> The question is, why is DDG okay with amplifying Ukranian/NATO propaganda and not Russian propaganda?
Because one side is busy shelling and starving civilians right now? Are you seriously suggesting that "NATO propaganda" (WTF?) and Russian propaganda are somehow equivalent?
There is very, very obviously a "bad guy" here, and most of the world (even outside the US/NATO sphere of influence) seems to agree on this point.
Here's an unclassified 82 page report on NATO information operations [1], which designates a role for a Deception Officer and indeed defines that,
>Deception involves measures designed to mislead adversaries by manipulation,
distortion or falsification.
Nor is the overall function limited to the "adversary", for example on page 23 you can read that Info Ops are performed to create "desired effects on the will and understanding of...approved parties", which include "potential adversaries, decision makers, cultural groups, [and] elements of the international community".
I'm not saying that NATO is necessarily in the wrong to do these things in this situation, but it's certainly a bit naive to think that both sides are not fighting in the information space.
“ Because one side is busy shelling and starving civilians right now?”
well technically the ukranians were doing the shelling first, starting on february 17th, killing ethnic russians in donbas. but you probably dont know that bc of the censorship. so basically you want propaganda amplified because you arent aware it’s propaganda, and have no way of figuring out it’s propaganda bc you want everything else to be censored.
“ There is very, very obviously a "bad guy" here, and most of the world (even outside the US/NATO sphere of influence) seems to agree on this point.”
no not really, china and india dont agree and thats half the world
But that's exactly the point. DDG is in no position to verify any of it. We need to learn this cycle on our own skin:
Read something, get outraged, then read a study proving it was false, learn not to get automatically outraged. Repeat.
Censoring is keeping adults in informational childhood state.
What was presented as shelling of women's hospital by Ukrainian side is presented as shelling of evacuated hospital building that was being used to station troops.
I'm not going to try to answer the question who is lying here. But I do prefer to see both sides' cases. I think it could help with the tribal ecstasy everyone seems to be in at the moment.
A few years ago it was already apparent that there would be a Russian reaction to some western dealings within Ukraine. It became true and was obvious. The only surprise is the decisiveness and direct invasion, the rest should not be something that fell out of the sky.
Yes, there absolutely is: the side preemptively invading a sovereign nation, annihilating cities, and murdering civilians. A transgression that's an order of magnitude more deplorable than any justification you can cook up.
Regardless of the causes, and unlike in previous wars, you can see the atrocities with your own eyes if you care to look. Thousands of people dying, cease-fire agreements being violated, evacuation corridors being shelled, millions of lives shattered.
> And if you want to see actual shelling and starvation of citizens, search for atrocities in Yemen, Gaza, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., all directly committed or supported by the west.
Great, let's sanction the bastards responsible there, too. Evil is evil.
> even allowing protests in Ukrainian cities they're controlling
What a joke. Given how protesters have been treated in Russia and Belarus, do you really think they would tolerate this if the Russian army wasn't vastly outnumbered and overstretched? Dissent will be quashed brutally if the invasion succeeds.
> If you consider the NATO expansion over the last few decades around Russia, it was completely sensible for Russia to preemptively take aggressive action.
Because one side is busy shelling and starving civilians right now? Are you seriously suggesting that "NATO propaganda" (WTF?) and Russian propaganda are somehow equivalent?
There is very, very obviously a "bad guy" here, and most of the world (even outside the US/NATO sphere of influence) seems to agree on this point.