[shancz]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Anyway, what are your thoughts on Russia's blockade on several independent sources of news except those that are state owned

The objective of my post was the following :

1. Highlight the pitfalls of over dependence on an information platform like Google/Meta.

2. The one sided narrative being propagated. This could be from either side and the "western" side clearly has more influence.

3. How censoring content is going to make things worse in the long run. In this case fanning the suspicion which makes the other side's narrative more tenable than it usually would be.
In essence instead of neutral information we are witnessing a war of narratives/information which I wanted to primarily stress on.

I neither favour WION nor any other network for that matter but this incident which came up raised some questions highlighted above.
But I do see a red flag when the narrative and views from one side are supposed to treated as gospel, the western side in this case.

My view is that if one side is "right and true", why punish/ban views that are presenting (not accepting) the other side too(not only).
Reminded me of a dictatorship rather than a democracy.


I don't comment/care about the political affairs but made this exception which in hindsight was clearly a mistake.
I apologise and withdraw from the discussion since I don't possess enough knowledge to add anything valuable.

[hdus001]

How is the Russian military so inadequate that they cant force a decisive outcome even after a month. And thats in spite of the massive imbalance in military resources.

I understand a lot of the new coming out of westerm media is biased, but there must be some smoke to the fire? The russian forces seem quite amateurish and look like they are taking heavy losses. Even the mighty airforce seem to be taking a lot of losses.

Anyways, would like to believe the Indian forces are better trained and more disciplined than this. Even then, given most of our military hardware is Russian (or atleast Russian-based), are they really good enough?

[mayukh42]

Originally Posted by amitoj

To be honest, I have found WION coverage of most events to be incomplete, and that is putting it mildly.!

That cannot be the justification for censhorship. It is up to the viewers (like you and me) to decide whether it is incomplete/ balanced/ biased. For example, occasionally I have found WION to be relatively more balanced than others.

And before we play the devil's advocate again and say that these are "private" companies, note that the content is not "owned" by them. Their terms clearly mention that any content uploaded is owned by the uploader (subject to copyright laws of course).

So they are not in a position to decide which content should be allowed. They are just a platform to host users' content, not their own content. Only users should decide that. They do have a dislike button for this reason already.

Of course, corporates can brute force through such trivial things called ethics, one example of which is that we don't have an alternative to Youtube yet. Most tech companies are wary of competition, they'd just buy out the competitor and close it, then preach about anti-trust.

[download2live]

Originally Posted by hdus001

How is the Russian military so inadequate that they cant force a decisive outcome even after a month. And thats in spite of the massive imbalance in military resources.


Anyways, would like to believe the Indian forces are better trained and more disciplined than this. Even then, given most of our military hardware is Russian (or atleast Russian-based), are they really good enough?

That's one of the perils of being a strongman. They are surrounded by yes men. They will never know the actual situation on ground.

Also it is Russia vs US actually. US has been at war with someone or the other since last 20 yrs. They have experience. And US spends more than anyone else on military.

The only thing I am surprised at is the decisions taken by Zelensky. Ukraine has at least 2 cities bombed out of existence. He made his country a pawn in the power games between US and Russia.

[aim120]

Originally Posted by hdus001

How is the Russian military so inadequate that they cant force a decisive outcome even after a month. And thats in spite of the massive imbalance in military resources.

I understand a lot of the new coming out of westerm media is biased, but there must be some smoke to the fire? The russian forces seem quite amateurish and look like they are taking heavy losses. Even the mighty airforce seem to be taking a lot of losses.

Anyways, would like to believe the Indian forces are better trained and more disciplined than this. Even then, given most of our military hardware is Russian (or atleast Russian-based), are they really good enough?

The US invaded Iraq which is a much smaller country with 1.6 lakh troops. With western media cheering on as the bombs rained down.

Ukraine is about 40% percent bigger, russian troop estimate is between 1lakh to 2lakh troops.

Iraq is mostly wide open space with very few high rise. Negligible tree cover.

Iraq army was already in shambles after first gulf war. Ukraine is the second most powerful land military among other EU nations. Since 2014 it was trained and supplied by nato.


US, UK weapons like javelin and NLAW has scored a few hits but most of the ukraine weapon are all Soviet era weapons which are still every bit lethal.

Russian looses are according to their MOD is about KIA 1.5k and 3.9k injured.
Considering the scale of the invasion and the foe they are attacking its slow but US and Nato would not fare any better. A lone S300 or a Buk hiding inside a city will extremely difficult to detect.

US and Nato had losses in Yugoslavia war they where flying so high to escape getting it hit by manpads and even their F117 stealth aircraft was shot down twice by just a s125.

Ukraine operates several S300 which every Nato country fears, even israel is now only launching stand off weapons from lebanon or from sea, after syria s300 came on line.

Ukraine has lot of trees and buildings. Russia cannot just do shock and awe campaign because many of the cities which they are taking weeks to clear are russian speaking people, so they cannot kill their own people. Every city will need needs to be cleared house by house.

You can see in syria russian fire power and syria was mostly under isis and now its mostly under Syrian government. Except for the US held territories which are openly stealing syrian oil.

Also if russia levels the place and its annexes it. It still needs to rebuild everything.

Russia doesn't want kyiv. There is nothing in there for them except it will be like battle of Berlin. No natural resources and lot of Nazi.

There goal would be to divide the country along the river and take all of the black sea coast. With that leverage they will have a upper hand at the negotiating table.

If they want to take full ukraine they will need more troops and there is nothing to gain in taking all of ukraine, especially western ukraine with some die hard anti russia fanatics.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by shancz

YouTube has blocked WION from uploading anything for 7 days because they broadcasted the Russian foreign minister's speech after the Ukrainian foreign minister's. And to top it off they've blocked only WION whereas Reuters and France24 did the same.

It seems this is reversed now, possibly after twitter outrage? I watched this in YouTube itself from WION

Originally Posted by amitoj

Anyway, what are your thoughts on Russia's blockade on several independent sources of news except those that are state owned? Even Russia's own independent news channels have chosen to close down rather than parrot what Putin wants them to say.

I believe there is a slight difference between What a State does and What a private company does. I absolutely agree that each private company has right to decide whom/what to allow it in its platform but overall they have to abide by the law of the land in they operate. In this specific case, taking down a video of a Foreign minister that too after peace talks and having provided the Ukrainian view point is just so poorly executed unless there is an explicit hate speech or by law, any country has prohibited Russian news. It seems there is a mad scramble in US Tech world to be in the good books of 'Joe' and liberals.

The way that the battle cards are getting opened (both economic and information), this will be a lesson and wake up call for many countries including India after the Globalization era. Unintended consequence is this will accelerate the fragmentation of internet (a la China) with many more countries moving in to rein them in sooner than later.

I have written this before when META has 'tested the waters'. This is the next step in the evolution. So quoting myself again.

Originally Posted by thanixravindran

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.

[sierrabravo98]

Disclaimer: This is a personal observation based on my interaction with some people I know. Mods can delete this post if it violates forum rules or is inappropriate.

In the context of the social media giants clearly taking a side, in the Indian context, I believe that they have invited their own doom in the medium to long term. Everyone knows that there is a significant section of hardliners within the current Indian government who are being held back/moderated by bureaucrats and some of the top leadership. This sort of flagrant display of bias by Twitter/Google/Facebook is sort of a dream come true scenario for the hardliners. They have been vociferously advocating the regulation/ban of these companies in India for quite some time now. While they were mostly dismissed as alarmist/conspiracy theorists/lunatics earlier, they now have concrete hard evidence as to how these companies behave in times of crisis.

As the dust from this conflict settles, we will start seeing the fallout of this blatant information warfare waged by these tech companies in Europe here in India. We may start seeing the contours of a policy, similar to that adopted by China, by the end of this year.

[Poitive]

Cries of censorship of views has been heard from within the US too. Censorship of those not aligned to a certain view. Welcome to the 'free world'.

2020 Presidential candidate of the US,
former Congresswoman and soldier, Tulsi Gabbard on 17 March 2022:

Link includes a 3 minute video: https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/sta...8335801593859/



It also talks of a proxy war by the US.

As before: IMO, besides other things the US is using Ukraine to drain Russian resources, while setting conditions for gaining arms orders and consequent advantages (others being dependent on them); also widening the divide between Russia and most of the rest of Europe, which works in the favour of interests in the US.
.

[SnS_12]

https://youtu.be/hBl8sGUvzXY

[locusjag]

The US was able to wage war against Iraq based on lies twice. The first time, the then US diplomat April Glaspie had lied to Saddam, hinting that the US had no problems if he invaded Kuwait. After he invaded Kuwait, Bush Senior took the pulpit and said shamelessly - "this aggression won't stand". Saddam must've felt genuinely bamboozled! Look up April Glaspie's role in warmongering and destabilizing the entire region till this day.

Further, the US staged a dramatized testimony before the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus. A girl lied and cried during the testimony and everyone was in support of the war. Look up the Nayirah testimony on Google.

Weapons of mass destruction as a reason for the 2nd Gulf war? That was a massive lie. Everyone knows that.

How about the supposed Gulf of Tonkin incident that triggered the Vietnam War? Now the US concedes coolly that the incident simply never happened.

My point is - we get lied to all the time by establishments. It is my choice to not waste a single moment of my life on anything of this sort. If you're against the Ukrain invasion, that's your choice, based on your world-view.

[iTNerd]

Wow! Wow! Reading your opinion is just like hearing the press briefing of some Russian spokesperson on the 'special operation' in Ukraine. But who can be blamed when our whole media toe the line of the Russian narrative to feed as if we were all Putin's stooge.

Originally Posted by aim120

Also if russia levels the place and its annexes it. It still needs to rebuild everything.

Russia doesn't want kyiv. There is nothing in there for them except it will be like battle of Berlin. No natural resources and lot of Nazi.

There goal would be to divide the country along the river and take all of the black sea coast. With that leverage they will have a upper hand at the negotiating table.

If they want to take full ukraine they will need more troops and there is nothing to gain in taking all of ukraine, especially western ukraine with some die hard anti russia fanatics.

[SnS_12]

This won’t be acceptable to US at all and especially being a member of NATO and when EU countries are increasing defense spending to strengthen their region as a whole.

Looks like US will try to influence some sort of regime change which they are good at and kick Erdogan out. Difficult time for Turkey though economically to choose between a rock and a hard place.

[aim120]

Originally Posted by iTNerd

Wow! Wow! Reading your opinion is just like hearing the press briefing of some Russian spokesperson on the 'special operation' in Ukraine. But who can be blamed when our whole media toe the line of the Russian narrative to feed as if we were all Putin's stooge.

Our media has for years been feeding the western narrative and it still does.

I bet you haven't read much of the posts shared by others here.

Me personally, some 8 years back had I heard a news on CNN I used to assume it was the truth, despite the fact that I knew Iraq WMD was false. I used to believe CNN and other western channels.

Then trump elections happened, we all know about the Russian collusion and the democrats lies.
You have people like Hillary who said if she become the president, she would arm the so called Syrian rebels with Manpads and that she would enforce a NFZ in Syrian air space.

The same Hillary that screwed up Libya and left the US ambassador of Libya to die.


Trump wanted to take out ISIS, he wanted Russia and US fighting side by side against ISIS.
All this was alarming to the US deep state, the moment Trump become the president elect, the russian collusion narrative was started, if you follow the documents released by various investigations. It was all false, yet the US media till the very end of trump presidency was talking about russian collusion.
Adam shiff a US house representative Democrat, on camera read something different then what was said in the documents. Yet none of the MSM, except fox bothered to highlight or correct it.

You then had the BLM riots in the US, CNN literaly had a reporter who said the protests are peaceful, when right behind the reporter the city is burning and violence with lots of property damage, riots and what not. Yet when the people who went into the capital taking selfies, where called domestic terrorists.
Look at the hypocrisy, just watch this.
https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer/s...vUDDxD9FXWjCWA

Also once you start seeing raw videos from syria, ukraine and start digging a little deeper, anyone who is thinking objectively, will know the amount of dirt the US and western media brushes aside.

Now if anyone disagree with the US narrative they are instantly banned or canceled or labeled a traitor.

I can go on and on, various info are buried in this thread by various forum members, so read them and then come to a conclusion.

[how_you_doing]

Originally Posted by shancz

YouTube has blocked WION from uploading anything for 7 days because they broadcasted the Russian foreign minister's speech after the Ukrainian foreign minister's. And to top it off they've blocked only WION whereas Reuters and France24 did the same.

This is extremely concerning and disturbing. I am sure blocking was done automatically by the system and some humans fixed it but India really needs its own search engines, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Quora, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, etc as well as its own Global news channels. All these sites are infested with hate and neo-racism towards Indians especially Reddit.

We will be the world's third-largest economy in 7 years and we will be a market of 1.4Billion people. We can not look at the west to tell what is good and bad for us.

[lifeinpune]

Originally Posted by iTNerd

Wow! Wow! Reading your opinion is just like hearing the press briefing of some Russian spokesperson on the 'special operation' in Ukraine. But who can be blamed when our whole media toe the line of the Russian narrative to feed as if we were all Putin's stooge.

Posts like this don’t seem to add any value to this thread. If there is something debatable or incorrect in the other member’s post please point it out with reasons. If you prefer to trust western media sources, here are some interesting ones -

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost....e-e-mails/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dai...m-Ukraine.html

Biden called Putin butcher in the NATO summit in Poland and had called him war criminal earlier. Amongst the western leaders, Biden’s language seems to be the harshest. It definitely belies a personal animosity. The Russians seem to have touched a raw nerve somewhere. Here is video that talks about what Biden should be doing as a responsible leader instead of adding fuel to fire

https://youtu.be/su4czYxGYxo

Sharing a video link I had shared earlier

https://youtu.be/VuFI9E4a6CU

The comments in this video by Elmer referring to Obama’s term, Biden, the 2014 Crimea annexation seem to add up now.