i should be allowed to watch whatever state propaganda i want, i'm a big boy

15 years ago in the US this would have been uncontroversial

I'm sure the US government would have been real keen on you reading Kremlin news source 40 year ago...

there were multiple Kremlin propaganda outlets you could read in the US 40 years ago, although it is true that (IIRC) there were restrictions on broadcast television

It's legal. We have that right.

It's still uncontroversial in the US, where RT remains widely available, although their local TV operations folded after a boycott by cable providers.

Don't get me wrong, if you really want to watch it, I think you should be allowed to.

Personally I'm undecided about whether these channels should be publicly available on e.g. free TV channels, but that's getting off topic.

15 years ago watching too much Taliban propaganda would have put you in Guantanamo pretty fast

you earnestly think that is true of an american citizen in 2009?

if they were muslim? without a doubt

Eliminating child pornography and organised crime is a societal rather than 'government' interest. And rightly.

>Eliminating child pornography and organised crime is a societal rather than 'government' interest.

Empirically speaking, governments have had absolutely zero success at this, but their attempts to do so have gotten them the kind of legal power over your life that organised crime could only dream about.

Are you implying that after the Italian mafia there were no more organised crime gangs in the US? There's a huge number of organised crime gangs nowadays; who do you think is distributing the drugs responsible for America's massive drug problem? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gangs_in_the_United_St... . A policy isn't a success if it kills one crime group only for it to be replaced with more, and the overall drug consumption/distribution rate doesn't decrease. More people are using illicit drugs than ever before: https://www.ibanet.org/unodc-report-drug-use-increase

think there is a societal interest in unsnoopable messaging.

there are other low-hanging fruit EU governments could do to address crime, NL has basically become a narcostate and they are just sitting by and watching - Telegram is not the problem.

Yes but the arrest as absolutely zero to do with both claims listed. Comes off as misdirection.

So what if it is state sponsored propaganda? Most media is biased in some way. It shouldn’t be censored. I want to hear their side of the story too.

In this instance (RT being banned), it's Russia's quite candid strategy to undermine social cohesion in their enemies' societies, using disinformation. Margarita Simonyan and Vladislav Surkov have each bragged about its success. So yes, for social cohesion, when there's a malign external actor poisoning public discourse with the intention of splitting societies, a responsible government ought to tackle it.

The old "enemy of the people" argument.

Information warfare is a real thing, and if you're suggesting governments shouldn't react to it - on the basis that doing so would fall under 'the old enemy of the people argument' - then what you're actually contending is that governments should neglect national defence.

If we start throwing around terms like "social cohesion" to justify censorship in the West, how can we complain about China doing the same in the name of "social harmony"?

Fascist lol.

I think your subtle arguments are wasted on EU's decision to stop the spread of misinformation and manipulation. It's that simple for them. Black and white. Us vs them. Don't think too much, you are taken care of by your "representatives" ...