[Waterluvian]

It’s a clear way to project soft power: make sure your message and culture can get through.

[pousada]

So far the current admin has been very successful in obliterating all the soft power the US built up through the decades.

[deadbabe]

I have no idea why they would do this, but I often wonder if maybe soft power becomes less valuable in a world where more countries are able to empower themselves on their own. Perhaps soft power itself is only valuable as long as this asymmetry is sustained. Otherwise, it’s all about hard power.

[indubioprorubik]

Because that softpower spread a toxic culture, that has poisoned western civilization from within?

[Mikhail_Edoshin]

And lies.

[b112]

And truth.

[hsuduebc2]

American culture can access Europeans at any time. Europeans consume American culture daily.Just to clarify. Website banned are often hostile propaganda or extremists.

This is only cringy lousy provocation for appearance of moral superiority.

Coming from a government notorious for spying on it's citizens it seems pretty ludicrous.

[dmix]

Europe should just create their own social media companies where the government can act as a moderator of content then.

[nomilk]

It might do that too, but access to information is just so utterly critical, and exponentially moreso in circumstances where government brutally cracks down on it, as we saw in Egypt during the Arab Spring and we're seeing in Iran presently.

[exe34]

Will it work when the US government is the one cracking down, banning interviews, etc?

[jasonvorhe]

Then again, Egypt was definitely driven by Western agitators, as was the case Iran recently. Iran probably got Russian tech to trace starlink users during the blackout which put a target on many Western assets in Iran. I'm not saying the Iran government didn't also kill and torture independent actors nor that I support state violence (against its citizens, in this case). Just saying that any government will use violence to stay in power and to ensure regime change doesn't happen outside of whatever system the state upholds.

[NuclearPM]

Access to information is dangerous when the information is controlled propaganda.

[iso1631]

Yet the US president unilaterally shut down Voice of America because he didn't like its message

Freedom of speech for me, not for thee

[refurb]

Huh? Voice of America is a basically a government organization blasting out US propaganda.

The president runs VOA, it's not some separate entity he decided to censor.

[lostmsu]

> US president unilaterally

The whole truth here would be that technically he did not do it unilaterally but as a representative of his voters, so basically almost as far from unilaterally as possible.

[locknitpicker]

> It’s a clear way to project soft power: make sure your message and culture can get through.

You're talking about an administration that actively tries to censor candidates of opposition candidates through both state regulatory institutions such as the FCC and business collusion, a typical play out of the fascist playbook with state and oligarchs colluding to strong arm their political goals.

It's also the same administration who is actively involved in supporting other dictatorial regimes and destabilize Europe, including with very explicit and overt threats of war of invasion to annex territories.

It's also the same administration that is clearly a puppet administration controlled by another totalitarian regime - Russia.

There is no soft power in this stunt. Only further self-destructive actions to further kill the US's relevance as an European ally.