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| ▲ | bflesch a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Ivan from St. Petersburg calls himself "Heinz Müller" and creates a Telegram group that reports about immigrant crime in my neighborhood, trying to fool elderly citizens with lack of social media experience into believing his fake news stories. It's a proven approach and Ivan's main job. If Ivan would've been born in another country, he simply would've tried to scam elderly citizens, but because he was born in russia he works for the propaganda unit so he doesn't get sent to a meat assault on the frontlines. In his free time Ivan comes to HN and poses as a free speech absolutist. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > In his free time Ivan comes to HN and poses as a free speech absolutist. I am not an absolutist, far from it, and I'm pretty sad that you feel the need to resort to personal attacks, even if indirect. | |
| ▲ | nec4b a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is there also a progressive woke version of Ivan or is there always only a far right version of him? | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Well you see, <my side>'s swarm intelligence is organic and honest and people from <other side> are bots. Jokes aside, the Harris campaign openly manipulated Reddit to get their opinions on the top [1]. I was there on election night. The entire site slowed to a crawl. Opinions of people you normally never read gained hundreds to thousands of upvotes. It felt organic for exactly one day. [1]: https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/29/busted-the-inside-story... | | |
| ▲ | nec4b a day ago | parent [-] | | If the plan is to sow division, it would be really weird to always only try to play one side. If I was trying to stir division, I would make sure to play all sides for maximum effect. But apparently other commentators here think only one side is being played and its always the same one. |
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| ▲ | 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | lossolo a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | So you are basically arguing that it's hard to distinguish, therefore we shouldn't try. By that logic, we couldn't prosecute fraud because it's sometimes hard to distinguish from aggressive marketing, or couldn't have espionage laws because it's hard to distinguish from journalism. The distinction isn't about "valid" vs "invalid" opinions, as you framed it, it's just about authenticity and coordination. A Russian citizen genuinely expressing pro Kremlin views on their personal account is exercising speech. A state funded operation running hundreds of fake accounts pretending to be American citizens, artificially amplifying divisive content, is something different, it's basically a form of information warfare. And what I write here isn't theoretical, coordinated influence operations have inflamed ethnic tensions from the Balkans to Myanmar, not to mention Russian-Ukraininan conflict propaganda. These aren't just "opinions we disagree with", they're documented operations with measurable effects on real world violence. I mean this is a form of war, in which some countries want to destroy your society fabric for their advantage. Every democracy already makes this distinction in other domains. Foreign governments can't donate to political campaigns. Foreign agents must register when lobbying. Do you call them violations of free speech? They're just acknowledgments that coordinated foreign influence is fundamentally different from citizen discourse. The difficulty of drawing lines doesn't mean no lines exist. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | > So you are basically arguing that it's hard to distinguish, therefore we shouldn't try No, I said because it's hard to distinguish, therefore we can not use it as an excuse to enact censorship. > By that logic, we couldn't prosecute fraud Fraud is illegal. > couldn't have espionage laws Espionage is illegal. No matter what you do or what you write, enacting "desinformation laws" would require a ministry of truth to decide what is fact and what isn't, a task governments are famously incredibly bad at because they always have vested interests in not telling the truth. > A state funded operation running hundreds of fake accounts pretending to be American citizens, artificially amplifying divisive content, is something different, it's basically a form of information warfare And yet it is still speech and not distinguishable from genuine Russians sharing their opinions. It is easy to refute the opinions of many a people by discrediting them to be of the origin of a manufactured propaganda machine. Once you start doing this for foreign people, the next logical step is to continue this strategy for local activists or political opponents. > And what I write here isn't theoretical, coordinated influence operations have inflamed ethnic tensions from the Balkans to Myanmar, not to mention Russian-Ukraininan conflict propaganda. These aren't just "opinions we disagree with", they're documented operations with measurable effects on real world violence. I mean this is a form of war, in which some countries want to destroy your society fabric for their advantage I know this to be factual. I'm not denying it's existence at all. I'm making a point here. I don't want the government to hold these tools you propose. Any law enacted and every power given will not only be wielded by a government of parties you support, but also at one point by factions you disagree with entirely. | | |
| ▲ | jacquesm a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Guess what? Copyright violation is also illegal. You are all over this thread in god knows how many comments arguing about Germany and world wide censorship whereas this thread - and the fine - is about copyright and Italy. The second they use it for anything else I'll be happy to jump the line but until then they are - for once - using this law as it is intended and it doesn't really matter that there are other unrelated wrongs that you could commit using the same mechanism. | |
| ▲ | lovich a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You are jumping back and forth between moral arguments and legalistic arguments. If your defense for going after fraud and espionage is its illegal, are you fine if a country makes censorship legal? | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | No. My point is that real people are hurt by fraud and espionage and comparing outlawing those to outlawing speech is inane | | |
| ▲ | lovich a day ago | parent [-] | | I am hurt when I think I am hearing words from a fellow citizen that are their own opinion, when instead it is a foreign actor pushing a narrative for their state. I am all for free speech, but I am not for anonymous speech which is choking the internet. If I am in person speaking with you, I can be fairly certain that you aren't actually a completely different person underneath a rubber mask. I want to at least know that an account I am speaking to is a _person_ and not a robot, although Id probably want country of origin too. I do not have a good answer for how to achieve that without having a chilling effect on speech, but maybe that's a good thing? I go back and forth on if its better or not to require you to say who you are if you want to say something in public. In private, go hog wild. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I am hurt when I think I am hearing words from a fellow citizen that are their own opinion, when instead it is a foreign actor pushing a narrative for their state. No you are not. > I am all for free speech, but I am not for anonymous speech which is choking the internet Then you are not for free speech. Have you ever considered from your point of view that anonymity is incredibly valuable to people who live under an oppressive regime, like Iran or Russia? > I want to at least know that an account I am speaking to is a _person_ and not a robot, although Id probably want country of origin too. I too, want many things. That does not give me the right to unveil people who wish to be anonymous. It's pretty wild that this is an opinion on hacker news, of all sites. | | |
| ▲ | lovich 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > No you are not. If you are going to decide my values for me, then there is nothing left to discuss. |
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| ▲ | lossolo a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | The issue I have with your argument is that you're treating inaction as neutral. It isn't. Choosing not to act against coordinated foreign influence operations is itself a choice with consequences. If a hostile state can freely run thousands of fake accounts to inflame divisions, amplify extremism, and erode trust in institutions (and we deliberately tie our hands) then we're not preserving some pristine free speech environment. I mean we're ceding the information space to whoever is willing to manipulate it most aggressively. The "marketplace of ideas" doesn't function when one participant is a state apparatus with unlimited resources pretending to be thousands of organic voices.
Your slippery slope argument applies to laws we already have and accept. Lets take US as an example, the Foreign Agents Registration Act has existed since 1938. Foreign campaign contributions are illegal. These laws require distinguishing foreign influence from domestic speech. By your logic, these should have already devolved into tools of domestic political persecution. Have they? Imperfect enforcement, sure. But "the government of a faction I disagree with might someday abuse this" hasn't been a reason to repeal FARA. Another issue that I have with your argument is that you've identified risks of action but proposed nothing. What's your actual framework here? If coordinated foreign information warfare is real and harmful, and ongoing (which you acknowledge) what should democracies do? I mean if your answer is "nothing, because any tool could theoretically be abused" then you are not offering any policy, right? but basically you are arguing for resignation. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | > The issue I have with your argument is that you're treating inaction as neutral. The issue I have with your argument is that you're treating action as a necessary evil enacted by a well meaning government. It isn't. > I mean we're ceding the information space to whoever is willing to manipulate it most aggressively. I am well aware that this is a difficult thing to solve. What is it then, that you propose we do? > These laws require distinguishing foreign influence from domestic speech. By your logic, these should have already devolved into tools of domestic political persecution. Have they? Yes. YES. The FARA has sometimes been applied asymmetrically, especially against individuals or organizations connected to political opponents, lobbyists and think tanks. It is the perfect example for what I mean. The FARA is broadly defined and with a DOJ under an administration, it is prone to misuse. The DOJ under Trump considered to use it to charge Hunter Biden. The identification of "hostile agents" that you argue is necessary is exactly what I mean when I point to government misuse, as the Trump admin is currently using these exact laws to identify activists and nonprofits as domestic terrorists [1]. We have people in this thread decry the Trump administration for their actions and stances on selectively applying free speech while they at the same time argue for more government power even while it is being abused in this very moment. I am aghast at how this is happening. > Another issue that I have with your argument is that you've identified risks of action but proposed nothing. What's your actual framework here? If coordinated foreign information warfare is real and harmful, and ongoing (which you acknowledge) what should democracies do? Do what democracy's are already doing. Issue sanctions that hurt. A large amount of LNG and gas imports in Europe are still traceable to Russia. Invest into digital thinking and digital literacy. But that would require putting your money where your mouth is, instead of arguing for those sweet tools of citizen control. Germany spends below average on education and our pupils suffer. The same is true for US education. Sorry, but I won't argue for controlling a stupid populace when we fail at teaching at the same time. I will give you an example. The censorship tools already exist, at least in Germany, and they are justified and enacted by politicians that cite "studies" from NGOs like Amadeu Antonio, HateAid, Demokratie leben! or NETTZ. All organizations that receive massive funds from the govt that exist only to deliver "proof" and "reasons" for censorship because of "hate" and "misinformation". Of course, these studies [2] are then cited massively [3] by the media aparatus and ultimately the same politicians that paid to have this information produced [4]. Sometime after, the truth may be reveiled [5], the falsified data exposed, but the damage is done and laws are proposed [6] that enable the government to break and enter into journalist offices and media companies and shutting them down without a court order. All in the name of fighting misinformation and saving democracy. [1]: https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/how-nspm-7-seeks... [2]: https://hateaid.org/neue-studie-politisch-engagierte-und-dig... [3]: https://nachrichten.idw-online.de/2025/01/15/neue-studie-dig... [4]: https://taz.de/Justizministerin-Lambrecht-ueber-NetzDG/!5689... [5]: https://www.publicomag.com/2020/07/publico-dossierverfolgter... [6]: https://dserver.bundestag.de/brd/2025/0766-25.pdf | | |
| ▲ | lossolo a day ago | parent [-] | | Sanctions haven't stopped Russian influence operations, they've continued under the heaviest sanctions regime in history.
I agree that digital literacy is genuinely important, but lets not kid ourselves that we can suddenly make it work tomorrow, it's basically a generational project. Meanwhile, influence operations are happening now, at scale, with measurable effects. So what I mean is that "invest in education" approach is correct but insufficient as a response to an active, ongoing campaign. It's like responding to a house fire by saying we should invest in fire safety education. Your home will burn down while you do this. So I understand your point but you're essentially arguing that because democracies can abuse power, they should unilaterally disarm against adversaries who face no such constraints. Russia etc have no free speech concerns limiting their operations against us. Doing nothing will allow these adveraries to destroy our democracies from within.That is an endgame of your approach, and I just can't agree with this.
So doing nothing because our tools might be misused feels like it guarantees we lose. I think we can at least agree that the choice isn't only between "government ministry of truth" and "do nothing" and we need a middle ground solution. Transparency requirements (forcing platforms to label state affiliated accounts), requiring disclosure of foreign funding for political ads and influencers, holding platforms accountable for coordinated inauthentic behavior etc etc, these don't require the government to decide what's true. They require disclosure of who is speaking and who is paying. Think of the US influencers paid unknowingly by Russia, or the "patriotic" X accounts that turned out to be foreign run. Those are just the obvious cases already happening. This needs to stop or at least the public needs clear disclosure of funding and origin. We have homomorphic encryption now. Let's use it in a way that protects privacy but still helps flag foreign influence and helps distinguish between foreign speech and protected domestic speech. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | Ha! What sanctions? We are not sanctioning like we truly mean it. > So I understand your point but you're essentially arguing that because democracies can abuse power, No, my point is that because democracies are abusing power, right now, we should be against giving them more tools. The US democracy is in an active state of being dismantled because they have lots of shiny legal tools to do it. These very same beginnings can be seen in Europe too, when the EU tries again and again to pass privacy invading internet tracking laws. We are not in favour of Iran building nukes for "defense", and I would wager you won't defend their efforts in the face of critics when they say "hey, we're pretty sure they will abuse it" because it might not happen, even though abuse is clearly already happening. > Russia etc have no free speech concerns limiting their operations against us. Doing nothing will allow these adveraries to destroy our democracies from within If democracy is so weak that it needs to be protected from uncomfortable truths and the opinions of its people (read: opinions you or I may not share), then maybe it's not saveable. > I think we can at least agree that the choice isn't only between "government ministry of truth" and "do nothing" and we need a middle ground solution. Dead on. The only true weapon to combat misinformation is transparency. But transparency efforts are not what I'm seeing, and they are certainly not what Ursula von der Leyen means when she talks about the Digital Services Act. | | |
| ▲ | lossolo a day ago | parent [-] | | I don't think transparency alone will be enough. We may need to treat foreign speech differently from domestic speech (my last sentence from previous comment), with different protections (prioritizing domestic speech) because you simply cannot control the firehose of propaganda coming from the rest of the world. And don't get me wrong, this isn't about silencing foreign opinions. What I mean is we need to recognize that a citizen expressing a view and a state apparatus manufacturing thousands of fake citizens expressing that view are fundamentally different things, deserving different treatment. We already make this distinction in campaign finance, lobbying, broadcasting etc. So I think extending it to the information space isn't a radical departure, it's basically catching up to the modern world. I want to circle back to something, because I think there's an irony in your argument that's worth examining.
The administration you're worried about abusing power is itself a product of the influence operations. We have documented evidence (not speculation) of Russian operations boosting Trump's candidacy in 2016 and 2024. We have confirmed payments to influencers like Tim Pool and others through Tenet Media, amplification networks on social platforms, coordinated campaigns targeting swing state voters. The Mueller investigation, the Senate Intelligence Committee report, the recent DOJ indictments etc all showing the same thing. So when you say "look at how Trump is abusing power, this is why we shouldn't give governments these tools", I'd ask: how do you think he got there? The foreign influence you're arguing we should mostly tolerate helped install the government you're now citing as proof we can't trust government. You're using the consequences of the problem as an argument against addressing the problem. On your "if democracy can't survive this, maybe it's not saveable" point, I find this fatalistic in a way that doesn't match how you argue about everything else. You clearly do think democracy is worth protecting (that's why you're worried about government overreach, civil liberties etc) So I think yu're not a nihilist.
So why adopt an all or nothing frame specifically here? Democracies have always required defensive mechanisms. We have treason laws, foreign agent registration, campaign finance rules etc. So it wasn't about "pure openness vs. authoritarianism", but basically it always been about where to draw lines. Drawing them poorly is a risk. But as I said before refusing to draw them at all isn't principled neutrality, it's just losing by default. |
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