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I think the ban is warranted

Posted by walkinginthepark on Thursday, March 03 2022 at 3:20:05PM
In reply to When... posted by Hajduk on Thursday, March 03 2022 at 1:45:25PM

I agree that it should apply to any state that weaponises social media platforms. Mind you, Russia was even quicker to ban the press in Russia from publishing independent content and arresting thousands of citizens for voicing their own concerns. The difference is that these platforms exist in free societies.

But while I believe in a free press and freedom of speech, I've said before that free speech and press comes with responsibility and when attacked it needs to be protected. And attack doesn't mean just cutting off free speech sites, it also means protecting such sites from manipulation and misuse because it's manipulation and misuse that turns people against those very important services.

I believe that free speech means freedom to disagree with others, freedom to express opinion even when it's unpopular, freedom to debate. Free speech isn't an excuse to incite violence since violence has nothing to do with speech, isn't an excuse to present fake facts and evidence, isn't an excuse to present opinion as fact, isn't an excuse to be deceitful.

So in this case we have a wealthy state committing war crimes against civilians and threatening the world then hijacking social media to willfully present fake information for the purpose of buying time to continue the slaughter of innocence. That has nothing to do with free speech, that's attacking the very core of free speech. In the weeks running up to the conflict and immediately after it started, Russia expressed why they felt vindicated startin a war and they weren't banned. But they went on to publish a well funded stream of content stating they weren't hitting civilian infrastructure, they hadn't suffered any losses, they Ukraine was committing genocide, that Ukraine has no right to exist, much the same as Hitlers views on Israel. So I think a ban is more than warranted not just to protect Ukraine but to protect free speech.




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