You cannot win a debate by suppressing it.
Your opponents will disguise themselves, not disappear.
The persecution gives them allure and makes you look weak.
You deny yourself the ability to hear their strategy and concerns.
Censorship begets frailty, not safety.
@TheStoicEmperor
A (long) while ago, Ursula von der Leyen attempted to create a censorship infrastructure in Germany. Ostensibly to stop child sexual abuse. And yeah, I also think that people who create or consume such stuff should be punished, but displaying stop signs (no joke) instead of the material itself is a stupid idea. (How about taking down the servers and prosecuting the operators and users? You don’t need a stop sign because you redirect IP addresses, you need a warrant and a police raid.)
Worse, you need to invest a lot to observe and control all of the Internet traffic just to try to prevent access to a tiny part of it. And those who want to access that stuff will find other ways. Heck, they might even start sending hard drives or SD cards per mail. And instead of stopping these crimes you end up with a censorship infrastructure that can be wielded for any purpose (Covid «misinformation» anyone?).
That attempt to create a censorship infrastructure got her the nickname «Zensursula» [literally: «Censorship Ursula», with the duplicate overlapping letters removed; «Zensur» is German for «censorship», «Ursula» is her given name].
Well, thanks to the current war — hmmm, we had Pestilence with Covid, now War in Ukraine (at the moment, will spread), I guess next up are Famine and Death — Ursula is back at it again. This time from her position as President of the European Commission. And sure, again with an ostensibly «noble» goal of stopping fake news:
As with Covid, it’s not the issue itself that’s the issue. Russia Today or Sputnik — who care’s? Nope, it’s about the comment «we are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe». That raises the hairs on my neck. (And again with the buzzwords, now «toxic» and «harmful». Very vague.)
So yeah, she’s back at creating a censorship infrastructure again — and as with her prior plans — no matter how evil the stuff is you want to censor, the censorship infrastructure will be used for any and all «inopportune» information.
Such tools should not be used, they should not even exist. If RT and Sputnik do send fake news, then counter them — in the open, by showing what is wrong, and what is true.
If truth is on your side.
