After Youtube removed two German-language channels from Russia Today, Russia threatens to block the video platform. And announces the German media in Russia “symmetrical” sanctions.
Despite all that: Russia Today is starting in Germany as RT DE. In December it will be so far, it says on the German portal of the Kremlin country broadcaster. “Tune in and take part in our vision of restoring the dialogue between cultures and common sense to a prominent place on German-language television.” like the other moving images on the portal.
On Tuesday, YouTube removed two German-language channels from RT and thus obviously paralyzed all RT films linked to them. And editor-in-chief Margarita Simonjan was still annoyed at Telegram on the evening of work: Luxemburg had already refused a license to RT DE and justified this with the “opinion of the German authorities”. In fact, in August the Luxembourg government declared that it was not responsible because the office of the planned institution and most of the employees are in Germany. Simonjan, however, complained about “a real media war that the German state has declared on Russia”. She very much hope that her country will quickly ban the international broadcaster Deutsche Welle and other German media in Russia, and also close the correspondent offices of ARD and ZDF. “Not to mention sanctions against YouTube itself.”
Allusion to 1941
Around midnight, the Russian Foreign Ministry followed suit, saying that German authorities and the media had supported YouTube in its unprecedented informative aggression. One hopes it is not an “Infobarbarossa”, an allusion to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. According to the logic of the information war unleashed against Russia, symmetrical countermeasures with regard to the German media in Russia are inevitable Authorities ”so that they could take such action against YouTube and the German media.
By the time this issue went to press, the Russian authorities had not announced any sanctions. German correspondents suspected on Wednesday that the responsible foreign ministry would probably refrain from closing correspondents’ offices if it left the punitive measures to other state organs. For this, the censorship authority Roskomnadzor requested in a letter to the YouTube operator Google that both RT channels be activated immediately. Otherwise, the Russian legislation provides for a “total or partial restriction of access” to the video platform.
The Google press office had previously stated that RT DE had been warned about untrue medical information about Covid-19, then blocked its video access, the Russian side tried to bypass this blockage via a second channel, and as a result both were switched off.
Such allegations are not new: According to the ARD fact finder, RT has been trying for months to stir up fear of Covid vaccinations with fictitious numbers about side effects. “Objectivity”, said RT boss Simonjan in 2012, “does not exist.”
But Alexander Issavnin, Moscow IT expert and member of the Russian Pirate Party, doubts that the state will block YouTube in Russia because German RT channels have been switched off. “They will scare, flex their muscles, announce that they will shut down YouTube tomorrow. But whether that actually happens depends on completely different content. ”Much more important for the Kremlin than the effectiveness of its own foreign propaganda is the fight against the propaganda of the domestic opposition.
