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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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Reports from war zones will always be highly suspect, because the belligerents have agendas and third parties don't really have access to provide objective independent accountability.
I don't think there is a way to both have access to war zone reporting, and hold to a objective standard of truth. So the organic propaganda and the astroturfing is just part of modern warfare.
You could run a news community with reporting standards, and moderate away unverified data. But the people with more 'timely' and 'sensational' reporting will get the eye-balls anyway, so you have to educate people on why getting verification is worth it... kinda like how the economist is slow to report, but has lots of depth.
And not only the modern one. The truth is the first victim of any war.
The new twist is we can see the efforts from both sides, historically we would only enjoy the propaganda of one side at a time until the war was over.
Even though, only the winning side would draft the "official" version of the events. The "real" "truth" would appear only decades later, when everyone involved is dead (or almost) and independant research can happen. E.g. a former French "résistant" recently confessed his group summarily executed a bunch of captured German Soldier in 1944. Some of the members went in politics afterwards, preventing any investigation to take place.
Not to excuse those crimes but the resistance weren't soldiers so they can't commit "war crimes" as such. They can commit crimes and morally wrong things, they just aren't bound by the conventions of war unless they are captured by a nation that is bound by international law and even then they can't be charged for it they just can't be murdered when captured themselves.
You are right, and it is some kind of improvement. Or at least it feels like it.
But never forget that sides are sides. You still don't get any balanced (or objective) truth from the center of the battlefield, even if they make it look like it.