Tor needs 200 more webtunnel bridges to fight censorship
As the Russian government intensifies its grip on the internet, censorship circumvention tools like Tor are more critical than ever. Here's the latest on Tor censorship in Russia and how you can help by running WebTunnel bridges.
You're viewing a single thread.
Glad to see they arent going along with the bullshit of "all russians are evil and deserve to die" that is recently going around. The russian people is under dictator oppression and deserves just as much support as any other people in the same situation.
Anecdotal, I have Russian friends (a couple and their kids).
The dad is really apologetic for his country. He also laments not being able to go back to visit his parents, because his profession would likely be in very high demand by the military so he doesn't want to risk getting pulled in for service (even though he's in his 40s).
The mom already went back once, with kids. She says that the population in general, in both Moscow and the countryside, seem really oblivious to what's going on. There's a huge disconnect and often even disbelief about what's going on further west. Likely due to govt media propaganda only running special operations victory headlines. Also those that are able, but down on their luck and fortune, are happy to sign up with the military for (relatively) good pay, especially if their role is not something that makes them fight at the front line directly.
I mean its pretty similar to the US recruiting their poor citizens to fight in the middle east. They are often just as oblivious to the fact that its usually entirely one sided aggression or resource wars.
Ok but the information was available. It wasn't being suppressed. You could openly talk about how awful the wars were without being arrested. The ignorance was self-inflicted rather than state-sponsored. That's significantly different.
There is definitely constant industrial, corporate and state sponsored misinformation. All major news outlets including the more left leaning ones fall in line when it comes to war.
But yes i agree, at least in more recent times, there is no need to suppress the truth anymore. I dont really know why that is, but the political landscape is so full of lies next to the truth that nobody believes or cares about anything anymore.
No, not all Russians are evil and deserve to die. But closing your eyes and playing oblivious to what's happening out there, just believing the state propaganda and living in a position "oh it's just the bad leader" is not a morally OK position.
If there is a dictator in your country you have some moral duty to find out at least a bit about the truth.
How do I know?
I'm German.
My grandparent's generation was the one that actively closed their eyes, that actively looked away, that everything that happend was someone else's problem. They were the Generation that arranged themselves, that did good business as long as it wasn't them that were deported, killed or fought at in the war.
This is not a position that is morally OK, but this is what I see of a lot of Russians. Not all, but a lot.
I like how you just conveniently ignore the part about a dictator oppression.
The key word here is oppression.
A country that is closing its eyes and deserves what they're going to get is the US. In 20 or 30 years when the US is an authoritarian oppressive State then at that point the people don't have a choice, just like they don't in Russia today.
Authoritarian oppressive states don't just let the people think what they want to think. You are groomed and indoctrinated the moment you receive education until the day you die. The easiest way to control a populace is for the populace to not even know they're being controlled.
A key factor to that is limiting and restricting access to outside information. Which is what Russia does which is why the Tor project is so important
So Germany didn't have dictator oppression in the 30s and 40s? You think we didn't have propaganda and we didn't just kill people for another opinion? And we had access to outside information?
I'm talking about a moral duty to oppose, to inform yourself in spite of all that. And I know it is not easy. We Germans failed that miserably.
The plabook Putin is playing, we've been through it and it is was what lead to WW2.
Germany also had that in the 20s, if we are being honest. It wasn't an imperfect democracy and, ahem, it's been ~35 years since USSR feeling really unwell, and ~25 years since Putin coming to power, and ~20 years since people started suspecting he's not going to leave, and ~15 years since Medvedev becoming a president and Russians splitting into the half realizing that they've just been assraped, and the half deceiving themselves with some expectations, and ~10 years since every Russian being assraped again, Crimea and Donbass.
When Hitler came to power, it was just about 10 years since finalizing the mess that happened in Germany after end of monarchy.
Oh, the populace knows it's being oppressed. It's apathetic.
Russia is ruled by very unpleasant people, not very efficient, not very intelligent, but capable of curbing all threats to their power.
I'm confident that if ever the government in Russia changes, rooting out that mafia group will last for another century or more.
If there is a dictator in your country you have some moral duty to find out at least a bit about the truth.
How do I know?
I’m German.
Last time I heard, your government openly supported the genocidal state of Israel.
Also I'd say many Russians in 1996 wouldn't expect a war on Ukraine.
My grandparent’s generation was the one that actively closed their eyes, that actively looked away, that everything that happend was someone else’s problem. They were the Generation that arranged themselves, that did good business as long as it wasn’t them that were deported, killed or fought at in the war.
See, somewhere around the year I was born (1996) in Russia it became a social consensus that something is wrong and that these new "democrats" are not in fact democratic in any way, and that they also commit enormous crimes. In 1993 it kinda slipped, because the parliament opposed to Yeltsin had an unhealthy concentration of Communists, neo-Nazis, bandits and hybrids of them.
And, well, then the society with that consensus learned that "the civilized world" considers legitimate the people with whom it does business. No exceptions for authoritarianism or genocide.
There were widespread protests, you know? It was common to treat the Russian government like shit since then and till early 00s too, on TV and in private conversations and so on. But that government endured the storm, and somehow by that time the most important figures not associated with it were dead.
This didn't happen the same way as it did in Germany where people looked the other way because they were generally fine with everything Nazi. This happened because people got tired of looking the right way. It's apathy, not hypocrisy.