“Ineligible for recommendation”. Turns out that freedom of speech was when TikTok was Chinese.

To be entirely honest, i don’t know what our “values” are anymore.

That’s the normal thought now, and not “At least compared to our declared current enemies, you’re allowed to criticize our government without consequences” :

In a speech of 355 b.c., Demosthenes rightly remarks that the most important difference between the political systems of Athens and Sparta is that at Athens it is permitted to praise that of Sparta and denigrate one’s own, whereas at Sparta no one may praise any system other than the Spartan. (Dem.20,§106)

That’s the basis of freedom, and once we lose that, what are we left with ?
A bourgeois “democracy” where medias are owned by the capitalists and citizens-owned medias are increasingly threatened of disinformation ? When you’re choosing the least bad and are surrendering your power to elected people that often decide in private, and almost never once through referendums.
A rule of law with many lawfare cases proving a lack of independence from the government ? Where money can buy good lawyers, and blue-collar crimes are treated way harsher for the same sum of money stolen than white-collar crimes ? And the latter is even legalized under fiscal “optimization”, and laws promoted by their lobbying.

Without painting other countries as even worse, what values are we left with ?
I literally have hundreds of such examples : https://x.com/i/status/2012799140061659566
That is even more shocking than censorship : https://x.com/i/status/2014796564624253394
And many dozens of journalists because they were supporting Russia https://x.com/i/status/2014655503616405681
And our “leaders” don’t seem to realize that critizing ourselves is the basis of our system(, and that unlike countries victims of our attacks we don’t even have such excuses) : https://x.com/i/status/2012724357072892409
The e.u., u.k., and Australia, are multiplying laws restricting what they’re deeming illegal speech. They already proved their intent with covid, and are even acknowledging that it’d be a dictatorship if they directly regulated social media posts(, but since it’ll be indirectly through proxy organizations such as EUvsDisinfo instead of WarOnFakes, then it’s all right 🙄).

TIL : The first edition was in 1965 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervision_Song_Contest
We promised a higher growth than the evil commies had if they followed our advices(, and i love Jeffrey Sachs but it’s quite certainly multifactorial and we can raise Poland, Israel or South Korea if we want to), yet on the contrary post-u.s.s.r. countries economy was destroyed after following our advices on (perestroïka and )shock therapy.
We(sterners) never perceive it that way, yet it seems factual to state that we betrayed their trust/good-will.

The eleventh edition is already programmed, and it’ll be in Riyadh. Great.

Ukrainians, and perhaps even western ukrainians one day, will regret not to have joined crimeans and the Donbass. They were sure that they chose the winning side, and the “only” thing necessary to convince (most of )them to join their historical ally instead is if they change their mind, and see the East as the future.