Fyodor Lukyanov: Here’s the real reason why the US sanctioned RT
Washington’s extreme reaction is due to panic at the fact that it’s losing its monopoly on global media

In late 1986 Yegor Ligachev, the secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee, and Viktor Chebrikov, then-head of the KGB, proposed that the country end the practice of jamming foreign radio stations. ‘Enemy voices’ was the popular term used at the time to describe these broadcasts from abroad.

Of course, the two prominent officials were not imbued with bourgeois ideas when seeking to end radio jamming. They were actually taking a businesslike approach. The pair explained to the Central Committee that blocking was expensive but not very effective, given the size of the country. So, it was suggested that signal-jamming be abandoned and that funds be diverted to counter-propaganda measures. This meant more active work with foreign audiences to communicate the Soviet Union’s own views on world events.

A few weeks later, at a meeting with US President Ronald Reagan in Iceland, USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev raised the issue. He said “your radio station Voice of America broadcasts around the clock in many languages from stations you have in different countries in Europe and Asia, and we can’t present our point of view to the American people. So, for the sake of equality, we have to jam the Voice of America broadcasts.” Gorbachev offered to stop blocking ‘VOA’ if his counterpart agreed to let Moscow have a frequency to do the same in the US. Reagan evasively promised to consult when he returned home. In the end, the Soviets stopped jamming foreign radio stations unilaterally, without any deal.

The events of the last few days have echoes of this old story. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken devoted an entire speech to RT, which is subject to ‘full-blocking’ (that’s a new formula!) sanctions for its supposedly destructive and subversive work around the world. According to Blinken and the American intelligence agencies he references, the threat posed by the Russian company is of the highest order and requires the most decisive measures from all of Washington’s allies.

Without irony or exaggeration, it can be said that RT could only dream of the global recognition that Blinken’s appeal has facilitated. The effectiveness of the media group was not so much confirmed as it was certified, and by prominent representatives of its rivals.

We could deplore infringements on freedom of expression and restrictions on pluralism of opinion, but there is little point in doing so. Such notions should only be promoted in relation to the internal information space of individual countries; at a national level, they are an indispensable prerequisite for normal development. As for foreign sources of information, people generally perceive them as instruments of influence.

And it hardly depends on the type of socio-political system that exists in a given state. The more comprehensive the information and communication environment, the greater its impact on people’s behavior, and the more acute the desire of governments to tighten control over the flow of ideas and analysis. The international media sphere is deliberately ideological, electrified and conflictual. Hence Blinken’s, shall we say, uncharacteristic remarks that RT should be treated “like an intelligence agency.”

How effective are the tactics of restricting alternative views and jamming radio waves? Comrades Ligachev and Chebrikov rightly pointed out that the costly efforts to jam hostile broadcasters were, to put it mildly, not particularly effective. Worse, as the author well remembers, the very fact that the authorities were fighting foreign radio voices had the opposite effect to that desired – if they were silencing voices, it meant that they were afraid of the truth. And, by the end of the Soviet era this opinion was not only widespread among the frontline intelligentsia, many ‘ordinary people’ also didn’t give a damn about the official channels.

At their meeting in Iceland, Reagan countered Gorbachev’s appeal by saying that, unlike the Soviets, “we recognize freedom of the press and the right of people to listen to any point of view.” The US president had no doubts about the superiority of the American system in all respects. Accordingly, the demands for information pluralism, then and later, reflected the confidence of Washington that it would emerge victorious from any competition. And so, after a few years, the US achieved a de-facto monopoly on the interpretation of everything.

Washington’s current extreme reaction is due to the feeling that it’s losing this monopoly. Alternative interpretations of events now arouse public interest. In fact, the total resources of the Western, mainly English-language media are incomparably greater than what all the carriers of alternative points of view can offer, at this moment. But internal insecurity is growing all by itself, fueling the desire to fence off the information space.

From the same US playbook comes attempts to explain internal strife and accumulated contradictions in America by pointing to a pernicious external influence. This was also the Soviet experience. However, the USSR didn’t solve its own issues by blaming them on external causes. In fact, as its problems grew, those same outside factors actually began to exacerbate them.

Targeted punitive actions can create obstacles for any organization, there is no doubt about that. Especially when they come from what is still the most powerful country on the planet. But American history teaches us that monopolies do not last forever. Sooner or later, a cartel becomes a brake on development, then it becomes the subject of measures to break it up.

https://www.rt.com/news/604221-us-losing-monopoly-sanctions-rt/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

By Kanwal Sibal — retired Indian foreign secretary and a former Ambassador to Russia between 2004 and 2007. He also held ambassadorial positions in Turkey, Egypt, France and was Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington DC.

In 2017, he received the Padma Shree — the fourth highest civilian award — from the President of India for public service. In the same year, he was decorated by the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for Contributions to International Cooperation.

Why the world’s largest democracy isn’t buying ‘freedom of speech’ US-style
By accusing RT of “covert influence activities,” the Biden administration is violating its own declared values

The recent announcement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken of additional sanctions against Rossiya Segodnya media group and its five subsidiaries, including RT, seems timed for the US presidential election, which is only two and a half months away. 

These media outlets have been accused of spreading “Russian government propaganda and disinformation,” of engaging in “covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies,” and of functioning as a “de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.”

To dispel the impression that these new bans are dictated by domestic political calculations, Blinken tried to project Russian media as a global problem by alleging that these outlets meddle in the sovereign affairs of countries around the world in coordination with Russian intelligence services with a view to manipulating elections not only in the US, but around the world.

It is difficult for outsiders to believe that ‘Russian disinformation’ can so easily influence US elections, as American democracy has strong roots and cannot be destabilized by foreign propaganda; surely it is not so fragile. 

People realize that in democracies, elections are won or lost on national and local issues, the understanding the electorate has of the positions of the contending parties and individuals, the influence of the media, the political awareness of the electorate, the perception of the voters regarding how the platforms of candidates could affect their own well-being, and so on. Quite often, the final results are not known until the actual voting takes place. The idea that foreigners could manipulate elections in the world’s oldest democracy seems far-fetched. 

Blinken asserts the following: RT “possesses cyber capabilities” for “covert” operations around the world. It “launders information operations through unwitting Americans to covertly disseminate Kremlin-produced content and messaging to the American public.” Russia deploys similar tactics “around the world,” he claims, citing Moscow’s allegedly running of the online platform African Stream “across a wide range of social media platforms” as an example. The platform, Blinken says, claims to give a voice to all Africans both at home and abroad, but “in reality, the only voice it gives is to Kremlin propagandists.”

As a counter, the US, according to Blinken, is building a “more resilient” global information system “where objective facts are elevated and deceptive messages gain less traction.” The US, he adds, is promoting policies and programs that protect and foster greater civic and media literacy so that people can better distinguish fact from fiction. Through the State Department Global Engagement Center, the US is coordinating with other countries to counter attempts by governments and non-state actors to manipulate information.

To oppose “Russian weaponization of disinformation to subvert and polarize free and open societies in every part of the world,” the US, UK, and Canada, in Blinken’s words, are launching a “joint diplomatic campaign to rally allies and partners around the world” to join them in addressing the threat posed by RT and other “machinery of Russian disinformation and covert influence.”

Blinken went on to say that US diplomats around the world were instructed to share evidence gathered on RT’s expanded capabilities and the ways it is being used to target individual countries and the global information ecosystem. While each government will decide how it responds to this, the US urges every ally and partner to start by “treating RT’s activities as they do other intelligence activities by Russia within their borders.”

The US, Blinken claims, respects and champions freedom of expression, even when it comes to media outlets that “wittingly spread government propaganda,” and it will continue to lead the world in “defending and promoting media freedom.” But it will not stand by as “RT and other actors carry out covert activities in support of Russia’s nefarious activities.” The US, he adds, will “continue to respond forcefully to Moscow’s playbook of aggression and subversion, one that includes invading sovereign nations, fomenting coups, weaponizing corruption, carrying out assassinations, meddling in elections, and unjustly detaining foreign nationals.”

Much of what Blinken claims is highly debatable to put it lightly, and contradicts America’s own policies and actions on the global level. 

The US treats freedom of expression as a core value and considers dissent to be an intrinsic part of democracy. But in the case of sanctioning Russian media and the legal curbs imposed on Americans appearing on RT who criticize US government policy on the Ukraine conflict and the war in Gaza, for instance, the Biden administration is violating its own declared values. As a further blow to freedom of speech, META, no doubt under pressure, has now barred Russian media, including Sputnik media on its platforms. Others will see all this as other instances of double standards.

When non-Western countries place curbs on their own media or suppress dissent, the US is quick to condemn this as a breach of democracy. Even in situations of breaches of law and order, rioting, and violence, when curbs are temporarily placed on social media and the internet, the US is quick to denounce them.

The US does not seem to be mindful of the contradiction between the outright steps it has just announced against RT, which violate the principle of freedom of expression, and limited restrictions that other countries take based on what they need to do domestically to curb social unrest or violence, which the US routinely condemns. 

India has experienced this and has protested this interference in its internal affairs.

The West largely controls the flow of information globally. It can create and control narratives at the international level. Many in the rest of the world have felt vulnerable to the power of the West to disseminate distorted narratives about them. As far back as the 1970s, the developing world tried through UNESCO to promote a new international information order, but failed. 

Today, some major non-Western countries are trying to break into this quasi-monopoly on global information flows, but are handicapped. The West has the advantage of the English language, its printed media and news agencies have long exercised global domination, the US also controls the social media space with its audiences worldwide. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson that Russia could try to promote its own narratives, but this would require an enormous investment with uncertain results, as this space is dominated by the West.

It is widely believed that the CIA has connections with the US mainstream and social media, and Hollywood as well. The allegations that it uses journalists abroad for its work have in the past have been the subject of congressional scrutiny. The capacity of the National Security Agency to intercept communications worldwide, including illegal tapping of communications of even allies, is well established. 

The role of the US media, its democracy promotion organizations, and its intelligence agencies in promoting regime change in countries is widely accepted as a reality. A recent op-ed in the Financial Times by the heads of the CIA in the US and MI6 in the UK was a public display of their role in policy-making in the Ukraine conflict, for instance. 

In India’s case, Russian media has not interfered in the functioning of our democracy or our elections, nor have we been victims of Russian propaganda or disinformation. In fact, Russian media has limited access to the Indian media space – whereas the Western media, especially that of the US and UK, dominates the dissemination of international news in it.

Even if some European countries also allege that Moscow interferes in their elections, there is no evidence that Russian media linked to Russian intelligence seeks to manipulate the outcome of elections “worldwide.” It is certainly not the case with India, the world’s largest democracy.

The US and the West continue to dominate the global information system, as India has experienced at its own cost. The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Economist, Le Monde, Foreign Affairs Journal, BBC, France 24, DW, human rights organizations, and organizations that promote democracy and religious freedoms are all politically oriented against the present Indian government and spread distorted information about developments in India. Even official US State Department reports do this. 

India would therefore have questions about the US’ efforts to build “a more resilient global information system, where objective facts are elevated and deceptive messages gain less traction.” The US missions in India are tutoring local journalists on ‘fact-checking’. This fact-checking should be primarily focused on what their own media says about India.

It would be ironic if the UK and Canada were to raise issues pertaining to Russian media with India. They harbor people who India considers to be terrorists, those who question India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, attack our missions, and threaten to kill our leaders and our diplomats, among other things. India has no such problem with Russia.

It is not likely that the US would raise the issue of RT’s operations in India directly with the Ministry of External Affairs, as they would already know what India’s response would be. This is not a bilateral issue between the US and India, and should not be treated as such. The Global South will almost certainly be largely unresponsive as well. 

https://www.rt.com/india/604273-india-democracy-us-rt-ban/

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*AMERICAN BULLSHIT

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.