Poland’s Central Bank Secretly Paid YouTubers to Slander Cryptos

Re:Poland’s Central Bank Secretly Paid YouTubers to Slander ... by pjc50 on Wednesday February 21, 2018 @04:32AM (#16428131)

This article is itself propaganda, of course, being from a pro-cryptocurrency "news" site. It's a little tricky to establish corroboration of the claims as all other sources are in Polish.

> "usually, within a democracy, it is illegal for state actors or contractors to engage in propaganda directed at their own citizens."

This isn't true, or at least I'm not aware of places where it is; this would make it very hard to do "public information" advertising.

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Re:Poland’s Central Bank Secretly Paid YouTubers to Slander ... by thaumasiotes on Wednesday February 21, 2018 @04:50AM (#16428231)

I wish it were more true. Commuting between Hayward and San Francisco, I got to see lots and lots of advertising, mostly government propaganda. It fell into two categories:

1. "Instead of killing yourself, why not call a suicide hotline?" I guess BART tracks see elevated levels of suicide. I don't really have much of a problem with this one.

2. "If you let your infant sleep in the bed with you, you are a bad parent." I have a problem with this. What a disgusting thing for the government to be doing.

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Re:Poland’s Central Bank Secretly Paid YouTubers to Slander ... by jdietrich on Wednesday February 21, 2018 @08:55AM (#16429419)

>What a disgusting thing for the government to be doing.

There is a significant association between bed-sharing and infant death. An adult bed presents far more hazards of entrapment, suffocation and strangulation than a properly-designed crib or bassinet. I haven't seen the advert in question and can't comment on how accurately it conveys the evidence, but I think that it's absolutely right to strongly warn parents about the risks of bed-sharing.

If you think that it's disgusting for a government agency to try and save the lives of babies, that's your prerogative.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2016/10/...

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Re:Poland’s Central Bank Secretly Paid YouTubers to Slander ... by matt4077 on Wednesday February 21, 2018 @07:22AM (#16428899)

The second message was, IIRC, motivated by a statistic showing several cases of parents inadvertently smothering their infant children when rolling onto them while asleep.

Now I have no idea if the number of cases was statistically meaningful enough to warrant action, compared to other public health risks. But I can sort of see why someone would be motivated to "do something", considering how devastating something like that must be, even compared to other accidental deaths of infants.

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Re:Poland’s Central Bank Secretly Paid YouTubers to Slander ... by devwinportable on Wednesday February 21, 2018 @04:41AM (#16428178)

> "usually, within a democracy, it is illegal for state actors or contractors to engage in propaganda directed at their own citizens."

the real issue with this is "then how should some gov. agency stop malicious external/foreign media influence?"

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Re:Poland’s Central Bank Secretly Paid YouTubers to Slander ... by mattmanser on Wednesday February 21, 2018 @04:47AM (#16428214)

Technically it's not necessarily tricky to establish corroboration, it's just that you don't speak Polish.

It's a problem with you, not the article. Your assumption of propaganda is just speculation.

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