I have no idea why they would do this, but I often wonder if maybe soft power becomes less valuable in a world where more countries are able to empower themselves on their own. Perhaps soft power itself is only valuable as long as this asymmetry is sustained. Otherwise, it’s all about hard power.
Exactly. We are heading out of a time where soft power is stronger than hard. We are going back to the days of hard power being the only thing that really matters. As resource competition becomes more intense, and economies stagnate, you can no longer afford to play “nice” with your countries’ future. It’s pretty annoying to me a lot of commenters on the internet are apparently too ideological or immature to grasp that.
Propaganda (noun): Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts.[0]
The world is yet to find a single piece of truth coming out of the Trump administration. I mean, shall we discuss how Trump claims the Epstein files exonerate him when he is reported as directly, deeply, and personally involved in every single gruesome aspect of the criminal organization?
American culture can access Europeans at any time. Europeans consume American culture daily.Just to clarify. Website banned are often hostile propaganda or extremists.
This is only cringy lousy provocation for appearance of moral superiority.
Coming from a government notorious for spying on it's citizens it seems pretty ludicrous.
"Europe" is a continent made up of independent nation states. Each of those nations has chosen to have its own rules about what is and is not legal, which is the right of every country. Those nation states want companies operating within their territory to follow their rules. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it is up to each individual country.
At the same time, I do not understand how what you wrote is in any way relevant to the topic.
It might do that too, but access to information is just so utterly critical, and exponentially moreso in circumstances where government brutally cracks down on it, as we saw in Egypt during the Arab Spring and we're seeing in Iran presently.
Then again, Egypt was definitely driven by Western agitators, as was the case Iran recently. Iran probably got Russian tech to trace starlink users during the blackout which put a target on many Western assets in Iran. I'm not saying the Iran government didn't also kill and torture independent actors nor that I support state violence (against its citizens, in this case). Just saying that any government will use violence to stay in power and to ensure regime change doesn't happen outside of whatever system the state upholds.
Evidence to the contrary abounds regarding Egypt. Secretary of State Clinton famously rejected the popularly-elected Muslim Brotherhood government and pledged support to Mubarak. This tacit approval led him to have a successful coup against the popularly elected government.
If by "western" you meant some other power then you should be specific. Western as a term is imprecise and can be interpreted differently depending on the audience.
The whole truth here would be that technically he did not do it unilaterally but as a representative of his voters, so basically almost as far from unilaterally as possible.
> It’s a clear way to project soft power: make sure your message and culture can get through.
You're talking about an administration that actively tries to censor candidates of opposition candidates through both state regulatory institutions such as the FCC and business collusion, a typical play out of the fascist playbook with state and oligarchs colluding to strong arm their political goals.
It's also the same administration who is actively involved in supporting other dictatorial regimes and destabilize Europe, including with very explicit and overt threats of war of invasion to annex territories.
It's also the same administration that is clearly a puppet administration controlled by another totalitarian regime - Russia.
There is no soft power in this stunt. Only further self-destructive actions to further kill the US's relevance as an European ally.
So far the current admin has been very successful in obliterating all the soft power the US built up through the decades.
I have no idea why they would do this, but I often wonder if maybe soft power becomes less valuable in a world where more countries are able to empower themselves on their own. Perhaps soft power itself is only valuable as long as this asymmetry is sustained. Otherwise, it’s all about hard power.
Exactly. We are heading out of a time where soft power is stronger than hard. We are going back to the days of hard power being the only thing that really matters. As resource competition becomes more intense, and economies stagnate, you can no longer afford to play “nice” with your countries’ future. It’s pretty annoying to me a lot of commenters on the internet are apparently too ideological or immature to grasp that.
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Their soft power is being cashed in for the benefit of an oligarchy.
Because that softpower spread a toxic culture, that has poisoned western civilization from within?
What are you referring to? The US poisoned themselves or got poisoned by the people they exerted soft power over?
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And lies.
And truth.
> > And lies.
> And truth.
In short, propaganda.
Propaganda (noun): Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts.[0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
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You don't have to worry about projecting truth. The truth gets through. This is about projecting lies.
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Worse, half-truths and half-lies.
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> And truth.
The world is yet to find a single piece of truth coming out of the Trump administration. I mean, shall we discuss how Trump claims the Epstein files exonerate him when he is reported as directly, deeply, and personally involved in every single gruesome aspect of the criminal organization?
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American culture can access Europeans at any time. Europeans consume American culture daily.Just to clarify. Website banned are often hostile propaganda or extremists.
This is only cringy lousy provocation for appearance of moral superiority.
Coming from a government notorious for spying on it's citizens it seems pretty ludicrous.
Europe should just create their own social media companies where the government can act as a moderator of content then.
"Europe" is a continent made up of independent nation states. Each of those nations has chosen to have its own rules about what is and is not legal, which is the right of every country. Those nation states want companies operating within their territory to follow their rules. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it is up to each individual country.
At the same time, I do not understand how what you wrote is in any way relevant to the topic.
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It might do that too, but access to information is just so utterly critical, and exponentially moreso in circumstances where government brutally cracks down on it, as we saw in Egypt during the Arab Spring and we're seeing in Iran presently.
Will it work when the US government is the one cracking down, banning interviews, etc?
In some cases yes. Tor for instance was created by the USG and is not easily controlled by the USG.
That is a problem with no other country caring as much about free speech, not with the US having an anti-censorship program.
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Then again, Egypt was definitely driven by Western agitators, as was the case Iran recently. Iran probably got Russian tech to trace starlink users during the blackout which put a target on many Western assets in Iran. I'm not saying the Iran government didn't also kill and torture independent actors nor that I support state violence (against its citizens, in this case). Just saying that any government will use violence to stay in power and to ensure regime change doesn't happen outside of whatever system the state upholds.
The claim that Iranian protesters were western agitators is a pernicious lie.
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Evidence to the contrary abounds regarding Egypt. Secretary of State Clinton famously rejected the popularly-elected Muslim Brotherhood government and pledged support to Mubarak. This tacit approval led him to have a successful coup against the popularly elected government.
If by "western" you meant some other power then you should be specific. Western as a term is imprecise and can be interpreted differently depending on the audience.
Access to information is dangerous when the information is controlled propaganda.
That's what Iran, China, and Russia are saying too, right ? :o)
Yes Europe is in a really bad spot propaganda-wise. See Germany’s latest crusade against online «hate speech» — ie. unapproved political views.
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Would educating people instead and giving them more options for information, not be better than banning access to information?
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Yet the US president unilaterally shut down Voice of America because he didn't like its message
Freedom of speech for me, not for thee
Huh? Voice of America is a basically a government organization blasting out US propaganda.
The president runs VOA, it's not some separate entity he decided to censor.
> US president unilaterally
The whole truth here would be that technically he did not do it unilaterally but as a representative of his voters, so basically almost as far from unilaterally as possible.
That is not what unilaterally means when the US government takes action. It means none of the other decision makers or branches were involved.
Don’t be obtuse
> It’s a clear way to project soft power: make sure your message and culture can get through.
You're talking about an administration that actively tries to censor candidates of opposition candidates through both state regulatory institutions such as the FCC and business collusion, a typical play out of the fascist playbook with state and oligarchs colluding to strong arm their political goals.
It's also the same administration who is actively involved in supporting other dictatorial regimes and destabilize Europe, including with very explicit and overt threats of war of invasion to annex territories.
It's also the same administration that is clearly a puppet administration controlled by another totalitarian regime - Russia.
There is no soft power in this stunt. Only further self-destructive actions to further kill the US's relevance as an European ally.