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Whats interesting about your reference is that I currently have an exchange student staying with me from Turkmenistan and as a former Soviet Republic they still get the bulk of their news from Russian television. We were discussing last night (literally last night) the MH17's destruction and she had never heard of Russia's involvement with the shoot down-she believed that the Ukrainian air force had shot it down and that Russia's involvement in the Ukraine had been greeted with open arms (because Russian television had shown nothing but smiling faces on the Crimean faces). When I showed her the articles about the ethnic Russian's driving everyone out, and the clear Russian military involvement in the area, she was utterly shocked.

This isn't about RT. I personally couldn't care less what happens to RT. What I'm really concerned about is freedom of speech and Free Media in the west. Neither of those are"privileges" to be negotiated for as part of some quid-pro-quo agreement among friends. They are rights. If you really believe in the Free Press, you believe that it's in your own country's best interests, regardless of what some other country might be doing. The fact that a respected nation like the UK is moving to silence dissenting media, is something we should all be extremely concerned about.

TL:DR; RT (and Russia/Kremlin in general) are using 'freedom of speech' to tell utter and blatant lies about proven and accepted history. Not to mention that they will _never_ give a second opinion.

Well you described RT (or probably Russia/Kremlin) well.

They will come to Europe/US and say whatever they want and then when you say "hey Mr. RT/Russia/Kremlin/Putin, that's not true, please do not do this again", they will scream like bloody murder that you are restricting their freedom of speech.

I live in post-Soviet country, just before and during Ukraine conflict russian television (not RT) released "documentaries" which said that gulags have not happened, repressions have not happened, and after USSR collapsed, countries like mine were independent without any oppression.

That tv station got banned for a year if I remember correctly.

It's like Deutsche Welle would release documentaries in Poland/Israel/France/Check republic, that invasion/holocaust/concentration camps have not happened.

The UK already has libel laws that are more vigorous than those found in the US. If those laws aren't comprehensive enough, they can pass new laws prohibiting the dissemination of provably-false statements. Arbitrarily shutting down a contrarian media organization is not the answer.

Your response that it's ok because "it's Russia" reminds me of a story that I heard. A man asks a doctor whether it's ok to pull the legs off a spider for amusement, and the doctor says it's not. The man asks why, since the spider isn't capable of feeling any pain. The doctor replies "I'm not concerned about what will happen to the spider. I'm concerned about what will happen to you."

They live in a country where prominent people (journalists, politicians, businessman) who uncover 'too much information' - just 'disappear'.

Could you provide more specific information on this? Even if you could simply give a link to something like a wikipedia list of prominent people that just 'disappeared', it would be helpful.

It's not very hard to find

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...

Thank you. Although I have not had a chance to study this regrettable list as closely as I presume you did, a perfunctory search finds only two disappearances, both of them in 1995-1996 during the first Chechen war:

1995 27 February – Maxim Shabalin, politics editor of Nevskoe Vremya newspaper (St Petersburg).[62] and Felix Titov, the paper's photographer, disappeared on an assignment to Chechnya. Despite numerous expeditions, from 1995 to 1999, no trace was found of the two men's remains. Missing [J].

20 March 1996 Chaikova, correspondent for the Obshchaya gazeta (Moscow) weekly newspaper disappeared while on assignment. Her body was found buried in the Chechen village of Gekhi on 11 April, blindfolded and bearing signs of mistreatment. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the back of the head. The identity of her executioners remains disputed. According to documents from Dudaev's archive, that came into hands of Russian special services in 2002, she was killed by people from so called "Department of state security of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria" (Russian: Департамент государственной безопасности ЧРИ).[152][153] At the time there were strong suspicions that Russian security services were involved.

So far we have a list of two, not very prominent, journalists, who disappeared twenty years ago while reporting on a war with well-documented atrocities on both sides. I don't believe this is what the GP had in mind, writing that "prominent people (journalists, politicians, businessman) who uncover 'too much information' - just 'disappear'".

As an unrelated aside, this happened during the good Russian administration -- dynamic, democratic, West-approved Yetsin, who was so popular in his own country, that Bill Clinton himself came to Russia to support his election campaign:

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/18/opinion/mr-clinton-and-mr-...

President Clinton arrives in Russia today facing issues that will severely test his diplomatic mettle. Mr. Clinton's primary purpose is to join other world leaders in a weekend summit meeting on nuclear safety and security that seems primarily designed to burnish Boris Yeltsin's prestige as he campaigns for re-election as Russian President.

While you are correct, I interpreted the op's sentiment as journalist assassinations in Russia - not just disappearances

I appreciate your graceful concession.

'disappear' was more of an 'artistic brush'.

Prominent journalists or opposition members are killed in broad daylight and/or in public. They may be 'blessed' with a jail sentence, or if they are very lucky and will "smell the assassins breath" - they will escape the country.

Oligarchs who were opposing Putin in 2000s are either dead, in jail or left the country (and left their businesses to the government).

Boris Nemtsov - was killed in the middle of Moscow, was well known opponent of current Russian political system, after his death practically all opposition is oppressed, because not any opponent wants to die anymore (knowing that there are not many prominent opposition leaders left in Russia).

If you criticize Putin or government too hard you will "magically" earn few criminal cases and it's highly likely you will be convicted (e.g. Alexei Nemtsov, M. Khodorkovsky). You could be in jail as long as they wish, because they "may find extra details" about your case just before you need to be released (Khodorkovsky's case).

If you "speak too much" they will make you "dissapear" from public eye, either by death, jail, making you leave the country or just making sure that you never appear publicly again.

NY Times got it wrong.

Chechnya was squirming with journalists through whole nineties.

Most likely killers were KGB remnants. KGB conceded the media battle over Chechnya in English speaking world very early. But what they didn't like was that these journalists were revealing Russians and Russian speakers what has really happened in Chechnya.

None of murdered journalists were critical of Chechens. Why would Chechens kill them?

Think.

Thanks, get your 50 roubles

"There's no evidence that Kamaev's death was unnatural, but the well-known poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service and KGB, and a laundry list of journalists who've died during Vladimir Putin’s regime, could leave an observer forgivably suspicious. It’s hard to avoid thinking about it, as the 2016 Rio Summer Games kick off under the cloud of Russia’s doping scandal, which in scope exceeds anything enacted during the Soviet era."

http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/russian-olympic-doping-sc...

Yes, I suppose Litvinenko did disappear in one sense of the word, i.e. ceased to exist.

However, the sense in which this word is usually used in this context, is different. It usually denotes a forced disappearance, when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate and whereabouts, with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law.[1].

For instance, the following can be validly said about Pinochet's regime and government in Chile: "He shut down parliament, suffocated political life, banned trade unions, and made Chile his sultanate. His government disappeared 3,000 opponents, arrested 30,000 (torturing thousands of them) ... Pinochet's name will forever be linked to the Desaparecidos, the Caravan of Death, and the institutionalized torture that took place in the Villa Grimaldi complex.” — Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, National Review

I'll take doping scandal over institutionalized torture any time.

Another long list: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/world/europe/moscow-kremli...

Basically what you say is: Russia is not a free country and thus its views should not be represented. That definitely what "freedom of speech" is not about.

I'd go that far. I think that freedoms made on the basis of making life good for individuals, should not necessarily apply to governmental organizations and their mouthpieces.

Individual rights have to be protected because individuals are generally powerless.

Governments, on the other hand can reasonably duke it out, power versus power, and protect themselves.

If Russia (as a country) wants to spread destabilizing propaganda that might weaken another nation, I don't think it's the "right" guaranteed by free speech. If Russia, were a free nation though, then the views of RT would just be the views of a random newspaper, speaking words with no more privilege than mine or yours.

> If Russia (as a country) wants to spread destabilizing propaganda that might weaken another nation, I don't think it's the "right" guaranteed by free speech.

Your definition of what might 'weaken another nation' is your own and doesn't represent the views of everyone in the country. Just because something might deflate your nationalistic commie-hating boner or whatever doesn't mean it should be banned.

I don't get to personally ban anything. I'm just a private individual whose only contribution to political debate is HN.

Elected representatives do get to take action against foreign state actors that they determine are 'weakening the nation'.

I think he was saying that they're hypocrites.

Agree in principle, but do we have good frames to define "speech" and "propaganda" - something which can be taken differently? Some Western political media have strong bias towards one party or another, but that doesn't justify calling them propaganda and shutting them down?

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

-- Evelyn Beatrice Hall (mis-attributed to Voltaire)

Freedom of speech coming from russia is a joke, nobody takes it seriously. They are heading straight back to CCCP times, thanx to Putin and gallery of his comrades.

For me it boils down to russian mentality which didn't change much from past era - only there such a person would be thriving for so long.

As long as this will be contained within russia, i am more or less OK with it, who are we to tell them how to run their own place. I don't think elections there are rigged in any significant way for example. But once results of this will seep out to neighboring countries, in form of expansionism, ie towards europe and former soviet republics, we have a problem.

So, we have a problem.

So your whole point is 'its okay to infringe on freedom of speech in the west because it happens in russia' ? Are you a retarded stalinist or what? Also pretending to have sources and then telling people to google it is just a hilarious way of showing people what a clown you are.

I am not saying it's okay to infringe freedom of speech.

I will speak in general of Russia's television networks (because in my country there are not only RT, but more), but they are blatantly using this term to spread to say whatever they want. But what if they say that oppression against occupied soviet countries didn't happen? [&][0]( original sources not in english). Their defence is of course 'freedom of speech'. But what if that 'freedom of speech' breaks laws (usually it's on the brink of the law)? What if their reporters are filming themselves near infamous rocket artillery launchers[1][2], launchers who are hitting civilians [3][4]?

I recommended googling to see 'two opinions' yourself and how they present themselves. Someone like RT will never say two different opinions and most importantly not even mention another opinion exists. How they will disgustingly disguise and create a "mist of lies" around some fact that they know they are wrong about it. E.g. clearly fake satellite pictures how russia managed to picture a fighter jet in the process of firing it's weapons into MH17 (that fighter jet is an infantry support jet, with 7km flight ceiling (or 5km loaded)) [5]

Russian information channels work very well, they just work with KGB and Goebbels strategies.

"Freedom of speech" is no more freedom of speech when it breaks laws or is blatant and utter photoshoped lie.

[&] It's the same that Deutche Welle would start showing documentaries that holocaust and concentration camps didn't happen, a huge insult to victim countries and people, not to say it would be break the law in many countries as well.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTR-Planeta

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KCzUCJzpig

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-21_Grad

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dZt60J2fNM

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLmk30tXuyk

[5] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2836245/Report-slams...

> but they are blatantly using this term to spread to say whatever they want.

That's what pretty much all major western media outlets do as well.

> Their defence is of course 'freedom of speech'. But what if that 'freedom of speech' breaks laws (usually it's on the brink of the law)?

Like what laws?

> What if their reporters are filming themselves near infamous rocket artillery launchers[1][2], launchers who are hitting civilians [3][4]?

Whats wrong with filming action? Seems like courage and dedication to me.

> But what if they say that oppression against occupied soviet countries didn't happen?

You don't realize how hilarious that is? You can find 100 equivalent western propaganda pieces for every one of RT's. I don't see people like you being against those media outlets.

> Someone like RT will never say two different opinions and most importantly not even mention another opinion exists.

Yes they will. They invite plenty of people for interviews that criticize Putin and Russia, and actually give them decently long time which Western media almost never do (like Noam Chomsky - youtube it).

> Russian information channels work very well, they just work with KGB and Goebbels strategies.

Not nearly as well as Western media channels. Russian propaganda is children's cartoons compared to Western propaganda.

> "Freedom of speech" is no more freedom of speech when it breaks laws or is blatant and utter photoshoped lie.

Funny how you only have a problem with this when its a particular party expressing views you happen to disagree with.

I absolutely see the same as you do on this. Their coverage of the Syrian war namely the Refugee's is appalling. Europe is having to deal with the influx partly because of Russia's political stance and bombings. But RT will never give the issue coverage without extreme bias.