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The BBC, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, and Bloomberg have suspended operations in Russia after President Vladimir Putin enacted a law that makes the
deliberate spread of disinformation punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
After the anti-fake news law was approved on Friday, CNN
said it would "stop broadcasting in Russia while we continue to evaluate the situation and our next steps moving forward."
Bloomberg - the news agency founded and owned by US billionaire Michael Bloomberg - similarly
said it would "temporarily suspend the work of its journalists inside Russia" and accused Moscow of criminalizing "independent reporting." The New York-based outlet claimed that the crackdown on disinformation would make it "impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism inside the country."
Like Bloomberg, the UK state-funded BBC argued that the law "appears to criminalize the process of independent journalism," and announced that its Russian-language coverage would continue only from outside Russia.
Spokespersons for ABC and CBS News announced that the networks would not broadcast from Russia while they "assess the situation," with ABC News calling the legislation a "censorship law."
The
Washington Post responded to the introduction of the new law by removing authors' names and other data from their Russia-originated publications.
"Some internal news: In response to Putin's threats against reporters in Russia, The Washington Post will remove bylines and datelines from stories produced by our journalists in Russia. Goal is to ensure staff's safety," Paul Farhi, one of its writers,
said on Twitter, adding that he had "never seen anything like this" during his career.
An hour later, Farhi
amended his last statement, recalling that, during the First Gulf War,
Post reporter Caryle Murphy had got trapped in Kuwait and had therefore covered the Iraq invasion while in hiding.
"Her stories were published w/o bylines, for obvious reasons. Caryle won a Pulitzer for her work," Farhi said.
Those charged under the new media law could be imprisoned for up to 15 years if they are found guilty of knowingly and deliberately spreading false information about Russia's conflict with Ukraine in a way that significantly damages national security. Anyone found guilty of defaming the Russian army could also receive a fine of up to $13,500 or three years in prison, while those who call for anti-Russian sanctions could receive fines of up to $5,000.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, argued that the law was necessary "to protect our soldiers" and "protect the truth."
"American social networks, controlled by Washington, launched an information war against Russia," Volodin declared, adding, "It is necessary to make a decision to combat the spread of fake information."
Moscow maintains its military offensive in Ukraine is a "special operation" aimed at the "demilitarization" and "denazification" of the country in the name of protecting the people of the two Donbass republics Russia recently recognized. Kiev said the attack was unprovoked, insisting it had not been seeking to retake Donetsk and Lugansk by force. The two republics split from Kiev back in 2014 in the aftermath of the Maidan coup, which ousted Ukraine's government, with intermittent fighting continuing in the years since.
Comment: Unmentioned by these outlets is that deliberately lying is one of their core principles. As for the law, Moscow is
defending it on the premise that an information war is being waged against Russia. Critics warn it could be used to silence people telling the
truth about the war. That's always the case with censorship laws, so it remains to be seen what kind of cases end up being prosecuted. Given that the law specifies "deliberate" lying, presumably that means
unintentionally saying the "wrong" things will not apply. We'll see.
The U.S. has also
announced its oil and gas sanctions plan against Russia.
After being asked by a reporter how Western countries could "beat Putin" when they pay Russia "up to $700 million a day in oil, gas, and coal," and whether the US would consider implementing energy sanctions, Blinken said that while "nothing is off the table," sanctions are supposed to "have maximum impact on Russia and Putin while minimizing harm to us and our allies and partners."
There is no strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy
The secretary of state explained that the "immediate effect" of energy sanctions against Russia would be to "raise prices at the pump for Americans" and "pad Russian profits with rising prices."
Since Joe Biden's inauguration last year, gas prices in the US have continued to rise. While the president acknowledged in November that gas prices were "too high," he blamed Russia and OPEC for their "refusal" to increase production and help bring down prices for Americans.
Though Blinken rejected direct export sanctions, at least for now, he said the White House had "a strong interest" in "degrading Russia's status as a leading energy supplier" and claimed it was currently working to wipe out the West's "dependence on Russian energy."
Peskov responded that the approach of the US, EU, UK, NATO, etc. will not work, because Russia is
too big to isolate. "The world is too big for Europe and America to isolate any country, especially one as big as Russia. And in the world, as you know, there are many more countries that have a much more balanced, sometimes more reasonable attitude towards the dynamics of the development of international relations," Peskov said.
Can we not invoke this sort of law in Canada also?
That would be awesome!
Bye bye CBC, GLOBAL, CTV, POST MEDIA, PATTISON MEDIA, etc...
That would do more for air quality than any Green Agenda pulled out of Turdeau's behind...