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Tankies annoy the fuck out of me as well, got banned from an .ml community for daring to say dictatorships are bad the other day, but he is 100% factually correct. The term propaganda itself has no positive or negative connotations. It’s just that in person people just typically only use the word when they want to imply said propaganda is bullshit. Like “Don’t listen to this it’s just propaganda”. Even the causes you support likely have some sort of propaganda, it’s not inherently bad, the word just has negative connotations colloquially.
Technically correct, though. Definition of propaganda according to merriam webster:
propaganda
1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions
2: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause
also : a public action having such an effectNote that it’s still propaganda if all the information is true, as long as it’s spread deliberately.
It’s not really a surprise. A key tankie belief is that freedom of speech fundamentally shouldn’t exist (yes, even as they themselves enjoy it).
Propaganda is just the act of spreading information that furthers your cause, the term is neutral towards whether the information is factual or not. All political parties and activists engage in propaganda, it’s literally what they do.
That’s the dictionary definition, sure, but that doesn’t cover common use, or connotation. When most people use “propaganda,” they typically mean government-affiliated messaging that hides the truth and pushes a narrative to get people to fall in line.
These people are technically incorrect.