What do those NGOs have to say about Julian Assange or Steven Donziger

“RSF defends Assange because of his contributions to journalism” https://rsf.org/en/rsf-dispels-common-misconceptions-case-against-julian-assange

“CPJ welcomes reports that Assange will be released in plea deal” https://cpj.org/2024/06/cpj-welcomes-reports-that-assange-will-be-released-in-plea-deal/

“USA must drop charges against Julian Assange” https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/julian-assange-usa-justice/

“Biden Should Pardon Steven Donziger” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/01/biden-should-pardon-steven-donziger-before-leaving-office/

I’m getting the distinct impression you have no idea wtf you are talking about

the stories that come out first tend to be most biased

I honestly think the concept of news is actually harmful, because it’s about reporting what happened, not about making the audience understand the subject. It puts a premium on getting the report out as quickly as possible, and favours the most shocking events and interpretations that draw people’s attention.

Ultimately most news are “empty calories” of information that mostly give an illusion of knowledge. “Explosion in Herptown, dozens wounded” does not meaningfully increase your understanding of the world, it mostly just makes you scared. It will take weeks until the cause and consequences of the explosion can be fully understood, and a lot of research to put that into perspective.

If you do not know the extent of pressure asserted on Chinese media that is willful ignorance.

Of course “our media” (whatever you mean by that) is the only media that can report on it as Chinese media is heavily censored.

If you want to know the extent the information easy to find.

Here’s some of what Reporters Without Borders have to say

“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the world’s largest prison for journalists, and its regime conducts a campaign of repression against journalism and the right to information worldwide.”

“The Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party sends a detailed notice to all media every day that includes editorial guidelines and censored topics.”

“Independent journalists and bloggers who dare to report “sensitive” information are often placed under surveillance, harassed, detained, and, in some cases, tortured.”

Source: https://rsf.org/en/country/china

This is from The Committee to Protect Journalists

“China has long ranked as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists. Censorship makes the exact number of journalists jailed there notoriously difficult to determine, but Beijing’s media crackdown has widened in recent years”

Source: https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-journalist-numbers-near-record-high-israel-imprisonments-spike/

Here’s Amnesty International

“Chinese authorities continued to severely curtail rights to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, including through the abusive application of laws often under the pretext of preserving national security.”

Source: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/

This is just untrue. There is plenty of legal press in the US of any persuasion, from anarchist to fascist.

The major US news outlets are in bed with capitalists because that’s where the money is, but there are lots of smaller outlets with other views. In China all news outlets kowtow to the government because anything else is illegal.

AFAIK often on Chinese services you’ll get an error like “your message could not be delivered”. Posts managing to discuss forbidden topics might be removed without warning, or just be silently hidden so they don’t reach new people.

The goal is not so much to prevent anyone from ever talking shit about the government, but to make those conversations difficult and to stop them from reaching a wide audience.

Decentralization greatly decreases vendor lock-in, lessens the damage of a single actor and adds competition. These are serious long-term benefits for a service and its users.

There’s a reason why something like email is still around and being innovated on 40 years later, while its proprietary competitors are long since dead. And it’s not that the technology is very good.

Bluesky is just another ICQ/AIM/Slashdot/Digg, a little walled garden that will eventually be ran into the ground. Which is fine. The issue is that it’s trying to embrace and extinguish the fediverse by pretending to be decentralized.

The point is that bluesky has no interest in being actually decentralized, it’s just a gimmick

It’s a tool for curating the content, upvote posts you want people to see, and downvote those you think should be hidden. So stuff that’s irrelevant, factually incorrect, pointless, inflammatory etc.

Thinking that something should be hidden just because you disagree with it is problematic.

I actually think up- and downvotes are inherently asymmetrical in this respect.

Upvoting things you agree with is fine and a main use of the function. Why then is downvoting things you disagree with wrong? Because the purpose of voting is visibility, you upvote things you want people to see, like arguments you agree with, and downvote those you don’t think people should see.

Now if you believe in having an open discussion you don’t want to suppress posts just because you disagree with them. Disagreeing is fine, so downvoting is reserved for posts that detract from the conversation.

Two wrongs do not make a right

I’d say the “exchanges” they had with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland etc. were quite unequal. Expanding your territory through force is the purest form of imperialism, no matter what color your flag is.

That declaration wasn’t worth the paper it was written on, as the USSR immediately turned around and tried to forcefully annex these newly independent states (and when it failed tried again some years later).

Yes Finland joined forces with the nazis after the winter war, but the USSR started the winter war attempting to conquer Finland. To blame them for joining forces with the enemy of their enemy after being invaded and losing territory is just wild.

So the argument is that the USSR was so scared of Poland joining the nazis that they made a deal with the nazis to invade it together and divide it between them? How does that make any sense?

The USSR didn’t withdraw their troops from the baltic states until the 90s, a good 45 years after the end of WWII.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a deal between the USSR and nazi Germany detailing who would get what parts of eastern Europe. The existence of other deals and treaties that you think are worse does not change that reality.

If the USSR had been the staunch defender of the slavic peoples from nazis aggression that you claim they were, they would have entered into a defensive pact with the eastern states, not invaded them.

Talk of freedom and brotherhood means nothing when cooperation is gained at the barrel of a gun.

So you are straight up denying the existence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact?

To be clear I don’t fault them for signing a NAP, I fault them for invading a bunch of eastern European countries with whom they had no quarrel because they wanted to do imperialism.

But I guess the fact that you dodged the question and immediately started spewing whataboutism proves that you’re not really interested in a discussion.

It’s an ironic title. Like saying “A benefit of loosing your legs is that you don’t need to buy shoes anymore. I mean I can’t get down the stairs to leave my apartment, but at least I never have to shop for shoes again!”.

The benefit is real, but it’s also clearly not in proportion to the drawbacks presented, so focusing on the benefit is a joke.

So you’re saying we should invade Poland?

You missed the part in between where they made a deal with the nazis and invaded eastern Europe

I honestly kind of like the title and the angle of being brutally honest about the fact that the author (like most who are well off) actually benefit a lot from world hunger. That’s an important point, not because we should support world hunger, but because if we are to tackle it we must be willing to lower our standard of living.

To quote the article in question (highlight is my own):

“[H]ow many of us would sell our services so cheaply if it were not for the threat of hunger? When we sell our services cheaply, we enrich others, those who own the factories, the machines and the lands, and ultimately own the people who work for them. For those who depend on the availability of cheap labour, hunger is the foundation of their wealth.”

Before you have an opinion on it, just read the article, it’s just one page. https://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent/BenefitsofWorldHunger.pdf

The UN really shot themselves in the foot by deleting it, because the title only looks bad if you don’t actually read the rest of the text, which they now made more difficult.

It does explain those things! I quote:

“While it is true that hunger is caused by low-paying jobs, we need to understand that hunger at the same time causes low-paying jobs to be created.”

The title is clearly thinly veiled satire and a pointed reminder that our current wealth is founded on the suffering of the poor.

Just read the article, it’s one page. https://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent/BenefitsofWorldHunger.pdf

But I’m sure George Kent, author of “Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food” is actually a shill for wealthy scum.