Right, in the West, we'd never do something like ban a news outlet. Oh, wait.
Even all of Rupert Murdoch's shite is still operating last I checked and until last week Russia Today was spouting its propaganda 24x7. Fortunately that one has now been squelched but let's not pretend that it was news.
Or was that not what you meant?
Sorry, but no, we don't.
> They even have an entire culture: Cancel Culture.
You are either unaware of what cancel culture means or you are changing the subject.
> While I hate every discrimination of speech freedom, you can't paint Russia as something unique, West is an example they follow.
I think the repression of the free media in Russia is quite uniquely all it's own.
It's the only country that I'm aware of where the head of state gets a dead journalist for their birthday.
https://www.praguemorning.cz/expressing-support-for-russia-o...
https://spravy.rtvs.sk/2022/02/za-podporu-vojnovej-propagand...
I don't see any difference.
> You are either unaware of what cancel culture means or you are changing the subject.
Of course I'm aware what does it means. I'm also aware of "deplatforming" and other ways to silence unpleasing speech. Which could be described as a single word: censorship.
> I think the repression of the free media in Russia is quite uniquely all it's own.
I thought the same until Europe started to ban Russia Today and other websites. And don't even tell me that it's different. It's a perfectly legal website which tried to present alternative view point. But West is too afraid that its citizens might believe to something other than official propaganda.
> It's the only country that I'm aware of where the head of state gets a dead journalist for their birthday.
Baseless accusations. I could say that western agents killed him. It's just as likely.
I suspect that may be on your end.
> I'm also aware of "deplatforming" and other ways to silence unpleasing speech. Which could be described as a single word: censorship.
Well, you're still speaking, aren't you?
> I could say that western agents killed him. It's just as likely.
Sorry, but you are not arguing in good faith here.
It's funny because for sure you will see that as confirmation of your claims of censorship but all you seem to want to do is to project the weirdest kind of positions that have no support in reality and I really can't be bothered to debate if that's the case.
Not all speech is worth engaging.
Recent Russian law: 15 years imprisonment for protesting or even just calling the war a war.
Western countries have nothing of that scale for such general offences. Neither in law nor in culture.
The nearest things I can think of are holocaust or genocide denial laws, and protest-limiting powers. There are some similarities, but also very significant differences, so I think you are using the fallacy of false equivalence in your argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
https://www.praguemorning.cz/expressing-support-for-russia-o...
https://spravy.rtvs.sk/2022/02/za-podporu-vojnovej-propagand...
Those are European countries.
I agree that probably state of freedom of speech is worse in Russia. I agree that political diversity is basically zero in Russia and all Putin opponents are either dead, imprisoned or gone from the country. That's a terrible state of things and it must be improved. Hopefully after Putin's rule, he's not eternal after all.
And if you think that everyone in Russia is going to jail for calling it war, you're wrong. Putin himself called it war. Plenty of people called it war. This is just fear mongering. And potential reason to put in jail some people if they crossed some line. At least I think so. Just as I hope that links above are fear mongering.
Sure... /s
That's probably why the West has just enacted a law that whoever talks about the war in Ukraine in terms of war will face all kinds of trouble. Oh, wait.
Really, you can't make this stuff up, do you actually believe that people on HN will read what you say and then dutifully turn to Pravda for their news from now on?