France orders Eutelsat to stop broadcasting Russian channels
Arcom, the French television regulation agency, yesterday ordered the communication satellite company Eutelsat to stop allowing three Russian channels from broadcasting using the satellites.
In a news release, Arcom said the television stations’ coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine “include repeated incitement to hatred and violence and numerous shortcomings to the honesty of the information.” Eutelsat said in a brief statement that “it will no longer be involved in the broadcasting of the three sanctioned channels within the prescribed time-frame.”
Arcom’s decision comes a week after France’s top administrative court, prompted by a request from the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders advocacy group, ordered Arcom to review an initial decision to permit Eutelsat to continue carrying the stations.
Arcom’s claim, that it made this order because of the content of the broadcasts, is another example of the blacklisting/censorship culture we now live in. The French regulators could have simply stated that, as an ally of the Ukraine in the Russian-Ukraine war, it does not want French-regulated satellites to provide aid to the Russian side. There is a war going on, and this alone is a rational reason to block the Russian channels.
Instead, Arcom uses censorship as its justification. It doesn’t like what the Russians are saying, and therefore has the right to censor them. Remember this argument, because in the future Arcom will likely use it again, but next time against any one of the other broadcast channels under its control that simply says something it doesn’t like.
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Arcom, the French television regulation agency, yesterday ordered the communication satellite company Eutelsat to stop allowing three Russian channels from broadcasting using the satellites.
In a news release, Arcom said the television stations’ coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine “include repeated incitement to hatred and violence and numerous shortcomings to the honesty of the information.” Eutelsat said in a brief statement that “it will no longer be involved in the broadcasting of the three sanctioned channels within the prescribed time-frame.”
Arcom’s decision comes a week after France’s top administrative court, prompted by a request from the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders advocacy group, ordered Arcom to review an initial decision to permit Eutelsat to continue carrying the stations.
Arcom’s claim, that it made this order because of the content of the broadcasts, is another example of the blacklisting/censorship culture we now live in. The French regulators could have simply stated that, as an ally of the Ukraine in the Russian-Ukraine war, it does not want French-regulated satellites to provide aid to the Russian side. There is a war going on, and this alone is a rational reason to block the Russian channels.
Instead, Arcom uses censorship as its justification. It doesn’t like what the Russians are saying, and therefore has the right to censor them. Remember this argument, because in the future Arcom will likely use it again, but next time against any one of the other broadcast channels under its control that simply says something it doesn’t like.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Officially France has not declared a state of war with Russia, so it can’t use that argument.
They do not have to declare war to do this.
They just have to state they are a NATO member nation and will no longer cooperate with Russia.
But as Americans we must remember that the rest of the world does not have our constitution and thus they do not have “freedom of Speech” like we do.
pzatchokwrote: “But as Americans we must remember that the rest of the world does not have our constitution and thus they do not have “freedom of Speech” like we do.”
This is correct. Our freedom of speech is a natural right or a God given right, protected by the Constitution.
Amendment 1: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Places in the rest of the world that have a freedom of speech are government given, decreed by their documents as a right, not acknowledged as a right of existence. Even the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights admits that the UN may remove this (and every other granted right) at a whim.
Article 29 Clause 3: “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.“
“our” removed as a correction.
Natural rights are rights you have whether anyone (or any government) recognizes them or not. Everyone has freedom of speech. Not every government respects or enshrines that right, and many go to great lengths to limit the spread of speech they don’t like, and/or punish the speaker. The difference is that under the US Constitution, it’s illegal, while elsewhere it is (or at least can be,) perfectly kosher.
I expect the UN to be a failure in this; Stalin was involved in ensuring its charter was full of nice-sounding rhetoric that ultimately meant nothing in the context of protecting people from government. It was kind of an awakening the last few years when I discovered that the same was true of the Anglosphere outside the US. Even the nations that pretend they have protections have clauses that gut the protections down to merely sunsetting the abuses (but with endless options for renewal!) rather than forbidding them.
Edward cited:
United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 29 Clause 3: “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.“
Well. That certainly clarifies the relation of the People to the State. Of course, there’s the little matter of
“John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
President Andrew Jackson, in response to Worcester v Georgia 1832
Boobah,
Removing the word “our” is a mistake. The phrase “protected by the Constitution” applies. The Constitution does not protect everyone else’s right, as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights shows us.
Some people have suggested to me that “American Exceptionalism” is an arrogance that means that the American people think they are superior to the rest of the world. However, that exceptionalism does not apply to the American people, as we are from all over the world, we are the rest of the world. The exceptionalism is the freedoms and rights that the Constitution protects and that the rest of the world has lost to their governments.
Sometimes people at this site also have claimed that the rights do not belong to individuals but are supposed to come from government. I have asked those people if the rights did not belong to We the People, then where did the governments get them. Governments are the creation of We the People, not of God or nature, so who gave those rights to the governments so that those governments can give them to us? I still have yet to hear an answer.
Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines.
The French have some experience in where hatefilled broadcasting with calls for violence and “no mercy” can end up.
Speaking of TV, there is a connection with a technology that would end war as we know it but which H.G. Wells predicted. Philo Farnsworth held TV patents as well as demonstrating the first nuclear fusion device. There is a Farnsworth connection to MIT work in WWII and ICBM aiming etc through https://news.mit.edu/2009/obit-smullin-0608
“Our freedom of speech is a natural right or a God given right, protected by the Constitution.”
By extension, this freedom doesn’t extend to blasphemy against G-d.
David Ross: Actually that freedom does include the right to blaspheme. The Bible itself gives humans that right. It simply tells them they should not, because it is wrong, and leaves the choice of what to do up to each individual.
In other words, if we do wrong we are doing it by choice, whether we wish to admit it or not. And that choice is each person’s personal responsibility.
David Ross: Actually that freedom does include the right to blaspheme. The Bible itself gives humans that right. It simply tells them they should not, because it is wrong, and leaves the choice of what to do up to each individual.
In other words, if we do wrong we are doing it by choice, whether we wish to admit it or not. And that choice is each person’s personal responsibility. This is in essence the definition of freedom itself.