[JithinR]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

Desperate move by White House?

After using all the mainstream media, White House is now using TikTok influencers to further it's agenda.

White House meets TikTokers to brief on US’ strategic objective in Russia-Ukraine war

Jesus, these Americans are so behind the curve. Our Putin uncle has already started his social media influencers project off to a resounding success.

Russian influencers on Tiktok sing off the same hymn sheet

Edit: People might think he is being desperate but no... the astute military strategists amongst us know he is actually planning for WW4 which will be fought on social media channels.

[Poitive]

Originally Posted by deetee

I have heard today from a friend who works for an US company (software) that their company is going to replace all Russian employees working at various locations .

Not saying that it is so, but I wonder if this could be due to the lack of trust, to safeguard their systems. No idea what kind of software business this is. The nature of some requires more stringent security measures than others.

If it really is on racial lines, it is quite like getting common folks of the US and Russia into a war.

Meanwhile:


And:


More in the links:

Wion: https://www.wionews.com/world/russia...report-461502/

NY Post: https://nypost.com/2022/03/11/russia...ctions-expert/
.

[aim120]

Youtube has banned RT even in India. This shows how the US and the West wants only their narrative to be shown.

Any twitter account that shows ukraine in poor light is suspended, all one has to do is post footage of Ukraine armed forces violating international law and that account will be banned.

These actions by US companies across the spectrum should be alarming to every other nation.

[catchjyoti]

Originally Posted by aim120

Youtube has banned RT even in India. This shows how the US and the West wants only their narrative to be shown.

Any twitter account that shows ukraine in poor light is suspended, all one has to do is post footage of Ukraine armed forces violating international law and that account will be banned.

These actions by US companies across the spectrum should be alarming to every other nation.

Yes - I was amazed too when I could not access RT and Sputnik from yesterday night on YouTube. I thought they had restricted it in Europe only.

This does not set a good precedent. You weaponize a thing too much and people will find other outlets and may not come back to you exclusively ever after.

[SnS_12]

There you go the man himself blames Putin for high inflation in US and goes on to say it has nothing to do with the printing of money by the Fed.. How will they even correct a problem when they don’t even understand or at least accept what the true cause of the problem is. And the war only started 2 weeks back but dumb Americans and their Media will now use it to just badmouth Russia further

No wonder Jerome Powell‘s body language is not confidence inspiring if you see his last few speeches as the man would know better where the American economy is heading and the Ukraine crisis is the one which is going to push over their currency and economy which was already hanging near the edge of the cliff.

https://youtu.be/4QLiU_B_z00

[Sran]

With 552 votes, 81 against and 60 abstentions, European Parliament is now on verge of becoming what they "preached" that they are fighting against. EU parliament recommended the following measures:

Broadly distributed, pluralistic, independent media, journalists, fact checkers and researchers should receive public funding.
i.e. Directly fund their own propaganda by buying up newspapers and journalists. If anyone remembers Canada did just this last year when Justin Trudeau paid newspapers and journalists 660 million dollars.

Consideration given to revoking the licenses of organisations distributing foreign state propaganda;
i.e We will ban anyone we do not like a.k.a thought police.

Forcing social media platforms, which serve as vehicles for foreign interference, to stop boosting inauthentic accounts that drive the spread of harmful foreign interference, including in languages other than English;
i.e Show only what we deem to be fit for the normal citizenry, a.k.a censorship.

Make it harder for foreign actors to recruit former top politicians after they have left their job;
i.e. dictate the livelihood to control them.

Youtube banning RT in India is appalling and is a huge propaganda by western world. The Indian government must take action against it. This is outrageous. A foreign entity can not decide what we in India can watch or not, sure it's their platform but Indian audience should not be restricted to their whims and fancies.

A forum based SM giant that calls itself "the front page of internet", also big in India has banned over 25,000 Indian accounts and it is an ip address based ban by admins and not mods (eg. if someone had 2-3 account operating from same ip, all accounts have been banned,irrespective of whether they posted on that sub or not). A particular sub over there that has been ravaged by anti-Russia posts day in day out since the war started, banned almost every Indian account that even barely voiced anything in support of Russia.

India definitely needs alternatives for every Saas, IaaS, storage, data and moreso email. We all know Gmail and Google drive reads every mail and documents sent/received and stored. They filter flagged words and flag user id for US regime. It was a visionary work to invest in RuPay even after heavy opposition inside and outside. India has led the way in digital payments framework and it's UPI framework is unmatched, great thing it is indigenous.

Russia and Ukraine sadly are too integrated in western banking system but China has insulated itself. They have everything made(copied) for their use without much foreign interference. Twitter shutdown worldwide is necessary so that peace can prevail everywhere. Ukraine has unleashed an internet war against Russia and it is atleast winning in it. Other day I read somewhere that Ukraine has recruited 10,000 personnel for social media warfare and has spent hundreds of crores of rupees on it. Every sector worldwide will feel the heat.

Ukraine has also rejected the humanitarian corridor that leads to Russia believing that foreign nationals who are forced to stay there should do cross-country migration which will take days and will give Ukraine time and leverage. The west unfortunately has once again used poor lives as a bargaining chip as Lithuania has stopped it's covid vaccine aid to Bangladesh because they abstained in vote against Russia in UNGA. Although, the number of doses is next to nothing, merely 4 lakhs.

[Poitive]

Originally Posted by Sran

EU parliament recommended the following measures:

Ah! The smell of the 'free world'.

"You are free; free to agree with me."

Edit:
Link to above report:
Short version
Detailed recommendations:

[Thad E Ginathom]

The cry in favour of freedom of speech and freedom of hearing is acknowledged. It leaves the question, what to do, then, when fake news becomes weaponised to such an extent as is done by Russia (and Trump, and perhaps America itself is still not innocent).

Fake news is always plausible to the masses. And, although I pride myself on having a good nose for bull, I don't exclude myself.

Is it not recognised that Russian manipulation went into the election of the previous president? Today I read a very plausible assertion that Russian manipulation steered and encouraged Brexit. Not, perhaps in the same media way with the masses, but more directly with the leaders. Very clever: UK transformed from significant power to almost insignificant island with one stroke. It might be wrong, but I don't think it is fake news: it is at least sincere journalism.

[Poitive]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

It leaves the question, what to do, then, when fake news becomes weaponised...

This is not an easy question to answer. All countries influence other countries of significant interest by various means. If the answer is seen as government (or similar bodies) controlling what can be said or heard, China should be seen as a role model.

I suppose it really is an issue of balancing free and open speech coupled with free debate vs controlling what the powers that be openly and officially control in the name of protection of the country/society. The West/Free World has been known to give priority to the former and allowing people to make up their own minds as compared to communist/autocratic setups. And it has used that as a high moral ground to preach from.

If the West now behave (in whatever form of disguise/excuse/reason) closer to what they have called out, a hue and cry is natural.

Just wondering: Maybe China is justified in it's approach towards information?

As before: no easy answers. A matter of what a country/society (and it's decision makers) prioritise.

PS: Maybe I overreacted in my previous post; considering these are war times, exceptional measures are relatively acceptable.

[turbo_delight]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

The cry in favour of freedom of speech and freedom of hearing is acknowledged.

Fake news should be stopped. Companies should ensure or at least try to reduce this and they should be held accountable for false news.

But that does not mean all news/criticism should be stopped.

If banning is right, then China is right. North Korea is also right. And so were all the dictators.

Anyone in favor of this should go to these countries and taste this newly found democracy.

Bhai, Kuch din to guzaro Afghanistan me.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

I feel that we are reading too much into this. Mark Z is under lot of pressure due to the focus on privacy and personal data security in the recent past. Remember Cambridge Analytica. FB/meta is just trying to get on the right side of political discourse with this announcement.

This makes them look good to the American public at large. On the ground nothing changes since selective and biased censorship policies is nothing new. Almost everybody on the left and the right have complained about it at some point.

I know social media is full of hate speech despite moderation and things happening covertly but making it openly allowed as a policy exemption will not be anyone's good. All the mainstream media both print and visual has political leanings which is still okay but what happens if they allow to broadcast or publish death threats to other side as a policy exemption.

I, for one, do not believe that Meta is acting on its own or to divert focus. This has all the footprints of the US security establishment behind the scenes. Key giveaway for this is

1. The countries where this policy exemption is carried out - All eastern European countries only and no USA or Western/Central European countries.

2. Allowed Far Right posts supporting Azov. Despite Ukraine, 'Far Right' support is a clear 'No' in Western Europe.

So, this in my opinion is a testing waters for reaction. For future mischief, all you need a is a precedent to follow.

For those who could still not grasp this with Indian context, imagine there is a war with our western neighbor over 'K' and if the companies decided to side with our neighbor based on someone else's policy (Justification can always be easily found - Freedom struggle is one of them) and started blocking the Indian posts/news or worse allow posts with explicit death threats to the Indian side, will it be okay?

If you do not want to think about international events, here is the step by step guide with an imaginary but plausible situation

1. Elections happen and results are contested (Justification - EVMs anyone?).
2. Social media companies 'decide' one side is correct and decides to allow only that side's content.
3. Not stopping there, they further decide to allow posts with death threats against the other side.

Already there is enough divisive public discourse and this will end up having a real 'external' threat if you fell out of favor. I sincerely hope the upcoming Indian IT law provides protections and balances as well lay out clear rules for social media companies.

We can argue that the same thing can happen even with home grown companies or with Government control. Absolutely yes and it will be even worse. This is the reason these 'experiments' should not be done. Any strongman ruled countries will use this 'ruse' to further their own agenda of control.

In many ways, this 'event or invasion or war' is unique and is showing the world, new ways and endless possibilities of warfare.

[vishnurp99]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

The cry in favour of freedom of speech and freedom of hearing is acknowledged. It leaves the question, what to do, then, when fake news becomes weaponised to such an extent as is done by Russia (and Trump, and perhaps America itself is still not innocent).

I think the biggest question is - How/Who decides what is fake news? Is selective reporting of news fake news? Is attributing objectives to leaders who have not explicitly articulated their objectives? Is publishing news that is given by goverments which is proved to be false later categorised as fake news?

People talk about Russian influence in US elections and Brexit. How does one decide if that is fake news? People talk about Hunter Biden's Ukrainian links. Now did the US benefit from UK leaving the EU. I would say that they did because Euro could have replaced the dollar at some point as the main reserve currency leading to other effects for the US economy.
Is that fake news? Remember that all people have confirmation bias. So your perception of what is fake may depend on your prior political and social experiences.

When it comes to war narratives, they are inherently parochial and fake?. There is a hybrid war between NATO & Russia now. So how can you trust any of that news?

All said & done, it seems to me that China is vindicated now. China always believed that West's claims of media neutrality, adherence to free speech was fake. They feared that these elements will be weaponised and used to punish/turn the Chinese population against their government. The Russian experience proves that this is right.

India has a lot to think about here.

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

India has a lot to think about here.

India’s biggest power on the negotiation table is its population. Mark just like Elon is stock rich and not cash rich and when share price tank your billions can be wiped out over night.

Mark’s Facebook/Meta has lost over 500 billion in valuation over the last few months all India needs to say is we will pull the plug in India if you try to harm our countries interest anymore. Would Mark like to loose a few more couple of 100 billions in valuations ? A tough call if the US government has him on gunpoint.

OT: Our influencers generation will soon have a reality check on the easy money life if India has a fallout with US tech giants...

[CarJunki]

The media (MSM and Social Media) exists to sell a propaganda. Its goals are not to share information but to sell opinion in the guise of information so that pay checks keep coming. During peace time it is mostly fake news ads being portrayed as news, in war times it is full blown propaganda. Consumers of propaganda have already taken sides to select the channel they want to watch.

[Sran]

Interesting watch: Ukraine on Fire. (https://rumble.com/vwxxi8-ukraine-on-fire.html)

A 1 hour 36 minute documentary by Ukrainians about the 2014 maidan coup. Interviews of Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovich(against whom the coup d'etat happened) by renowned writer and director Oliver Stone, multiple Academy/Oscar award winner and also associate producer of the documentary.

The documentary has been removed by youtube as usual and is available on rumble. Interestingly, I was not able to play the video on chrome on my laptop but it was playable on Firefox with same add-ons and extensions. It seems that the thought police Google doesn't want anyone to watch the documentary even on it's browser(chrome is used by 87% of users in India and 67% worldwide). Do check on your browsers as I have used 2 laptops to determine this using different ip addresses.

Attaching pic: Left is from firefox and right is from chrome.