Oh, Yutaka! Why are the most of the ‘western people’ so narrow-minded about Russia???
I strongly believe that nowadays we have in Russia more ‘freedom of speech’ than in westerbn democracies. Unfortunately you don’t understand in Russian, otherwise you could see and hear that in Russian political shows there are people with very different points of view: from western liberal to Russian conservators and also journalists from Western countries and Ukraine- and all these shows are online. Do you often see the Russian journalists in Western political shows? I don’t.
Who said you that all Russian Media are only state?.. It’s lie!.. The most of our mass media are private like in many western countries.
But even it is not the main thing. When I watch CNN, BBS and less DW I see in 99% the same content and the same picture though they have differen owners - they demonize Putin, the demonize Russian hackers - the western journalist very often create for good payment cruel fair-tails about Putin and Russia for such numerous credulous and naive people like you, Yutaka!..
Because Main Stream rules and predominate in the most Western Mass Media. And the Main stream is now: Putin is evil, Russia is evil, it wants to attack the Western countries and destroy them! Do you really believe in this nonsense?!..
I feel that you might be confusing the lack of diverse opinions in the western main-stream media with censorship. The media in the ‘western democracies’, i.e. North America/Western Europe, are pretty much 100% free to say what they want. There are of course some restrictions and some ways in which the media can be coerced into not reporting on some things, but most of the time, when you see biased or dishonest reporting in the western media, which is very often, it is not a result of coercion. The biases in the western media come from a range of other sources.
I lived in USSR and I remember most of us trusted to the government and their propaganda. We could have secret discussions but we knew which thoughts were forbidden and we knew it is impossible to change anything.
In some years everything was changed. There was no more USSR. It was even popular to critisize the Soviet regime.
I believe tha same things may happen in any country. People take as much freedom as it is allowed by the government, traditions, culture, whatever. People may pretend to have more. They will have more if they really need more. It is possible to limit the freedom (we all may see it anywhere) but nobody can forbid the really important things, otherwise there will be revolution.
Sometimes it is possible to suppress revolutions. But after that there will be 3 possible ways: a) people will decide they had wanted too much, b) there will be a new revolution, c) slight changes may help to find the new balance.
I just mean different countries have found their own actual balance. It is almost impossible to point to new balance point. The system always tries to find the stable state.
At least some dream of reviving the monarchy in Russia… with you-know-who as tsar.
Colin, they are free to say what they want - but almost all of them say the same!.. It’s a problem! Because if they don’t express the Main Stream - they are not interesting both for editors and for readers!!!..
It’s not only the problem of the pressure of the government, but also the problem of the so called ‘western democracy’.
We have in Russia much more diversity in our opinions about very different things in the world.
It’s lie that we can’t criticise Putin in the Mass Media. Very often people criticise Putin, but they will vote for Putin in 2018 not because they love Putin, but because they don’t see another leader who could be better at the position of the Russian president.
And very often your journalists are biased, very biased!..
For example, today ex-deputy from Russia Voronenkov, who was accused of fraud with immovable property and fled to Ukraine, was killed in Kiev - nobody knows who did it, maybe even the people from the first man of his wife, who was a famous thief, but yet nobody knows - except Poroshenko, the President of Ukraine, who immedietly exclamed that Russia and personally Putin did it!.. OK, we have now bad relationship with Ukraine. But 40 minutes later I heard the same opinion already in BBC and CNN!.. And i9n the newspaper ‘Daily mail’! I can call it only like a very biased position!
My response was to your statement that the Russian press has more freedom of speech, which is not true. The western main-stream media is heavily biased and dishonest, but not because of a lack of press freedom. I can’t stand the western media and I can’t stand how much the people here allow the media to dictate to them all of their opinions.
Do you think that maybe your own biases are giving you an unrealistic idea of how much better the Russian media is? It is very easy to see that the media are biased when they are saying things that you disagree with or do not like, but it is much more difficult to see it when they share your biases.
“I strongly believe that nowadays we have in Russia more ‘freedom of speech’ than in westerbn democracies”
Well there are people who believe unicorns exist too.
Dude, I thought you were like 25 years old or something. I guess I base that on a picture of you which is about 2cm x 2cm on my screen.
Маленькая собачка - всегда щенок 
A small dog is always a puppy.
Does the guitar make people younger? 
I don’t know what the Chinese, Russian or North Korean people think.
Today, %80-90 of media is under control of the gov. People think that we defeated Germany and the Netherlands. People think that we won the war in Syria. %20-25 of the Turkish citizens hate the western democracies however they like to make business in Germany. I don’t know how to explain what is going on here. It’s really difficult. Even I don’t understand how the people has changed in the last 15 years. I feel like a foreigner on the streets of my own country.
Well-educated people tend to consider themselves to be European on the contrary not well educated people think that Turkey belongs to the Middle East.
I don’t know if this was a satisfactory answer.
My thoughts: Turkey was a part of Europe since the beginning of the history. The ancestors of Turks embraced the legacy of the Roman Empire after the conquest of Constantinapole. Since the end of the 18th century Turkey has been trying to modernize its institutions. Even the name of the country was given by the Italians.
Turkey is a member state of the NATO since 1952. We lined up with the US in Korea and fought against the communist forces. We wanted to become a full-member of the EU. We were living in a democratic (with a lot of problems) secular state before 2002. We must stay as a NATO-member and become a EU-member.
Turkey must be a democratic, secular state and support science. I follow the vision of Atatürk. I embrace the ideals of the French and American revolutions. J.J. Ruso’s thoughts were the princips of the newly established republic of Turkey in 1923. I guess those are the pillars of western democracy.
(I don’t know if my sentences make sense to native speakers of the English language but I hope, you understood the message.)
I understood all your sentences. I am interested in your statement that “people think that we defeated Germany and the Netherlands”. What specifically do people believe here? I mean, in what way do they believe that Turkey ‘defeated’ Germany and the Netherlands?
People in Belarus sometimes call our country “West Korea”. I’ve read the name “North Nigeria” for Russia.
http://abzala.com/m/articles/view/Автор-термина-Северная-Нигерия
I can tell about Belarus. It is very funny to read comments to news. I find the comments more interesting! That’s the real vox populi. Either it is impossible to delete every message, or the government allows to blow off some steam, or it’s a good way to know the names of the most active unreliables. Anyway, 83% of the comments are against the government.
It’s Belarusian humor about 83%: Lukashenko states he had 83% of votes in the presidential elections. LOL
Sometimes people of different countries just don’t know the real situation because of the propaganda. I personally don’t know what is better. It is very interesting to look from different points of view. But it seems to me people in Russia is a bit tired of it and I can feel some nostalgia about the times when everything was stable and clear, it is easier to have 1 known point of view. Perhaps western democracy gives now something similar to 1 point of view, the most popular point of view.
There are people who would start believing in unicorns in a second if Trump claimed on Twitter to have seen one.
China : we want to feed our more than 1000000000 person
Russia : we are here America and western countries !!!
Turkey : the humanity country
North Korea : we are crazy !!!
: )
They belive that Turkey actually is stronger than any other nation but we are in some kind of a war against the US, Germany, the UK etc. and fight against them at the same time and can handle.
Living here is something like living in a tragi-comic disutopia.
I wonder what the Egyptians think about Turkey.
Honestly, I do not know because there is no freedom in Egypt now after the Asker coup, so there is no political life in Egypt but most of who I met of my friends dream to become as what Turkey reached.
By the way, if Egyptian has Turkish ancestor he becomes so proud of this, so I can say that Egyptian love Turkey but our current regime hate it.
“…or it’s a good way to know the names of the most active unreliables.” Reminds me of a Brezhnev joke that I recently read from an article about Soviet humor which said that Brezhnev was a particularly popular target of jokes:
During a break in a summit meeting in Helsinki, the Finnish president asked Brezhnev whether he collected stories against himself.
‘I certainly do,’ replied Brezhnev.
‘Do you have many?’ asked the Finnish president.
‘About two and a half labor camps,’ said Brezhnev.
It’s truly depressing how some deputies of the Государственная Дума are literally in love with their boss.
What’s your prediction on the upcoming referendum? Will Erdogan officially have Presidential powers?