Censor Bob Menéndez’s double-standard and the Russian truth

Censor Bob Menéndez’s double-standard and the Russian truth
Fecha de publicación: 
28 July 2022
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An AP dispatch highlights that three US senators sent letters on Wednesday to the directors of Meta, Twitter and Telegram to request that their platforms limit the content of Russian state media that report in Spanish because they assure that they spread “disinformation” and Russian propaganda in Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

According to the letter, Russia uses social media to “amplify and export their lies abroad” and that such efforts have increased following the Russian invasion of Ukraine five months ago.

 

“The Kremlin has long regarded its Spanish-language disinformation campaign as one of its most successful efforts and has repeatedly used disinformation and propaganda to undermine democracy, polarize adversarial societies, and incite chaos in the Western Hemisphere,” senators wrote in their letters, seen by The Associated Press.

 

On the other hand, the Kremlin stroke back this fresh attempted censorship, which challenges, again, one of the most vaunted Western values of press and speech freedom by saying that “the U.S. is bothered by the interest of Latin America in an unbiased coverage of what is really happening in the world,” stated the Russian embassy in Washington.

 

The reason behind these accusations are the dissatisfaction with the interest of Latin Americans in objective coverage of events in both Russia and the world. "Washington's ruling circles are clearly annoyed that citizens of the countries of the region make a choice in favor of Russia Today and Sputnik, and not US-controlled media," the Russian embassy said on Telegram.

 

Any impartial observer can attest to the latter. While the US media reports only one side of the story of the war in Ukraine, Russian media such as Russia Today and Sputnik do not hide and present the points of views of the opposition. So according to the Russian legation: "People who subscribe to Moscow’s media platforms, regardless of the language of transmission, can determine on their own, without any indications from anyone, the value of the information to be consumed.”

 

The attempt to deprive the public of access to an alternative point of view not only contradicts the most basic principles of press freedom and the inadmissibility of censorship, which the Capitol defends so much, but also proves the informative effectiveness of such media.

 

Among the senators who sent the letter requesting that censorship stands out the anti-Cuban senator, Robert "Bob" Menéndez, president of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has been one of the main instigators of increasing Internet access to Cuba for subversive purposes.

 

If there is a government that has repeatedly used disinformation and propaganda to undermine democracy, polarize adversarial societies, and incite chaos, not just in the Western world but anywhere, it has been the US government. His media war against Cuba, which has lasted more than sixty years, is the best proof of this.

 

In his campaigns of lies against the Island, incited by people like Bob Menéndez, who has been accused of corruption several times, there is very little truth and a lot of hate and vulgar slander, so it is not surprising that Russian objectivity bothers him.

 

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff

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