I hear the accusation thrown around about russian propaganda all the time, and it seems so spurious to me. It seems like a conspiracy theory unto itself. It is thought-terminating. Back when I used to go on reddit, I would get called a bot occasionally myself. It is something people throw out there so they don't have to entertain any sort of cognitive dissonance. Like, if information is exposing a truth, but you don't like source, that does not necessarily mean that it is untrue. Im sorry. That is a logical fallacy itself. it also ignores that the US, and US business entities in particular, are much more powerful and influential... I remember reading that US congress spend $300 billion to "counter the malign influence of the CCP" ... that is close to what China spent on its military alone in 2022... The US also has a history of buying journalists and waging large internet influence campaigns, among other things... but I haven't seen people calling other people shills or bots for repeated US-talking points... just looking it up now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Voice
https://cyberscoop.com/meta-blames-u-s-military-for-information-operation/
https://theprint.in/tech/60-80-of-twitter-accounts-posting-on-russia-ukraine-war-bots-90-pro-ukraine-finds-new-study/1114878/
I have lurked here for a long time, but I just don't understand the logic here. I read the statement that was linked here, and it just seemed like they were saying that they should be respectful and follow our rules? ... Isn't dismantling propaganda... through "informed rhetoric" a good thing? Why are NATO, the IMF or World Bank automatically good? ... Aren't we just creating a bubble by preemptively blocking a large lemmy instance just because we don't like their political speech? As far as I can tell they aren't promoting racism or bigotry. Has lemmy.world preemptively banned nazi or right-wing instances?