Facebook Bans DONi Donbass News Agency site
by Vaska
Facebook censored a popular, accredited and officially supported DONi Donbass International News Agency main Facebook site on Tuesday March 1. The banning of DONi was done in the midst of a harsh escalation of the armed conflict in Donbass, and it happened just after the press conference which had been held in the Lugansk capital, where the opening of the new DONi Lugansk branch was announced by the Director and Chief-Editor Janus Putkonen. Also Putkonen’s personal FB-account was frozen for the coming three days.
FB closed the official DONi news page having accused DONi News Agency of breaking FB-rules and we are charged with “spreading hate speech”. DONi Director’s personal FB-account was frozen under the same pretext. “I am amazed, I haven’t heard before about any official news agency site banned from Facebook”, said the Director of DONi News.”Was this done only because we keep widening our news coverage from Donbass?”
“It’s clear that we haven’t broken any rules, so this means, that there are no rules left,” commented Janus Putkonen on Facebook’s sudden decision to close the rapidly growing DONi FB-site which had gathered almost 4,000 likes and kept collecting averagely 200 likes per week.
“We report the western audience the situation in Donbass and yes, we widely cover the facts and documents bearing evidence of the cruel reality – how the Ukrainian nazi-batallions are attacking the Donbass defenders, cities and civilian targets. It’s clear that the bloody and Western-backed military provocations committed by the Kiev forces don’t suit the Western media narrative and the picture they want to show about Donbass. In fact, it’s the truth about Donbass, what doesn’t fit at all the western agenda”, continues Putkonen.
“Today’s Facebook is not an objective Internet platform for open and friendly discussions and sharing information. Just contrary to that, it has become a highly politicized weapon of mass distortion to rule people’s views and understanding. What had been presented as a friendly platform silently turned into the dangerous media weapon and its policies are taken over by western geopolitical interest groups. We need to understand that Facebook is controlled by the same international power structure which promotes western hegemony over the world. This hegemony of the western ideology has been implemented into people’s daily discussions and everything challenging this corporate mainstream media supported narrative gets cornered, banned and stamped as a threat”, said Putkonen.
“What we can see, is that in FB there is no room for challenging discussions of the world’s multipolarism, which is widely supported by the Russian world and its allies. Basically everything challenging the western rule and its interests is today something what is called hate speech”, said Putkonen. “Fascism always needs censorship”.
“DONi News Agency and Press Center is a privately funded and non-profit multiple language newsroom, which is based in Donetsk and Lugansk. Together with the local staff, we provide a daily outlook of the reality in Donbass. So it means that we give voice to the Donbass people and its defenders, who are fighting this very minute against the attacking Nazi-troops. It’s a fact that we can hear the sound of battles in our offices right now, and that fact is a part of the information blockade in the West these days,” says Putkonen and asks a serious question, “so what is the truth about the western “hate speech?”
“Those telling the truth are what they hate most. Every independent and alternative media is in great danger coming from the hegemonic facebook-policy. Under blatant cover of hatespeech the elite rule is waging brutal aggression against people’s freedom of speech”, concludes Putkonen.
SOURCE
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
““I am amazed, I haven’t heard before about any official news agency site banned from Facebook”, said the Director of DONi News.” Don’t be amazed. Be clued in. The Right’s main weapon in it’s war on light is rule-breaking. Just when you thought you were winning, or had a fighting chance, the other side violates the rules. Michael Hudson cautioned, before they tried it, that Ukraine would try to bilk Russia out of the 3 billion $ it owes. I knew they’d try it. I’m not sure whether they pulled it off. Wikileaks is successfully revealing the inner workings of the wild beast of corporatocracy and what do they do? They just arbitrarily change the rules (same as breaking them) so that Wikileaks can’t be funded by supporters. The US passes a slew of super progressive laws to protect the environment and what does Dick Cheney do? Simply exempts the oil and gas companies. And what is a tax? Among other things, it’s a law. Ever heard of the Panama Papers? And on and on it goes…
It’s a simple idea. But it explains quite a bit. The way it – the wild beast of corporatocracy – works is: You huddle with everyone else to decide on the rules that will make civilization work. The UN is a good example. Then you set about strategically breaking them, because you’re a big believer in law and order. That allows you to come into a position of dominance in society. From a position of dominance you can then dictate outcomes, including economic outcomes that benefit you and yours. And your class. The sucker sheep, who actually believed the law and order talk, are punished for their weakness with austerity…
And these rightwingers have the gall to hold themselves up and champions of law and order.
The Left, with its “social engineering” schemes, is much more to blame than the Right, which largely believes in traditional values, and not interfering in other countries. During the Obama years, the Leftist, university-educated Social Scientists in Hillary Clinton’s US State Department funded or encouraged started revolutions in several Middle eastern countries and Ukraine.
‘There are no rules left’ pretty much sums up the West at the moment. From politicians committing war crimes to academy heads bullying staff the political agenda over last few decades has partially been about stripping accountability from the system.
In my ideal world public servants would censor according to a set of rules agreed by the public in a referendum. It should not be the job of a corporation.
Reblogged this on Siem Reap Mirror.
I hate CIA-book, but I wish more people/stuff would migrate to VKontakte (vk.com). Right now the content’s still mostly in Russian, but the site itself can be configured for any language.
Please, do not assume that Russia is some sort of Paradise of Freedom. I am not sure whether I want to live there. (Still, I am not sure whether I want to live in the States.) But I am quite certain that all so-called “social networks” are – at least – expendable or superfluous. Stay away from them, that is much better than whine that [there is] an “oppression”, a “censorship”, … etc.