Oddbean

I'm not advocating for right or left, and like you I am saddened by the polarisation. Although I mistrust centralization, I have no doubt that there are many decent folks who work for government agencies. But I'd like to call your attention back to the question of censorship, which was the first thing you asked me about: the two entities you mention are not censoring each other. Misrepresenting, maybe. Not censoring. Only the state apparatus has the power to censor, and we have plenty of information now on how that happens - deliberately - both in the UK and US. I imagine it's similar in the Netherlands but I'm not sure. In any case, I'm not sure how a political party would censor the state.

Good to be on the same page there. I still think that any form of disregarding information is a form of censorship, but fine to only focus on state censorship. I think in the Netherlands this form of censorship is much less a problem. There are multiple parties in our government, not one with a majority on their own. And there are still enough non-governmental news outlets keeping government in check. What I do see is self-censorship in media and thus being less critical of government, I think our journalists could be more critical, but have no incentive to do so. On contrary even. I also see both uk and us as broken societies, based on information on the internet as well as documentaries about them. So am still feel glad I live in this country, with all its broken parts, but again I feel this country's governement is not (able to) censoring any if all media. Hope you and your fellow citizens find a way to repair your society.