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I see extremely intense critiques of western political leaders 24/7. What planet do you live on?

The planet were "critiques of western political leaders" are increasingly stiffled, and governments and "independent" third parties and "fact checkers" (funded and working with said governments) dictate what's allowed to say and what's "disinformation".

Yet here you are, criticising them with absolutely 0 fear of any kind of repercussion, and you could be 100 times harsher and still expect nothing wrong happening

>Yet here you are, criticising them with absolutely 0 fear of any kind of repercussion, and you could be 100 times harsher and still expect nothing wrong happening

How benevolent! Zero fear as a person with insignificant reach and following, commenting on a tech forum (and under a nickname). What a feat!

Try having 0 fear as a journalist doing your job. Or as a whistleblower. Or as a content creator.

Even mere regular people expressing counter to the party line views in major issues on social media are fired, censored, harassed by the police, "fact checked" into social media bans, increasingly the target of new related laws (recent examples from UK, France), and so on.

Heck, just a couple of weeks ago students supporting Palestine in US universities were doxxed, threatened, and had a coordinated effort to render them "unhireable".

andsoitis 914 days ago

> Try having 0 fear as a journalist doing your job. Or as a whistleblower. Or as a content creator.

Journalists, whistleblowers, and content creators in the west are living in fear of governments targeting them for saying things the government doesn't like?

raxxorraxor 913 days ago

Yes, they do and Thierry Breton is on the frontline in this fight. He proposed legislation that would have endangered free journalism and protection of their sources aside from the fight for editorial control of social media. And he did that multiple times, every time to protect particular interests that fool people that have diffuse fears about social media.

I think you don't understand how china operates. You conflate so many things at once, most of these aren't governmental censorship. Companies firing people, advertiser dropping influencers, being fact checked, &c. has nothing to do with the government

Do you know what censorship is ? Do you know how china enforce censorship ? and at what scale ? If so you can't say in good faith that EU = China.

>I think you don't understand how china operates. You conflate so many things at once, most of these aren't governmental censorship.

A lot of these is outsourced governmental censorship.

And all of these support a single narrative, in lock-step about all kinds of issues.

>Companies firing people, advertiser dropping influencers, being fact checked, &c. has nothing to do with the government

Yeah, just happens to coincide with domestic and foreign policy agendas and narratives the government pushes, and government affiliated/sponsored overt or covert "fact checkers" and "independent bodies", all the way to direct orders from the government. Read on "The Twitter Files: The Censorship Industrial Complex".

The private sector companie don't have to be told what to do: they just see where the wind goes and act accordingly. Nobody was fired for being pro-narrative or for firing anti-narrative people. But increasingly they are also told what to do, threatened with related ("disinformation") or unrelated (taxes and such) violations, and such.

>Do you know what censorship is ? Do you know how china enforce censorship ? and at what scale ? If so you can't say in good faith that EU = China.

No, but I can say that I give very few fucks in what China does, but as a person in the EU I give many fucks what the EU does, and how the public discourse is getting increasingly less open than in past decades.

(I wouldn't give much fucks about what the US does internally either, but unfortunately, unlike China, they also export it)

hef19898 914 days ago

Oh, so we are back to litterally tens of thousands of people at non-approved demonstrations sayong they cannot voice opposition anymore as we had during Covid...

nindalf 914 days ago

I would not expect that level of self awareness from Tankies. Such people always existed, and always will. They claim living here is intolerable, and yet they never seem to go and live elsewhere.

Yes that’s “no different from China or Russia.” Notorious for putting out public statements in contradiction to other people’s statements!

Did I say "no different from China or Russia"? (1)

Or are you notorious for making it ad-hominem, and of putting statements in other people's mouths they didn't make?

Yes, I frequently hold opinions "in contradiction to other people’s statements" and state them. I wouldn't do it if I knew that such blatant individuality isn't approved!

Though surely "putting out public statements in contradiction to other people’s statements" is true for any non trivial statement one can make about a subject that has at least two sides: it would be in contradiction with some people's statements, and in agreement with other people's statements.

So, isn't your accusation basically boiling down to: "putting out public statements in contradiction to [your preferred people’s] statements"?

(1) And isn't that a pretty low bar to be happy about?

GP, who I replied to, did indeed say exactly that. I asked which planet they’re from and you hopped in to explain.

Yes, and I explained that we're in a planet were western free speech is increasingly stiffled by the governments and cooperating private sector.

If find it abhorrent, even if it passes the low bar of "not equal to China" (which I find irrelevant). Do you disagree with that?

Dalewyn 914 days ago

I'm not sure if you just didn't notice, but public and private gatherings were unilaterally outlawed just 2~3 years ago in the name of national emergencies.

The freedoms we enjoy here in the west are closer to erasure than you realize.

“Unilaterally” outlawed by elected governments who can be peacefully deposed, that is to say, not unilaterally at all.

It’s worth being paranoid about our freedoms, which is why I take issue with the characterization that we are just the same as China and Russia. We are neither as helpless nor as victimized as those people.

lbeltrame 914 days ago

> “Unilaterally” outlawed by elected governments who can be peacefully deposed, that is to say, not unilaterally at all.

Well... It took one signature on an administrative act and almost everyone in Italy, not in China, was under house arrest for 70 days with armed soldiers on the streets. No oversight, no checks and balances, no constitution, nothing. This warrants being very careful of any government activity.

And at some point someone even suggested to postpone elections.

But more on topic, the only reason the Commission is going gung-ho is because of the elections next year. They are very afraid.

Is your impression that democracies function by referendum on every major issue, especially during moments of crisis?

> And at some point someone even suggested to postpone elections.

I'm sorry someone suggested that.

> But more on topic, the only reason the Commission is going gung-ho is because of the elections next year They are very afraid.

Right, because they in fact don't have unilateral power.

lbeltrame 914 days ago

It is my impression that checks and balances, constitutions etc need to work exactly in times of crisis. If they only work when everything is all right, they are useless. Especially when it comes to freedom.

The fact that a government minister even wrote in a book (hastily taken off the market) that he hoped the situation would be used for "a new cultural hegemony" speaks volumes.

Didn't dictatorships always use justifications for threats or emergencies to be instated?

An emergency doesn't justify taking away fundamental freedoms. Hence, anything the EU does in this space, justified or not, must be scrutinized.

> You cannot deviate from the agenda without getting censored.`

The main difference is that the """agenda""" is a well lit 8 lane highway with the occasional crash in Europe and in Russia/China it's a dark twisty path in a very dense forest with wolves at each bends

But yes sure, Europe is literally a dictatorship, and thousands of people are sent to jail for criticising any arbitrary thing

bondarchuk 914 days ago

The ease of following censorship has no bearing on whether censorship is authoritatian or not.

Literally every single country on this planet has censorship one way or the other, some a bit, some a lot, what you're saying is that any censorship = China tier authoritarianism ?

bondarchuk 914 days ago

My point is that the important difference, i.e. the difference between autoritarianism and democracy, is how the agenda comes about, not what the agenda is at any specific moment. We would like to bring about a certain agenda through democratic means, and maintain (or change) it through democratic means, and for that it is important that the agenda and those implementing it (i.e. EU politicians in this case) can be criticized limitlessly.

Initially, when censorship is implemented but the agenda is still largely unchanged, it might look like there's not much of a problem since after all the actions actually undertaken by the government are still those that the majority of the population agrees with. But by that point it has already become a little more difficult to peacefully remove people from power, because they now have an extra tool to remain in power, namely censorship.

>what you're saying is that any censorship = China tier authoritarianism ?

I think where you are disagreeing with mustafa_pasi is that you are comparing the end results of authoritarianism after different amounts of time, whereas mustafa_pasi is comparing the methods of governance that lead to and maintain those end results. You are right that the situation on the ground is not as bad in Europe as it is in China or Russia, but (IMHO) mustafa_pasi is right that people who want to limit what can be said are "no better than the Russian and Chinese counterparts" in their disregard for democratic values and methods.

Where do you draw the line ? It sounds a lot like any kind of law would be censorship following that logic, any law enforcement is a road to authoritarianism if you think no failsafe exists between the two end of the spectrum

Should I be allowed to call for jihad online ? upload execution videos for propaganda ? can I create a blog to discuss ethnic cleansing with my armed nazi militia hometown association ? When does "fighting the agenda" become "being flooded in foreign agendas" ?

raxxorraxor 913 days ago

Yes, I want to see you calling for Jihad. The fact that many people actually do call for that was tried be hidden from the public by officials that like to either pronounce or belittle problems in society, the normal political arena. To be able to make a democratic and informed decision, I have to see people doing that to be able to have a perspective on a problem.

There is a political will to deny these facts and you only have to be marginally creative to find the causes yourself. To put trust in the EU here is completely naive.

Nathanba 914 days ago

Pretty easy to see how the EU is simply legislating whatever is comfortable for its leaders instead of what is right: https://www.dw.com/en/calling-prophet-muhammad-a-pedophile-d...

dragonelite 914 days ago

Exactly what the EU wants you to believe..

dfgfek 914 days ago

The fact that things are better in Europe than in Russia or China does not mean that we can't show concern for the changes that are being imposed in Europe.

I don't know why people keep bringing up Russia or China in every one of these conversations. It's nothing but a strawman fallacy.

Because GP said this:

> They are no better than the Russian and Chinese counterparts after all

Correct, we should be protective of our freedoms and indeed the EU (IMO) is a bit lacking in its speech protections, but no one except China and Russia are served by this meme that US/EU are just as bad as China and Russia.

raxxorraxor 913 days ago

Because without Russia and China to point a finger at, the arguments are just bad.

Dalewyn 914 days ago

At least China and Russia are honest about their censorship.

batter 914 days ago

qsdf38100 914 days ago

You can criticize the eu, but pretending everything is at the same level is either ignorance or bad faith.