Das Tal der Ahnungslosen

Before reunificatioin, Germany was split in two parts, as a result of WWII.
You had the GDR in the East and the FRG in the West.
The GDR was under control of the Soviet Union, while the FRG was 'free'.

The Valley of the Clueless:

was a sarcastic designation for two regions in the southeast and northeast parts of East Germany that generally were not able to receive television broadcasts from West Germany from the mid-to-late 1950s,

(source: wikipedia)

In the East, it was illegal to tune into the Western TV stations.
In the West, nobody cared and you could watch the Eastern channels without any punishment.

I think the attitude in the West was:
We got nothing to hide, our system is better, our shows are better.

You were able to watch both sides and the government just trusted their people to make the right choice on their own. Evidently, only a minority thought the East was better.
People tried fleeing from the East to the West and only few did the opposite (Strangely enough Angela Merkel's father actually fled to the East, but that's maybe for another post.)

It was also clear to everybody, that not everything was bad in the East.
Some Eastern shows were popular in the West.

Eventually, the Berlin Wall came down and the West won. (Thank god)
I'd like to think, because the West had competition and the East surpressed competition, the Western systems were superior, they evolved, while everything in the East was dusty and detached from reality and eventually failed.

In the East, people snitched on each other for watching West-TV, The Party in the East controlled society by fear and by force.

In short:

If you have to censor your opposition, you probably suck.

Downvoting @rt-international

Today, @blocktrades is downvoting every post of @rt-international.
@rt-international is a state-run Russian propaganda outlet.

Disclaimer:

I am against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There is nothing positive about it.
The reasons Russia is claiming make little sense to me.

Russia is suppressing, censoring, outright attacking and in some cases even assasinating their opposition.
That is terrible.
I am in no way supporting the Russian government.

I watch both sides; Western and Russian media.
Russian TV is a complete shitshow, no doubt.

That being said, RT has released some good pieces in the past.
They are always quick to point out the failures of the West.

Again:

If you have to censor your opposition, you probably suck.

Hive

I think, @blocktrades was the first witness I voted for.
I got my first big vote from them and they are a major reason I stayed here.
I was loyal for ~7 years and just trusted them to do the right thing.

This latest post by RT is important.
The world is facing an extremely serious conflict.
Western (NATO) governments are providing weapons to attack Russian territory.

Before I get nuked, I want to be able to at least see why and for what.

Think about them what you want - RT is watched by millions.
I think it's quite a big deal that they are posting on Hive.

Reservation

I might be wrong here and the downvotes happen because it's plagiarized content - in that case, I might have to reconsider some of this text... I still think it's worth posting;
Germany has revoked RT's license to broadcast in Germany, which I consider a huge mistake.

If their media, their reasons are so terrible, then why do we have to censor it?
Would BBC or ARD and ZDF* (*German state-run media) be censored, too?
I want to watch both sides.

In fact, Western outlets are spreading serious misinformation, too, these days.
If it wasn't for the internet, I would be clueless about what's going on.

The German government is swatting people for stuff they post online.
They seem to only allow one opinion.
The Western media seems to be synchronized. (not all, not all... but most)
I feel like we have reached a critical point and this is exactly the time, where censorship matters.

In a time where the legacy media gets dusty and out of touch is exactly when a free market becomes superior. This is the moment that competition is important.
We could provide that on Hive.

If you have to censor your opposition, you probably suck.

X (formerly Twitter) is the most downloaded app today.
Not because everything on X is true (quite the opposite more often than not), but because it allows competition of ideas. It provides a space for a wide spectrum of opinions.

I might have to add, that downvoting is not perfect censorship.
The posts by RT are still immutable, I can still access them.

But: I disagree with the downvotes on RT so much, that I unvoted @blocktrades' witness this morning. I don't think my vote has an impact, but I just had to make a statement.

Let them post and get rewarded. Everybody knows it's mostly propaganda.