[cies]

After rt.com et al were blocked in the EU they also kept working for a few more week/months before I had to use a mirror/VPN to read the new paper of "the enemy".

Side note: I though being able to read the news of the enemy was testimony to the moral high ground of a "modern free and democratic society". No more moral high ground if you are trying to shape the perception of the public with censorship.

[benja123]

I personally don't support blocking Al Jazeera. It's not that I'm a fan of them or any news station operated under a dictatorship without free press. It's clear that Al Jazeera acts as the propaganda wing of the Qatari government, and Qatar, being one of the main sponsors of Hamas, uses it to effectively spread Hamas propaganda. However, the real question is what does blocking them achieve. Does it stop their influence? No. Does it make them harder to watch here? No. Are the people advocating for their blockage even watching it? Likely not. It's mostly done because it's something the government can claim to have achieved for what remains of their base. I'm skeptical that the blocking of the website will actually occur, as it will probably be challenged in court.

Regardless, in a democracy, internet censorship is a slippery slope, and for that reason, I am against it in most cases.

[misja111]

The sponsoring of Hamas by Qatar has happened with approval from Netanyahu. Until October 7th of course. And the reason that Hamas headquarters are in Doha, is because the US government requested that in 2011.

See e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-fu...

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_support_for_Hamas

[benja123]

I'm not going to defend Bibi and his government. They have made and continue to make many decisions I disagree with. Like the vast majority of Israelis, I think we should go to elections sooner rather than later.

However, this does not change the fact that now there is an active war between Hamas and Israel most Israelis dislike Al Jazeera because they perceive to be part of the propaganda wing of Hamas with Qatar's support.

[brnt]

> Does it make them harder to watch here? No.

Of course it does? Most people are not going to go out of their way for it unless they have specific reasons to do so. What's on/available by default matters. (Ask any UX specialist.)

[benja123]

I should know better, my wife is a UX specialist! You make a good point. What I should have said is that it won’t stop people who really want to watch it.

[brnt]

But then that isn't the goal: totally preventing you from ever seeing Al Jazeera or somesuch. As you noted: that'd be curtailment of freedoms only befitting dictatorships. Nobody wants that.

Making it slightly more difficult to consume outright propaganda by not having it front and center; that seems to me to be a very much acceptable move for democratic and free states to make in the context of information warfare.

[DiogenesKynikos]

The Qatari government has been hosting Hamas at the request of the United States and Israel, which want to use Qatar as an intermediary (similarly to how Qatar facilitated talks between the US and the Taliban).

Al Jazeera has more journalists on the ground in Gaza than anyone else. They're some of the only independent media there (because Israel has blocked international media from entering, but Al Jazeera already has people there). If you want to know what's going on in Gaza, you watch Al Jazeera.

[trimethylpurine]

Do you believe that in a society where money is required to make an advertisement, an alternative path to advertising should be violence?

I wouldn't call that a moral high ground.

[raxxorraxor]

It usually is, but more neurotic elements in western governments often tend to not give much on values at all.

[Ma8ee]

Why the scare quotes you put around “the enemy“?

[lozenge]

The state's enemy isn't my enemy. Consider the case of Edward Snowden. Journalism is still valuable even if you disagree with the person's motives or aims.

[Ma8ee]

No, but Russia is my enemy, and should be the enemy of everyone who cares about a liberal world order based on law, not might.

And in the case of RT, they had left even the pretence of journalism a long time ago. But I agree with those that say we should not have banned them. When we try to defend our liberal world order with censorship, we are certainly throwing out the baby with the bath water.

[graemep]

> When we try to defend our liberal world order with censorship, we are certainly throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I agree with that - freedom of speech is one of the few things I think worth fighting for. We cannot fight for it while rejecting it.

[ethbr1]

Freedom of speech is a grey area, though.

How long has it been since all had equal access to speech? The mostly-literate + printing press era?

Do we still have free speech if I can turn an algorithmic knob that causes 10% fewer people to see your opinion than those arguing against you?

[aftbit]

There has never been a situation where all had more equal access to speech than today. Printing presses were expensive and complicated machines, and distributing handbills was far slower and riskier than tweeting.

Today, anyone can make a website. If they say enough interesting things, they'll get eyeballs. Even if those things are false, and even if the algorithms of the walled gardens want to suppress them, they'll still get out.

[cies]

Glad you come to that conclusion.

> And in the case of RT, they had left even the pretence of journalism a long time ago.

What is RT doing that is not found in FOX, NBC, CNews.fr, Hayom?

> liberal world order based on law, not might.

This is a facade. The talking point the NATO/US/west uses, while they violate every such rule when they see fit. You may be interested in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer

[Ma8ee]

This is exactly one of the Russian talking points. "You see, we might have invaded a few neighbour countries with the intention of annexing the territories, but look at NATO, they are equally bad because they invaded Iraq." (NATO didn't invade Iraq, the US did with the help of UK, Poland, and Australia)

I can't take someone (like Mearsheimer) who warns that Germany again is likely to try to invade Europe even a little bit serious. He clearly knows nothing about contemporary German politics, culture, or how well they are doing manufacturing and trading.

[mistermann]

> but look at NATO, they are equally bad because they invaded Iraq." (NATO didn't invade Iraq, the US did with the help of UK, Poland, and Australia)

Where did you get the "are equally bad" part from?

> He clearly...

"Clearly", eh? Well, let's wait to see how you do with the question.

[cies]

> This is exactly one of the Russian talking points.

Calling something a "Russian talking point" does not make it less true. Russia would not have invaded if (combination of factors): Ukraine did not have ethnic Russians that were being oppressed (see the Odessa union house massacre), Ukraine did not want to go NATO, Ukraine was not a safe haven of anti-Russia fascists (see the enormous statue for Bandera in Lvov -- bizarre how that's allowed in an "EU ally"). Minks agreements were "just to give Ukraine time to build military" said Merkel (a guarantor of the agreement). Russia was cheated by the west, and behaves accordingly, if you ask me.

> who warns that Germany again is likely to try to invade Europe

Lol. Where did he say that?

[ethbr1]

> What is RT doing that is not found in FOX, NBC, CNews.fr, Hayom?

Monopolizing discourse.

How many independent news channels are there inside Russia today?

[throwawayqqq11]

Because it is a pejorative generalization. Some people are susceptible to labels like "the migrants" and short circuit their reasoning when confronted with eg. articles from RT or aljazeera "must be fictious enemy propanda".

[cies]

because they not my enemy. they dont threaten me. imho NATO threatens them by trying to extend into ukraine/georgia and making color revolutions on their borders.

[Ma8ee]

They are my enemy. I’m living in a country with borders less than 300 km from Russia.

NATO wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for Russia. The only reason Russia’s neighbours strive to join NATO is because Russia’s habit of invading them when they don’t behave exactly as Russia wants them too.

[hnbad]

> I though being able to read the news of the enemy was testimony to the moral high ground of a "modern free and democratic society".

Sure, if you believe your own (or more accurately: most liberal democracies') propaganda. But it really depends on how invested that enemy is in convincing your citizens to side with it. It turns out that "freedom of speech" ultimately is a losing strategy against an enemy that's excellent at abusing speech (which is another way of saying they have a good understanding of psychology, rhetorics and deception).

The successful way to engage with propaganda is not to let it sit alongside reality[0] but to contextualize it with reality. A widely known example in US news coverage for the former is showing "both sides of the debate" on issues like global warming or evolution: merely giving it an equal weight gives it equal presence in public perception and legitimizes it. Contextualizing means being explicit about which side you agree with and explaining why the given argument by the other side is wrong.

Of course the problem with effective propaganda is that it's not simply misinformation which can be contrasted and dissected easily but disinformation that not only shields itself against analysis but actively disrupts any attempt at analysis. Russian propaganda legitimizing the invasion of Ukraine for example (and this isn't new, this is literally a continuation of Soviet Union psychological warfare) used multiple mutually contradictory conflicting narratives which effectively drown out any other narrative by not only giving a manufactured alternative equal weight but giving equal weight to multiple alternatives, like a DDoS attack on information.

[0]: Of course we can debate what "reality" means but no matter the overarching narrative or the individual justifications, it's nearly impossible to avoid agreeing on things like "Russia sent ground troops in the direction of Kyiv within Ukranian borders" even if you might have different explanations of why that happened or what the intention behind that was or whether it constitutes a military attack.

Of course the irony is that in this case the side most heavily relying on disinformation seems to be Israel given its various contradictory official claims on social media. But arguably their application of it is nowhere near as effective. It's also worth mentioning that not only did the EU kick out Russian state-owned media but Russian television is also heavily censored and legal access to foreign news sources very limited. So the answer to "Who's engaging in censorship?" in this case seems to be "Everyone, to varying degrees". That implies this has never been a meaningful moral distinction, no matter what bleeding heart liberals and free speech libertarians may claim.

[aftbit]

A lie flies while the truth only crawls. Or maybe, a lie rides on horseback while the truth walks.