In the UK there is "social media intelligence", where AI systems scan the firehose of messages as they appear. [1]
So people have been arrested for posting something online, even if nobody appears to have seen it, and they delete it shortly after.
The policing is selective, depending on political view. For example, there were recently people with placards in London calling for the death of JK Rowling, which is de facto allowed by the police.
In comparison the wrong social media post can carry a lengthy jail sentence. [2]
The difference is so noticeable, it is now called "two tier policing".
If someone perceives something you say as "hateful" they can report you to the police, who can record a "Non-crime hate incident" against your name. [3]
This can show up on enhanced job checks, affecting employment.
You put hateful in quotes but I do want to point out that this is the tweet from the thing you linked:
> Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f*** hotels full of the bastards for all I care …. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it
tossandthrow 27 minutes ago [-]
> So people have been arrested for posting something online, even if nobody appears to have seen it, and they delete it shortly after.
The message you are quoting is now being propagated,which is unfortunate.
Most of the western world is moving to a risk based legal system and has a proportionaly measure build in.
If the message in question had a limited reach, then it should not lead to a conviction.
Just like we don't convict people who has inappropriate thoughts or write inappropriate things in their diary.
n4r9 1 hours ago [-]
The context also needs to be noted. This was part of the social media storm that whipped up a wave of right-wing, racist hatred and violence in the wake of the Southport riots. No such waves of violence have sprung out of trans activism.
echelon_musk 2 hours ago [-]
There was a CCC talk on the practices of the Stasi some years ago (I forget exactly which year).
What stayed with me from the talk was that they had shown recovered Stasi photos of a young man's home where he had a wall dedicated to American iconography.
The speaker stated that in the current era this would just be trivially collected from social media instead of needing to gain physical access to property.
Edit: It was 32C3 What Does Big Brother See While He Is Watching at appx the 40m mark.
> Over the course of three years, I was able to research the archives left by East Germany's Stasi to look for visual memories of this notorious surveillance system and more recently I was invited to spend some weeks looking at the archive by the Czechoslovak StB. Illustrating with images I have found during my research, I would like to address the question why this material is still relevant – even 25 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
lifestyleguru 18 minutes ago [-]
The birthday party with Stasi members dressed up as the individuals they spy on is really brutal, the costumes themselves were likely confiscated from their victims. Stereotypically confirming that "German sense of humor is not a laughing matter". There is always a brutally cynical undertone in their jokes.
bertylicious 3 hours ago [-]
You forgot to add a source for your claim that protestors called for the death of Rowling.
roenxi 2 hours ago [-]
That isn't the part of the argument that needs a source - pretty much everyone who is anyone in the public sphere seems to have death threats made against them and threats of extreme violence are actually pretty common at protests. Guillotines at protests are a reasonably common fixture for example [0]. That is the reason the standard needs to be someone actually doing something before the police get involved - people say all sorts of threatening things in political contexts. It's pretty scary but it is better to tolerate it and let people get their emotions out into the open. They generally don't mean it.
[X] has has been subject to death threats at a protest is a pretty safe blind claim. Particularly for politicians, public figures, rich people, identifiable races and political groupings. Some yobbo will write something stupid on a placard and wave it around sooner or later.
Maybe so, but it's still important to callenge okeuro49's claims. Extremist takes like that give off an air of believability despite being unsubstantiated. Relying solely on the common sense of the readership leads to situations where extremist views simply drown out the rest. It should not be seen as acceptable to present a wilfully distorted view of the facts.
roenxi 1 hours ago [-]
JK Rowling is famous, wealthy, a public figure and female. I guarantee you she has received death threats and the police have shrugged it off as not a credible problem.
Whether they are public or not is more of an academic detail, but given the level of hostility aimed at her it is a pretty safe bet that someone has somewhere whether or not it was reported on the internet. If someone wants to die on the hill of every claim being cited then fair enough, at least it is a principled hill. But this is like asking for a cite that US political debate got heated. Rowling has genuine anti-fans out there, I've seen totally spontaneous wild hate sessions break out against her in my wanderings through the internet. It'll have spilled out into real-world protest somewhere.
48 minutes ago [-]
foldr 59 minutes ago [-]
The original claim was that people were carrying placards at a recent protest in London calling for the death of JK Rowling. It’s not obvious that this has in fact happened, and it’s reasonable to ask for evidence of it.
I'm just saying, I didn't even check before this comment. And who knew? bunch of death threats targeting Rowling with activists trying to make sure everyone can find her in meatspace in case the threat makes her quieten down. "Did she receive death threats" is really not the part of this to try and question. And if you want to make a point about did someone do it while at a protest - I mean yeah. Yeah they did. Maybe nobody bothered to record it, because that sort of thing is routine and boring.
If someone wants to attack the police response part that I have no idea about. Maybe they did respond and it was exemplary - that is the sort of thing that does need a source. But the death threats part is just another year as a public figure. There are a lot of death threats out there. And it'd spill over to placards.
EDIT And it turned out to be remarkably easy to find a citation, note the "decapitate TERFs" link 2 comments up. As expected. It's easy to tune out because in practice calling for the death of someone at a protest is in practice a pretty minor thing to do. Which TERFs do they want to decapitate if not Rowling? Is there fine print on the back of the sign that exempts her? Its Sky News so I I'll admit that is possible.
n4r9 45 minutes ago [-]
> if you want to make a point about did someone do it while at a protest
You make it sound pedantic. The whole point is whether the behaviour incites hatred or violence.
foldr 29 minutes ago [-]
Ok, so lots of sources that don’t show what was originally claimed (i.e. someone holding a placard at a recent protest in London calling for the death of JK Rowling).
I don’t know why it irks you so much that people would fact check this particular claim. I agree that it’s not central to the original poster’s overall point, but it’s not ok to invent facts just because your argument could probably get by without them.
I haven't seen a single example of someone calling for death of JK Rowling specifically in any of those?
The only references to her I see is a sign saying "go shit on a pile of Harry Potter books" and people chanting "fuck JK Rowling".
EnPissant 1 hours ago [-]
It's an example of police ignoring death threats. It references Harry Potter, and JK Rowling is the most common target of the "TERF" epithet. In any case, it supports the claim that the UK police selectively enforce speech laws.
input_sh 35 minutes ago [-]
Ah so nobody called for the death of JK Rowling, but terfs in general, which she happens to be? A death threat by nonintrinsic affiliation if you will? Seems pretty stupid if you ask me.
Perhaps she could not make it her whole identity so that when people say "death to this specific type of bigotry", random people on the internet don't immediately make the logical leap to think people wish for her death specifically?
foldr 1 hours ago [-]
The original post said that people had placards “calling for the death of JK Rowling”. It may be that the poster’s overall point does not rely on this specific factual claim. But don’t try to muddy the waters around this: it’s a straightforward factual claim and people are right to ask if it can be sourced. So far it has not been.
EnPissant 45 minutes ago [-]
If there was a protest where people had signs that said “death to <slur>” while screaming “fuck <member of group targeted by slur>”, and calls were made to defecate on that person’s art, would you say death threats were made about that person?
Please take a moment to substitute various groups and people.
n4r9 5 minutes ago [-]
The legal system does not operate according to blanket statements. Police make a judgement of whether the death threat is credible. This depends on how specific the threat is and whether it occurs in the context of likely violence.
chgs 2 hours ago [-]
If you think an enhanced dbs check can affect your job wait to see what posting on social media will do.
tonyedgecombe 46 minutes ago [-]
I must admit I'm struggling to see the problem. If someone is hostile or prejudiced against people of a certain race, sexual orientation or disability then they should be excluded from jobs working with those people.
walterbell 2 hours ago [-]
Censoring of messengers can destroy early warning signals of systemic risks.
lazide 1 hours ago [-]
That’s the point, eh?
xico 1 hours ago [-]
This case sounds crazy, I cannot even imagine loosing a child and how anybody could expect someone to keep sane in those conditions.
Beyond this, there is a very clear difference between inciting hatred towards a group of people based on race, religion, nationality, origin, etc, and towards a single individual without those aggravations. The law is quite clear about this distinction in various countries (Public Order Act in the UK for instance), and the penalties are rightfully much stronger when one would try to instil hatred towards a racial (or other) group.
Arkhaine_kupo 3 hours ago [-]
Sometimes there is a worthwhile discussion on the reach and breath of policing, sometimes ridiculous people with insane views and 0 technical or legislative knowledge make opinion eds for people to share as rage bait.
Please just look at the other content from the "lovely" Laurie Wastell of the spectator to find the kind of groups, opinions and places she wants to protect vs those she doesn't.
like I would be kinda embarrased to share news sources from people being actively sued for the harm they caused with their misinformation (in their case vaccine lies).
> If someone perceives something you say as "hateful" they can report you to the police, who can record a "Non-crime hate incident" against your name. [3]
this was a law introudced by a conservative goverment, as part of their increase in police tools, which in large part came from support for "anti woke" policing of the pro black protests that came after it erupted in america.
People like the previouslike mentioned Mrs Wastell advocated for stronger sentencing and more police, and now that the leopards are eating the faces of the people who spend all day on facebook sending death threats to muslims she is now so incredibly offended.
Btw another reason for the focus on the NCHI is because the police are swamped, the Conservatives under theresa may cut their budget 40% which meant they have way less people so to keep stats up, you gotta focus on the easy shit.
Maybe if we hadn't brought in consulting types who advocate for stats to show work progress, conservative cuts to salaries and advocated for "blue lives matter" which pushed for stronger sentencing laws we would not be here but somehow Mrs Whitehall and you will take 0 accountability and instead blame "woke judges" or some other nonsense as she does in her article.
bufferoverflow 3 hours ago [-]
UK has a two-tier justice system.
bilbo0s 3 hours ago [-]
In fairness to UK, pretty much every place has a two tier justice system.
tossandthrow 3 hours ago [-]
That absolutely puts no fairness to the UK, but puts all these other places at equal shame.
okeuro49 3 hours ago [-]
It didn't used to have:
The hanging judge, that evil old man in scarlet robe and horse-hair wig,whom nothing short of dynamite will ever teach what century he is living in, but who will at any rate interpret the law according to the books and will in no circumstances take a money bribe, is one of the symbolic figures of England.
- Orwell
croisillon 2 hours ago [-]
@ZeroGravitas bitten by Poe's law :(
cjbgkagh 3 hours ago [-]
The dose makes the poison, and the UK is getting a big dose right now that they are not used to.
Plus the normal status quo is that you have an elite you cannot offend, now there are protected classes you cannot offend.
ZeroGravitas 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
2 hours ago [-]
foldr 2 hours ago [-]
> The difference is so noticeable, it is now called "two tier policing".
That’s what Elon Musk calls it. In fact, the difference in the case you mention is simply that:
(i) Inciting racial hatred is a specific offense which doesn’t require a credible death threat. There is no offense of inciting hatred against TERFs. Like that or don’t – but the police don’t make the laws.
(ii) The context of Connolly posting during the riots in which actual violent crimes against minority groups were being committed.
mrtksn 2 hours ago [-]
That's disturbing. Instead of the govt. going after people we should enable people going after people.
That's how it's done in real life and that's how we protect ourselves from arsholes in real life. That's why the police is only involved when some actual danger is present, you are not expected to just endure the constant harassment.
IMHO someone being a complete cunt and you not having a recourse is also not acceptable. It's terrorizing people, there must be a mechanism to stop these people and that mechanism should not be police intervention.
The things they do should somehow stick to their name for example or you should be able to go after them just as brutally. Honestly, I like 4Chans way with dealing with people much more than restricted, moderated police involved crap that the Web has become. Someone built a following, then they harass people but your only recourse is legal stuff and you can't do doxxing, can't use bad words etc because you get banned/demoted/shadowbanned/rate-limited. It's not working, it's destroying the society.
For example, the women jailed for just tweeting plead guilt that she was spreading materials with intention to stir racial hatred. In a real life such person will be quickly stopped one way or another, she will be confronted and then removed or ignored. If her material is actually good, it will be noted and supported and the issue resolved. Online is not like that people with agenda lie, spam and annoy people without facing a pushback or consequences. It's not a real discussion, it's not real problem solving.
lazide 1 hours ago [-]
Just wait until you see the difference in how the police treat someone between defending yourself and attacking someone in the UK. Note: Don’t try to defend yourself if you know what’s good for you.
mrtksn 1 hours ago [-]
The police is not always present and you don't have to attack anybody. For most cases it is good enough to be able to show credible defence. If you you are able to smack someone, they will get smacked if they insist and remember it even if afterwards you go through legal trouble(they will also get into legal trouble). Police and the courts cant un-smack them. As a result, people feeling causing trouble tread more carefully and don't cross a line unless they are fully motivated to go through all this.
Streets are significantly more polite than the online places and I think its because of the dynamic of it and not the people - they are the same people.
kmeisthax 4 hours ago [-]
The section at the end about support and solidarity is the most important bit.
Personally, I feel like Zersetzung has already been a thing in the US since at least 2014. Modern social media is very, very good at getting people to shout at each other and do nothing. People don't talk to each other, they shout to themselves while watching the telescreen.
baxtr 3 hours ago [-]
I feel like it started 2001.
Unfortunately, it seems as if the terrorists might have achieved many of their goals years later.
starspangled 3 hours ago [-]
Bin Laden wanted to create a unified Islamic Caliphate uniting Muslims around the world, and overthrowing governments in the Middle East and Arabic world seen as usurpers and puppets of the west and zionists.
I don't think he particularly cared whether or not people in England or America got locked up for social media posts or other alleged freedoms. I don't think he would have been thrilled about the state of the Middle East today, if he were alive to see it.
What's happening in western countries is significantly the doing of (and almost certainly in line with the goals of) our ruling classes. Breaking down social cohesion, reducing the population of a country to little more than its head count and what it can do "for the economy", and pitting different groups to fight against one another are all key to ruling in their own interests.
atoav 2 hours ago [-]
I had a similar thought a while ago. If the goal of the terrorists was to shake the system in such a way it destroyed (or seriously harmed) itself, that goal was achieved. I believe the authoritarian ICE deportations without due process are essentially the imperial boomerang of the Guantanamo Bay-style human right abuses that followed 9/11.
In human history stretching the homelands rules beyond recognition when acting abroad has rarely turned out well for the homeland in the long run.
quantumgarbage 4 hours ago [-]
On this topic, I can't recommend enough the movie "The life of Others" (2006). Depicts surveillance in Eastern Germany and the state of sheer fear and paranoia its citizens had to live in.
FlyingSnake 3 hours ago [-]
Stasiland by Anna Funder is also a great read on the topic. And then there’s Katja Hoyer’s “Beyond The Wall” which takes a comprehensive look at the DDR.
Seems to be available in Germany and some other countries, but not here in Sweden at the moment (I think it used to be on Netflix here).
dmos62 2 hours ago [-]
You can find it on bittorrent: https://bt4g.org. That's a DHT search engine. Put in your query and sort by seeder count, then use the magnet link to load it onto a bittorrent client (e.g. qbittorrent).
umanwizard 2 hours ago [-]
It is available from Amazon.de on blu-ray (probably also on Prime Video depending on the country), under the original German title: Das Leben der Anderen.
2 hours ago [-]
begueradj 4 hours ago [-]
In some European countries, if you apply to rent an apartment, the landlord can see you failed to pay 1 month rent several years ago.
That's just a tiny example.
Is this control and surveillance or ... democracy and freedom ?
Helmut10001 3 hours ago [-]
I have a tenant who has been living in my garden house for two years without paying rent. It is almost impossible to solve this situation. I am not even allowed to turn off the water or electricity. There are always two sides to every coin.
rdtsc 1 hours ago [-]
That’s just crazy. Were they ever a paying tenant and stopped paying. or just random stranger who broke in and decided they now lived there?
Helmut10001 25 minutes ago [-]
It was the neighbour whose house had burned down, and my mother let him move into our garden house (because winter was coming). They agreed to make a rental contract. But after he moved in, he refused to pay anything and since then it has been impossible to change that.
dmos62 2 hours ago [-]
That sucks. What law protects your renter?
lazide 1 hours ago [-]
Squatting laws, sounds like.
Helmut10001 22 minutes ago [-]
In Germany you have to file an action for possession ("Räumungsklage"). But that takes years (I brought it on its the way immediately). You cannot act on your own, it has to be legally enforced. But the legal system in Germany takes ages and human rights are higher than tenancy rights (usually good!). This often leads to deadlocks where nothing happens because you cannot evict someone and put them on the street.
chgs 2 hours ago [-]
What country?
Helmut10001 21 minutes ago [-]
Germany, of course.
lifestyleguru 3 hours ago [-]
You wish to increase his rent 10% annually and after move out keep his deposit 6 months. Then confiscate 50% of the deposit for "damages". You wish!
Helmut10001 3 hours ago [-]
In fact, I would first like to see rent being paid at all. And I don't have a deposit to keep.
lifestyleguru 3 hours ago [-]
My experience as a legit and regularly paying tenant are equally awful.
i5heu 3 hours ago [-]
Comparing agents that will go into your home and move things around to drive you crazy and directly torturing you, with a debt registers is not a comparison I see as successful.
schroeding 3 hours ago [-]
It is way more democracy and freedom than living in a state with an entity like the Stasi, a mixture between the NSA and the Gestapo, which is used to curb any opposition, at least.
It's not perfect, but this alternative is way worse.
TheDong 3 hours ago [-]
And in the US, landlords can pull credit reports from private companies, and if the private company says you missed a credit card payment a year ago they'll reject you.
If the private credit score company returns a wrong score because someone else has the same name as you and they mixed up some records, well, it's a private company, you have no recourse.
Since it's not the government, but a for-profit private company, it can and will also sell your information.
If you opt out of this private company's system, landlords can and will reject you.
It is well known that the US is the most free country in the multiverse, so I would say no, having a government do it is not freedom (that's a social credit system like china has), but if instead it's a private company creating that credit score, that's freedom.
What law do you want to have to prevent this? Companies are people, and if your two previous land-lords are free to gossip about whether you paid rent (free speech), of course equifax should be able to sell that information (also free speech). People's right to privacy stops where free speech, and the ability of private entities to profit and raise GDP, starts.
Understanding how the system works, which buttons work and which don’t is half the battle.
vincnetas 3 hours ago [-]
Free speech does not include slander or lies. Like when credit score company makes a mistake.
briandear 3 hours ago [-]
You can sue the credit bureaus for inaccurate information. I did using a contingency lawyer and it worked. Depending on your actual damages, you can win significant money. The FCRA and other laws can be very powerful.
brnt 3 hours ago [-]
In the US, the government is using everything you ever said on any social medial to deny you access to your job, the country, or benefits.
Just a tiny example.
begueradj 3 hours ago [-]
Too scary and sad.
sixhobbits 3 hours ago [-]
How does one reconcile the idea that the Stasi disappeared political opponents regularly but also engaged in weird stuff like moving people's socks around.
> The final stages entailed psychological and physical harassment: moving things around at home (one morning the alarm clock goes off at 5am instead of 7am, and the socks are in the wrong drawer, there’s no coffee left …); damage to bikes and vehicles (eg slashing tyres); the spreading of rumours as mentioned above; ordering goods and making appointments in target’s name etc.
I get that sometimes a "broken" opponent is more useful than a dead one as they can sabotage the whole cause, like this article implies. But if you hold as much power as they did then it seems very unlikely to me that using resources to troll someone like this provides an effort/reward ratio that would be interesting to someone with that much existing power
walterbell 2 hours ago [-]
You can't disappear everyone. Deniable punishment of possible precrime would create superstitions for the general population to be on their best behavior. Sabotage that slows down an adversary would enable more time for surveillance.
> One former deputy described the directive like this: “Make their lives miserable until they move or sue.” In just five years, Nocco’s signature program has ensnared almost 1,000 people.
thinkingemote 2 hours ago [-]
Perhaps for the same reason Russia's intelligence forces does it? They kill people in an obvious manner to send a message and the message is to demoralise, destabilise and psychologically harass other people. "I could be next"
I'm not sure if the Stasi disappeared people in an obvious or hidden manner though. Maybe they did it more frequently than modern states assassinations? In both cases it shows that the life of any person is not important to them - what's important is the effects an action causes.
zwaps 2 hours ago [-]
The question you ask is really important, because it shows how devious the Stasi regime was and why it lasted half a century. Why would they do this? Why would they go through these lengths to destroy a person so entirely they wouldn't even need to disappear them?
The Stasi knew that power is never that absolute.
The GDR was built upon the idea that is was good, not evil (like the West). You can't be good and regularly disappear public figures, especially those from intellectual cycles. Additionally, people were aware of the oppression as is. If the GDR would have simply disappeared people, there would have been revolts. Germans were too connected to the other reality.
Here is a popular song from that time
I think what I want,
and what makes me happy,
but all in silence,
and as it befits.
My wish and desire
no one can forbid,
it remains so:
thoughts are free.
...
And if they lock me up
in a dark dungeon,
all that is purely
futile work;
for my thoughts
tear through the barriers
and walls in two:
thoughts are free.
2 hours ago [-]
jonathanstrange 21 minutes ago [-]
The Stasi documented what they did in quite some detail and most of the documents were not destroyed during the fall of the wall. So, there is no need for speculation.
I'm by no means an expert on the matter but as far as I know, the Stasi did not disappear political opponents regularly, at least not after Stalin's time. I looked over the article and didn't find that claim but if I missed it and it's in there, then the article is wrong about it. The Stasi had a large array of measures at disposal. Some people were cleared for moving out of the country to West Germany. Others went to prison. Some people were exposed to radioactive materials. Others got a better job that moved them away from other dissidents.
Specific "Zersetzungsmaßnahmen" you and the article mention were very rare - we're talking about an estimated few hundred to thousands cases in total. When they occurred, however, they were extremely devastating because not even experienced critics of the system imagined them. We're not just talking about switching socks and replacing good milk with spoiled one in the fridge. There were also cases of medical doctors prescribing the wrong drugs, for example, worsening the symptoms of diseases.
As far as I know, who became the victim of these special measures may not have been a fully rational decision. It seemed to be based to a large extent on the preferences of the case officers in charge.
Broader measures against critics of the system were far more common, however, and way more pervasive than what most people suspected at the time. For example, the father of a former girlfriend of mine was a famous GDR rock musician. He later found out from the archives that the Stasi planned and supervised his whole life and managed to break up his former band without anyone suspecting it. One guy moved somewhere else for work, another went to prison, and he moved elsewhere, too. There were also way more informants than he ever suspected. Basically, the Stasi and their informants interfered with what other artists he met, were he and his band mates got work, and so on. They planned over years. It went far beyond the usual method of giving people a telephone and letting them hear a loud click when the tape was switched on (they did that, too!).
> it seems very unlikely to me that using resources to troll someone like this provides an effort/reward ratio that would be interesting to someone with that much existing power
Nevertheless, this happened. The Stasi was a huge bureaucratic organization with ideology at its core, built after the example of the KGB. Stasi officers considered themselves fully in the right, defending their people against counter-revolutionary and decadent activities. Goals ranged from "helping" citizens get on the right track towards socialism in a friendly but firm manner, over collecting information about potential adverse political activities, to completely destroying enemies of the state and doing counter-espionage.
thinkingemote 3 hours ago [-]
It's worth repeating a tactic from every state's intelligence playbook, but I note that this article gives an interesting angle to this.
Informants and spies are almost always those at the top of your group, they are the leaders, the ones with the money, the ones with the van, the people with the time to help out, to print your flyers, the people who can organise and transport. Spies are going to be the people above you that you trust. Spies will be your friends. In the UK, police informants even fathered children with members of their infiltrated groups! They are not going to be the new strange people who join and are look nervous but who make excellent and easy scape goats. States want the maximum value for their intelligence, the spies are going to be at the top of your group.
The article suggests one way around it, to have flat organisations: to not have leaders. It gives resilience if when a person is compromised the group can continue, or when there is no leader the amount of information or damage that leader can cause would be less. Another way potentially would be the cell format, used in some of the worst terrorist groups, only operate in cells of 5 or less and only one of those in each small group have contact with only 1 other cell.
PeterStuer 1 hours ago [-]
I can't be the only one seeing the strong parallels between 'Zersetzung' and late stage twitter cancel culture.
It's remarkable how quickly Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe the moment Soviet support went.
Despite decades of intense propaganda, killings of people in uprisings and the methods of Stasi as described in the article.
Even with all that effort most people didn't believe in the regime.
So it's hard to say whether the Stasi's tactics worked. Only people in the regimes like Ceausescu and Honecker actually thought people liked it. And perhaps not even them.
lb1lf 3 hours ago [-]
As for your last point, Solzhenitzyn said something memorable about that -
'We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying.
In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.'
sien 3 hours ago [-]
It makes you wonder if 'disinformation' actually works if the mass propaganda of totalitarian regimes fails so dramatically.
There is an interesting book called 'Not Born Yesterday' that points out that people are pretty skeptical .
Russian disinformation campaigns the past 20 years have been outrageously effective.
chgs 2 hours ago [-]
Only because of the invention of western platforms tuned by the brightest minds in the world to enable the maximum amount of brainwashing
dmos62 2 hours ago [-]
That's not true. Old-school disinformation platforms like TV, bought political parties, etc., worked and still work fine for disinformation and division. If you're not familiar with the subject, you'd be surprised just how inventive these campaigns can be.
chgs 2 hours ago [-]
Not as well as the modern adtech industry. Radio and TV were child’s play in comparison.
zorked 2 hours ago [-]
Still proof that propaganda works, and is growing over time.
anal_reactor 3 hours ago [-]
I love it how Americans point to such quotes without realizing that this is how most corporate jobs function.
lb1lf 2 hours ago [-]
Any large, hierarchical organization is likely to end up resembling this, be it public or private.
By the way, this American is Norwegian and didn't even set foot on US territory until my early twenties... :)
ttoinou 2 hours ago [-]
A thousand big companies is still better than one gigantic state company. I’d prefer a million small companies though
kmeisthax 4 hours ago [-]
If people believed in the regime, they wouldn't have needed a Stasi to impose it upon them.
3 hours ago [-]
afterburner 3 hours ago [-]
Soviet support? More like Soviet control.
tpm 54 minutes ago [-]
And also intimidation and threats. All of the the regimes collapsed swiftly once Gorbachev declared there will be no Soviet military response, like there was in 1956 and 1968. One wonders what would have happened if Poland in 1981 didn't feel like the Soviets will repeat that; there are some reasons to believe they would not.
sofixa 3 hours ago [-]
As someone from a post-Communist country, unfortunately it didn't, exactly. The former ruling class just switched colours and looted the country during the "privatisation" phase of democratisation. People were never properly educated on democracy and stuff, and most of the parties that sprung up were just pure garbage interested in looting.
30 years on, the political landscape is still a disaster. Media is a shit show in the hands of a few. A lot of the older people (40+) long for the "good old days". A lot of the young have ran away for better opportunities. Democratic participation is very low.
The fall of the Communist regimes and subsequent liberalisation and democratisation were managed incredibly poorly in most of those countries. Yes, standards of living are much better, but if you ask a lot of the people, things are worse (because they're incapable of introspection, have been fed propaganda on Facebook and shit media, etc).
ReptileMan 2 hours ago [-]
The communism collapsed because it was no longer possible to keep the knowledge of the 80s American supermarket hidden from them. That's it. If the communist regime provided what CCP does now - there would be absolutely no collapse.
sien 1 hours ago [-]
And yet the CCP won't allow any elections.
If the CCP did, how many of them would get elected ?
ZoomZoomZoom 30 minutes ago [-]
You know, USSR had elections, and people actually went and voted.
thworp 2 hours ago [-]
Actual support from the people was not wanted or needed by these regimes. They were content with having support by their party lapdogs, the kinds of people with no skills or personality, that would inform on their peers and magically become the factory's overseer. Those people owed everything to the system and they were the key to it continuing.
Everyone else was just kept in line. They set up both positive and negative incentives. Be neutral and you can live an OK life. Be a good communist and you can climb socially. Meet your West German uncle too often, or don't show up to the Labor Day parade and get a threatening talk. Actually voice your opposition to the regime and you may well find yourself in a Stasi torture prison.
Socialist doctrine said that socialism would be so good that people would soon(TM) embrace it organically. Of course they didn't, because it never delivered on anything and some western media still made it behind the iron curtain. Seeing a western supermarket shelf while you had to bribe someone to get spare parts for your washing machine is stronger than any propaganda.
> Hubertus Knabe studies the Stasi — and was spied on by them. He shares stunning details from the fall of a surveillance state, and shows how easy it was for neighbor to turn on neighbor.
lifestyleguru 3 hours ago [-]
During COVID face masks were enough. Fine speculators earner low hundreds trading them, politicians made frauds worth millions, anyone could pick on any stranger not wearing or wearing them incorrectly, law enforcement could impose the most ridiculous fines. It's so trivial to make people yap at each other.
pbhjpbhj 2 hours ago [-]
Except masks were a societal necessity to prevent further spread of an airborne pathogen - people not wearing masks were choosing to put their neighbours at risk of death.
I'm not sure what a "fine speculator" is?
In the UK the Tory ruling party used mask supply, and it seems other contract-based fraud (Covid website, at least), to steal £Billions from the Exchequer.
EdwardDiego 3 hours ago [-]
Not wearing one implied a lack of care for others in your society.
Wearing them imposed minimal burden, so why are you surprised when you signal that you don't care about others in your society, that they responded in kind?
ttoinou 2 hours ago [-]
You’re basically admitting you are one sided on this topic and couldn’t understand why this was the perfect tool to divide and conquer people
saagarjha 1 hours ago [-]
Have you considered that perhaps they understood exactly that, and maybe better than you?
4gotunameagain 3 hours ago [-]
Divide and conquer.
I'm pretty sure that the intelligence services nowadays condone the contemporary identity politics revolution because it distracts people (especially the youth) from the actual problems of society.
I am old enough to remember the time where revolution meant actively fighting the oppressors or those in power, not posting on twitter about who has what between their pants and to which bathroom they should go to.
soco 1 hours ago [-]
You are probably thinking of the Gerasimov doctrine (or so we call it) where they would use any non-military means to simply but effectively destabilize the enemy society. I'm sure you can see it at work all around us.
e40 3 hours ago [-]
Anything other than this is missing the point.
lifestyleguru 3 hours ago [-]
So much effort and resources only to produce Trabants and Wartburgs. You will know them by the cars they produce.
Yes it was that bad it's not a parody. Lincoln was comparatively better which also explains weird sentiment towards "American cars" of people who were young in that era.
black_13 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
kajal0302 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
anovikov 4 hours ago [-]
Time and again we see how half-assed dictatorships don't work. Soviet Union and the Eastern Block failed because they tried to be nice. By doing so, they achieved the worst result possible: cynical, profoundly disillusioned society and an economic failure on top of that. They should've either folded when they realised that "classless and stateless" Communism was never going to work - which is, by the late 1970s at the latest, or practiced pure Stalinism where everyone who wavered, got purged in an instant and thus generations kept being genetically filtered for obedience.
There is no such thing as "Socialism with a human face". It is so anti-human, it can only exist by hard coercion, or not at all.
rdtsc 49 minutes ago [-]
> which is, by the late 1970s at the latest, or practiced pure Stalinism where everyone who wavered, got purged in an instant and thus generations kept being genetically filtered for obedience.
That’s a good point. The system worked so “well” before, during and a bit after WWII was because of the absolute terror and demand for obedience. With the willingness to kill, enslave, starve and terrorize people by the millions, one can achieve “great” economic results and military victories.
BLKNSLVR 3 hours ago [-]
Are you using Socialism and Communism interchangeably?
Communism goes further than Socialism (or Socialism doesn't go as far as Communism), Communism is more extreme, cold and hard and not at all blurry-edged, according to my understanding anyway.
All instances of -isms eventually fall to the unrelenting winds of human nature. Not necessarily due to the ideals within the -ism itself.
anovikov 3 hours ago [-]
Well, Communism was seen by countries we call "Communist" (GDR, Soviet Union, Red China in Mao era, and the like), as something potentially possible in some distant future, it was their endgame (some claim, only notionally so, with no actual plan of getting there, but it doesn't matter really). What they had in reality, they called "Socialism".
Socialism is the "form of industrialised society where private ownership of means of production is outlawed".
Communism is the (hypothetical) "classless, stateless society".
e40 3 hours ago [-]
The above comment chain is what is wrong with us. We talk about labels more than we talk about issues.
Labels are a distraction. If you have a conversation about real things I find we agree nore than we disagree.
But disagreement is what is fomented by our oppressors, because it distracts us from fighting them.
soco 1 hours ago [-]
Nevertheless, words (let's not call them labels, maybe terms) are what allows us to communicate ideas. While yes communicating about real things is the real deal, having a common understanding of words, language and concepts, is what allows everybody to have discussions. Labels are just shortcuts which may or may not be understood the same way by the participants, so such clarifications are always necessary at the beginning.
anovikov 2 hours ago [-]
I agree. No matter how you call it, society without private ownership of means of production - without legalised ability to build capital and gain economic power by extracting value from productive assets for private gain - cannot work except by hard coercion provided by relentless, unblinking, crushing force. Just because a society like that is contrary to human nature and every bit of freedom we get, we will use to circumvent and undermine it.
And difference in terms - socialism vs communism - is just a west/east terminology difference.
Soviets called what they had "socialism" and what they (as they claimed) wanted to get, "communism".
The West called what Soviets had, "communism" and the social order in "soft" Western countries like Sweden or 1960s UK, "socialism". Which was "a society where private ownership of means of production still dominates, but is heavily taxed, and proceeds are used to fund a lot of social programs and public infrastructure, housing and other programs are centrally planned long term". Soviets never accepted that as "socialism" and kept saying that this term was only used by the West manipulatively to disarm the Western working class, and they were probably right.
umanwizard 2 hours ago [-]
Socialism has practically infinite different meanings depending on whom you ask (and in what country). There’s nothing that ideologically unifies Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Bernie Sanders, and Joseph Stalin other than being somewhere left of center, but all of them would have described themselves as socialists.
tpm 45 minutes ago [-]
Socialism is defined by social ownership of the means of production. But in those countries, the society did not really have a say in managing the means of production, everything was in the hands of the 'avantgarde party' which inevitably led to centralization of power in the hands of a small clique.
Total socialism is of course unworkable anyway, but this was no socialism.
vincnetas 3 hours ago [-]
Socialism is not Communism.
umanwizard 2 hours ago [-]
What is your definition of socialism and communism? “Socialism” is used with a very wide set of definitions. Both the French socialist party (which is at most center-left) and the East German SED would have described themselves as “socialist”, and surely the latter at least would have thought socialism was incompatible with capitalism and that communism was its end goal.
rdtsc 39 minutes ago [-]
Communism was always the goal if we’re talking about those countries. We were “building communism” and socialism was just a temporary pit stop on the way.
paganel 4 hours ago [-]
> than political grassroots activists have today in places such as Western Europe and North America
That (2021) from the title is on the mark, as I think that by now, 2025, it has been made quite obvious that political protests in the West can only get up to a certain point, after which you risk prison, job loss or a combination of the two (even bough January 6 and the associated political repression took place in early 2021, so maybe the author should have already been aware of it)
flohofwoe 3 hours ago [-]
That looked more like an attempt to overthrow a democractically elected government by a mob of primitive brutes than 'political protest' to me tbh.
briandear 3 hours ago [-]
If anyone was attempting to overthrow anything, they would have been well armed. Not strolling around as if on a guided tour. Nobody overthrows a government by carrying protest signs. And grandmas aren’t using hanging out on the “front lines” taking photos with their iPhone. The leftist rioters that attacked police stations and burned courthouses — that looked a lot more like an insurrection to me.
Where the hell does this revisionist history come from?
vkou 2 hours ago [-]
1. Many of them were armed.
2. A mob of people doesn't need to be armed to be a deadly threat. In fact, just the prior year, someone - successfully - made the same argument for killing two unarmed people at a protest. The courts ruled in his favor.
3. Not a single person among those prosecuted has been acquitted by a jury. Only two were acquitted at bench trials. But I'm sure your opinion on this matters more than the findings of the courts... It's strange how juries of their peers kept voting to convict them.
> Not strolling around as if on a guided tour.
Is it common for guided tours where you come from to be trying to break through a doorway, on the other side of which is an armed policeman, warning them that they'll be shot if they come any closer? Or to attack policemen with flagpoles? Or to climb the walls of a building?
Or to smear human shit over the walls of someone's office? Steal documents from them?
What do you think Trump would order done to a mob of a thousand people climbing over the fences and breaking into the White House, in an effort to overthrow him? Think he'd be smiling and directing them to the gift shop?
cruzcampo 3 hours ago [-]
January 6 was an attempted coup de etat and high treason, not a protest.
It was not persecuted nearly enough - participants would've deserved the death penalty.
vkou 2 hours ago [-]
The part of it that took place at the rally was a protest. A lot of people attended it, and went home.
The fraction of them that went on to break into the capitol was a failed coup.
cruzcampo 1 hours ago [-]
I see it as a modern day equivalent to Mussolini's March on Rome.
> even bough January 6 and the associated political repression took place in early 2021
Repression for a coup attempt is the expected and wanted outcome.
Also, please stop mixing the US, maybe Canada and UK with "the West". Political protests in France remain quite powerful, even if they haven't managed to force the government to go back on some long promised and long needed reforms (pensions).
paganel 2 hours ago [-]
> Political protests in France remain quite powerful,
Political repression against the gilets jaunes was quite powerful, too, thanks for reminding me. It was surreal to be stopped in the middle of no-where, Pays de la Loire, by a bunch of gendarmes who were holding submachine guns, and all that because it was still gilets jaunes season (early autumn of 2019, if I remember right).
sofixa 1 hours ago [-]
Heavy handed policing is not political repression.
And yes, police, gendermerie and the army patrolling in France are armed. There have been enough terrorists attacks in recent memory that this is the norm. None of those weapons were ever used against protestors of any kind ("less lethal" ones have been, sometimes to lethal or crippling effect to innocent bystanders or protesters).
vkou 4 hours ago [-]
It was, of course, quite unfortunate that the footsoldiers carrying out an illegal coup faced sanction, while their leaders got off scot-free. (Well, most of them, Guiliani seems to be deeply fucked, and now that he's no longer useful to the regime, has been thrown overboard.)
(I'm sure someone will now chime in to explain to us how no, it's quite normal for a mob that's trying to overturn the results of a democratic election to break into a capital building while congress is in session, putting it under lockdown. And then someone else will chime in how it's exactly like a bunch of college students protesting by sitting down in the hallways of a campus building that they on any normal day have full access to and refusing to leave.)
Incidentally, the organizers of that putsch are now imprisoning people without trial in foreign concentration camps, and are refusing court orders to have them released. This is also, of course, above-board behaviour, and demonstrates that they have nothing but the deepest respect for both the law, the democratic process, and the checks and balances that safeguard us.
Rendered at 09:41:10 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
So people have been arrested for posting something online, even if nobody appears to have seen it, and they delete it shortly after.
The policing is selective, depending on political view. For example, there were recently people with placards in London calling for the death of JK Rowling, which is de facto allowed by the police.
In comparison the wrong social media post can carry a lengthy jail sentence. [2]
The difference is so noticeable, it is now called "two tier policing".
If someone perceives something you say as "hateful" they can report you to the police, who can record a "Non-crime hate incident" against your name. [3]
This can show up on enhanced job checks, affecting employment.
It's very similar to a Stasi file.
[1] https://policinginsight.com/feature/advertisement/social-med...
[2] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-punishment-of-lucy-c...
[3] https://www.slaterheelis.co.uk/articles/crime-category/non-c...
> Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f*** hotels full of the bastards for all I care …. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it
The message you are quoting is now being propagated,which is unfortunate.
Most of the western world is moving to a risk based legal system and has a proportionaly measure build in.
If the message in question had a limited reach, then it should not lead to a conviction.
Just like we don't convict people who has inappropriate thoughts or write inappropriate things in their diary.
What stayed with me from the talk was that they had shown recovered Stasi photos of a young man's home where he had a wall dedicated to American iconography.
The speaker stated that in the current era this would just be trivially collected from social media instead of needing to gain physical access to property.
Edit: It was 32C3 What Does Big Brother See While He Is Watching at appx the 40m mark.
> Over the course of three years, I was able to research the archives left by East Germany's Stasi to look for visual memories of this notorious surveillance system and more recently I was invited to spend some weeks looking at the archive by the Czechoslovak StB. Illustrating with images I have found during my research, I would like to address the question why this material is still relevant – even 25 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
[X] has has been subject to death threats at a protest is a pretty safe blind claim. Particularly for politicians, public figures, rich people, identifiable races and political groupings. Some yobbo will write something stupid on a placard and wave it around sooner or later.
[0] I searched for "guillotines at political protests" as a sanity check and straight away saw a "decapitate TERFs" placard. https://news.sky.com/story/scottish-politicians-and-jk-rowli...
Whether they are public or not is more of an academic detail, but given the level of hostility aimed at her it is a pretty safe bet that someone has somewhere whether or not it was reported on the internet. If someone wants to die on the hill of every claim being cited then fair enough, at least it is a principled hill. But this is like asking for a cite that US political debate got heated. Rowling has genuine anti-fans out there, I've seen totally spontaneous wild hate sessions break out against her in my wanderings through the internet. It'll have spilled out into real-world protest somewhere.
I'm just saying, I didn't even check before this comment. And who knew? bunch of death threats targeting Rowling with activists trying to make sure everyone can find her in meatspace in case the threat makes her quieten down. "Did she receive death threats" is really not the part of this to try and question. And if you want to make a point about did someone do it while at a protest - I mean yeah. Yeah they did. Maybe nobody bothered to record it, because that sort of thing is routine and boring.
If someone wants to attack the police response part that I have no idea about. Maybe they did respond and it was exemplary - that is the sort of thing that does need a source. But the death threats part is just another year as a public figure. There are a lot of death threats out there. And it'd spill over to placards.
EDIT And it turned out to be remarkably easy to find a citation, note the "decapitate TERFs" link 2 comments up. As expected. It's easy to tune out because in practice calling for the death of someone at a protest is in practice a pretty minor thing to do. Which TERFs do they want to decapitate if not Rowling? Is there fine print on the back of the sign that exempts her? Its Sky News so I I'll admit that is possible.
You make it sound pedantic. The whole point is whether the behaviour incites hatred or violence.
I don’t know why it irks you so much that people would fact check this particular claim. I agree that it’s not central to the original poster’s overall point, but it’s not ok to invent facts just because your argument could probably get by without them.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14638683/Police-inv...
The only references to her I see is a sign saying "go shit on a pile of Harry Potter books" and people chanting "fuck JK Rowling".
Perhaps she could not make it her whole identity so that when people say "death to this specific type of bigotry", random people on the internet don't immediately make the logical leap to think people wish for her death specifically?
Beyond this, there is a very clear difference between inciting hatred towards a group of people based on race, religion, nationality, origin, etc, and towards a single individual without those aggravations. The law is quite clear about this distinction in various countries (Public Order Act in the UK for instance), and the penalties are rightfully much stronger when one would try to instil hatred towards a racial (or other) group.
Please just look at the other content from the "lovely" Laurie Wastell of the spectator to find the kind of groups, opinions and places she wants to protect vs those she doesn't.
like I would be kinda embarrased to share news sources from people being actively sued for the harm they caused with their misinformation (in their case vaccine lies).
> If someone perceives something you say as "hateful" they can report you to the police, who can record a "Non-crime hate incident" against your name. [3]
this was a law introudced by a conservative goverment, as part of their increase in police tools, which in large part came from support for "anti woke" policing of the pro black protests that came after it erupted in america.
People like the previouslike mentioned Mrs Wastell advocated for stronger sentencing and more police, and now that the leopards are eating the faces of the people who spend all day on facebook sending death threats to muslims she is now so incredibly offended.
Btw another reason for the focus on the NCHI is because the police are swamped, the Conservatives under theresa may cut their budget 40% which meant they have way less people so to keep stats up, you gotta focus on the easy shit.
Maybe if we hadn't brought in consulting types who advocate for stats to show work progress, conservative cuts to salaries and advocated for "blue lives matter" which pushed for stronger sentencing laws we would not be here but somehow Mrs Whitehall and you will take 0 accountability and instead blame "woke judges" or some other nonsense as she does in her article.
The hanging judge, that evil old man in scarlet robe and horse-hair wig,whom nothing short of dynamite will ever teach what century he is living in, but who will at any rate interpret the law according to the books and will in no circumstances take a money bribe, is one of the symbolic figures of England.
- Orwell
Plus the normal status quo is that you have an elite you cannot offend, now there are protected classes you cannot offend.
That’s what Elon Musk calls it. In fact, the difference in the case you mention is simply that:
(i) Inciting racial hatred is a specific offense which doesn’t require a credible death threat. There is no offense of inciting hatred against TERFs. Like that or don’t – but the police don’t make the laws.
(ii) The context of Connolly posting during the riots in which actual violent crimes against minority groups were being committed.
That's how it's done in real life and that's how we protect ourselves from arsholes in real life. That's why the police is only involved when some actual danger is present, you are not expected to just endure the constant harassment.
IMHO someone being a complete cunt and you not having a recourse is also not acceptable. It's terrorizing people, there must be a mechanism to stop these people and that mechanism should not be police intervention.
The things they do should somehow stick to their name for example or you should be able to go after them just as brutally. Honestly, I like 4Chans way with dealing with people much more than restricted, moderated police involved crap that the Web has become. Someone built a following, then they harass people but your only recourse is legal stuff and you can't do doxxing, can't use bad words etc because you get banned/demoted/shadowbanned/rate-limited. It's not working, it's destroying the society.
For example, the women jailed for just tweeting plead guilt that she was spreading materials with intention to stir racial hatred. In a real life such person will be quickly stopped one way or another, she will be confronted and then removed or ignored. If her material is actually good, it will be noted and supported and the issue resolved. Online is not like that people with agenda lie, spam and annoy people without facing a pushback or consequences. It's not a real discussion, it's not real problem solving.
Streets are significantly more polite than the online places and I think its because of the dynamic of it and not the people - they are the same people.
Personally, I feel like Zersetzung has already been a thing in the US since at least 2014. Modern social media is very, very good at getting people to shout at each other and do nothing. People don't talk to each other, they shout to themselves while watching the telescreen.
Unfortunately, it seems as if the terrorists might have achieved many of their goals years later.
I don't think he particularly cared whether or not people in England or America got locked up for social media posts or other alleged freedoms. I don't think he would have been thrilled about the state of the Middle East today, if he were alive to see it.
What's happening in western countries is significantly the doing of (and almost certainly in line with the goals of) our ruling classes. Breaking down social cohesion, reducing the population of a country to little more than its head count and what it can do "for the economy", and pitting different groups to fight against one another are all key to ruling in their own interests.
In human history stretching the homelands rules beyond recognition when acting abroad has rarely turned out well for the homeland in the long run.
I've been looking for it for a while, with no success. I'd be happy with anything from DVD to archive.org/youtube upload or whatever.
Seems to be available in Germany and some other countries, but not here in Sweden at the moment (I think it used to be on Netflix here).
That's just a tiny example.
Is this control and surveillance or ... democracy and freedom ?
It's not perfect, but this alternative is way worse.
If the private credit score company returns a wrong score because someone else has the same name as you and they mixed up some records, well, it's a private company, you have no recourse.
Since it's not the government, but a for-profit private company, it can and will also sell your information.
If you opt out of this private company's system, landlords can and will reject you.
It is well known that the US is the most free country in the multiverse, so I would say no, having a government do it is not freedom (that's a social credit system like china has), but if instead it's a private company creating that credit score, that's freedom.
What law do you want to have to prevent this? Companies are people, and if your two previous land-lords are free to gossip about whether you paid rent (free speech), of course equifax should be able to sell that information (also free speech). People's right to privacy stops where free speech, and the ability of private entities to profit and raise GDP, starts.
If you ever find yourself on the wrong end of it, read this article for advice but also explanations: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...
Understanding how the system works, which buttons work and which don’t is half the battle.
Just a tiny example.
> The final stages entailed psychological and physical harassment: moving things around at home (one morning the alarm clock goes off at 5am instead of 7am, and the socks are in the wrong drawer, there’s no coffee left …); damage to bikes and vehicles (eg slashing tyres); the spreading of rumours as mentioned above; ordering goods and making appointments in target’s name etc.
I get that sometimes a "broken" opponent is more useful than a dead one as they can sabotage the whole cause, like this article implies. But if you hold as much power as they did then it seems very unlikely to me that using resources to troll someone like this provides an effort/reward ratio that would be interesting to someone with that much existing power
See "predictive policing", https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...
> One former deputy described the directive like this: “Make their lives miserable until they move or sue.” In just five years, Nocco’s signature program has ensnared almost 1,000 people.
I'm not sure if the Stasi disappeared people in an obvious or hidden manner though. Maybe they did it more frequently than modern states assassinations? In both cases it shows that the life of any person is not important to them - what's important is the effects an action causes.
The Stasi knew that power is never that absolute. The GDR was built upon the idea that is was good, not evil (like the West). You can't be good and regularly disappear public figures, especially those from intellectual cycles. Additionally, people were aware of the oppression as is. If the GDR would have simply disappeared people, there would have been revolts. Germans were too connected to the other reality.
Here is a popular song from that time
I think what I want,
and what makes me happy,
but all in silence,
and as it befits.
My wish and desire
no one can forbid,
it remains so:
thoughts are free.
...
And if they lock me up
in a dark dungeon,
all that is purely
futile work;
for my thoughts
tear through the barriers
and walls in two:
thoughts are free.
I'm by no means an expert on the matter but as far as I know, the Stasi did not disappear political opponents regularly, at least not after Stalin's time. I looked over the article and didn't find that claim but if I missed it and it's in there, then the article is wrong about it. The Stasi had a large array of measures at disposal. Some people were cleared for moving out of the country to West Germany. Others went to prison. Some people were exposed to radioactive materials. Others got a better job that moved them away from other dissidents.
Specific "Zersetzungsmaßnahmen" you and the article mention were very rare - we're talking about an estimated few hundred to thousands cases in total. When they occurred, however, they were extremely devastating because not even experienced critics of the system imagined them. We're not just talking about switching socks and replacing good milk with spoiled one in the fridge. There were also cases of medical doctors prescribing the wrong drugs, for example, worsening the symptoms of diseases.
As far as I know, who became the victim of these special measures may not have been a fully rational decision. It seemed to be based to a large extent on the preferences of the case officers in charge.
Broader measures against critics of the system were far more common, however, and way more pervasive than what most people suspected at the time. For example, the father of a former girlfriend of mine was a famous GDR rock musician. He later found out from the archives that the Stasi planned and supervised his whole life and managed to break up his former band without anyone suspecting it. One guy moved somewhere else for work, another went to prison, and he moved elsewhere, too. There were also way more informants than he ever suspected. Basically, the Stasi and their informants interfered with what other artists he met, were he and his band mates got work, and so on. They planned over years. It went far beyond the usual method of giving people a telephone and letting them hear a loud click when the tape was switched on (they did that, too!).
> it seems very unlikely to me that using resources to troll someone like this provides an effort/reward ratio that would be interesting to someone with that much existing power
Nevertheless, this happened. The Stasi was a huge bureaucratic organization with ideology at its core, built after the example of the KGB. Stasi officers considered themselves fully in the right, defending their people against counter-revolutionary and decadent activities. Goals ranged from "helping" citizens get on the right track towards socialism in a friendly but firm manner, over collecting information about potential adverse political activities, to completely destroying enemies of the state and doing counter-espionage.
Informants and spies are almost always those at the top of your group, they are the leaders, the ones with the money, the ones with the van, the people with the time to help out, to print your flyers, the people who can organise and transport. Spies are going to be the people above you that you trust. Spies will be your friends. In the UK, police informants even fathered children with members of their infiltrated groups! They are not going to be the new strange people who join and are look nervous but who make excellent and easy scape goats. States want the maximum value for their intelligence, the spies are going to be at the top of your group.
The article suggests one way around it, to have flat organisations: to not have leaders. It gives resilience if when a person is compromised the group can continue, or when there is no leader the amount of information or damage that leader can cause would be less. Another way potentially would be the cell format, used in some of the worst terrorist groups, only operate in cells of 5 or less and only one of those in each small group have contact with only 1 other cell.
Like: EU: These are scary times – let's backdoor encryption! (https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/03/eu_backdoor_encryptio...)
P.S. Again, just a tiny example
Despite decades of intense propaganda, killings of people in uprisings and the methods of Stasi as described in the article.
Even with all that effort most people didn't believe in the regime.
So it's hard to say whether the Stasi's tactics worked. Only people in the regimes like Ceausescu and Honecker actually thought people liked it. And perhaps not even them.
'We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.'
There is an interesting book called 'Not Born Yesterday' that points out that people are pretty skeptical .
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45358676-not-born-yester...
By the way, this American is Norwegian and didn't even set foot on US territory until my early twenties... :)
30 years on, the political landscape is still a disaster. Media is a shit show in the hands of a few. A lot of the older people (40+) long for the "good old days". A lot of the young have ran away for better opportunities. Democratic participation is very low.
The fall of the Communist regimes and subsequent liberalisation and democratisation were managed incredibly poorly in most of those countries. Yes, standards of living are much better, but if you ask a lot of the people, things are worse (because they're incapable of introspection, have been fed propaganda on Facebook and shit media, etc).
If the CCP did, how many of them would get elected ?
Everyone else was just kept in line. They set up both positive and negative incentives. Be neutral and you can live an OK life. Be a good communist and you can climb socially. Meet your West German uncle too often, or don't show up to the Labor Day parade and get a threatening talk. Actually voice your opposition to the regime and you may well find yourself in a Stasi torture prison.
Socialist doctrine said that socialism would be so good that people would soon(TM) embrace it organically. Of course they didn't, because it never delivered on anything and some western media still made it behind the iron curtain. Seeing a western supermarket shelf while you had to bribe someone to get spare parts for your washing machine is stronger than any propaganda.
> Do you know how many people we uncovered?
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung
2014, https://www.ted.com/talks/hubertus_knabe_the_dark_secrets_of...
> Hubertus Knabe studies the Stasi — and was spied on by them. He shares stunning details from the fall of a surveillance state, and shows how easy it was for neighbor to turn on neighbor.
I'm not sure what a "fine speculator" is?
In the UK the Tory ruling party used mask supply, and it seems other contract-based fraud (Covid website, at least), to steal £Billions from the Exchequer.
Wearing them imposed minimal burden, so why are you surprised when you signal that you don't care about others in your society, that they responded in kind?
I'm pretty sure that the intelligence services nowadays condone the contemporary identity politics revolution because it distracts people (especially the youth) from the actual problems of society.
I am old enough to remember the time where revolution meant actively fighting the oppressors or those in power, not posting on twitter about who has what between their pants and to which bathroom they should go to.
indeed. the economic circumstances that produce. the situations that produce. a system that produces. which collapses and gives way to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjzpx_jUUA0
Yes it was that bad it's not a parody. Lincoln was comparatively better which also explains weird sentiment towards "American cars" of people who were young in that era.
There is no such thing as "Socialism with a human face". It is so anti-human, it can only exist by hard coercion, or not at all.
That’s a good point. The system worked so “well” before, during and a bit after WWII was because of the absolute terror and demand for obedience. With the willingness to kill, enslave, starve and terrorize people by the millions, one can achieve “great” economic results and military victories.
Communism goes further than Socialism (or Socialism doesn't go as far as Communism), Communism is more extreme, cold and hard and not at all blurry-edged, according to my understanding anyway.
All instances of -isms eventually fall to the unrelenting winds of human nature. Not necessarily due to the ideals within the -ism itself.
Socialism is the "form of industrialised society where private ownership of means of production is outlawed". Communism is the (hypothetical) "classless, stateless society".
Labels are a distraction. If you have a conversation about real things I find we agree nore than we disagree.
But disagreement is what is fomented by our oppressors, because it distracts us from fighting them.
And difference in terms - socialism vs communism - is just a west/east terminology difference.
Soviets called what they had "socialism" and what they (as they claimed) wanted to get, "communism".
The West called what Soviets had, "communism" and the social order in "soft" Western countries like Sweden or 1960s UK, "socialism". Which was "a society where private ownership of means of production still dominates, but is heavily taxed, and proceeds are used to fund a lot of social programs and public infrastructure, housing and other programs are centrally planned long term". Soviets never accepted that as "socialism" and kept saying that this term was only used by the West manipulatively to disarm the Western working class, and they were probably right.
Total socialism is of course unworkable anyway, but this was no socialism.
That (2021) from the title is on the mark, as I think that by now, 2025, it has been made quite obvious that political protests in the West can only get up to a certain point, after which you risk prison, job loss or a combination of the two (even bough January 6 and the associated political repression took place in early 2021, so maybe the author should have already been aware of it)
https://youtu.be/Y6Apmdeoxys
2. A mob of people doesn't need to be armed to be a deadly threat. In fact, just the prior year, someone - successfully - made the same argument for killing two unarmed people at a protest. The courts ruled in his favor.
3. Not a single person among those prosecuted has been acquitted by a jury. Only two were acquitted at bench trials. But I'm sure your opinion on this matters more than the findings of the courts... It's strange how juries of their peers kept voting to convict them.
> Not strolling around as if on a guided tour.
Is it common for guided tours where you come from to be trying to break through a doorway, on the other side of which is an armed policeman, warning them that they'll be shot if they come any closer? Or to attack policemen with flagpoles? Or to climb the walls of a building?
Or to smear human shit over the walls of someone's office? Steal documents from them?
What do you think Trump would order done to a mob of a thousand people climbing over the fences and breaking into the White House, in an effort to overthrow him? Think he'd be smiling and directing them to the gift shop?
It was not persecuted nearly enough - participants would've deserved the death penalty.
The fraction of them that went on to break into the capitol was a failed coup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Rome
Repression for a coup attempt is the expected and wanted outcome.
Also, please stop mixing the US, maybe Canada and UK with "the West". Political protests in France remain quite powerful, even if they haven't managed to force the government to go back on some long promised and long needed reforms (pensions).
Political repression against the gilets jaunes was quite powerful, too, thanks for reminding me. It was surreal to be stopped in the middle of no-where, Pays de la Loire, by a bunch of gendarmes who were holding submachine guns, and all that because it was still gilets jaunes season (early autumn of 2019, if I remember right).
And yes, police, gendermerie and the army patrolling in France are armed. There have been enough terrorists attacks in recent memory that this is the norm. None of those weapons were ever used against protestors of any kind ("less lethal" ones have been, sometimes to lethal or crippling effect to innocent bystanders or protesters).
(I'm sure someone will now chime in to explain to us how no, it's quite normal for a mob that's trying to overturn the results of a democratic election to break into a capital building while congress is in session, putting it under lockdown. And then someone else will chime in how it's exactly like a bunch of college students protesting by sitting down in the hallways of a campus building that they on any normal day have full access to and refusing to leave.)
Incidentally, the organizers of that putsch are now imprisoning people without trial in foreign concentration camps, and are refusing court orders to have them released. This is also, of course, above-board behaviour, and demonstrates that they have nothing but the deepest respect for both the law, the democratic process, and the checks and balances that safeguard us.