RT, Sputnik and Media Censorship in America
by Kit
Just a few days ago RTAmerica was forced to register as a foreign agent in the United States. Using this designation as justification, Twitter and Facebook have now banned RT and Sputnik from advertising on their services. This is all over alleged Russian “interference” in the 2016 Presidential Election, for which there is still not a single piece of clear evidence.
This is the United States of America, where freedom of the press is literally one of the founding principles of the nation. They celebrate their freedom every time they’re forced to stand through their national anthem.
What would the press reaction have been if Russia had forced the BBC, for example, to register as a foreign agent?
In fact, how many American or European media outlets have ever been forced to register as foreign agents in “autocratic” Russia where Putin has allegedly “shut down the free press”?
Zero.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has operated in Russia and Eastern Europe for nearly 70 years. It’s an American destabilization programme. That’s not a “conspiracy theory”. It is acknowledged in the public record that RFE/RL was established by the State Dept. and the CIA in order to spread American propaganda behind the Iron Curtain. They have never been barred from operating in Russia.
Now, imagine it was on the public record that the FSB had founded RT. Imagine it was written into Sputnik’s mission statement that their job was to undermine the American government. Would they have been allowed to broadcast in the US? Would they have come anywhere NEAR 68 years of operation?
Look at the Moscow Times, a notionally Russian paper that is owned by a Finnish conglomerate and prints exclusively in English. It is routinely, even pathologically, critical of the Russian government. Would this situation ever be allowed to stand in reverse? If there were a newspaper calling itself The London Times, which was owned by a Venezuelan and printed nothing but anti-government stories, exclusively in Russian…would it be allowed to operate? Would people cite it as a decent source of information?
Look at CNN, where Anderson Cooper – ex-CIA “intern” – solemnly nods his way through autocues full of baseless propaganda. Repeating, verbatim, the statements of nameless “intelligence sources”, without analysis or question. Can you imagine if RT’s headline reporter had worked for the KGB? Luke Harding would have written a (very bad) book about it by now. Can you imagine if RT’s news crews had been caught, numerous times, literally faking news footage (several times)?
These double standards are never addressed or acknowledged in the “free press” of NATO aligned nations.
Radio Free Europe has a story covering Russia’s “tit-for-tat” sanctions on US media outlets. It is hilariously without irony.
They interview the American ambassador to Russia – Jon Huntsman – who says, with a straight face:
We just think the principles of free media in any free society and democracy are absolutely critical for strength and well-being…Freedom of speech is a part of that. That’s why we in the embassy care about the issue. That’s why we’re going to follow the work that is going on in the Duma and the legislation that is being drafted very, very carefully. Because we’re concerned about it.”
He defends America’s stance on RT, whilst attacking Russia’s counter moves, claiming America is sanctioning RT in the name of “transparency” and that:
That’s far different from designating somebody a foreign agent
The US Ambassador to Russia, apparently, needs some help keeping up with current events because “designating somebody a foreign agent” is exactly what the US government has done. For some reason the (funded by the CIA) editorial staff of RFE/RL don’t feel the need to correct him. Even though their headline from three days earlier completely contradicts him.
Apparently journalistic standards are only for other people. And state censorship of the media, like all other crimes against humanity, is OK when America does it.
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.
US Congress withdraws RT America’s accreditation on Capitol Hill
With NATO troops all along Russia’s border under US insistence, and the US banning news outlets which tell the world the truth, America has become the new Iron Curtain.
“the US banning news outlets which tell the world the truth”
Which news outets has the U.S. banned, which tell the world “The Truth”? Because RT has not been banned, nor was it required to register under FARA.
See my post here for more info:
https://off-guardian.org/2017/11/21/rt-sputnik-and-media-censorship-in-america/comment-page-1/#comment-91751
Cut the ridiculous diversionary quibbling. RT’s parent organisation has been named, not RT itself, because the legal framework requires it. RT is the target of the move, and this is not denied by anyone. RT have now had their credentials for covering Capitol Hill removed, citing the FARA listing as a reason. Do you still maintain the fiction that this is not censorship?
The fact you have bothered to search the subject for some absurd bit of cover to try and obscure the reality says you either have way too much time on your hands or you have someone feeding you useful bits of disinfo.
“RT’s parent organisation has been named, not RT itself, because the legal framework requires it.”
So you admit that RT lied about being the first media organization to be targeted by FARA? You also admit that this means RT’s journalists never faced the threat of arrest for refusing to give up their personal information, in contradiction to what RT had claimed? None of this is “diversionary quibbling”. It is a statement of fact.
“RT have now had their credentials for covering Capitol Hill removed, citing the FARA listing as a reason. Do you still maintain the fiction that this is not censorship?”
This was an automatic process, one that applies to all media outlets registered in some form under FARA. It has nothing to do with RT specifically. Any media outlet that has Congressional press credentials will have these credentials revoked automatically upon FARA registeration. It’s not like this is some arbritary rule made just for RT. It’s been in existence for a while and automatically came into effect upon the FARA status.
“….or you have someone feeding you useful bits of disinfo.”
Or I am a person with my own opinion who you disagree with and are thus insulting.
Some of my comments have not appeared here.
You are posting under different email addresses and IPs. You have used SIX (6) different IPs in the past 24 hours, this cannot be explained simply by using a computer at work and at home as you claim. You also appear to be talking to yourself under different names. Your comments are being moderated as a response to this. Most sites would have banned you long since.
Please use one name, one email address and don’t divert discussion and/or misrepresent the opinions of others. If you follow these simple requirements we will have no problem with you.
Admin,
This is an entirely baseless accusation. My university uses several different networks and is responsible for assigning I.P. addresses to various devices. So if I connect to a different wifi router at school or through my phone, I get different I.P. addresses. Then there’s my work wi-fi and then there’s my home wi-fi.
This is a strange way to accuse someone of trolling. Generally, one can prove someone is a troll by looking at their comments, NOT the fact that they use x number of I.P. addresses, which I have literally zero control over.
What in Lord’s name does the number of I.P. addresses I post under have anythiny remotely to do with trolling? A troll is someone who baits others, stirs up trouble, etc.
“You also appear to be talking to yourself under different names.
What? Which names? This is ridiculous. I only post under “Matt”. Yes, I use randomly-typed email addresses, but I always post under the same name and I have ZERO control over how many I.P. addresses I am assigned by my school’s networking equipment. Learn the basics of networking and how I.P. addresses are assigned before using this as proof of someone being a “troll”.
I will use the same email from now on – but don’t expect me to magically control how many I.P. addresses I post with, when I connect to my school’s wi-fi.
I have never been banned from a website for posting under different I.P. addresses. I expect an apology for these baseless accusations.
Your explanation does not fit the known facts. Your numerous IP addresses (more than seven unique IPs in the past 24 hours) source to different providers and widely different locations. They are almost certainly being generated by software. That is your prerogative of course, and we would not moderate anyone simply for disguising their IP. But you are also posting under different email addresses and – quite obviously – arguing with yourself on occasions under different identities.
Please use a single email address and a single identity.
And stop these attempts at diversion and disruption.
Do NOT reply to this.
This will be my last post about the matter.
The location can easily change depending on the proxy used by the host ISP. Here in Ontario, some ISPs give an American I.P. address, for example. Again, I have zero control over this stuff.
“quite obviously – arguing with yourself on occasions under different identities.”
This is false. I have only posted under “Matt” recently. I have not posted under any other name. I will use the same email from now on, but I can’t control which I.P. address I have. Name one example here where I spoke to myself using a name other than “Matt.”
“And stop these attempts at diversion and disruption.”
What? I have been completely on topic and respectful in all my posts. Every single one of my posts has been about the article, except for the recent ones where I defend myself against false accusations of me being a “troll”.
Again, this is my last post about this.
Your IP only began to change regularly after your comments were moderated for repetition. Since then you have changed IP every single time your address has been logged. You have also invented entities to argue with, and you have repeatedly refused to abide by the request to use a single email and user name. This is beyond question.
You are correct. This will be your last post on this subject.
Matt: in the spirit of free debate – at least one of your comments has been deleted: or so it would seem. The reason I think this is that it was a comment I replied too: but when I hit ‘post’- my comment came in at the top of the page and the comment I was replying too is no longer there. The irony is that I have a decontextualised comment about context (immediately below this), that makes no sense in its current position. I’m prepared to reserve judgement about what happened to your comment. [You started by questioning what my previous comment had to do with RT lies, to which I responded …] Perhaps Admin could respond?
BigB – “Matt” is repeat posting under numerous different email addresses and IPs and is talking to himself under different names. He is a troll.
Hello Big B,
Thank you for pointing this out. I also now see that one of my replies to your post below has no appeared. I did not break any site rules in my comments, and none of them contained insults (unlike the comments by TTAM that have not been deleted).
I hope the mods can explain why my respectful comments are being deleted, but those of others who have used swear words against me are still up.
See my reply above, and stop your troll-like behaviour
In a word: context. The RT issue is not taking place on a sterile decontextualised Petri dish; or isolated in a vacuum. For one thing, both the BBC and the Hill (for two) have claimed that RT and Sputnik have been forced to register as “foreign agents”: whilst also disseminating the dangerous lies that both outlets were instrumental in influencing the election result. There is the easy to verify statement of Schmidt’s intention to “derank” RT and Sputnik. These are not Russian propaganda. So is there a bigger picture being ignored here?
These are but two minor instances in a John Brennan CIA initiated and orchestrated Russia-gate campaign – or have you been living on another planet? The whole Russophobia psyop is being leveraged into a renewed Cold War. In case you have not read the FY18 NDAA – we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Simonyan’s alleged “lies” have to be seen In the context of monstrous multi-spectrum provocation from (primarily) the US: or else your comments are rendered meaningless. Without the relevant context, focusing on the minutiae and making this about Russia, Simonyan and Kit could be viewed as deliberately obscurantist.
I know I shouldn’t be encouraging him: but this comment was meant as a reply for Matt below.
Hello BigB,
“both the BBC and the Hill (for two) have claimed that RT and Sputnik have been forced to register as “foreign agents””
They are wrong. It’s as simple as that. The BBC and Hill don’t know that only T&R was required to register, not RT itself. Just because they posted incorrect information, based off of Simonyan’s lies, doesn’t make it true.
“There is the easy to verify statement of Schmidt’s intention to “derank” RT and Sputnik.”
I gave the context of this, namely, that Schmidt was talking about fake news sites in general, and used RT and Sputnik as examples. But let’s assume he meant RT/Sputnik specifically. That is still not censorship. Other search engines exist – you can easily change to another in your browser. You can still access the websites. I personally find deranking the sites to be a symbolic measure. It’s better to address the fake news itself than derank it.
This has nothing to do with RussiaGate. RussiaGate is a hoax involving false eaccusations of Trump and Russia “colluding”. This is wholly seperate from the St Petersburg troll factory posting comments, or RT’s parent NGO having to register as a foreign agent.
“Simonyan’s alleged “lies” have to be seen In the context of monstrous multi-spectrum provocation from (primarily) the US”
Why do you say “alleged”? And why put the word “lies” in quotation marks? Simonyan lied. I listed these lies fairly clearly in my below post. Or are you saying her statements are true? Was RT required to register? Did RT have to diclose information about its journalists, as Simonyan had hysterically claimed? Was RT the very first media outlet targeted by FARA? The registeration is over and done with, and nothing happened. It was a bureaucratic procedure, spun by Simonyan as “censorship.”
We see it differently. I can’t see it in isolation. Simonyan lied: so what? Murdoch lied; the Barclay brothers lied; the Scott Trust lied; Lord Rothermere lied; Beaverbrook lied; Randolph Hearst lied …if not in person, through the fake news of their publications. Press Barons lie: it’s what they do ….what does this prove: that RT is no different? Congratulations: you get a gold star!
In case you are being obtuse: all media outlets are biased and prone to distortion. I watch Fox News: do you not think that I am aware that they are trying to start a war with Iran? What shall I do: call for it to be shut down? Because in among the hyped Russophobia and Trump triumphalism are nuggets of truth: liken it to panning for gold. All news outlets are the same. You can choose not to watch them, or you can choose to use your critical faculties to filter out the truth (and I know – I will still be wrong – because no one has the objective truth. It doesn’t exist: we are all biased!) So what exactly is your point? Because Schmidt et al want to deny me the right to make up my own mind – even if I’m wrong. They want to tell me how to think and control what information I have access to. Are you party to that? Because you seem only to be able to focus on the mote in a brothers eye …
Hello Big B,
You make very reasonable points and I agree with all of them. But my mentioning of Simonyan’s false statements had nothing to do with assessing RT’s truthfulness. I mentioned this only because this article claimed the U.S. government was targeting and censoring RT by forcing it to register under FARA.
Before anyone further engages with “Matt” please be advised he has posted on this site under numerous different names and email addresses over the past several months. As well as “Matt”, he has been “Carlos”, “IK” and several others. You may judge for yourselves whether you want to spend time debating with him.
See this Admin post and subsequent comments by “Matt” from earlier this year.
Caveat Emptor
Just because I went under different names in the past, does not mean I am a troll. As for the emails, I already explained that I tend to just randomly type in stuff in the email box when posting comments, as I don’t have a WordPress account, so my information is never saved. I also explained that I have been using the same email over the last few posts, and that none of this has any bearing on the validity of my argument or evidence that I am a troll.
I ask again: will this article be updated with information I posted, regarding T&R having to register under FARA and not RT itself?
Most people feel able to use just one – real – email address. You have used at least four different identities here. There is no good reason for that. Many sites would have banned you outright for this kind of thing. We haven’t. Please repay the courtesy by using one name and -preferably – a real email address where we may contact you if needed.
This isn’t a pre-requisite for posting here, but when you have been acting in such a flagrantly troll-like way it’s reasonable to ask this of you.
Please do NOT reply to this.
PS – if you want us to publish a different interpretation of the situation with RT America then feel free to submit an article. It’s not my job – or within my remit – to alter an author’s articles in line with your version of reality.
Hi Matt
Still seeing it in isolation? From the Duran: “Honest Bob” Mueller to go after Flynn for appearing on RT – tying in RT’s FARA registration: Putin to sign new law to target RFE-RL and VoA? We’re in a tit-for-tat proxy media war. Pretty innocuous: until it escalates militarily – and it will. Do they care that it’s all built on speculation and lies? We’re in a post truth world. If you repeat a lie often enough – it becomes politics (to misquote Banksy.)
http://theduran.com/white-house-braces-for-flynn-indictment-as-rumors-swirl-that-the-former-general-has-been-flipped-video/
http://theduran.com/breaking-putin-signs-law-allowing-foreign-media-groups-listed-foreign-agents/
Hello BigB,
I already read those articles and disagree with the first one. From reading around, it seems Mueller will go after Flynn’s FARA status not due to RT, but due to Flynn’s controversial work and lobbying for the Turkish government. This includes a meeting with Turkish government officials in which he discussed ferreting out Gulen in secret. And Flynn’s own consulation business, which he never registered with FARA, lobbied on behalf of Turkey.
Regarding Putin’s signing of the bill, it proves that the Russian government misrepresented what happened to RT in order to escalate the situation for no reason. Since RT was never asked to register under FARA, nor any other media outlet, it is unfair for Russia to force media outlets themselves to have to register.
Ultimately, both governments have acted irresponsibly. I just hope all this deescalates quickly.
I agree about Flynn: Sybil Edmonds made exactly the same point – and she is in the know: particularly on matters Turkish. The point that I am trying to get at doesn’t concern the veracity of the individual pieces of information: ALL media outlets are building the original FARA registration (to use a colloquial American expression – which is a “nothing-burger” by itself) into their narrative and counter-narrative. Which is why I say that you can’t view things in isolation. From the inception of Russia-gate by John Brennan: a dialectic of demonisation has been unleashed – to which the Russian response was originally stoic …but now they are beginning to fight back.
De-escalation: you can hope all you want – but this is about to go “nuclear” (hopefully not literally!) We are still at the rhetoric stage …the military buildup will begin next year. The money ($4.6bn for a “European Deterrence Initiative”) has been approved in the recent FY18 NDAA; there is $65 for a new intermediate range missile; the EU is integrating (and ramping up the spending for) its military (PESCO – so you can add another $250-350bn); Stoltenberg wants a “military Schengen” for the free movement of tanks …
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/11/10/nato-defense-chiefs-and-us-lawmakers-take-new-steps-fuel-arms-race.html
…you get the picture. To all intents and purposes: from the Russian POV – it must look as though we are arming to invade. A fact that my own “leader” – Treason May – is doing her best to amplify.
To stay on topic: this is why I say Simonyan and Putins actions don’t appear that reprehensible to me – not in the face of an EU-NATO machine that appears to be mobilising for war???
Erratum: the $65m for an intermediate range missile has been reduced to $58m. Read the link to see why that might not matter that much when the INF and the new START Treaties are torn up – and both sides of the border are bristling with missiles.
There is a simple reason why the Russian authorities are not clamping down on western propaganda outlets in Russia, and indeed they would be foolish to do so. Patently those same western media are condemned out of their own mouths. The broadcasts consist of a totally crude and implausible content that they just make themselves look ridiculous. Thus the Russian authorities are getting what amounts to anti-American propaganda free of charge. No wonder Putin is riding high in the polls and Russian liberals can’t manage to pass the 6% electoral minimum to get seats in Parliament. The obvious move for Navalny and his supporters to do is to urge the Russian authorities to ban CNN, The Washington Post and New York Times. Funny old world.
“What would the press reaction have been if Russia had forced the BBC, for example, to register as a foreign agent?”
The reaction would have been different, because RT was never asked to register under FARA, as I detailed in my post.
“Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has operated in Russia and Eastern Europe for nearly 70 years. It’s an American destabilization programme….It is acknowledged in the public record that RFE/RL was established by the State Dept. and the CIA in order to spread American propaganda behind the Iron Curtain. They have never been barred from operating in Russia.”
This is a false history. RFE/RL was only funded by the CIA up till the 1970s. It is in no way a “destabilisation” entity. Millions of opressed Soviets tuned in to their radios at night to listen to RFE/RL. To claim this was a “destabilisation” effort just because the CIA funded it, is completely fallacious And the author declined to mention that the CIA stopped funding it eons ago. And RFE/RL was banned in the Soviet Union, with the KGB jamming the radio frequency. This is similar to what the Iranian government today does with BBC Farsi. Yet, Iran is constantly praised here.
“Now, imagine it was on the public record that the FSB had founded RT. Imagine it was written into Sputnik’s mission statement that their job was to undermine the American government. Would they have been allowed to broadcast in the US? Would they have come anywhere NEAR 68 years of operation?”
68 years of operation? How dishonest. It was illegal to listen to them in the Soviet Union! And the KGB jammed the broadcasts.
“If there were a newspaper calling itself The London Times, which was owned by a Venezuelan and printed nothing but anti-government stories, exclusively in Russian…would it be allowed to operate? Would people cite it as a decent source of information?”
One of the most popular media outlets in the West, the Independant, is owned by a former KGB agent and Russian oligarch, Alexander Lebedev. And I fail to see your point: many media outlets around the world are owned by people of different nationalities. The Moscow Times employs ethnic Russians too, who live and report from Russia. Thus, who owns the media outlet and the language it published in is irrelevant. In another thread, when I posted a link to a Moscow Times article, written by a Russian, interviewing the top scientists in Russia about the “American ethnic bioweapons” hoax, someone made a similar point as you: “it’s from the Moscow Times! Therefore, it’s false!” A fallacy if there ever was one.
“Can you imagine if RT’s headline reporter had worked for the KGB? Luke Harding would have written a (very bad) book about it by now. Can you imagine if RT’s news crews had been caught, numerous times, literally faking news footage (several times)?”
Anderson Cooper is a single journalist in the MSM who worked for the CIA eons ago. I fail to see how any of this is relevant. Do you know that many children of Russian diplomats in the West work for RT? Some of these diplomats, by the way, are actually undercover spies, as is common. There are many examples of this. Heck, even the Kremlin spokesperson’s son, Peskov, worked at RT.
Working for the CIA is not equivalent to being the child of an accredited diplomat. If a frontline journalist at RT had interned for the KGB it’s pretty clear what you would say about it.
Its also pretty clear that if the KGB claimed it “only funded” a given Russian news outlet until “the 1970s” you would say this was disinformation and that the KGB had simply publicly distanced themselves for PR reasons. Of course you would never extend the same scepticism to any organ of the western media.
Try to be more even-handed. And don’t repeat post the same claims.
The comparision is apt, because the CIA stopped the funding of RFE/RL in the 1970s, changing the bureacracy. And as I mentioned, the children of various diplomats work at RT currently. Many of these diplomats are working undercover, and the Kremlin dictates the editorial line of RT. So whether the CIA currently controls RFE/RL or not is irrelevant, because in the case of both RFE/RL and RT, they present thier government’s PoV.
“If a frontline journalist at RT had interned for the KGB it’s pretty clear what you would say about it.”
Most of RT’s reporters are foreigners. I would certainly hope none of them hasn’t interned for the KGB! It’s impossible to find an exact comparision (of an RT journalist working for the FSB), because that information, even it if existed, is not known. Maybe in a few years it will be declassified. But my point still stands: a guy who once, long ago, interned as a 19-year old reporter at the CIA, with no access to classified informatiom, is not nearly as bad as a current reporter who is the child of Russian diplomats or of the current Kremlin spokesperson, part of Putin’s inner circle.
“Its also pretty clear that if the KGB claimed it “only funded” a given Russian news outlet until “the 1970s” you would say this was disinformation and that the KGB had simply publicly distanced themselves for PR reasons.”
That you would ask such a question shows how little knowledge pro-Kremlin Westerners have. There are loads of media outlets that exist today, that were used by the KBG and its predecessors. TASS, for example, was heavily used by the KGB. Undercover agents would be sent over to post as journalists. This was the case with people like Ilya Dzhirkvelov and Yuri Kobaladze.
I would advise you to also be more even-handed. Especially in your handling of pro-Kremlin dinformation like “genetic bioweapons” being made by the U.S.
I also see you have not responded to my lengthy post below, where I exposed RT’s deliberate lies. Just like with your post about the “genetic bioweapons” hoax, I expect little to no retraction of false claims in the article.
” It is in no way a “destabilisation” entity.”
It most certainly was designed to work, in co-ordination with other agents, to subvert and overthrow the Soviet Union and its allied governments. It hardlty pretended otherwise.
“Millions of oppressed Soviets tuned in to their radios at night to listen to RFE/RL”.”
This is certainly the interpretation given by RFE and its sponsors but, accepting for the sake of argument, that it is true, what is your point? My guess is that you are so wedded to the Cold War narrative of the CIA that assertions such as this just occur automatically.
” To claim this was a “destabilisation” effort just because the CIA funded it, is
completely fallacious..”
Do you have an alternative explanation for its founding?
As to the small matter of which imperialist agency currently funds RFE, and which have done so since the CIA ceased its direct funding, it is of very little importance: RFE, like its many sister stations around the world, is funded by the US government, directly or indirectly, in order to weaken popular resistance to US Imperialism.
Not quite. RFE/RL simply provided information over radio to the Soviet people. If controversial information provided by a media outlet causes instability or protests, then that is the fault of the Soviet government. RFE/RL reported on events that were censored by the government.
“This is certainly the interpretation given by RFE and its sponsors but, accepting for the sake of argument, that it is true, what is your point?”
My point is that RFE/RL is not a “destabilisation” entity. It’s like calling RT a “destabilisation” entity because it provided critical coverage of the U.S. Both are false claims.
“Do you have an alternative explanation for its founding?”
Same as media outlets like RT.
Regarding your last paragraph, tell me if you agree with this variation:
“RT, like its many sister stations around the world, is funded by the Russian government, directly or indirectly, in order to weaken popular resistance to Russian Imperialism.”
In other words, if they used state propaganda in seventies, it doesn’t mean they do it today?Are you serious,they “left their evil ways” all of the sudden?
No. I am saying that the author’s mentioning of RFE/RL’s CIA origins is irrelevant, since the CIA ceased to fund the latter eons ago.
RT was provided to give the world Russia’s PoV and advance Russia’s foreign policy goals, as admitted by the Russian government.
I will never forget RT’s lies about MH17 and guillible Western sheep falling for their propaganda.
you are repeat-posting under different email addresses and IPs. This is troll-like behaviour. Please stop. Don’t reply to this.
To MATT. I wish RT was what RFE was during 20th century ( full blown propaganda aimed at destroying communist countries) , but it is not . It just gives real picture of western world today and in the past. You don’t like it because is bitter, dirty and shows the ugly face of imperial world of capital. I didn’t even read your full comment but can’t miss this”…Some of these diplomats(Russian), by the way, are actually undercover spies, as is common…”. What do you think American diplomats in Russia are, you dipstick troll full of shit and hatred…and if american regime has nothing to hide why it is so afraid of RT and the likes so wants to declare them agents? One last ? , only between as – HOW MUCH DO YOU GET PAID FOR YOUR COMMENTS?
Hello TTAM,
“What do you think American diplomats in Russia are”
Some are also spies. But why is this relevant? I pointed out that Russian diplomats are spies to show that some of their children, who work for RT, prove that RFE/RL isn’t the only entity connected with the intelligence service of its host country.
“you dipstick troll full of shit and hatred”
Please don’t rely on cheap insults. Your writing style sounds familiar. NS, is that you?
“if american regime has nothing to hide why it is so afraid of RT and the likes so wants to declare them agents?”
RT was never declared to be a foreign agent. Further, being declared a foreign agent does nothing to surpress the freedom of speech of the organisation. So even if the U.S. was “scared” of RT, having T&R register under FARA is pointless.
” One last ? , only between as – HOW MUCH DO YOU GET PAID FOR YOUR COMMENTS?”
I’m paid by no one. Again, please stop insulting me.
Hi TTAM. I agree with your comments, but they would carry more weight without the insults. Let’s keep it clean.
If you don’t agree with the oppinions here What The Fock are you doing here. Seriously ?
Do you want everyone to agree with you, even when you’re wrong? Debate is a good thing, which some people wish to surpress.
Suppressing a desire to debate with you is easy. And I fully get why you are being flagged as a troll. Yet I am unconvinced that you are simply a troll. However the bias of your repetitive narrative is a little too consistent for your patent naivety to be credible. So my guess is you are a mainstream journo who is aware his job is not journalism but misdirection and comes here for a giggle. Certainly the bullet points you like to repeat ad nauseum are a wasted effort here as they have universally been discredited. Yet you do have a smidgen of sophistication that I only every see from the Israeli Shill farms. And of course many a Guardian journo has taught or been taught at them.
All idle speculation of course.
Hello candideschmyles,
“So my guess is you are a mainstream journo”
Not quite. Just a uni student in Canada studying Computer Science. But hey, keep guessing. Smears and lies are easy to create,
“Certainly the bullet points you like to repeat ad nauseum are a wasted effort here as they have universally been discredited.”
Not one statement by me regarding RT’s FARA registeration has been “discredited”. In fact, others here agree that RT did, in fact, lie about being forced to register under FARA.
“Yet you do have a smidgen of sophistication that I only every see from the Israeli Shill farms. And of course many a Guardian journo has taught or been taught at them.”
Huh? Are you implying that writing in a “sophisticated” manner makes one similar to “Israeli shill farms”? What does this have to do with Israel? And which Guardian journalists have been taught or have taught “Israeli shill farms”? Be specific. This is very rude and strange post. I really don’t get why you’re accusing me of all this.
“All idle speculation of course.”
Otherwise known as lying and making false statements.
Well actually it was fishing and I do believe I caught me a fish.
The “Post Truth Era” really should be renamed the “Truthless Era”, in as much as TRUTH is the last thing that the media now is interested in and of course Mega Monopolists such as Google [if they every were].
One thing is clear that the control of the media sphere has always been the dream of imperialists and others who seek to exploit the human creative capacity harnessing it as another resource to be mined.
Profit being the root of all evil inevitably leads to corruption of any principle or idea unless it is rejected as the premiss. Controlling peoples ideas has always been at the heart of this contention.
The dialectic tells us that the contradiction drives change through revolutionary ideas.
The crucial aspect is to seek out the progressive ideas and reject the reductive ones.
No wonder Google is perplexed they are facing a googolplex of alternate facts and ideas. After all they didn’t even spell the word correctly!
Excellent comment ttic. If Eric Schmidt thinks he control and “rank” the flow of information to make sure his preferred candidate wins the 2020 election – I have three words of advice …”Google Uranium One!”
The whole freedom of the press/free speech thing is a sham. It’s just a way to make naive Americans think they are special and superior to all other nations. Once that is clear the hypocrisy isn’t so hard to believe.
This may be contrarian here, but I hope people read my post before downvoting.
It seems that RT still hasn’t stopped lying to play the victim.
The U.S. never makes media outlets register as foreign agents, only their “connecting” entities. RT was never asked to register, so the usual disclosure rules don’t apply to it. Rather, the only registrant is T&R Productions LLC and its one and only member. FARA requires registration of every officer, director, associate and employee. Only a man named Solodovnikov is registered, so only his salary and other information are required to be disclosed, not the personal information of RT’s journalists, as Simonyan claimed.
Disclosure form filed by T&R:
https://www.fara.gov/docs/6485-Exhibit-AB-20171110-2.pdf
Registering under FARA does not prohibit a news outlet from operating and publishing. It is not uncommon for foreign media organizations to be registered as foreign agents. Several other media outlets funded by foreign governments, such as Japanese broadcaster NHK and Chinese newspaper The China Daily, are also registered under FARA and continue their work. Therefore, there is an established precedent for media organizations to be registered as agents. Not only that, but in all cases, the media outlets never have to register themselves, so their journalists don’t have to reveal their information.
RT claims the following:
“Currently, some 400 entities and individuals are registered on the list as “foreign agents,” and pointedly, does not include any of the dozens of other foreign media outlets operating in the US.”
Source: https://www.rt.com/news/409404-russia-foreign-agent-retaliation-zakharova/
This is completely false. As I mentioned, the “connecting entities” of broadcasters from China and Japan are registered. Conveniently, RT provides a link to the FARA database in the above quote:
https://www.fara.gov/qs-primary.html
Enter “NHK” in the search box. You’ll find “NHK Cosmomedia America, Inc.” NHK is a Japanese state broadcaster, and the former is the “connecting entity”. This proves RT is lying.
So far, T&R’s FARA registration has zero impact on RT’s freedom of speech, other than being used by RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan for shameless self-promotion. Simonyan has also lied about FARA forcing Russian journalists to reveal their sources and personal information; that only applies to the members of T&R, of which there is only one. In the meantime, Western media in Russia and Russian opposition media with perceived ties to the West will suffer real repercussions. The U.S. government made a pointless move.
Simonyan just wants to demonize the U.S., portray it as hypocritical, victimize Russia, and elevate RT’s domestic and international profile for the purposes of increased funding and free advertising, respectively. Hence the self-victimization and exhibitionist behaviour she’s been showing over the past few weeks, appearing on various talk shows, news interviews, talking with the Duma, and even asking Putin about all this at the recent Youth Festival in Russia.
Again, she knew all of this from her lawyers. However, she at one point claimed that RT’s American lawyers told them RT’s journalists could be arrested if they didn’t reveal their sources and other information. Again, this is false, since only one man had to register with FARA, who works for T&R. So she knowingly lied.
I will make a separate post addressing the fallacies in Kit’s post later. Sadly, there are too many incorrect statements, with zero basic research done on her part.
To which my general reaction, Matt, is “so what?” If you want to take a myopic focus on RT – you are missing the bigger picture. We are in an information and freedom of thought and speech war – and it was not started by the Russians. If RT are forced to fight back using propaganda tactics: good. In case you are not aware: the worse case outcome of this reverse-blame projection Russophobia is the end of humanity.
It would be a small matter to research Schmidt, Thiel, Zuckerberg et al… and confirm In their own words what they are about. At some point: you have to come off the fence and choose a side. Are you for the people, net neutrality, the freedom of choice (including being wrong), the freedom of speech, the freedom of “assembly” on sites like this, the freedom of dissent, and the freedom to criticise the undemocratic “authority” that seeks to close this down? Because it seems to me – you’ve chosen the wrong side of the fence …and the wrong side of history.
I take your point that registering under FARA itself, may not be a great obstacle to operating a news service, but that is not the point. The objective of forcing RT and Sputnik to register is not because the US want to know the names and salaries of their journalists. It is to create a narrative in the minds of the American public that Russia is their enemy, and everything broadcast by RT and Sputnik is lying propaganda.
We have already seen how Twitter and Facebook has used FARA registration as an excuse to bar advertising by RT, and Google has stated they will suppress RT and Sputnik in search results. The next step is likely to be cable operators taking them off the air. How is this not censorship?
I believe the US does not care if Russia imposes tit for tat restrictions on US media organisations since they do not really care what Russians think. They are only concerned about controlling their own public.
Hear, hear!
Twitter solicited RT for ads. Then they backpeddled and banned them, without the U.S. government asking them to even do this. So there’s no censorship here. As for Google, their algorithm does not individually demote the rankings of sites. Eric was just talking about fake news sites in general, including RT and Sputnik.
If cable operators removed RT at the request of the U.S. government, then that would be censorship. So far, getting a tiny number of Twitter ads banned and being demoted in Google is not censorship.
Either way, we should ask: why did RT lie about all this? And why did the “alternative” media repeat these lies, without any critical thinking, or basic verification, as in my above post?
Citing China or Japan are not necessarily the best examples since neither are members of The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) an organisation that both the USA and Russia belong to.
http://www.osce.org/participating-states
Its the sheer irony of neocons feigning outrage that US citizens might be subject to ‘fake news’ (from RT) since most rational observer have always known the job of providing a relentless stream of disinformation is an internal matter, and one that cannot be made any worse by a few disgruntled Americans on RT.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act initially came about as a device to deal with Nazi propaganda and the decision by the USA to single out RT is little more than a clumy means of ramping up anti-Russian sentiments in the wake of allegations about their meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Now of it itself none of this matters very much apart from the fact the US has a special talent for manufacturing phoney narratives as a precursor military action – in other words I just hope we are not being softened before the next installment in Americas insatiable quest for violence and war.
Hello Harry,
I don’t see why China or Japan not being OSCE members is important. My point was fairly simple: RT has claimed it’s the first media outlet to register and that media outlet have been traditionally exempt from having to register. This is false, because RT was not required to register, and other media outlets have had their “connecting” entities required to register. Thus, RT’s claim of the U.S. singling them out is false and is merely being repeated to garner sympathy for the network, along with free advertising.
“The Foreign Agents Registration Act initially came about as a device to deal with Nazi propaganda.”
This line has been repeated quite a bit by RT, Sputnik, the Russian media, and even Putin himself. It’s repeated to prove that the U.S. is using some archaic law to bully poor RT. But once again, this is a misunderstanding. As I said above, RT is not alone in being required to register its “connecting entity”. Was the U.S. bullying Japan or China too? Or the many countries whose state media outlets had to register their NGOs with FARA? Secondly, FARA may have been to combat Nazi propaganda, but it is not the archaic law the pro-Kremlin media portray it as. The below article explains:
https://imrussia.org/en/politics/455-fara-and-putins-ngo-law-myths-and-reality
The Russian authorities, still shy about drawing direct comparisons with Stalin’s regime, have proposed a more agreeable analogy: the United States, they say, has exactly the same law on foreign agents that has been in force for three-quarters of a century. This technique of misdirection is hardly new, and it fits well with Putin’s “look who’s talking” routine. Russia’s state-controlled TV channels have hammered home this analogy to their viewers since last year; in April, during his televised call-in show, Putin himself joined this chorus. Sometimes, even knowledgeable people in Russia can be heard to say, “This NGO law is, of course, awful, but even America has something similar. . . .”
The Kremlin’s parallel between Putin’s NGO law and the U.S. Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) is false. Apart from the name, these two pieces of legislation have hardly anything in common.
FARA (also known as the McCormack Act, after the Massachusetts congressman who sponsored it) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938 to control the dissemination of Nazi and Communist propaganda in the United States. During and immediately after the Second World War, the U.S. government successfully prosecuted 23 criminal cases under FARA; the most prominent was the case against the German-American Vocational League, which was declared a propaganda outlet for the Third Reich. After the war, the law underwent numerous amendments, with the most significant changes made in 1966 and 1995. One would not, however, learn about these changes from Vladimir Putin, who has asserted that “in the U.S., this law has been in effect since 1938. . . . There is no Nazism today, but [the law] is still in effect.”
The 1966 amendments shifted the focus of the law from propaganda to political lobbying and narrowed the meaning of “foreign agent,” increasing the Justice Department’s burden of proof. From that moment on, an organization (or person) could only be placed in the FARA database if the government proved that it (or he or she) was acting “at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal” and was engaged “in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal,” including by “represent[ing] the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States.”
Big Brother, MiniTru, Alphabet, a start-up called The Groundwork that provided “tech” support to Hillary’s election campaign, SEME (search engine manipulation effect), high-dollar pay-to-play influence peddling, the DNC “hack”, Russia-gate, …”O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice deceive?”
Not content with registering RT and Sputnik as “foreign agents”: long term Democrat funder and Clinton friend Eric Schmidt also wants to “derank” them too. Though his algobots will make their content harder to find: this is not censorship. That would not be Democratic. Though building a global monopoly search engine that decides what content we should read (we have already proved that we are not to be trusted to decide for ourselves); acts as an intelligence agency mass surveillance and data mining proxy; that can use it’s ranking algorithms to influence elections (though not successfully enough for Clinton) – is Democratic.
Welcome to the new progressive Democrat reality: with enough power and wealth you can filter out all contradictory voices; create the ultimate echo chamber reverberating with only your sanctioned self-confirming beliefs; and confirm your own individuated bubble reality that can’t be invalidated. Dangerous, very dangerous.
How ironic – even Russian news channels now have more editorial leeway and journalistic integrity than lackeys working for corporate new outlets in ‘the land of the free’.
The likes of Abby Martin have been talking about this for some time now.
The Guardian running endless stories about how everybody apart from them are spreading ‘fake news’ is a sure sign that western media are in absolute denial.
Thanks – great interview.
Too bad it’s on RT, because showing it to any anti-Russian person is futile.
any idea why i can’t access the graun or youtube?
Internet issue, because I can access all of them. Please don’t blame da CIA, kek.
Can’t see an author byline for this piece. Who wrote it?
Below headline for story says author is Kit – this was on my emailed version of the story (sometimes online version of stories are compressed and author is hard to see or hidden. Kit’s contact details are there as well.