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On November 19, lawmakers from the Russian State Duma (the lower house of the Parliament) proposed giving Russia’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, the right to block access to social media services that “discriminate against” or censor information coming from Russian news media.
Draft amendments to the laws “On Information” and “On measures impacting persons involved in violations of the fundamental human rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation” propose to impose sanctions on websites that discriiminate against Russian news media and giving Roskomnadzor the right to fully or partially restrict access to these sites.
The bill cites “ample evidence” of certain services, including ones registered outside of Russia, placing “unreasonable access restrictions” on media.
“So, since April 2020, the authorized bodies of the Russian Federation have been recording complaints from the editorial offices of the media about the facts of censoring their accounts by foreign Internet sites Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Such media as Russia Today, RIA Novosti, Crimea 24 were censored. In total, about 20 facts of discrimination were recorded,” the document says.
According to Russian state media RIA Novosti, the Russian Attorney General’s Office, in consultation with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, will be able to designate outlets as “discriminatory against Russian media,” while Roskomnadzor will maintain a registry of these sites. Roskomnadzor will be able to punish them with blockings, traffic slowdowns and administrative fines. The lifting of the sanctions will be possible if the resource removes restrictions on the materials of the Russian media.
Earlier, on November 18, Roskomnadzor demanded YouTube to remove restrictions from YouTube channel “Solovyov LIVE” operated by the team Vladimir Solovyov, a Russian journalist of Jewish origin widely known for his work on various state media.
“As it became known, since October of this year, the channel’s videos have not been included in the “Trending” section of YouTube, although earlier this happened regularly. This situation can be regarded as an attempt by the YouTube administration to restrict the distribution of materials by a popular Russian author, to prevent the growth of his audience.
The agency also emphasizes that YouTube video hosting is obliged to bring the rules of the site in accordance with the current legislation of the Russian Federation,” Roskomndazor said in a statement.
This move seems to be a part of a wider campaign by Russia. On November 12, Roskomnadzor said it had sent a letter to Google LLC demanding to lift restrictions on viewing the documentary “USA 2020: Up in arms” on YouTube channel of the RT broadcaster.
“Roskomnadzor has asked Google LLC to remove the restrictions on the documentary USA 2020: Up in arms, which is published on the official YouTube channel of the Russian media Russia Today,” the statement says.
The agency added that it told Google that such restrictions on the Russian media were regarded as an act of censorship that violated the key principles of the free flow of information and unhindered access to it.
In a separte development, on November 13, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized YouTube for blocking an investigative film into the Malaysian Boeing crash in Ukraine in 2014 released by Russian sate-linked media Ukraina.ru.
“On November 10, [YouTube] moderators said that the investigative film about the Malaysian Boeing crash in east Ukraine, I quote, ‘violated the community guidelines of the platform’ and blocked it before the premier. <…> It is hard to explain this act of censorship other than being an attempt by certain interested parties to purge alternative versions of the 2014 tragedy from the global airwaves. We are calling on the YouTube administration to reconsider its decision and, generally, abandon this politically motivated policing [of content],” she said.
Earlier this year, on May 20, Russian Foreign Ministry released an official statement on the censorship of four Russian-language media organizations – “Krim 24” (Crimea 24), “Anna News”, “News Front” and “Riafan” – on YouTube.
““Krim 24” TV channel is one of the most popular sources of information on the peninsula. It is a part of Crimea’s largest media holding “Television and Radio Company “Krim” that unites five television channels, three radio stations, an information portal and two Internet sites. The team of “Krim 24” TV channel traditionally covers the most relevant major news topics in this Russian region.
As a result of the deletion of the Krim 24 account on the Youtube platform, about 30 thousand subscribers lost access to videos that had tens of millions of views. The US platform has taken restrictive measures under the clearly far-fetched pretext of “violating hosting rules.”
The fact that Youtube did not provide any convincing facts explaining its actions, as well as the fact that the appeal of the channel’s team still remains unanswered, is unacceptable,” the foreign ministry said in its statement.
“These are just some examples of US Internet censorship of Russian information portals,” it said.
SouthFront cannot but express solidarity with any actions aimed at opposing the systematic censorship on YouTube, Facebook and other mainstream social media platofrms. Over the past years, SouthFront has repeatedly become a target of informational attacks, censorship and theft of content.
In the second half of 2020 this censorship singificantly increased. SouthFront’s official accounts were terminated and our work censored by the 4 largest mainstream social media platforms and the censorship campaign continues. The US State Department even released a special report in which it called SouthFront a “pillar” of Russian disinformation and propaganda. However, it does not seem that the mighty Kremlin is aware of this ‘amazing revelation’. In fact, Russian official bodies and media orginalizations prefer to ignore the existence of SouthFront, even if the impact of the work of our international team is recognized on the highest level by the US, EU and NATO member states.
The case with the censorship of SouthFront on YouTube is an interesting example of this appraoch:
- On May 1, SouthFront’s main YouTube channel with over 152,000 subscribers, 1,900 uploaded videos and approximately 60 million views was illegally terminated by the platofrm. SouthFront immediately made an appeal of this decision on YouTube and sent requests of informational support to various international organizations. Taking into account that MSM and Euro-Atlantic structures regularly accuse SouthFront of being ‘Russian propaganda’, we also sent emails to the Russian Foreign Ministry and a number of Russian mainstream media organizations. SouthFront emails and requests were expectedly ignored.
- While SouthFront was trying to restore our main channel on YouTube, SouthFront volunteer from Russia set up a backup channel to share SouthFront videos and further. This channel was intentionally created by a Russian citizen. This allowed SouthFront volunteer to send a complain to Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor after this backup channel was terminated on July 28. In response, Roskomnadzor provided a cynical answer alleging that there is no possibility to do something in this case. Expectedly, an appeal by a regular citizen drew no real attention, while there are still so much things to help official media.
In fact, SouthFront is not surprised to cynical answers and mainstream-like silence of Russian bodies, including the Foreign Ministry, regarding requests sent by SouthFront and its volunteers from Russia. SouthFront has no relations with the Russian government system. Russian official bodies and mainstream media do have no influence on our editorial policy and, therefore, they have no interests in providing SouthFront with any kind of support or informational assistance. SouthFront’s critical coverage of the situation in Russia only adds oil to the flame.
The modern world is mostly divided not between nations or religious, but rather between the people and the elites, between the freedom of thought and the corporate/globalist-driven totalitarianism. In this environment, no state or corporate actors are interested in the existence of really independent media organizations, authors and groups of authors.
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SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence Team
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thank you..ı am enjoying my life..how about you?
Except Armenia,eu and usa every actor in the region is satisfied atm..Well pkk is already eliminated in North ıraq in some critical areas..but İran is using Pkk in Iraq(sincar)..ı dont think joint operation can be possible which is understandable (Turkey is nato member and hates Assad to the bone so why İran bothers)..we are buying oil and gas from İran but selling through nato country is unrealistic …Even because of İranian business man Rıza Sarraf,we are in deep trouble with usa..
https://www.lawfareblog.com/halkbank-case-should-be-very-big-deal
ı read that article..ı agree mostly ..On the other hand,these progress can not happen within a few years..Usa is applying its shadow sanctions and threatening the other countries who are eager to co-operate with Turkey…(Drones are easy for us we dont have dependency,we used foreign components because of scale economy)..ı think f-35 is lottery for us,there are lots of questions with that jet and its over-priced along with its maintenance and flight-hour costs..
IMO Erdogan’s line of thinking is not likely to be replaced, whoever gets the steering wheel in Ankara. And if there will be an election any longer.
There wont be election until 2023 (Rumours) but now with Biden we can’t predict future. 15 august 2020 in his interview he clearly stated he will advocate new approach to Erdogan andsupport opposition. Erdogans line of thinking will not be replaced that is true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw0_NWJXWXU
I meant that Erdogan managed to elevate Turley’s position (in spite of his personal history of being relatively permissive towards kurds a decade back), by eventually sided with and/or cut back to size all relevant power groups in Turkey. He also managed to fasttrack Turkey’s military sphere into a power projection mode. I think this alone constitutes for a healthy voter base in any forthcoming elections. As for Biden, we are going to see whether he (or Harris) will change anything.
Modern U.S it’s a dwarf child right between Nazi germany and the USSR. They fear the truth as a demon fears light.
Are you kidding? Modern USA, its government, is the 4th reich or neo-Mongolian empire with no mercy to foreigners. If they can’t destroy some countries with weapons, they are trying to destroy with economic pressure, infowar, smearing campaigns in all spheres, destructive NGOs inside these countries and even with support of local terrorist groups. The article says about this. Blocked channels weren’t anti-US, but they were not pro-US, it’s main fault or even a crime for the 4th reich. Censorship on “private” YT, “Twitter”, “Facebook” is harder than was in USSR, and it was really hard and stupid sometimes, but the US censorship even more stupid. Example. They blocked “Tsargrad” (800 thousand subscribers on YT), but its main broadcast about economics was blatant anti-russian propaganda. Keeping such destructive information on YT could help the US propaganda, but they blocked their ally. I’m happy now.)
As for me, I support Russia with the Russian government and China with the Chinese government, so to me it’s not important if this site is independent or government-backed. Either way is on the right side now.
The wrong side is of the USA/Zionism/Etc.
I’m totally out of the circus USA’s perspectives (and of its vassal state allies).
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e0d618f9c47e14d32fa72b13aae304c2a3004f0d1f62fccb44ce58bd7c89758.png https://www.brighteon.com/7ccd4fc4-2f2c-4202-a9ea-1e4ea902ec7f
Brighteon.com is a US patriot site that has been funded with $2.5 million of investment to be operational. It is designed as an alternative to Jewtube.
Whether it’s compatible with a truther site like SF. I don’t know. While I don’t agree with some of the founder Mike Adam’s pro scamdemic, anti China positions. I do agree with a lot of his positions.
This video states that in the event of a Trump victory. The color revolution in the US is going to escalate to a kinetic conflict of a higher level than the riots. It describes a potential conflict in the US Capitol building between USSF operating under Insurrection Act presidential authorization and DC capitol police. In the event the DC police don’t cooperate.
“Taking into account that MSM and Euro-Atlantic structures regularly accuse SouthFront of being ‘Russian propaganda’, we also sent emails to the Russian Foreign Ministry and a number of Russian mainstream media organizations. SouthFront emails and requests were expectedly ignored.”
if it was up to me, i would give money to you instead sponsoring disgusting liberal radio “Echo of Moscow”, which is living on “Gazprom’s” money, millions dollars annually.