Good thing my statements regarding censorship and censors do not apply to you. You may be misstating your case, however, if you're censoring Hive users for their opinions.
You might also more carefully read what I wrote, and note that while I did mention a specific class of people bent on destroying civil society, nothing I said excludes other classes of people being abusive for similar misguided reasons.
If you're censoring people for stating their opinions, which opinion flagging is, then you're acting to weaken civil society, prevent people from being alerted to possibly existential danger, and are the enemy of all that is good and decent in the world. Since I pay no attention to, and am not responsible for you, your votes, nor have any idea about your political or economic activities, you'll have to decide for yourself whether you're doing those things or not.
I encourage you and everyone that believes in freedom, justice, and enabling good people to prosper, to act to defend their ability to speak forthrightly, and particularly on Hive, so that Hive can prosper by enabling civil society to defend itself from censorship and deceptive propaganda.
Thanks for reaching out.
And that is why I downvote (flagging was always a misnomer btw) this person. He is a mouthpiece of a propaganda machine, in my opinion. He is free to post and otherwise transact on Hive, but I don't agree with Hive rewarding him for his propaganda efforts. To me it's akin to someone defending the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. There are boundaries, and defending this invasion of Ukraine crosses one.
I note that we who are not on the ground where events are occurring view them through our indoctrinated worldview, at least until we have reports from people on the ground where events are occurring. We usually face a choice then of modifying our worldview given real data where it contrasts with our indoctrination, or of refusing to change our worldview and deprecating real world data.
Lancaster is on the ground talking to eye witnesses to the events in the Ukraine and Russia. Whether you class his reporting as simply real world data from eyewitnesses or deceptive propaganda because it contrasts the indoctrination you have been given depends on your values and ability to reconsider your understanding when faced with conflicting data.
Given my background in the scientific method, I strongly recommend you deprecate theoretical consideration and prefer real world data, because that will result in your understanding best matching reality.
The invasion of Ukraine has been prefaced by paramilitary violence, the USG using NED to recruit, train, and arm Banderists that venerate the very Nazis you appear to be averse to, to overthrow the democratic government of Ukraine and victimize Russian speaking peoples in the Donbass, including by burning them alive Prior to the political coups in the Ukraine, as is shown in the linked article from Newsweek, Western media openly reported on this. Since then, the USG has prevented information from being published on such events.
When questioned about the nearly two dozen biowarfare labs found in the Ukraine by Russia, Victoria Nuland expressed concern that those labs fell into Russian possession, confirming their existence. For very good and obvious reasons Lancaster isn't able to interview anyone defending those Nazis and their crimes, nor do the government propaganda media platforms of the West reveal those crimes against humanity that precipitated the present military actions in the Ukraine.
The recent release of the Twitter Files shows how broadly and thoroughly the USG has censored and silenced reporting, not just on Twitter, but on all platforms. The only reporting allowed in the West has been approved government propaganda for some years, and for that reason Lancaster's reports from the ground in the Ukraine and Russia are immensely valuable, because they are one of the very few sources of information that isn't government propaganda, and Hive is one of the few places in the West that can resist the censorship effected by the USG and it's partners in crime.
I hope you are able to correctly value the different sources of narrative that are available to you, so you can discard deceptive propaganda and base your worldview off eyewitness testimony from people on the ground where these events are happening.
Mark Twain is credited with saying that it's much easier to fool someone than convince someone they've been fooled, implying that people who are able to realize they've been fooled are the few who are smart enough to grasp what has been done to them.
Facts aren't dogma, and dogma isn't facts. I hope you can differentiate between the two and promote free speech on Hive, rather than supporting and emulating the censorship and propaganda that is pushed through USG control of corporate media. Thank you for exercising your free speech and enabling rational discussion of this matter, when far too few people are able to even consider that.
Whether you agree with Lancaster or not, supporting reporters that do not bow to censorship benefits Hive, and civil society everywhere in a world increasingly trapped in a propaganda bubble.
Edit: I feel it's advisable to point out that I am in no way pro-Russia, pro-War, or anything of the kind, and I will point out here and now that Putin is just as WEF as Zelensky, Biden, and Trump. Russia has been at the forefront of development of CBDCs, through Sberbank, and Putin's own avarice is demonstrated by his estimated $100+B fortune, extracted from the Russian people through his elevated position.
You are correct that the invasion of Ukraine is comparable to the invasions of Poland, because all of those actions were taken to enrich and increase the power of vile oligarchs who had no problems committing war crimes and genocide. None of that excuses the Polish oligarchs that lived then, nor the Ukrainian oligarchs today. I am not advocating for one side or the other. I am just doing my best to understand the reasons for the events we are impacted by.