Clear case of "motive justifies the means". I think in a free democracy, no one should block any propaganda, as it the responsibility of the individual to asses what to read and what not. In a democracy, it is more dangerous to censor and justify the means with motive - this opens the door to unjust censorship.

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mnw21cam 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

The best counter-argument I can provide to your wonderful ideal is that people are stupid, and they are vulnerable to being manipulated into believing dangerous peace-disrupting falsehoods by propaganda.

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littlecranky67 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Spinning your thoughts further, you assume that stupidity is not some kind of freedom that you get to enjoy in a democracy. The opposite is true, people are free to be stupid, and if the majority is stupid, the smart people have to give in to the fact that stupid people make the rules (by voting).

The whole idea of supressing stupidity in a democracy leads to some sort of elitist society.

	▲	Barrin92 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		>The whole idea of supressing stupidity in a democracy leads to some sort of elitist society. there's nothing wrong with this. Stable democracies tend to be republican and elitist. One of the reasons why the US has been, until recently, an exceptionally stable country was because decision making was largely insulated from the whims of the public. Democracy properly understood is best used as a tool for legitimacy and as a check against the worst abuses of power, not actually as a tool for decision making. Having the inmates run the asylum is generally a bad idea, we've known this since Plato.

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moron4hire 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If the people are too stupid to discern propaganda from truth, then they are too stupid to vote.

	▲	jdiff 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Nobody is immune to propaganda. Thinking you are paradoxically makes you more susceptible.

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morkalork 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What if at the end of the day, that propaganda does work and leaving it unopposed is as much a danger to democracy as censorship? It seems like a scenario where you have to pick your poison now, the last 100 years have shown populations can be manipulated.

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rvnx 4 days ago | parent [-]

Democracy is sneaky refined domination, subtle enough that masses do not see through it, but it is elites controlling the masses.

At the end, this political system is about supporting current power who settled by force (and to whom you have to pay a tax to not be sent into physical jail, and all your belongings taken).

Remember that at the beginning, these nice people are actually people who killed to be in place, and collected a lot of power and money, and that are now defending their position.

Kingdoms, then Dictatorship were too unstable, and this gave birth to Democracy, still with the same elites.

In some way, it is a softer continuation of conquest-coercion dressed as consent.

The newest generations use propaganda to settle; the approach changes, but the goal is ultimately the same.

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imcritic 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

That description fits any authority, not just democratic. The state is an apparatus of coercion. Always was, always will be.

	▲	rvnx 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Sadly yes. Even original Greek democracy was completely broken (women couldn't vote for example, like in many countries even recently). There is a saying: if voting would change things, it is long time that it would have been forbidden

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6LLvveMx2koXfwn 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What would you propose instead of democracy?

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DoctorOW 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Clear case of "motive justifies the means".

Except, in the case of RT, it was not justified in an abstract way at all. Consistently "reporting" on stories counter-indicated by all available evidence.

To put it another way, if a judge can imprison a murderer for life as justified by the motive of reducing murders, what's stopping them from imprisoning everyone with no justification at all? Well, in practice the evidence required is quite a hurdle to this.

If you're not arguing that RT is innocent of what it has been accused, then you're arguing against the concept of punitive action outright.

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vintermann 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

It used to be common sense among non-authoritarians, that propaganda just becomes more potent from suppression.

Plenty of people have never seen moon hoax theorists' propaganda. They imagine if they see it, they'll quickly see through it for its absurdity. But they're often wrong. Moon hoax theorist's propaganda is actually much better than you think. They can point out lots of "inconsistencies", which do have an explanation, but aren't immediately obvious at all. You see they have experience meeting people like you, but you don't have experience meeting people like them.

I used moon hoaxers as an example because their sophisticated propaganda actually have been exposed and explained a few times, although it still isn't common knowledge why e.g. it seems the exact same rock is right behind an astronaut in two different photos. But that isn't nearly as true for suppressed ideologies. You haven't heard their arguments.

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DoctorOW 4 days ago | parent [-]

Your example of moon landing theories isn't an apt comparison because you're picking a fringe group. RT already had millions of international followers on Facebook, YouTube, etc., often more than high quality journalism outlets. I've been online long enough to see RT showing up uninvited in my feeds before.

Consider the cost of the sites I listed. Literally, how do you pay these companies? With the monetization of your attention, first and foremost. Good journalism costs money to produce, leaving good journalists unable to be the highest bidder.

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vintermann 4 days ago | parent [-]

Point is, you should be glad the attempt at censoring RT fails pretty bad.

If it had been more effective, more people would become very impressed the first time they came across a new to them, consistent (more or less!) narrative universe in which the bad guys are the good guys. Not only that, but their narrative incorporates a bunch of entirely true, verifiable damning truths about "our" side.

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DoctorOW 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Verifiable damning truths about "our" side

I don't have a side in terms of a political entity or official, I'm defending evidence-based action. I genuinely think my life is better because I don't have to defend anyone uncritically, but you're welcome to try and change my mind I guess lol

	▲	vintermann 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		"Our" side in that particular context obviously means NATO, the US, the five eyes countries, the west etc. Take your pick. And yes, I think you have a side, and I think these groups' foreign policies are 1. Very far from being simply "evidence based" and 2. Not in any meaningful sense under democratic control. Have you ever wondered why so many people actually turn up to vote for Putin in Russia, even though they don't really influence anything by doing so? I think they have simply decided that it's easier to want what they can have. Learn to like the taste of the only course that's on the menu. And I also think that attitude is very common in the western world.

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zahlman 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Consistently "reporting" on stories counter-indicated by all available evidence.... If you're not arguing that RT is innocent of what it has been accused

Can you give a concrete example? (Somehow I cannot recall ever seeing one proactively volunteered, in years of people denigrating RT on the Internet.)

	▲	DoctorOW 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, they reported that Jewish individuals had to flee Ukraine due to a Nazi takeover and a supposed ongoing genocide. There's no evidence of the fleeing or the genocide happening. This was one of the false narratives cited in the EU court's ruling. > Somehow I cannot recall ever seeing one proactively volunteered I err on the side of brevity, not seeing a claim that RT's removal was unjust in the comment I was responding to, I felt no need to justify it myself.