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WickedDemiurge t1_j9zwftz wrote

Reply to comment by Julio_Gustavo in Protest In Berlin Over Arming Ukraine Against Russia Draws Thousands by Neo2199

Not necessarily. If these are authentic beliefs based on correct information, then sure, even bad opinions are part of Western democracy. OTOH, if these are based on foreign disinformation, governments need to do a better job shutting that down. And the organizers themselves should have a counter-intelligence investigation done on them, because some of them are literally paid by the Russian government.

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A US based example is Wyatt Reed, who is funded by the Russian government's Sputnik news, and "coincidentally" spoke against support for Ukraine at an "anti-war" rally. People have a right to express their opinions, but they don't have a right to engage in psychological warfare on behalf of foreign powers.

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D43SIN t1_ja0u55m wrote

> OTOH, if these are based on foreign disinformation, governments need to do a better job shutting that down.

Everything is based on disinformation, both the west and the Russians have been engaging in widespread propaganda efforts. You only need to see the amount of "Putin has cancer, he's about to die" "there's about to be a Putin coup" on the worldnews subreddit to see that the propaganda is flowing copiously from both sides.

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Dice_to_see_you t1_ja3i007 wrote

We had a story running in Canada that Putin shit his pants. I kid you not. It's like that is clearly propaganda and even if it did happen why is it news?!??? It's like running the bucktoothed japanese bugs bunny to mock them during WW2.

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sprite_sponsorship t1_ja04bzp wrote

Foreign disinformation? Most disinformation comes from our own government. Remember #Russiagate?

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Julio_Gustavo t1_j9zxut1 wrote

Sorry, good concerned person, I am going to disagree. We need to have faith in people to engage in conversation and figure out, "Oh wait, I am being hoodwinked." I don't care whether they are being manipulated because corporate media is manipulating us constantly.

Once we get into dangerous ideas of how we should regulate free speech, whether funded by outside organizations or not, then that is when we are no different than them.

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nooblevelum t1_ja00o5w wrote

You are a left wing authoritarian wanting to restrict free speech. Don’t want government deciding what is misinformation

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WickedDemiurge t1_ja032cz wrote

Neither do I. However, unregistered foreign agents should be strictly forbidden. They're just a more boring version of spies, which all reasonable agree should be illegal.

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If you aren't personally taking money from foreign agents to run influence campaigns, this won't affect your ability to say crazy stuff even a little.

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Julio_Gustavo t1_ja04alt wrote

What about corporate media, which makes millions from adverts from Big Pharma, and kept completely quiet while much of the Industrial Mid West was wracked by Opiod related deaths. Or when corporate media influenced the entire population to go to war in Iraq, because the government said so? That is a paid entity that misinforms people constantly to serve their purposes. Let's start there before we play 1984 with these "Russian Agents."

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