With the internet and Google translate, you can easily go read for yourself. And it’s still pretty nutty with no western filter applied. The accidentally published victory unification speech is particularly crazy:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...

I think the gp was referring to the filter in your own brain, that was set up by watching western media.

The idea that you are somehow immune to this is unsustainable - I'm sure avid Putin fans feel the same, after all they have access to Google too.

It's just that we are privileged to live in a relatively free societies, where bias is self imposed groupthink as opposed to mandated by the government.

For an extreme version of this in action, you can see the early reporting in the American media of the Iraq invasion.

I was mostly referring to the filter outside the brain.

You are right that we also have filters inside our brains. But just like with the outside filter, we can make some efforts to get around them. Even if our efforts don't always lead to perfection.

To borrow your framing, collectively internal filters will manifest as emergent external filters. It can be considered emergent/systemic propaganda. Even the freest societies fall victims to this.

That's not at all to say we're doomed to be brainwashed; along what you're saying, with conscious awareness, effort, openness to reassess, and honesty (first and foremost to oneself) we can better ourselves and the social groups we're each part of.

Thanks for the link!

Yes, I agree that it's pretty nutty. It's just that to actually verify that we have to do a bit more work, like you suggested; otherwise we might just be bullshitting ourselves.