they dont muck around at ofcom when it comes to this stuff
(Secretly) Donald Trump’s favourite television news channel.
They’ve got good form here - especially with forcing TV channels to broadcast their findings in severe breaches.
ACMA should take notes. It’d be a hassle for 2GB’s scheduling department, mind.
The channel is now off air across the EU and UK having been forced off the satellite it was broadcasting on. Good riddens.
Do people think this is a good move?
As much as I don’t believe they are credible or well-intentioned, for for the principles of freedom of information, and not giving others (like Russia) reason to reduce press freedom further, which they have just done too?
Do you think a broadcaster who broadcasts fake government propaganda of a dictator should be allowed to spread fake news and lies?
No, I don’t. It’s not like Sky News where it’s clearly opinion instead of news. This is lies and propaganda dressed as news, as the truth. It’s a communication platform for Putin. He shouldn’t have that advantage at all.
RT has been this forever.
It’s ridiculous all these countries and platforms now only having the teeth to take it off the Air
Yet why has it taken the escalation of the conflict to do something about it? And what about the other state media (CGTN comes to mind) and sources of misinformation? Are we going to accept they’re ok until the point they aren’t?
It’s all well and good to take RT off-air given the circumstance, but only time will tell whether it will be a temporary measure or a permanent one. But this should be the start of dealing with sources of misinformation, not a one off
Would Foxtel pay RT to broadcast the channel or would RT pay them to carry it?
Yeah I know, like, what’s changed all of a sudden?
As far as I know RT has been a mouthpiece for Putin and Russian propaganda for many years / it’s existence.
That’s why it should have been off the air years ago.
I agree, but really the whole world has been complacent with many things Russia related.
There is a decent amount of what these state-operated channels put out that is reasonably benign and this tempers people’s opinions of the channel (as well as giving a false sense of the true power of the channel)
It was surprising that when Ofcom refused RT a licence to broadcast into the UK that others didn’t follow suit.
I think one thing helping RT in the past, is that a lot of the time there’s quite an audience for the west-scepticism that RT has been a vehicle for, that presenting an anti-Western view to sympathetic audiences in those western nations is actually somewhat popular, that they amplify the voices of dissent within major western powers, thus are in an ‘enemy of my enemy’ situation a lot of the time.
That can be both on the left and the right - leading to quite widespread viewership of RT as a network willing to push back against ‘mainstream media’, and thus making the censorship or deplatforming of it seem anti-democratic, which obviously is ironic given how far Russia has gone in blocking and criminalising independent media.