Hello Reader,
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As the students pushed through the doors of Magyar Rádió in 1956, they carried with them the hopes of tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside. These young people—who had torn down Stalin’s monument and cut the communist symbol from their flag—were desperate to broadcast their demands for freedom to the world.
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But they never emerged. Hungary's secret police detained them inside the building. When the crowd outside demanded their release, officers opened fire, killing the students who had simply wanted their voices heard.
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That gunfire ignited the Hungarian Revolution—twelve days of heroic resistance that would shake the Soviet Empire to its core.
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Within hours, America’s Radio Free Europe, formed during WWII to counter Nazi propaganda, was broadcasting the students' message across the Iron Curtain. For two weeks, as Hungarian freedom fighters battled Soviet tanks in the streets of Budapest, RFE's transmissions provided updates that galvanized the resistance and rallied global opinion to their cause.
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America had entered the war of ideas. And for those twelve unforgettable days in 1956, truth was winning.
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Today, the enemies of freedom dominate the global information battlefield while America retreats.

Russia's Outrageous Propaganda Machine

RT, Russia's state propaganda network, now spans continents with outrageous anti-Western messaging. Recent headlines include "How the West manipulates Africa through neocolonial media" and “US defendants in failed African coup cite coercion”. RT has opened academies training journalists in Africa, South-East Asia and China. Sputnik, another Kremlin mouthpiece, launched an Africa service and has expanded across Latin America, sharing offices with Venezuela's Telesur and Iran's HispanTV.
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Russia captures African minds through journalism schools run by intelligence operatives. When 60 students enrolled for "journalism training" in Mali's capital last year, they had no idea their instructors worked for Russian intelligence, teaching them to spread Putin's propaganda as news.
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The results are devastating. In Mali, 84 percent support Russia, despite evidence of Russian crimes against humanity targeting its own citizens. In March 2022, Wagner mercenaries helped massacre over 300 civilians in Mali's town of Moura. Witnesses saw Russian-speaking soldiers line up villagers in rows, force them to kneel, and execute them. When reports surfaced, Russian state media RT claimed they were "counterterror operations." Meanwhile, Wagner operatives staged fake mass graves near a French base, filmed themselves covering bodies with sand, then blamed France for the deaths—a lie that went viral across Africa.
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One Malian reporter who dared challenge the narrative confessed he fears Russia's "digital armies" would "paint you as someone who needs to be struck down."

China's Digital Stranglehold

Meanwhile, China has built a global journalism empire that dwarfs Russia's efforts. The most-followed news organization on Facebook isn't CNN or the New York Times—it's CGTN, China's state TV network, with 125 million followers. Taylor Swift has 79 million. All five top news organizations on Facebook are Chinese, pumping out English-language propaganda while Beijing blocks Facebook entirely for its own people.
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The irony is staggering: China uses an American platform banned in China to spread Chinese propaganda to the world.
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China also buys influence through sophisticated Facebook advertising, testing multiple ads before pouring money into the most effective. Last year, Xinhua paid Facebook to spread the falsehood that Filipino fishermen in disputed waters were spies—hashtag #fishyfishermen.
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Beyond social media manipulation, China operates a vast media apparatus. Xinhua expanded from a "handful" of Africa bureaus two decades ago to 37 today. The China Africa Press Centre flies African reporters to Chinese outlets for ten-month immersion programs. China’s StarTimes recently became Africa's second-largest digital TV service.
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Most insidious of all: American teenagers spend nearly two hours daily on TikTok while China severely restricts its own youth. Chinese children get Douyin, a sanitized version with 40-minute daily limits and educational content. American kids get the unrestricted algorithm, shaped by a regime that bans the very platforms it exports.

The Desperate Hunger for Truth

As authoritarian regimes flood the world with lies, the West is going silent. In March 2025, President Trump pulled funding for Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe while dismantling USAID's journalist programs. But America isn't alone—public broadcaster budgets have been slashed from Australia to the UK to France.
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The human cost is immediate. VOA reached 360 million people weekly, often the only uncensored news for audiences living under authoritarian rule.
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For Tibetans in remote areas who climb mountains to catch faint RFA signals in their own language, the silencing means catastrophe. As Tibetan monk and prominent activist Jamyang Jinpa warned: "If these media outlets are silenced, darkness will fall upon the minds of millions who, under authoritarian oppression, have depended solely on these voices for truth, freedom, and democracy."
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In China's northwestern region, Uyghurs now receive orders to send video proof they're not fasting during Ramadan—surveillance that RFA once exposed to the world. Now those broadcasts have gone dark.
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North Korea executed a fishing fleet owner in front of 100 captains for secretly listening to Radio Free Asia. That's how desperately people behind authoritarian lines hunger for truth—the same hunger that drove Hungarian students to storm Magyar Rádió nearly seven decades ago.

The Better Idea is Losing

Those students died believing truth could triumph over tyranny. They sacrificed everything to send out a cry for freedom to the world.
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Today, as China floods global platforms with propaganda and Russia plants fake mass graves, America has surrendered the battlefield entirely. Freedom will always be the better idea - we just stopped showing up to fight for it.
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In that silence, darkness falls upon the minds of millions who once climbed mountains just to hear the truth.

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