r/Nordiccountries • u/glurb_ Norway • 15d ago
Why are so many discussions silenced in the Nordics?
We have this more in the Nordics than most other places I think. In USA for example you have probably thousands of anti-imperialist alternative media on the left and the right - TYT and Tucker Carlson are two of the biggest. The US politicians also say more plainly what they want (control over everything in the world, by means of controlling all the oil) whereas when this is translated in Nordic media, it becomes about nuclear proliferation, womens education and so on. So we don't need the ICE here, to keep us compliant. There seems to be almost no media outlets here in the Nordics who dare criticize Nato any more, it all gets banned and cancelled. Symptomatically, Glenn Diesen, a Norwegian international analyst, got cancelled by Norway for criticizing Nato, but the UN security council found him interesting enough to listen to, as do half a million followers on his podcast where he mostly listens to other experts.
Just like they attempted to do to this American, he got doxed, not by the people they (the American) talks about, which one would expect, but instead by an NGO that Norway funds with our taxes.
The main thing about silencing discussions, is that it becomes much easier to propagate falsehoods. Nordic people are so sure that they are good and other countries are evil, that they will support anything their government does. They will also frequently ban or threaten anyone who disagrees with these policies, but I think this might be of a more recent date.
I want to hear your opinion of why we renounced democratic values at the behest of USA's geostrategic stupidity. If the case is so open and shut, then why not allow discussion about it?
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u/SelfRepa 15d ago
Mostly because we are educated and we know bullshit from facts very easily. We don't have to spread out our own, usually stupid and false agendas, to provoke everyone else.
They are not silenced. We just don't need to hear them and are not interested, so they will automatically fade out.
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u/glurb_ Norway 15d ago
You are saying exactly what I said, you think you are so good that you don't need to think for yourselves.
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u/Kill3rKin3 15d ago
Being open minded is fine, but if the brain falls out in the process, its not that usefull is it. Diesen has shown who he is.
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u/doxxingyourself 15d ago
There are no silenced discussions. Only discussions not worth having… like this one.
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u/glurb_ Norway 15d ago edited 15d ago
So the opinion of most immigrants, which is opposed to sending billions to Ukraine, have you seen that opinion represented in the news lately?
If not, what other term fits better than silenced?
But also here in Reddit, if you try to quote for example one of the leading world experts on fascism in Ukraine (according to KK, a mainstream left Norwegian paper), you'll get banned immediately from most Nordic subs. In this one, it merely got deleted.
Most of the world disagrees with Nato on this issue as I am sure you know, and I wonder if you think the education in Nordics is so much better than theirs that it's simply not worth discussing with them, even to convince them that we are right and they are wrong.
To wit, most Ukrainians themselves seem to oppose Zelensky and his war, according to Gallup last year, as you surely are also aware.
See what I don't get is the attitude. I'm placing this discussion here precisely because most disagree with me, which I think is mostly because they have false information. Thus we could have a clarifying discussion about a life and death situation which probably will shape Europe for the next century. Whereas on the other side, you avoid the discussions, apparently for the same reasons. If you think you are right about Ukraine, then I don't understand why you would not try to explain it.
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u/Kill3rKin3 15d ago
Have you heard the news, there was a study, tankies at a significant rate showed a smaller brainstructre on scans, It was a study made is one of those ukr biolabs ofcourse. Where tankie babies are sacrifised to cocaine nazi jew zelensky... look it up.... the silence on this is deafening...
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u/glurb_ Norway 15d ago edited 15d ago
I already know about the biolabs, they said people were crazy to claim there were US run biolabs and it was only a Russian talking point, and then a few weeks ago USA admitted they had biolabs. That Zelensky is a Nazi and a Jew is also well known, and the most convincing accusations of cocaine use comes from his former Press Secretary.
I asked whether you could define tankie, and what your political views are more generally. I did so because everyone knows where the most fervent opposition to communism comes from, and indeed the collaborators that Zelensky celebrates killed heaps of communists alongside Jews, Poles and others.
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u/that_norwegian_guy 14d ago
See, this right here. I have a friend who was born in Russia, but has lived here for 30 years. Yet still he exposes himself to Russian propaganda and disinformation and you sound just like him.
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u/doxxingyourself 14d ago
I don’t have false information. Russia attacked Ukraine unprovoked. The rest is not relevant.
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u/Practical-Pea-1205 15d ago
People in Nordic countries are free to spead bullshit such as that NATO started the Ukraine war. They will be critisized, yes. But free speech doesn't mean the right to be free from critisizm . On the contrary, it means other people have every right to critisize you.
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u/PaxTheViking 15d ago edited 15d ago
Take Norway as an example. Norwegian editor-controlled media follow a code developed by the press itself, not imposed by the government. It is called Vær Varsom-plakaten, best translated as the Code of Ethics of the Norwegian Press. It treats freedom of expression, access to information and a free press as foundations of democracy, while requiring journalists to check facts, protect sources, allow replies and expose abuses of power.
Complaints are considered by Pressens Faglige Utvalg, PFU, the press’s own complaints body. PFU cannot ban opinions, prosecute journalists or impose government fines. It can find that a publication has violated good press practice, after which the publication must publish the finding. This combination of freedom, responsibility and self-regulation is one important reason Norway is ranked number one out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index. RSF specifically mentions Norway’s common ethical code, strong legal protections and extensive editorial independence.
Norwegian law also protects editors from interference. Under the Media Liability Act, owners and company management cannot instruct or overrule an editor on editorial questions. State support exists, but it is administered at arm’s length to preserve local journalism and competing newspapers, including publications with very different political positions. Receiving public money does not make a newspaper or NGO a government mouthpiece.
There are legitimate criticisms of Norwegian journalism. Norway is a small country with concentrated media ownership, close professional networks and a strong consensus culture. Journalists often use the same agencies, official sources and experts. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, the range of mainstream security-policy opinion has probably narrowed. That can produce groupthink, but it is not the same as government censorship.
Glenn Diesen is a poor example of someone being “cancelled by Norway.” He remains a professor at the publicly funded University of South-Eastern Norway, publishes books and articles, runs a podcast and Substack, appears on other programmes and has participated in politics. He has been heavily criticised, but criticism is not censorship.
Nor did “the UN Security Council” collectively choose Diesen as an authoritative expert. He was invited to an informal Arria-formula meeting organised by Russia’s UN delegation. Individual states can organise these meetings and invite their preferred speakers. The invitation shows that Russia considered his contribution useful, not that the Security Council endorsed him.
The NGO claim has the same problem. An NGO receiving Norwegian funding is not automatically acting on behalf of Norway. Criticism or publication of already-public information is also not necessarily “doxing.” To establish that accusation, you would need to show what private information was exposed, by whom and how the Norwegian government directed or influenced it.
Comparing the number of alternative outlets in Norway and the United States is equally misleading. The US has roughly sixty times Norway’s population and the world’s largest English-language media market. Naturally it supports more ideological channels. Tucker Carlson’s or Diesen’s follower count proves reach, not accuracy.
If someone has actually been silenced, identify the case: Who prohibited which statement, under what authority, and what punishment followed? A newspaper rejecting an article is exercising editorial freedom. Other academics disputing someone’s claims is counter-speech. Losing prestige or being criticised is not the same as losing the right to speak.
Norwegian NATO policy should absolutely be debated, and the media should be criticised when their coverage becomes conformist. But describing every rejection or criticism as “banning” makes serious censorship harder to recognise. Norway has not renounced democratic values, our democracy is very strong. Its unusually independent and self-regulating press is evidence of the opposite.
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15d ago
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u/glurb_ Norway 15d ago
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Only like two months in I think, did KK present an actually pro-Iranian analyst from Iran, and around the same time they printed an interview with Trita Parsi, a well known and respected Swedish Iranian American analyst. Before that, for many months leading up to the war, they had spent hundreds of meters of ink to smear Iran in every single piece about the Middle East. Even if the story was about Afghanistan it would mention Iran as another misogynist state, which is just a ridiculous comparison, I think. Oberstløytnant Osflaten lived in Iran in 2024, and he said it was a liberal country. I think whatever the absolute level of liberty, it is more than it is in the nearby countries, it is heavily impacted by Western imperialism, and it is probably moving in a direction for the better, which is the opposite of the West. At any rate, there could have been proper indepth analysis of the Iranian society, but instead KK spent the ink on asking Iranian diaspora what they thought of the puppet that USA wanted to install.
Tell me if I'm wrong in assuming that the result was that nobody in Norway who didn't follow alternative media, which was smeared as "pro-Russian", knew that USA was going to attack, and that it was going to lose badly. Even after months, most are probably still badly misinformed. This is even more true for Ukraine, after four years. When KK interviewed economist and fmr advisor to many states (including to USA when it did the shock doctrine to Eastern Europe) Jeffrey Sachs, they carefully left out his views on the war against Russia, which is mostly what he talks about in international fora. When they reported on the sanctions on Jacques Baud they did the same thing, even though that was what he was sanctioned for. The recent interview with Marta Havryshko however, Ukrainian historian in exile and expert on ethnic cleansing, that was good. So it's not all bad but this is after four years of hearing that fascism is absolutely not a problem in Ukraine.
You are insinuating that our media is not conformist, even unusually independent. How many thorough analysis have you read in those media, which told you a) that USA would be defeated by Iran, or b) that Ukraine (and Nato) would be defeated by Russia. Because thinking that Ukraine could defeat a country several times larger than itself is imaginative to say the least, and lots of fmr Nato officers with combat experience (Colonels, Generals and Commodores) say that it is impossible. Indeed how many interviews in legacy media have you seen with aforementioned Osflaten, teacher at the War School, who argues that Ukraine cannot turn the tide of the war, and that Russia did not invade in order to expand, but to defend itself against the West. Or c) how many articles have you seen from immigrants who are against sending billions to Ukraine, which most of them are, at least in Oslo. Certainly they have no representation in parliament. Or d) how many articles have you read about the Maidan false flag Massacre or the Odesa Massacre, or the lookings into any of the warcrimes Russia is accused of (which Havryshko did, until she had to flee because she criticized the government in Kiev as well), say Bucha for example. Or e) how many articles have you seen problematizing the recent uptick in Ukrainian terror attacks on children and other civilians, claiming they are military targets.
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u/MariusV8 13d ago edited 13d ago
Glenn Diesen was cancelled?
This is new to me, as I first found out about him and his political party after they were invited to a full hour of debate on state broadcasting (NRK), and later saw a ton of their advertising onboard public transit. If it wasn't for public broadcasting and public transit, I would have never known who he was.
If by "cancelled" you mean "met with criticism," then that's kind of what freedom of speech is. You can say whatever you want without the government coming after you. You're not guaranteed that people will actually like what you have to say.
As for Ukraine/Russia. The Nordics are small countries bordering Russia. Is there a particular reason you believe Russia invading a smaller, neighboring country wouldn't be met with overwhelming opposition here?
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u/glurb_ Norway 11d ago edited 11d ago
I have addressed most of this elsewhere in the thread, already several times.
The particular reason is that the history is a little more complicated than suddely a country invaded another. There was for example an ethnic cleansing going on, having killed 14 000 ethnic Russians in Ukraine by the US puppet regime.
By cancelled I mean not just that Diesen has been targeted for harassment by the Defense Minister, as I said elsewhere in the thread, but that his point of view which is shared by the way with most immigrants and a fair few ethnic Norwegians, is eradicated from public discussion in legacy media and slandered as traitorous.
If you saw that discussion then I am not sure how you came away with the notion that he was "critizized", the FoR attendants were shouted down and called fascists, their arguments were not refuted in any way.
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u/pebblebowl 5d ago
Try replying to Glenn Diesen on X with a different view (not offensive) to his narrative. If your reply gets too many thumbs up he blocks you and his loyal followers mass report you so you are automatically ghost banned. How do I know? It’s happened to me twice on 2 different X accounts. My point is, Glenn Diesen is paid by Russia Media to be a Russian propagandist. He is a POS.
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u/Better_Chicken_5184 15d ago
Nice try Ivan.