| > 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. |