Russian Lawmaker Urges To Ensure Freedom Of Speech As Facebook Blocks RT-Linked Accounts

It is necessary to protect the right to freedom of speech and information at the international level and to promote this issue to the international agenda, Oleg Morozov, a member of the Russian upper house's International Affairs Committee, told Sputnik, commenting on Facebook's suspension of RT-linked accounts

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th February, 2019) It is necessary to protect the right to freedom of speech and information at the international level and to promote this issue to the international agenda, Oleg Morozov, a member of the Russian upper house's International Affairs Committee, told Sputnik, commenting on Facebook's suspension of RT-linked accounts.

On Friday, Facebook suspended pages of projects run by Maffick Media, an independent journalistic group that is partly owned by the Ruptly video agency, which is a subsidiary of RT. Facebook did not give Maffick Media any prior warning. According to Maffick's statement, the social network was "pressured" into doing this by CNN, which ran a story on Maffick Media and its perceived ties to the Kremlin.

"We must do everything provided by the modern international law and international conventions protecting the right of a citizen to freedom of information and freedom of speech," Morozov said adding that this issue must be promoted to the international agenda.

The chairman of the Russian Federation Council's committee on constitutional legislation, Andrei Klishas, told Sputnik on Monday that the suspension of RT-linked projects on Facebook violated the constitutional right of US citizens to receive information.

"The blocking of RT projects, restricting freedom of mass information, prevents not only the relevant pieces of information from spreading, but also their delivery to US users, who are guaranteed such freedom by the first amendment to the US Constitution.

In other words, the US authorities, acting through Facebook, deliberately restrict the constitutional right of their citizens to access materials that have received a response from more than 4 million people and gained more than 2.5 billion views," Klishas said.

The lawmaker stressed that the situation with the blocking of RT projects on Facebook is also an open pressure on Russian media.

"There is no reason to doubt that Facebook, as Mark Zuckerberg has claimed, will always be free. But, apparently, not everyone will be given the opportunity to use it in principle, and it is the the US government that decides, who will [use it]. It is sad that the actions of the US side are pushing for such a conclusion," Klishas said.

According to Klishas, Facebook's actions have once again confirmed that freedom of the media is valuable for the United States only when it corresponds to its foreign policy.

CNN admitted it had been tipped off about Maffick Media's funding by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), an advocacy group that is part of the German Marshall Fund (GMF) policy research center. The fund, considered an "undesirable organization" under the Russian law, receives some of its funding from the US and German governments, NATO and other organizations. According to CNN, the ASD does not receive financing from the GMF and is supported through private funds and grants, rather than by governments.

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