Tag: media

EU further restricts freedom of speech

Blog, Conflict, EU

Brussels 24.02.2025 The EU Commission cheered the Council’s adoption of the 16th Russia sanctions package aligned with the III year anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war, including ban of a number of Russian mass media outlets.

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“As Russia’s illegal aggression enters its fourth year, this package is designed to further ramp up pressure on the aggressor and is part of the EU’s unwavering commitment to a just and lasting peace for Ukraine” reads the official text.
“In the 16th package, the EU has extended the prohibition to broadcast content to 8 Russian media outlets (EADaily, Fondsk, Lenta, NewsFront, RuBaltic, SouthFront, Strategic Culture Foundation and Krasnaya Zvezda) because these are under the permanent control of the Russian leadership and systematically participate in spreading misinformation and propaganda, which constitutes a threat to the Union’s public order and security” the reads the text of EU Commission Q&A page.
The explanation resonates with the words of the U.S. Vice-President J.D.Vance at Munich Security Conference: “…Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like “misinformation” and “disinformation,” who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion, or, God forbid, vote a different way, or, even worse, win an election”.
However the acknowledgment of mistakes, and admitting the failures are the most complicated mechanisms of human psychology, often causing well-known effect of “continuation of investment in failure”, which is both costly, and irrational waste of precious resources, including time.
The initial decision to cut off Russia Today TV channel in breach of the Lisbon Treaty Article 11 (
https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/11-freedom-expression-and-information)
was a precedent to open the gates into Soviet-like era of repression of freedom of speech, which later became normalized, and shifted from periphery to the centre, becoming the major instrument of dealing with the opponents – shut down. Unfortunately the pattern causes the irreparable damages to the EU project, indicating to lack of arguments, and deficiency of moral high ground.

Russian independent medium dissolves

Blog, Europe, Human rights

Brussels 31.05.2021 Newsru site which has functioned primarily as a news aggregator in recent years, said it was not possible for them to continue operations for economic reasons.

“Many thanks to all of you who have been reading us for 21 years. We know for sure that many stayed with us all this time. Lately there have been 3 million of you a month” reads the announcement of Newsru site.

“From August 1, 2000 to May 31, 2021, every day we tried to fulfil our professional duties with utmost honesty, namely, to tell what is important in the country and in the world, to compose an objective information picture of the day.
“At the very beginning of the century we were NTV.ru, for the first time in Russia a television news site was created, the very same NTV, the 20th anniversary of the destruction of which was remembered quite recently.
“For most of our employees today, working on this information site has taken most of their lives. Many of us have worked here since its opening.

“We stop working for economic reasons, but they are caused precisely by the political situation in our country. After 2014, it became clear that not only geography and foreign policy, but also the domestic economy were changing radically.

“Our picture of the day began to differ so much from the picture preferred by state resources that large advertisers stopped cooperating with us after the events of 2014, and the rest began to be especially afraid this year.
“More and more often we had to write about the adoption of restrictive laws that could affect us ourselves any day. We had to label more and more respected people and sources of truthful information as foreign agents and extremists.
“The situation in the economy and in the legal field makes the high-quality work of NEWSru.com more impossible.
“We say goodbye to you, but for now we leave open the entire archive accumulated over 21 years of work. And this is 1 million 172 thousand 931 news (not including this one). This history of the events of the 21st century is extremely important for understanding what is happening today. The archive will help you not to be naive and gullible, it will help you to compare the facts and answer many questions.
“For us, this is the last message for today.
“We sadly say goodbye to our totally unique and loyal audience.
“Your NEWSru.com.