They deserve to be removed from the market the same way a box of cereal is pulled when ingredients do not match the printing on the box.

Of course, US media is completely independent and has diverse views.

We should all emulate US media.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/764546/watch-surreal-video-co...

The other day I saw Judge Napolitano calling for Hegseth to be prosecuted as a war criminal for ordering a second strike on the survivors of a boat strike. This happened on Newsmax, which is ultra partisan and very pro-Trump. And even they are not always following the party line.

Nothing of this sort happens in Russia anymore. The Kremlin has full editorial control over all media outlets. What they want published gets published; what they want suppressed does not. That's it.

If you can find a single instance of the Russian minister of defence being accused of war crimes in the Russian media, then we can discuss further how the two countries compare. Until then, even the US corpo-infested media landscape remains leagues above Russia's.

What Russian war crimes?

While the US commits nothing but war crimes.

You can be anti-west without being a Putin apologist.

In 1971, when the war criminals Nixon and Kissinger tried to STOP India from intervening in the genocide in East Pakistan, it was the USSR which helped us rescue millions and create the country of Bangladesh.

Russia on the other hand never tried to invade India, despite the Russophobic British spreading lies since they got a whooping in the Crimean war in 1856. [0]

As for the famines caused by the British in India, and the utterly vile conversions executed by the portoguese in Goa using industrial tools like breast-rippers, the less said the better. [1]

[0] https://academic.oup.com/psq/article-abstract/66/4/618/72516...

[1] https://wikibharat.org/pages/francis_xavier_and_inquisition_...

I suggest you stop regurgitating propaganda.

In Eastern Europe, the USSR acted like the British in India, and Russia continues that tradition.

Eastern Europe collaborated with the Nazis to attack the USSR. You may not know your own history but I do.

Case in point: The Ukraine (Stepan Bandera) and Poland. Look it up.

Don't the Soviets get the mark of death for collaborating with the Nazis to divide Poland?

Did any part of India do anything objectionable pre-occupation such that you could apply the same "they had it coming" argument?

The USSR had starved millions of Ukrainians to death before the Nazis even rose to power. Mirrors the British hunger games in India.

If you want to excuse and trivialize the suffering caused by Russians in Eastern Europe, then by the same token you trivialize the suffering of Indians under British rule. All the same excuses apply: some Bandera-Ramachandran surely conspired against the British and therefore the Bengal famine is your own fault.

I've read both version of the Holodomor or whatever it's called. I put it down to communist incompetence, Mao was no different than Stalin in this regard.

As for the famines in India, the war criminal Churchill deliberately routed grains to feed his armies during world war 2. Prior to that, it was British policy to trigger famines, not incompetence.

During the Irish famine, again under British rule, the latter were exporting grains and other produce to England. It was not incompetence but malice.

Who is Ramachandran?

The USSR was also exporting grains as their own people were starving.

Churchill said that the Indian famines were the fault of Indians for "breeding like rabbits" and Stalin said that the Holodomor was the fault of Ukrainians for being "kulak saboteurs". The same dismissive and inhumane attitude shines through. They knew what was happening, they knew that they had the means to stop it, and they chose not to use them.

Churchill was a shameless genocidal racist.

While he was saying that, he was exporting grain to feed his armies.

I'm glad to see that you view the two - Churchill and Stalin - as equally evil.

> Churchill was a shameless genocidal racist.

Same as Modi.

Prove it.

https://x.com/mahaveer_vj/status/1997989440103559522

The British were using famine long before the genocidal Churchill showed up.

https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/worse-than-asuras-how-...

Russians were the biggest Nazi collaborators in Europe during WWII. Check Andrey Vlasov and "Russian Liberation Army", so called "РОА".

Prove it.

Also, better to be a "Putin apologist" than a liar - like most Western politicians.

Are Eastern politicians notoriously honest?

Yes. Especially compared to the Westerners.

Are you saying there is a shortage of viewpoint diversity available to Americans because local news is owned by a couple megacorps?

There is no US media, only propaganda.

Read "The Gray Lady Winked" by Ashley Rindsberg.

Yeah, that’s weird. Also many local news sites around the world are effectively banned in EU because of lack of GDPR compliance. Messed up.

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