This was and is US policy. — boethius
You seem to be literally trying to memory hole the entire start of the war in which NATO was the main justification. — boethius
The authors are clear: counter escalation by Russia (such as what we see) is damaging to US interests. — boethius
As I explain above, you continue and increase — boethius
And it's all documented in honestly surprising detail (such as Merkel just telling us the Minsk agreements were done in bad faith) so you need to practice your memory holing somewhere else because I see no reason to toss pretty clear and vivid memories that have supporting documentation down the memory hole. — boethius
"The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine,"
that a ragtag group of Nazis could take on the Russian army with sheer grit and tough guy tattoos. — boethius
But interestingly US already suspended the treaty in February 2019 and the RAND paper is printed in 2019, so it's almost like this paper was written, someone read it, and the US withdrew from the INF treaty. — boethius
the US and Ukraine has admitted that money and arms disappearing is a significant problem — boethius
These are not sweeping assertions. They are very specific assertions that the RAND experts make, all I'm adding since the war started (as the RAND document is written in 2019) is that what RAND describes in their document comes to pass: US did escalate with more arms assistance and more boasting that Ukraine would join NATO, this caused Russia to take more territory and killing more Ukrainians, which is obviously what is called a "war" (or then a "bigger war" if you want to start the war in 2014). — boethius
Biden doesn't need to bribe CNN journalists to do specific things. If you don't see that mainstream journalists are simply on "team elite" and say what their told to say, then there's little helping you. — boethius
(such as Merkel just telling us the Minsk agreements were done in bad faith) — boethius
you have both Western leaders and Ukrainian leaders, including Angela Merkel simply coming out and saying the goal of the Minsk accords was to buy time to build up Ukrainian military capacity. — boethius
As for Russia's actions, they are a signatory and so also guarantor of the Minsk agreements, both Ukraine and Western leaders have publicly admitted those accords were done in bad faith with no intention of following them — boethius
"The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine,"
Quoted from russian news agency TASS by the way.
Does it say "we did it in bad faith"? No. Does it say "we did it to prepare for war"? No. Does it say "we were actually planning to break the agreement right from the start? Hell no. — Echarmion
So why the hell did Russia invade? — Echarmion
The previous Ukrainian offensive was a costly failure, and that's probably what this offensive will turn out as well since it makes zero military sense. — Tzeentch
Which is why I'm never on Twitter/X/Elon's propaganda toy. — Benkei
Actually, I would like that the bullshit is there to be shown... to those that refer to Putin's views and speak of them (here the historical interpretations) as truthful. I think it's really important to see what these global players (like Russia) really officially say.Jesus. Which is why I'm never on Twitter/X/Elon's propaganda toy. — Benkei
People sharing bullshit wouldn't be much of an issue if democracies such as ours would foster healthy public debate. Governments are trying to crackdown on social media precisely because it disrupts the echo chambers they're so keen on maintaining. — Tzeentch
So NO facebook, Instagram, X? — ssu
Russian government agencies are not banned on X/Twitter, though Twitter is banned by the Russian government — SophistiCat
[...] the current form of public debates is a result of catering to how people interact on a large scale today, i.e how people act on social media. — Christoffer
Imagine if there was an algorithm that pushed just the most conflict ridden topics to the top and only the ones who pay for algorithm priority raises to the top, flooding the entire front page with their topics, most of them being rage baits in order to earn money through influencing people to buy a certain product. — Christoffer
Only transforming social media from market driven algorithms into fostering an algorithm that is neutral for the sake of normal interactions, without any ads or market driven influencers consisting of the majority of views and interactions, as well as a clear line drawn on behaviors reflecting what a normal public space would allow behaviors to be would generate a true social media for the people and not corporations. — Christoffer
Nothing that happens on social media is what I would consider public debate, and certainly not healthy public debate.
And that's my point: healthy public debate is lacking. — Tzeentch
That's almost exactly how government agenda-setting functions — Tzeentch
For that you would need impartial decisionmakers, which we have just established the government is not. — Tzeentch
Frankly, people flinging shit at each other on the market square doesn't concern me one bit. — Tzeentch
you seem to be arguing in favor of cracking down on social media — Tzeentch
Modern governments unfortunately have become part of the problem, and therefore cannot be trusted to solve it. — Tzeentch
They could help solve this issue by creating platforms where constructive discussions can take place (as they have done in the past), but modern governments show no interest in doing so. — Tzeentch
Because modern governments have gone all-in on propaganda (now euphemistically called 'narrative'), and they don't want their propaganda to be questioned on authoritative platforms. — Tzeentch
In fact, governments don't want their propaganda questioned on any platform if they had their way, and that's of course exactly what they would strive for - an iron hold on public opinion à la China - a monopoly on "truth". — Tzeentch
Think about this for a moment.I am of the opinion that there needs to be a neutral social media platform, funded by a UN type collaboration so that there's enough money to run the site, with no incentives to push market driven algorithms or influencer economies. A decentralized, but collaboratively driven global social media platform that features similar functionality as a combination of the major ones. — Christoffer
This site itself is an example of what we call social media. And it is in my view a fairly neutral platform. The bannings are quite reasonable.Since there's a lot of people, like me, who have been present on social media a lot in the past, but who have now seen its decline in quality with the rise of ads and bullshit and losing it's fundamental core values of connecting actual people; having a neutral alternative, that is backed by an open source, non-profit global collaboration for the purpose of being a space for the people and not market forces, would be an obvious choice to move over to. — Christoffer
What do you think a neutral platform would be like? — ssu
replace them with globalized social media platforms that are decentralized, open source and handled by human rights overseers and directives. — Christoffer
This site itself is an example of what we call social media. And it is in my view a fairly neutral platform. The bannings are quite reasonable. — ssu
Medias just give people what they actually want, not the polished image of what people answer when asked "what ought to be the social media be like?". — ssu
You do understand that then denying atrocities that have happened is totally normal for this neutral platform, and it simply doesn't change anything. People have to be informed to weed out the facts from the propaganda. I really don't see much difference, actually. Craving for a neutral platform really doesn't make a difference.That form of neutral. Adhering to the values that underpin the core value of the UN, to the actual understanding of how freedom of speech as a concept is protected, and not the skewed corrupted use of the concept that most people use as excuses for spreading hate and vile behavior. — Christoffer
And is something wrong with that? Without it, people simply move away after enough ad hominem attacks and hence if someone simply wants to shut down this forum, they'll achieve their objective in no time. I've seen this happen once when the owner of a site believed in "free speech" and didn't moderate. End of story: the site was "hijacked" or dominated by one political faction (the owner didn't approve of) and simply shut down the debate/comment section altogether.And what rules and values does this site aspire to? This forum pretty much aspire to remove the hateful, vile and propaganda spammers. All in the name of basic decency. It also has rules of engagement in which endless trash posting isn't allowed. — Christoffer
This is totally true. This is the weird and unfortunate reality of social media. At worst it might be that we start to change even our real world exchanges with other people into the kind that are so popular in the social media, because people don't care so much anymore even if they flame in their own name.It's the disconnected behavior between online and offline that creates monsters of people who are decent offline. — Christoffer
Who pays for it? The one that does, holds power over the media. That fact of reality you simply cannot disregard. UN? That member countries put their tax money to the media?That's why I'm proposing social media free of it. — Christoffer
In Finland we had a government funded public service that had a monopoly for example of the radio waves until 1985. Then the first commercial radio started. Guess what: young people didn't listen to the radio prior to that while they now are and have been for a long time the largest group that listens to the radio. What was the reason? They was ONE radio program ONCE per week playing Pop & rock music prior to 1985. And I'm not making this up. Yet for the public broadcast corporation didn't understand why people didn't listen to radio anymore in the early 1980's.You either have government funded public service systems and media. In low corrupted nations this can work and be neutral depending on how the laws and regulations are between state and that media outlet. — Christoffer
How on Earth you think that will happen with your proposal? Sovereign states do understand just how important and crucial public discourse is. Some give more leeway to this, some are totally paranoid about it. I really doubt that this would be a function that the UN as an organization could handle well.The core here is to remove single government control of social media, and to remove market interest that make the users into products rather than the purpose of the site. — Christoffer
NO IT'S NOT!And of course, some nations don't want this human rights-based social media, since it's a threat to their state control. But that battle is a losing one since people will always find ways of reaching out beyond government control. — Christoffer
Again something that people said sometime in the 1990's.And without the focus on ads and products, the algorithms won't push endless trash and may very well push the right kind of grass root movements that help people organize against state violence in these nations. — Christoffer
If there's a will, there's a way. And today governments understand how social media can be used to attack against them. And can use quite similar tactics themselves.We've seen examples of how social media helped arming people with information and quickly organizing against governments. — Christoffer
You do understand that then denying atrocities that have happened is totally normal for this neutral platform — ssu
And is something wrong with that? — ssu
This is totally true. This is the weird and unfortunate reality of social media. At worst it might be that we start to change even our real world exchanges with other people into the kind that are so popular in the social media, because people don't care so much anymore even if they flame in their own name. — ssu
Who pays for it? The one that does, holds power over the media. That fact of reality you simply cannot disregard. UN? That member countries put their tax money to the media? — ssu
First, the UN organization can itself be corrupt. If someone then wants to criticize the UN organization responsible of this free neutral social media, how if then the organization shuts down such hate speech. — ssu
Secondly, member countries will try to influence directly this "neutral" media. Many countries would just love to have the control just what is determined to "hate speech" and what is "supporting terrorism". Now it's defined usually from what country the media is from. — ssu
In Finland we had a government funded public service that had a monopoly for example of the radio waves until 1985. Then the first commercial radio started. Guess what: young people didn't listen to the radio prior to that while they now are and have been for a long time the largest group that listens to the radio. What was the reason? They was ONE radio program ONCE per week playing Pop & rock music prior to 1985. And I'm not making this up. Yet for the public broadcast corporation didn't understand why people didn't listen to radio anymore in the early 1980's.
This is the actual reality of a government monopoly of a media. And don't think it will be different under the UN.
And I think you should understand the real implications of your proposal: An UN mandated social media won't start to compete with the commercial medias... it would be changed by law with the commercial medias being disbanded by legal actions. Because it would be whimsical to think that some UN lead media would have the ability to compete with the other medias and somehow obtain now a monopoly situation just by free competition. — ssu
Hence basically your idea just comes down to squashing free speech and make it more bureaucratic. — ssu
How on Earth you think that will happen with your proposal? Sovereign states do understand just how important and crucial public discourse is. Some give more leeway to this, some are totally paranoid about it. I really doubt that this would be a function that the UN as an organization could handle well. — ssu
NO IT'S NOT!
It's not a "losing battle". I would argue that it's the other way around: government's around the world now understand the new media quite well and can use it well to spread their own propaganda and disinformation. I do agree that earlier in the turn of the Milennium, many governments were still quite clueless about the new media, but that is history now. — ssu
It ought to be quite evident that people can tow the official line happily, especially if the subject is about national security, natural importance and so on. I find this is a battle that the naive IT geeks who thought that the World Wide Web would free people from the shackles of government control have already lost quite dramatically. It just took a couple of decades for the governments around the World to understand how to control the new media. — ssu
Besides, people will try to find ways to reach out beyond government control when government is totally obvious and basically ludicrous[/i] — ssu
Again something that people said sometime in the 1990's. — ssu
If there's a will, there's a way. And today governments understand how social media can be used to attack against them. And can use quite similar tactics themselves. — ssu
I don't, so we agree. But you asked "And what rules and values does this site aspire to?" so I thought you have some problem with this.Why would it be? Why do you interpret it as wrong when I've lifted this forum as good example of neutral praxis that would conform with the same ideals that a UN based social media would do? — Christoffer
The algorithms cater to what people are interested in: more people are interested, the better. And this is totally normal and can be seen for example from ordinary media, from radio, from television etc. People aren't interested in conversations where everybody agrees on the issues and perhaps differ only in nuances. Nope. A heated debate is what people want to follow. Even here in PF this is evident: the threads where people disagree get the most comments.It wouldn't be if the algorithms didn't cater to conflict and negativity, since the research concluded that such behaviors drive attention and interactions more, which is key to ad revenues. — Christoffer
Perhaps not a "totalitarian takedown", but the kind of "free speech" as you and I understand isn't something that many sovereign states accept. Sorry, but that's the truth.You're implying a totalitarian takedown of free speech criticizing the platform, which there's no evidence for would happen. — Christoffer
Nah."Free speech" is a concept that people have lost an understanding of. There's no such thing as free speech absolutism or anything like that. Free speech today has become an acronym for excuses made by those who just want to spew out their hate, not actually talk criticism. — Christoffer
What is the openness of having just ONE social media site?Once again, I underscore that a global platform is under the scrutiny of the consensus and being an open platform. The openness in this means that any attempt to take control is impossible without it being seen by the public of the world. — Christoffer
(see Global Issues / Democracy (UN)The UN does not advocate for a specific model of government but promotes democratic governance as a set of values and principles that should be followed for greater participation, equality, security and human development.
That's why it's important that there are different states that can have their own media. It's something obvious in the classical media landscape.I do not produce arguments out of some conspiracy of some cabal operating in the UN. There's more proof of corruption for how things operate today through tech companies and individual states than any notion that a consensus and collaboration on a global scale with an open source structure would ever lead to such corruption. — Christoffer
I agree with you that the UN doesn't have power. Hence your argument is really absurd. UN doesn't work as a Federal entity. It isn't even a Confederacy. It's just a loose club where something can happen when no Great Power isn't stepped on and the issue isn't part of the global competition.You're still speaking of individual governments, not how a consensus would operate. The only reason the UN can't do much on the global scale is because they don't have such power. — Christoffer
It has to do with this when people are OK with their life and the way things are, they will likely listen to what their governments say to them.Yes, but what does that have to do with this? — Christoffer
Firstly, you do have to understand that "algorithms" is the way how the whole thing works. If algorithms are used really to limit your capability to get information (as in China), that's one thing. Take your own computer and google images of "Tianamen square". I'm pretty confident that people in China will get another kinds of images.You disagree with the assessment that ridding social media of these algorithms and market driven operations would make for a better public space online? — Christoffer
To think that the UN would be this white knight saving us all is very delusional too. It won't work. Far better is to have outlets from different countries, different news agencies and so on.Yes, so remove individual state influence and tech companies power over them. It's delusional to think that such operation is better preventing such malicious control, than an open platform that's globally collaborated on and open to scrutiny from anyone. — Christoffer
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