Russia Threatens Retaliation After YouTube Deletes RT Germany Account (gizmodo.com) 83
Russia's Foreign Ministry has threatened harsh retaliatory measures against YouTube after the video sharing service suspended two German-language accounts run by Russian state media, according to a report from Russia's TASS news outlet. Russia went so far as to call the suspensions "information warfare." From a report: The YouTube accounts, RT Germany and Der Fehlende Part, were reportedly deleted after spreading misinformation about the covid-19 pandemic and had a combined subscriber count of roughly 700,000 before being deleted. RT Germany was initially suspended from posting new videos for a week after breaching YouTube's covid-19 misinformation rules, but the account was deleted completely after RT allegedly uploaded the content again to another channel called Der Fehlende Part, or "The Missing Part," in English. "Considering the nature of the incident, which is fully in line with the logic of the information warfare unleashed against Russia, taking retaliatory symmetrical measures against the German media in Russia would seem not just an appropriate, but also a necessary thing to do, especially taking into account that [the German media] were caught interfering into our country's domestic affairs on several occasions in the past," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement to TASS on Tuesday.
Translation:Let us spread propoganda or else (Score:5, Insightful)
great news everyone (Score:3, Informative)
I had no idea our technology level has reached the point where the Singularity [wikipedia.org] is possible. It seemed like only a few years ago we had difficulty devising a test of consciousness that didn't fail on half of humans, now we know so much that we can link a universal mind together with radios smaller than we've ever built before.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Quick lesson in capitalism for Putin, private companies do not have to host his state based propaganda, and they don't really give a crap about him leaning on Germany either...
imo, the West should continue to cold-shoulder Russia until they come up with a solution for their commander-in-thief
Re: (Score:2)
since when is a foreign nation's propaganda a 'free speech' issue for any other nation?
Re:Translation:Let us spread propoganda or else (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't imagine Russia should be surprised, as that YouTube has been committing "information warfare" on its own US citizens for years now.
What makes them think they'd hesitate to stifle or remove any foreign channel(s)?
I mean, this isn't instagram and the Taliban we're talking about there...this is YouTube!!
More context please! (Score:2)
On a more broad observation of all this.
I can't imagine Russia should be surprised, as that YouTube has been committing "information warfare" on its own US citizens for years now.
What makes them think they'd hesitate to stifle or remove any foreign channel(s)?
I mean, this isn't instagram and the Taliban we're talking about there...this is YouTube!!
You made a lot of vague allusions, but I have no clue what you're actually referring to. (Sincerely interested in hearing your perspective and learning more)
Re: (Score:1)
How would you feel if you were forces to cover your house in placards for some foreign politician that you did not support?
That is YouTube's position, it is not a free speech issue since the government is not preventing you, but the property owner their self
Re: (Score:3)
Germany has exactly nothing to do with this, all that happened is that RT was spreading bullshit about vaccination and YouTube finally decided to step on crap like that.
Re: (Score:2)
That may be so, but they have nothing to do with the RT takedown.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Really not. Free speech is good but it's not as powerful as you think it is.
It relies on reasonable shared values and norms. Once those go out the window, you have people intentionally abusing free speech rather than trying to get genuine information out.
This new tactic of spewing misinformation out faster than it can be fact checked breaks free speech so those who use this tactic must be moderated. That's been true since I was using a 2400 baud modem to connect to BBS's. One person could destroy an ent
Re: (Score:1)
Not really. Reasonable free speech is a good indicator. Unfettered chaos is not.
Re: (Score:2)
Read up moron:
Private property rights are central to a capitalist economy, its execution, and its legal defenses. Capitalism is built on the free exchange of goods and services between different parties, and nobody can rightfully trade property they do not own. Conversely, property rights provide a legal framework for prosecuting aggression against non-voluntary means of acquiring resources; there is no need for capitalist trade in a society where people could simply take from others what they want by force
Re: (Score:3)
If cared they'd stop doing business in Russia.
They would also stop doing business in China, and Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, and I'm sure you can think of a whole bunch of other countries that you could argue are dictatorships of one kind or another.
The American based corporation I work for makes nearly $1 billion in profit in China every year, for example. I'm pretty sure the shareholders are ok with that.
Re: (Score:3)
stfu and take your meds (Score:1)
Now the North Sea oil has run out a bit of depopulating europe is a necessary evil in YTs opinion.
Cut them off (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
I have an old hotmail honeypot and it attracts sooo much malware for ru is is not even funny
Re: (Score:3)
Disagree and agree.
Russia is a country with far more than its fair share of human brilliance, but as long as that human capital is fettered by a treacherous, corrupt, authoritarian regime there's no point allowing that regime to wander unsupervised on the commons.
Imagine Russia, with its human and natural resources, only governed like Norway is. It would almost certainly be the third largest economy in the world; not sandwiched between South Korea, a much smaller country, and Brazil, a developing one. It
Re: (Score:2)
That is a very extreme position. You judging billions of people as worthless based on the actions of dozens of them.
You would make it even harder for the citizens of those countries to access a diversity of viewpoints, as retaliation for a government funded news site posting covid misinformation.
By the Way, in Australia Murdock owned Sky News was suspended for the same thing, should News Corp be cut off from the internet as well ?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I hear you.
And let's just suppose....something IS found, I mean, after all, this really doesn't have long term studies on it, what if valid findings become known, if we censor everyone that might have something negative to say about these vaccines....we might miss some important signals that we need to know.
For disclosure, I've had 2x shots of Pfizer...and am looking at getting a booster.
But this censorship o
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There are many places where the discovery and verification of science is done, by people who are experts in the field. Youtube videos and comments (also slashdot comments) are not those places, so blocking those videos from YT does not stop the science.
On the other hand, if you have info that you want to spread in YT because the experts will not spread it, well, that says a lot more about your info than anything else (and most of what it says is bad). I have no idea what the RT accounts were saying, but r
Re: (Score:2)
so blocking those videos from YT does not stop the science.
"Trust the science" people support the censorship. THAT stops science. It STOPS IT. Because regular people are left with one sided false narrative that censorship HELPS science.
If you say it "does not stop science" I can certainly tell you it doesn't help it either.
Either you're for science or you're for "trust" of people who are supporting censorship. Science has no "trust" model, it is literally zero trust model.
Re: (Score:3)
Science is not done on youtube. Science is not done by "regular people" in highly-specialized areas like virology. If youtube vanished tomorrow, virologists would not notice or care in their professional capacity (though they'd miss the cat videos after work, as would we all).
I watch a lot of science videos on youtube. It's a lot of fun and I learn a lot. But just because I watch a video on nuclear fusion doesn't mean I can start working at a fusion reactor (not that any of those reactors work...) If I
Re: (Score:2)
Ok but, YouTube IS a method by which scientists CAN get information out to the general public without having intermediate entities controlling the message, or at least it should be.
And there ARE scientists that do science and talk about it on YT, I mean, are you not familiar with modern YT, the saying goes IF you want to learn about anything, search YT and there'll be someone there talking abo
Re: (Score:2)
> It isn't all kitten videos anymore my friend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I do believe that anyone should be able to say anything tho...but I was referring specifically to people of science that have been removed and censored from YT and social media.
But I also think grown adults ha
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
The problem with that is that people who refuse vaccines, refuse masking, and eat horse worming paste instead endanger others.
In cases where there WERE actual concerns (potential side effects from the J&J vaccine for example), it was all over the national news, websites, and youtube. It wasn't censored because it had actual evidence behind it. As opposed to my cousin's girlfriend's roommate's uncle in wherethefuckisthatistan looked at a vial of vaccine and his balls exploded.
Re: (Score:2)
Off topic? Somebody's butt hurt.
Re: (Score:2)
Tetanus vaccine requires periodic boosters. Human rabies vaccine calls for 3 doses for pre-exposure protection with periodic boosters. Also many of the standard childhood vaccines [cdc.gov] call for 3 doses. Some call for 4 or 5.
Many studies show that the mRNA vaccine significantly reduces the chances of contracting COVID. Try google.
No idea why the FDA is power tripping over NAC, other than they like to do that periodically.
Re: (Score:2)
This makes about as little sense to me as Biden claiming that we had to force vaccines "to protect the vaccinated from the un-vaccinated"...
Really? How?
If I believe the science, that the vaccine works...then I have precious little chance of catching covid, being hospitalized and dying from it from an un-vaccinated person.
I have an even smaller chance from a vaccinated person.
Wit
Re: (Score:2)
Really? How?
The un-vaccinated have crammed hospitals full to the point that whole metro areas are on full diversion. As a result, people needing hospital treatment for other causes may not get it. For example, the guy that had a heart attack in Alabama and ended up at a hospital in Mississippi after 42 other facilities turned him away (he died).
There have also been complaints that people can't get ivermectin for their horses because the anti-vaxers ate it all. Some of those have further clogged the busy hospitals. Yes,
Re: (Score:2)
> There have also been complaints that people can't get ivermectin for their horses because the anti-vaxers ate it all. Some of those have further clogged the busy hospitals.
What now, the horses are clogging the hospitals?
Re: (Score:2)
Good point...to a point.
SOME hospitals have a problem, mostly smaller and rural hospitals, and that is relieving now.
It hasn't been a nationwide problem all at once.
I would posit, that possibly, if they did have to ration care, then, give the vaccinated priority for non-covid related hospital needs.
That would be a consequence the un-vaccinated would have to accept facing, and I'd mentioned before the
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed that it isn't all over the country (at least not at the same time), but I wouldn't call the Atlanta metro area "rural" and I wouldn't call Grady Memorial small.
There are more beds than personnel to attend them, but I did see an article that ECMO machines are hard to come by.
An ethical calculus might solve the problem by sending the un-vaccinated home to die, but that would in itself be inflicting harm upon the medical personnel. It's one thing to have to accept that someone dies in spite of best effo
what it really means (Score:3)
Re:what it really means (Score:5, Insightful)
The Russian government has been doing this shit constantly, treating all foreign media as propaganda, all while they coast on Freedom of Press laws that foreign countries have in order to peddle their own brand of propaganda.
If the retaliation was to be symmetrical, then they would actually have to open up a lot freedom of press in their country first, which is required to establish at least some kind of level field here.
In my eyes, they have absolutely no right to complain about how they're treated here. Usually I'm not a fan of whataboutery, but in this case the hypocrisy from the side of the Kremlin is off the charts.
Re: (Score:1)
On Friday morning, Bloomberg reported that Google and Apple have removed longtime opposition leader Alexei Navalny's voter guide app from the App Store and Google Play store in Russia. Activists have charged the companies with bowing to Kremlin pressure.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, there is still some kind of media left in Russia that isn't already Putin's hot air distribution system?
It must have been effective propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
It must have been effective propaganda for the Russians to complain so much.
RT is a Russian propaganda outlet. Sometimes it says entirely true and neutral things when these are of no matter to the Russians or do not cause division and discord among Western countries. It mixes in a continual stream of lies, disinformation, and controversy under the guise of "alternative" or "balanced" reporting. It's quite cleverly done, and therefore very dangerous.
Now we know it must have been very effective, or the Russians would not complain so.
Re:It must have been effective propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
well, at least they still have Murdoch Media to spread their filth
Re: (Score:2)
If they're consistent in cracking down on that kind of anti-science content, they'd also have to go after a lot of Murdoch Media content. Whether those entire channels will get the axe like RT Deutsch did remains to be seen. Time will have to tell.
The real ridiculous part here is that the foreign m
Call it like it is, Russia! (Score:2)
Re:Call it like it is, Russia! (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess it's like class warfare, it only gets the "warfare" label when the victims fight back.
Re: (Score:1)
Wow, that's harsh (Score:2)
So they're going to delete YouTube's account on all those popular, high-traffic Russian web sites?
Anyway.
Russia should be cut off (Score:2)
Its using all sorts of social media to attack other nations, of course they're pissed at losing an attack vector.
Anything that traces back to Russia should be blocked.
Re: (Score:2)
Could you please think of the antisocial media sites? They'd lose about half their users, if not more than that.
Plus, Slashdot would look mighty empty without AC shills.
Great point - those beating of a liberal posts (Score:3)
Could you please think of the antisocial media sites? They'd lose about half their users, if not more than that.
Plus, Slashdot would look mighty empty without AC shills.
Wouldn't it suck if we didn't get our daily dose of "Beating of a Liberal" posts as well as random swastikas?
Re: (Score:2)
I have to admit, I kinda miss the Golden Girls...
BEWARE OF THE TOOTHLESS BEAR! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>> US and other countries won't kill a few of them, and their families, to make a point.
This is what any Putin collaborator in Russia fears for, if Putin ever decides they are not useful anymore
They should delete Deutsche Welle too. (Score:3)
That's my country's equivalent propaganda machine. At least the official one, not counting all the other de-facto "hail state" wankateering news outlets.
And Voice of America or whatever the US equivalent is.
And so on, for other countries and corporations and churches etc.
Just to be freaking consistent.
Instead of merely supporting one asshole against another. Aka being an asshole too.
Basket case Russia (Score:2)
Putin* seems to have desires of trying to out crazy Kim Jong UN, all the while his country slides further and further into right wing extremism goaded on by him.
Imagine Trump leveled up 10x. This is who Putin is. Putin isn't crazy enough yet to just go and press "the button", but who knows what someone (and the general leadership) who is increasingly unhinged is capable of doing?
At this point, it's time to treat the Russian leadership as you would a dangerous insane person and be ready to defend against the
Mutual Assured Destruction (Score:2)
Wake me up when Russia calls in a nuclear strike on YouTube.
Re: (Score:2)
> Wake me up when Russia calls in a nuclear strike on YouTube.
No need. Those things tend to be quite loud by themselves.
hypocrisy (Score:2)
Oh boo hoo hoo Russia cry me a river.
Your communist oppression-bears wouldn't hesitate to turn this about if the shoe was on the other foot.
Youtube has as much right to ban them as you do to ban anti-putin speakers.
Not to mention this is a private company that doesn't even answer to the US federal government on issues like this.
Sorry our first amendment isn't to your liking but you don't get to bitch about this, least of all to a private company that for the purposes of "information warfare" is actu
Russia Threatens Retaliation .... (Score:2)
Russia Threatens Retaliation After YouTube Deletes RT Germany Account
YouTube EULA: 1
Russian Empire: 0
Too many dick heads (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
most of slashdot
Good old YouTube... (Score:1)