It’s great to see not only this ruling but balanced reporting on it from NYT. I’m optimistic that the turn towards accepting tyranny is finally ending.
The opinion NYT is reporting on is clear that the censorship in question went beyond Covid: "Their content touched on a host of divisive topics like the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side-effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story" ... "Individual Plaintiffs seek to express views—and have been censored for their
views—on topics well beyond COVID-19, including allegations of election fraud and the Hunter Biden laptop story."
Yet the NYT only mentions covid and the discourse on HN-- which at the moment is substantially making excuses for the administration on the basis of "but covid!"-- is worse off for it.
I’m reading it a bit differently. Yes the censorship of political speech related to political figures is bad but we’re coming out of a period where much more fundamental rights were violated due to a slightly stronger than usual respiratory virus. The seriousness of the covid reaction is an order of magnitude greater than any alleged biden corruption. Until people are ready to reevaluate what happened, we’re still in danger of a return of extreme restrictions - since there are plenty of other things that have high death rates such as cars, drugs, and obesity.
To be fair saying "there was election fraud" is disinformation at this point, we very carefully checked and the only real problems were people following Trump's advice and voting multiple times for him (on extremely small scales that didn't matter for the overall election so not material)
There is nuance in the laptop story. There were things said that were objectively disinformation so if those things were targeted it could make sense.
Now the White House ideally would have kept and arms length to put forward a "not protecting my own" attitude but there is a wide gap between ideally and illegal coercion.
The misinformation/talking-points ideology is bipartisan norm for Russia and China discourse. There are numerous articles and studies now claiming to measure disinformation purely based on alignment: rough alignment with “enemy” = dis/misinformation, with no justification or discussion.
The NYTimes ran one such article about a week ago on China. The “fact checking” done by orgs like VoxUkraine amounts to similar alignment tests as well. You would think the results showing widespread wrongthink by your own population would be an indication of disagreement rather than a disinformation campaign working on a citizenry already justifiably motivated against Russia: https://voxukraine.org/en/the-ability-of-ukrainians-to-disti...
> Research Results
> Overall, the majority of respondents, both in Ukraine and abroad, agreed with pro-Ukrainian messages and disagreed with pro-Russian ones. This indicates a general tendency of the population to distinguish Russian propaganda narratives. However, when analyzing each narrative separately, the following concerning signals were noticeable:
> 43% of respondents in Ukraine and 36% abroad disagreed with the statement “Nazi and/or neo-Nazi ideology is not widespread in Ukraine”;
> 29% of respondents in Ukraine and 35% abroad disagreed with the statement “The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2013-2014 was NOT a coup”;
> 26% of respondents in Ukraine and 29% abroad agreed with the statement “Russia is fighting against the West/NATO in Ukraine”;
> 25% of respondents in Ukraine and 29% abroad agreed with the statement “The West is using Ukraine for its own purposes in the war against Russia”;
> 32% of respondents abroad agreed with the statement “Russian speakers are oppressed in Ukraine”.
This is all to say that I think your optimism is misplaced.
> There are numerous articles and studies now claiming to measure disinformation purely based on alignment
You are phrasing this as "being on Russia's side means you believe the propaganda" as if that somehow turns it into not a disinformation campaign.
How can something be disinformation in that mindset? You eliminated the category completely.
You phrase as if it is a marginal thing showing their bias is showing at the top, but then go to list the most egregious examples of disinformation as evidence... I mean at least your last three aren't explicitly false, so not all disinformation.
Disinformation is about false statements.
Neo-Nazi ideology being in Ukraine hasn't been meaningfully backed up by Russia nor is their any international precedent for such a thing being a justification for invasion. Remember the Nazis invaded first.
Revolution of Dignity was a coup by definition. If Hong Kong declared it was independent of China it would be a coup. It doesn't matter your feelings on the treaty saying it would be X years before control was taken or anything of that nature. Unilaterally leaving a parent entity is the meaning of coup.
Proxy wars are weird so your next two questions are odd. There is ambiguity in the question. Is the West using Ukraine to reduce Russia's power acting as a sort of proxy war? Certainly but since Ukraine is objectively the defender here that doesn't seem problematic, the alternative would be to let be invaded which while bad for the West is also bad for Ukraine.
I don't have any data on suppression based on language but also don't think mistreatment justifies invasion. We have economic pain points to push instead.
nullc|2 years ago
The opinion NYT is reporting on is clear that the censorship in question went beyond Covid: "Their content touched on a host of divisive topics like the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side-effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story" ... "Individual Plaintiffs seek to express views—and have been censored for their views—on topics well beyond COVID-19, including allegations of election fraud and the Hunter Biden laptop story."
Yet the NYT only mentions covid and the discourse on HN-- which at the moment is substantially making excuses for the administration on the basis of "but covid!"-- is worse off for it.
simple-thoughts|2 years ago
Guvante|2 years ago
There is nuance in the laptop story. There were things said that were objectively disinformation so if those things were targeted it could make sense.
Now the White House ideally would have kept and arms length to put forward a "not protecting my own" attitude but there is a wide gap between ideally and illegal coercion.
dundarious|2 years ago
The NYTimes ran one such article about a week ago on China. The “fact checking” done by orgs like VoxUkraine amounts to similar alignment tests as well. You would think the results showing widespread wrongthink by your own population would be an indication of disagreement rather than a disinformation campaign working on a citizenry already justifiably motivated against Russia: https://voxukraine.org/en/the-ability-of-ukrainians-to-disti...
> Research Results
> Overall, the majority of respondents, both in Ukraine and abroad, agreed with pro-Ukrainian messages and disagreed with pro-Russian ones. This indicates a general tendency of the population to distinguish Russian propaganda narratives. However, when analyzing each narrative separately, the following concerning signals were noticeable:
> 43% of respondents in Ukraine and 36% abroad disagreed with the statement “Nazi and/or neo-Nazi ideology is not widespread in Ukraine”;
> 29% of respondents in Ukraine and 35% abroad disagreed with the statement “The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2013-2014 was NOT a coup”;
> 26% of respondents in Ukraine and 29% abroad agreed with the statement “Russia is fighting against the West/NATO in Ukraine”;
> 25% of respondents in Ukraine and 29% abroad agreed with the statement “The West is using Ukraine for its own purposes in the war against Russia”;
> 32% of respondents abroad agreed with the statement “Russian speakers are oppressed in Ukraine”.
This is all to say that I think your optimism is misplaced.
Guvante|2 years ago
You are phrasing this as "being on Russia's side means you believe the propaganda" as if that somehow turns it into not a disinformation campaign.
How can something be disinformation in that mindset? You eliminated the category completely.
You phrase as if it is a marginal thing showing their bias is showing at the top, but then go to list the most egregious examples of disinformation as evidence... I mean at least your last three aren't explicitly false, so not all disinformation.
Disinformation is about false statements.
Neo-Nazi ideology being in Ukraine hasn't been meaningfully backed up by Russia nor is their any international precedent for such a thing being a justification for invasion. Remember the Nazis invaded first.
Revolution of Dignity was a coup by definition. If Hong Kong declared it was independent of China it would be a coup. It doesn't matter your feelings on the treaty saying it would be X years before control was taken or anything of that nature. Unilaterally leaving a parent entity is the meaning of coup.
Proxy wars are weird so your next two questions are odd. There is ambiguity in the question. Is the West using Ukraine to reduce Russia's power acting as a sort of proxy war? Certainly but since Ukraine is objectively the defender here that doesn't seem problematic, the alternative would be to let be invaded which while bad for the West is also bad for Ukraine.
I don't have any data on suppression based on language but also don't think mistreatment justifies invasion. We have economic pain points to push instead.
kolanos|2 years ago
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