Europe
News and information from Europe ๐ช๐บ
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)
view the rest of the comments
The outside forces are supporting and amplifying fascist content on the web, while forces on the inside (super-rich people like Musk) are also putting oil into this fire, but for a different reason: they want more money and influence, and less regulation. This works "best" by having a right-wing extremist government.
It's a perfect storm, and Europe will in my opinion not be able to weather this storm (not long-term at least). They are super dependent on the US in the digital realm (and subject to blackmail due to this) and super weak against the current propaganda on the web which causes their own population to turn into and vote for fascists.
Russia wants Europe to weaken and split up, and the best way to weaken it is to turn European countries (as well as the US) into nationalist countries which operate more separated from each other (divide & conquer). So he is "attacking" the population itself with propaganda on the web, to turn them against their government. Not sure about China actually, China doesn't really need to do anything when Russia is in a war against Europe, and the US turns into poo, because China automatically come out on top in the end if all others are battling each other or themselves. Waiting is probably the smartest move for them, but they'll probably grab Taiwan when there is enough chaos in the West. But Russia definitely wants to install right-wing extremist governments all across Europe, because it weakens the unity of Europe. And super-rich people like Musk definitely want right-wing extremist governments all across Europe as well, because it's better for their business. Completely different goals, but the end result is still the same catastrophe for Europe. Musk has already tweaked the X algorithm to prominently show right-wing extremist content to all users (like 60-70% right-wing bias) which probably gave Trump an edge to win the vote in 2024. TikTok, which is partly owned by Oracle in the West, also has a bias of displaying a lot of right-wing content to all users. Meta is also very neo-nazi friendly these days. These are still the biggest and most influential content distribution platforms on Earth, and they have basically turned into highly efficient right-wing propaganda distribution platforms. (if Goebbels was still alive, it would be his dream scenario)
So in effect, most voters (especially young, upcoming voters) are literally being transformed into Neo-Nazis by being fed this content on major proprietary social media platforms. These people will then vote right-wing extremists into government. All over Europe, and in the US it already happened. And Putin is also adding even more propaganda on top to accelerate this change. Because he knows that this will weaken Europe.
And the less we talk about these overarching topics (and not about individual symptoms), the worse prepared we are for this drastic long-term destabilization of Europe.