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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: August 12th, 2024

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  • I know its a joke but just to note: I’d love to see Germany “march through Poland” given the poor state of Germany’s armed forces. As it is rn, Poland alone could most likely reach Russia’s heart in a couple of weeks of conventional warfare and debilitate Russian critical infrastructure long before that. Barring nukes of course, which is basically all the Kremlin would have to hang on to in a full out direct confrontation given just how incompetent their armed forces have proven to be.





  • Not to worry, you’re simply confusing freedom of speech with obliging private actors to consume content they don’t want to consume or disagree with. The first is a fundemental principle of democratic legal systems and recognized as a perempotry norm under international law. The second is authoritarianism.

    There’s a growing number of legally illiterate people who think freedom of speech is absolute and even affords one the right to oblige others consume their speech through the government. That is fundamentally wrong and a complete misunderstanding of how these key principles of freedom work and have always worked in modern democratic systems.

    Newsflash - freedom of speech is not absolute. Never has been. There are very specific, explicitly codified limitations. Why? Because words are the most powerful weapons and can be used to target and threaten the freedoms of other people, including their freedom to life. Which is why rights and obligations are always balanced against each other, following the principle of proportionality.

    If you feel so strongly about not being able force others to consume content they don’t want to consume, then I have bad news for you - you are opposing democracy. But it seems like you, and many other like you, are just confused, rather than actively promoting anti-democratic standpoints. The truly sad part? The impact is the same regardless of intent.

    Edit: Want to know more? Details at 6.



  • I’m just making fun of the biased dynamics and what often seems like a black-and-white perspective. By no means do I think that one is “good” and the other is “bad”, but I do think there is a lot of misrepresentation going around because of the latest developments around TikTok. We should also keep in kind that the executive decision was put in place over a year ago but ofcourse nobody discussed it back then because policy only becomes relevant once it factors into personal interpretations and ideology.




  • Thank god for bold platforms like TikTok that refuse to push US propaganda. Really smart of them to not censor valuable information as a way of fooling the US government into exposing its evil censorship ways. TikTok’s fate in the US was never a topic before the current wave of pro-Palestinian activism started. It certainly wasn’t one of Trump’s main talking points ten years ago. Good thing he changed his mind after getting his hands on some Chinese money lucrative investmenet from Chinese citizens that are not at all connected to Tencent.

    None of this discourse on combatting foreign information manipulation started over a decade ago, its all about censoring pro-Palestine voices here and now. TikTok and China in general are known for their calm, collected attitudes toward Muslims. They certainly would never weaponize a contentious topic every which way imaginable in pursuit of financial and geopolitical goals. We need more of these open and bold platforms.


  • There are plenty of ways for governments to engage in strategic communications without having to rely on social media, especially when said platforms are disentangling the fabric of society before our very eyes. Moreover, government communication (and 99% of other communication processes) does not require the constant and immediate production and consumption of information that social media are purposefully designed for. Pretending like people are addicted to social media because we really want to stay in touch with policy is just silly.

    And no, one thing is not equivalent to another thing just because they belong in the same category of things. Editorial and privacy policies, ownership structures, the extent to which a company or its owners are politically exposed - these are all things that can differ drastically from one actor to another.