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Glenn Greenwald has written up a good Twitter thread on the EU's proposed new draconian censorship laws. The pretext is that Slovakia's recent election resulted in a guy who has promised to end all Ukraine aid to end up winning it. This is all apparently due to "misinformation". Clearly when the voters have the wrong viewpoints, they must be treated with extra doses of correct thinking and anyone who deviates from it should summarily be punished. The law itself moves the onus onto the social media companies.
So if you think the era of censorship is over, think again. It's not just the EU. The Canadian parliament is also preparing something similar.
The most banal observation is that a system that is confident in its own survival does not need repression. The obvious implication is that the people running the system are not confident in their grip on power and in Europe in particular the big structural trend will be ever-increasing illegal migration once the Ukraine war passes. I suspect this censorship law will be used vigorously to deplatform anyone critical of the loose border policies the EU is promoting.
It's funny because we've long read about people in repressive societies like Iran, Turkey or China using VPN services to get around censorship by the regime. Might we get something similar in Europe in the not-too-distant future? I should add that I am not too pessimistic. People have tasted (relative) freedom and will not go back to the old regime. The rise of alternatives like Rumble is directly linked to increasing political repression on YouTube. Even outright totalitarian systems like the Soviet Union did not succeed in brainwashing their population. I've always felt that Aldous Huxley's dystopian vision of cheap entertainment to distract the masses was a better analogy to the Western elite's preferred methods of control over the more stereotypical 1984 vision that Orwell laid out. But clearly there are limits to how much you can distract people and now the gloves are coming off.
Was anyone seriously thinking this?
We've had some people calling "Peak Woke", I was once linked some vaguely pro free speech statement by some university as evidence for a supposedly turning tide, etc.
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Huh that stuff is in the past now. Social media companies operating in Turkey has to have Turkish offices now and they are liable for fines if they don't comply with government orders on removing content. VPN is not going to save you if the website itself is removing the content.
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As a resident Slovak here I can say that as usual there is conflation of true and false statements in there. As a quick rundown, the current election followed years of political instability of Slovak government that I think was led by genuinely mentally ill person in form of former prime minister. The period was marked by chaos and incompetence, paradoxically the last year we basically had so called "bureaucratic government" that had limited powers but provided more stability all around. As a result the parties that participated in that government fell precipitously and 4 out of 7 parties now in parliament were extraparliamentary or even nonexistent during last election - we are talking about 81 out of 150 seats belonging to these parties.
Nevertheless the election revolved around the person of Robert Fico, who is seen as Orban-like person except he is more malleable in his views and he changed his rhetoric several times in order to gather more votes. On the other side of the isle there was a lot of drama, we have a progressive party literally called Progressive Slovakia (PS) who ended up second in the election. This is the darling of the media, they are pushing the usual CW stuff one would expect, they literally have part of the program called "Equity" where they push for things like free contraception in pharmacies including for teenagers, trans identity (including government IDs) based on self-determination without any medical paper and so forth. They also have a lot of activists including people from Greenpeace in their party and so forth.
Now a lot of the "disinformation" claims revolved around tone policing and language policing of these facts. It is the usual stuff one saw for years everywhere, where you pick the most uncharitable argument against PS policies and at the same time take the most Motte-type reading of their proposition and explain how opponents only spread disinformation as PS only wants human rights or whatever. Of course the same benefit of doubt is not afforded to the other side: one of the most discussed moments of the campaign was when the chairman of Christian Democratic Party was asked what is worse in his eyes: LGBT or corruption. And he answered that "both are scourge" later in the same interview explaining that he meant not LGBT people but "LGBT ideology". Of course all respected newspapers and media selected that one sentence and claimed that he is homophobe who spreads hate against gays (no peep on T part of LGBT of course, people in Slovakia are not generally that keen on trans stuff). On rare occasions where the other part of the question was cited (about LGBT ideology) it was explained that "LGBT ideology does not exist" and it has to be hate against Gays and Lesbians. So again, you can literally insert into mouth of what somebody else is saying by defining words he says in your way. And this misinformation is claimed as protecting against misinformation.
Now also to be frank, there was a lot of very nasty parts of the campaign. There were private messages of politicians openly talked about by former prime minister where he claimed he got it from "somebody he will not name". You had open war where mistresses of other politicians also shared his private messages and it probably caused him to lose (I think deservedly). There were outright usual hoaxes on social media how this party wants to lower pensions etc. But in general the hardcore "disinformation sphere" represented by pro-Putin social media celebrities as represented by the party "Republic" failed, they had sub 5% result which put them outside of parliament despite having more than 10% in many of pre-election polls. The party of former prime minister now also faces accusation of buying votes from poor Villages as they have 90%+ results in places that are basically racially segregated Roma people. That one I think carries a lot of water, there is a practice where you can take votes of other parties except for party you are supposed to throw in and sell them for cash, it happened in the past in some of the places. But again this fraud is tied not to Fico but to his most vocal opponent, so there is that.
Anyway, long story short I think this is now a regular thing to accuse opponent of doing something you yourself are doing - using misinformation to accuse somebody of doing misinformation and then fighting against this percieved threat. If the other side reacts in some stupid way (e.g. saying that LGBT is scourge) then this is perfect, you can now say that you are only reacting and defending when going full force.
As I understand it, the recently concluded €50 billion aid package for Ukraine that was voted through the EU parliament needs unanimous consent from all governments and the election of someone like Fico obviously raises the specter of that aid package either not being approved or at least watered down significantly. It is no secret that many larger EU countries (e.g. Germany) want to change this rule of unanimous consent into a qualified majority, which would allow them to steamroll smaller countries like Slovakia.
Until that changes, however, the voice of the smallest countries still matter greatly which is why whoever controls the governments of those countries in turn also matters. Hence the censorship law, which would help put the thumbs on the scale.
It is a little bit more complicated. While Robert Fico won the election, his party got 42 seats. Together with Slovak National Party (SNS) who is also pro-Putin and "anti-war" who got 10 seats he only got 52 seats. He requires at least 76 seats but more realistically 80+ in order for his government to be stable. The issue with SNS party is that there is only one person who actually is a member of the party, the rest were internet celebrities who got enough personal votes to get into parliament. It is hard to see how SNS will be unified platform with so many idiosyncratic people in there to put it mildly.
Nevertheless Fico needs another party into the government, the Hlas party created in 2020 by former Smer (Fico's party) member, one Peter Pellegrini. Despite his party only having 27 seats, Pellegrini is now the kingmaker between Fico and anti-Fico bloc led by Progressive Slovakia. Pellegrini now positioned himself as he is in the middle of this conflict, playing potentially for both sides. However he is not only kingmaker, he requires that he himself will be prime minister despite his party having third largest number of seats. And the thing is, that Pellegrini wants to be viewed as a "standard politician" not pro-Putin but also not pro LGBT in order to keep his image. So I doubt that any government with him in it (which is basically 99% chance at this point) will change the stance too much.
Also just as an afterthought, I have to rant a little bit. Fuck Ukrainian government for their immense stupidity - and I am talking as somebody who supports the Ukrainians financially and who is not squeamish to buy guns by my personal donations. Literally days before the election in both Slovakia and Poland, Ukrainians decided that it is a good time to sue both countries for agricultural export/import issue. Of course this was picked up by all anti-Ukrainian parties where now they were the protectors of small farmers against Ukrainians and so forth. What a misstep - the glorification of the literal SS-man in Canada was also played on social media. So what I am saying is that there was no need for disinformation, all that was needed was for people to put together real compilations of how Ukrainians mean harm to Slovakia and how members of PS want to trans your kids and so forth. Who needs disinformation if information is damning enough.
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No, it isn't - the actual reason they're doing this is much dumber, and something that all parties have promoted for years.
Canadian media is required to have a certain level of exposure to Canadian content, lest we become fully Americanized. That's why the Classic Rock stations in Windsor plays way more Rush than the station in Detroit.
I agree that it is stupid for a government bureaucrat to say to your podcast network "Why aren't you doing any true crime stories aboot Toronto murders eh?", but I do not believe it is "censorship", nor does it have anything to do with "disinformation".
Americans cannot fathom this, because it's extremely silly, and nobody would ever have to make an American radio station play The Eagles - Americans come with patriotism pre-installed.
Hah, American patriotism is actually at an all-time low from what I've read. Then again, most of the world culture is basically just recycled American culture so we don't need to worry. It's good to be on top.
Stop raiding the rest of the world for Netflix adaptions then.
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The strangest thing to me in that thread is how they talk about "misinformation" like it it's a virus that can be prevented, treated, or even eradicated instead people just disagreeing with them.
Though one may disagree with antipsychiatry as a movement, Szasz's conception of the therapeutic state perfectly describes the operation and justification of modern managerial institutions fighting misinformation, COVID, climate change and any and all other manifestations of the devil.
Ty for the link! I've been grasping towards a similar theory myself, exciting to see it laid out so clearly over 60 years ago. Medicalism and Safetyism, to me, are the hidden levers by which the progressive movement has gained so much power. Especially when it comes to pushing rhetoric in one on one, informal conversations. It's extremely difficult to argue with someone who is convinced that you are mentally ill for your stated positions.
Kind of like those shows where a healthy person is put in a mental institution. No matter what you say, it doesn't matter. You're stuck in the category with no way out.
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Try the past and the present. If you're an activist for, among other things, curtailing immigration, you are very explicitly persecuted and hiding your identity online can help you keep a job, a normal life, and the right to travel. And if you're actually a racist you should do so to protect yourself from fines, imprisonment and violence from activists of the other side.
Don't get me wrong, this is quite different from straight up being disappeared and/or executed if you involve yourself with politics outside of the one allowed party, but this is a difference in tactics, not in goal or intensity. I've seen heretics bullied to misery and suicide on our own enlightened continent.
My growing cynicism has been floating the proposition that it was always so, that dissidents were always silenced, but memories of the 90s and actual evidence of how open and unafraid people were to speak their minds and have even deeply heterodox beliefs openly in those days make me reject it.
I do think you're right that there's a trend. You used to get ignored, scoffed at and mocked. Now there is an increasing move toward hard managerialism and actively destroying the lives of dissidents.
As I've discussed here previously with our resident blackpillers, I see this as a good sign, because it is a sign of weakness. Whilst they see this as a bad sign, because it is a sign that the regime no longer has to care about appearances. You be the judge. But I don't recommend staying in the EU if freedom is your most core value.
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I actually agree with them that this is “misinformation”.
And the war goals have been closer to this https://twitter.com/thestudyofwar/status/1708897470158160151?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
But the powers that be are going in a direction far worse with censorship. Yes the regime is not secure. I don’t understand Europes immigration policies at all. The regime has a lot of bad policy.
“Misinformation” can mean anything. Sometimes the regime is in a position that I believe is correct Sbf sometimes wrong but disagreeing is always misinformation.
Could you please spend more time writing your posts? I have no idea what this sentence means or who you're referring to, and your incredibly frequent comments are full of basic grammar errors and typos that waste the time of people trying to interact with you. What does Sam Bankman Fried have to do with any of this?
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The problem with the current discussion around “misinformation” is that it explicitly couches disagreement with the narrative as misinformation. Even if Putin wants a peace deal, it doesn’t follow that anyone who comes to a similar conclusion is falling for misinformation. In most contexts as it’s actually used, it’s much more accurate to replace misinformation with crime-think as it’s basically come to mean nothing more or less than disagreement with the regime.
There are plenty of good reasons to be reluctant to back Ukraine. The war is effectively at stalemate, there aren’t any large swathes of territory changing hands. Putin might well consider nukes if he’s backed into a corner or fears losing power. There the cost involved and that money not being available to cover all kinds of pressing domestic problems (and the resulting loss of social trust may be just as bad if not worse. Consider how residents of Maui feel about watching billions lavished on Ukraine and getting little help themselves). There’s Taiwan as well, which is, at least to me a much bigger strategic issue because of chip manufacturing that they do and no one else does.
There are reasons to stay. But to me, suggesting that only those who have fallen for misinformation have issues with continuing blank check support for Ukraine is really not an argument as the internet says. It’s simply a smear against any dissidents who aren’t toeing the line and happily munching chicken Kyiv.
In this case I think misinformation is appropriately used though it’s tough. Because I don’t see any offer of a peace deal. If there was evidence that you could do a ceasefire at todays lines then it would not be misinformation. Sure the war is at a stalemate but where is the evidence that if Ukraine quit fighting Russia would agree to quit fighting (along with a Korea style border). None.
If you said allow Russia the whole of Ukraine and take peace that would be accurate information and an honest opinion.
The one thing I’ve been thinking about is Europe should be footing nearly the full bill for this war. It really isn’t Americas job to protect Europe at least as the first line of defense. Germany and France should be paying full freight.
Maybe America should have thought of that before building NATO, an alliance that explicitly commits the United States to protect European nations.
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I think it's a bit easy to say there's no evidence negotiation would work when it's not really been attempted at all.
Maybe Putin just thinks he can outlast Ukrainian manpower and wouldn't bite now but it's hard to say when the best offer he's been given is to give back everything Crimea included.
Nobody has been seriously talking about peace since Minsk and as the Germans blabbered even that wasn't really serious.
Has Putin made an offer? Your giving no agency to him.
The defending side literally doesn’t have agency to end the war. Only the invader can offer peace.
There were reports of peace talks that were close shortly after hostilities began but it was reported that Boris Johnson quashed it.
Also defending side clearly has agency. They can sue for peace but it may not be on terms they like.
In the early stages of the war, Putin wasn't interested in negotiating with Ukraine - he said that Ukraine was a NATO puppet and that he wanted to negotiate with the organ grinder rather than the monkey.
Putin's eve-of-war demands were not even within Ukraine's control to give - they were a commitment from NATO never to admit Ukraine, and a withdrawal of NATO troops from Eastern Europe.
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I don't disagree with you there. Though we're not privy to all details of course.
I believe he floated a DMZ solution before the counteroffensive, but that's certainly too vague to count.
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