How the European Commission hijacks the truth
In early February 2022, Russia Today Deutsch (RT DE) was banned from broadcasting, including on the Internet, in Germany [1], over a so-called formality [2]. The Russian response was not long in coming: Deutsche Welle (DW), the German State broadcaster, was in turn banned in Russia [3]. And since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine on 24 February, which came a few days after the censorship of BAM!’s YouTube channel on 18 February [4], the escalation has taken an unprecedented turn: RT and Sputnik, the two Russian media broadcasting abroad, were outright banned and censored throughout the European Union by a Commission decree without a mandate on 27 February [5].
Double standards: rationally deconstructing censorship is a waste of time
BAM! has already reported on the censorship targeting alternative media, especially when it is perpetrated by GAFAM in cooperation with the European institutions [6], [7], [8]. Recently (a few days before the censorship of the Russian media!), BAM! itself became a target: on 18 February, the Belgian French-language alternative media outlet lost its YouTube channel. The reason? For having “violated” the rules on covid misinformation [9], but no content, no video was specifically named by YouTube.
As long as no illegal content is involved, nothing can justify censorship. We would be giving the censors too much legitimacy by looking for grounds in these rules, which list the whole range of subjects not to be addressed on YouTube [10], Twitter [11], Facebook [12], etc. Just think of Facebook’s recent decision [13] to adapt its rules in the context of the war in Ukraine. In certain countries, they have allowed forms of calls for violence against Russian soldiers, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukaschenko, as well as calls in support of the Azov battalion. This fascist, (neo-)Nazi and supremacist regiment – as confirmed by numerous mainstream reports [14], [15], [16], [17], [18] – of the Ukrainian National Guard fighting the Donbass secessionists had been banned from Facebook in 2019[19], [20], including calls to join and support it.
Censorship long in the making
What is the connection between the censorship of BAM! and that of RT and Sputnik? Like many alternative media (including BAM!), RT, created in 2014 in response to anti-Russian propaganda [21], is a victim of censorship around a subject that has been a major preoccupation over the last two years: covid. Indeed, RT DE’s YouTube channel was already censored in October 2021 for having violated YouTube’s covid rules [22]. However, RT had been in the firing line for years, declared Josep Borell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs [23]. He has thus been fighting, since 2015, “the snake of Russian disinformation” of which RT and Sputnik are said to be “the head”. According to him, the Kremlin is waging a vast disinformation campaign in Eastern Europe, but also throughout the EU:
“Disinformation, finally. Because Putin does not only want to conquer territories, but also people’s minds with toxic messages through lies. The Kremlin and its supporters are engaged in massive disinformation campaigns, in Ukraine, in our neighbourhood and in the EU. We have been fighting it since 2015 with the East StratCom Taskforce and the EU vs Disinformation platform – which I invite you to visit. Today, we are taking a crucial step to turn off the tap of information manipulation in Europe by preventing Russia Today and Sputnik from broadcasting in the Union. We are killing the snake by the neck.”
It is therefore a strategy that has been in place for several years, run by the EU’s East StratCom (strategic communications) Taskforce (ESTF) – the acronym StratCom suggests, intentionally or not, a closeness to the US armed forces Command, STRATCOM (Strategic Command) –, created in 2015 to combat Russian disinformation and “promote” (a euphemism for “propaganda”) EU policy in Eastern European countries [24]. It is therefore hard to believe the official version according to which RT DE was banned in Germany overnight because it had allegedly not obtained a broadcasting licence [25]. On the contrary, according to reports [26] by independent journalists, such as Thomas Röper – founder of the media-criticism website “Anti-Spiegel” [27] and author of numerous investigative books, including one on the Euro-Maidan and the 2014 putsch in Ukraine [28] as well as, most recently, “Inside Corona” [29] – RT had even obtained a broadcasting licence in Serbia, in accordance with the European Convention on Transfrontier Television [30]. As for the webcasting ban: since RT’s German programme is broadcast from Moscow, RT’s headquarters, it should have been addressed to the Moscow office, and not to RT DE’s Berlin office.
This censorship of RT DE therefore seems to be one stage in this long-term strategy, which has just shifted up a gear with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, providing the ideal pretext for implementing censorship of “inconvenient” media. Moreover, the censorship is not limited to Russian media, since the European Taskforce has broadened its scope to covid-related disinformation. What will be the next subjects of interest to it?
The purpose of censorship
Censorship serves one main purpose: to defend a system (of values) and protect it with a minefield that will blow up any dissident. Censorship around covid is one field among others. A field where it was able to train, making itself acceptable in the eyes of the general public and accustoming the public to the process.
So in the end, what is the difference between the censorship of BAM! and that of RT or Sputnik? The Russian media were explicitly declared enemies, and banned, after vain attempts at subtler censorship. As for BAM!, it is a victim of this implicit system, set up precisely to prevent the very creation of new dissident media such as RT. Moreover, the timing of BAM!’s censorship on YouTube, on 18 February, is intriguing: it came at the height of the censorship surge and only a few days before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Had anyone wanted to silence possible dissenting voices at the decisive moment, they would not have gone about it any differently. But this remains speculation. In any case, whether this action was premeditated or the logical consequence of an established system, the result is the same. Censorship is a weapon that turns, sooner or later, against those who call for it, because it knows no limits, and today’s “friends” may be tomorrow’s “enemies”. It advances like an octopus with the interests of the powers that be, which use it as a lethal weapon in an information war.
By Colin Meier, citizen journalist and Germany correspondent for BAM!
[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/rt-de-rundfunklizenz-101.html
[2] https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2022/nach-sendeverbot-fuer-rt-de-in-deutschland-russland-kuendigt-massnahmen-gegen-deutsche-medien-an/
[3] https://www.broeckers.com/2022/02/05/tit-for-tat/
[4] https://bam.news/articles/la-voix-de-bam-etouffee-par-la-censure/
[5] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_22_1463
[6] https://bam.news/articles/?c=2837
[7] https://bam.news/articles/la-censure-encouragee-sans-vergogne-par-les-autorites-europeennes/
[8] https://bam.news/tribune/censure-telegram-dans-la-ligne-de-mire/
[9] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=fr&ref_topic=10833358
[10] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=fr&ref_topic=10833358
[11] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/medical-misinformation-policy
[12] https://www.facebook.com/combating-misinfo
[13] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/
[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meWM4lChqy4
[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy910FG46C4
[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
[17] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5TZnFZ4tg
[18] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiBXmbkwiSw
[19] https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-facebook-bans-azov-hate-speech-moving-elsewhere/29884807.html
[20] https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/
[21] https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=80402
[22] https://www.broeckers.com/2021/10/03/willkommen-im-kalten-medienkrieg/
[23] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_22_1463
[24] https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/2116/-questions-and-answers-about-the-east-
[25] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/rt-de-rundfunklizenz-101.html
[26] https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2022/nach-sendeverbot-fuer-rt-de-in-deutschland-russland-kuendigt-massnahmen-gegen-deutsche-medien-an/
[27] https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/
[28] https://www.j-k-fischer-verlag.de/J-K-Fischer-Verlag/Die-Ukraine-Krise-2014-bis-zur-Eskalation--8636.html
[29] https://www.j-k-fischer-verlag.de/J-K-Fischer-Verlag/INSIDE-CORONA--10647.html
[30] https://rm.coe.int/168007b0e6
Photo source:
Image resized from the original image by PAOLO on Adobestock
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