The Critic kindly published my case that the UK and EU bans on RT are a betrayal of British and European values on free speech, that show an unwarranted lack of trust in the capacity of people in free societies to sort reporting from propaganda – read it all here.
“The liberation of Kherson, the results of US midterm elections and the mildest autumn in living memory in Western Europe have dealt a triple blow to Vladimir Putin’s grand strategy for the invasion of Ukraine — and possibly a fatal one. I’ve been watching RT’s attempts to spin the situation, and they’re desperately comic in a grotesque sort of way. If you’re in the UK or anywhere in the EU, you’ll have to take my word for that — because you’ve been banned from watching them since March. I’ve only been able to watch them because I’ve been in Israel and the Palestinian Territories for the last few weeks, where I can watch it freely. (RT, in case you’re wondering, is the official name for the TV station formerly known as Russia Today.)
“This bizarre ban flies in the face of a long-standing policy that media from other countries, even hostile ones, weren’t banned in Western countries. Adults were trusted to be able to sort propaganda from reporting for themselves. People in Britain were free to listen to Lord Haw Haw during the Second World War. During the Cold War, there was no attempt to censor Soviet Bloc or Chinese broadcasting.
[…]
“Today, free speech is seen as a threat, not just on the Left in the political Centre. Especially since the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump, many in the West who had been liberal with at least a small “L” have convinced themselves that the masses are feeble-minded and susceptible to brainwashing via old and new media, Russian-funded brainwashing in particular. Lacking the willingness to reflect critically on how their own failures may have contributed to the erosion of support for the liberal project, they have conjured a mind-controlling Russian bogeyman straight out of Eugene McCarthy’s America.
“Banning RT was always at best a failure of nerve. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now going badly, it is time to end what has become an embarrassing betrayal of our own values.”
For a more detailed argument and some fun anecdotes, click this link (and let my publishers know my writing attracts readers.)
