Anti-vaxxers are off the air: why Youtube closed Russia Today channels in Germany

What is it all about?

Yelena Ivanova

The frustration of the editor-in-chief of the propaganda channel is understandable. Unlike other countries, the fate of the German RT is not very successful. Broadcasting on the Internet began several years ago, but the TV did not work out in any way. From the very beginning it was clear to the holding and the Russian authorities that it would be almost impossible to obtain a license in Germany. Not only does German media law prohibit the broadcasting of state-funded television programs. And although exceptions were made for some channels, such as France 24, but how can you compare France, the second most important member of the European Union, with a country that has been accused of interfering in democratic processes around the world over the past decade. There was another move - to obtain a license in a country neighboring Germany and show the program de facto, based on the legislation on cross-border broadcasting. They tried to get such a license more than once.

According to sources from the German market, at first they tried to negotiate with friendly Austria, but failed. This year, negotiations were underway with Luxembourg, whose authorities, it would seem, were not opposed, having the experience of RTL, which also began in this mini-state, and then "returned" to its homeland, becoming the largest media group in Europe, but retaining its headquarters in Luxembourg. However, the Germans are not fools either, they perfectly understood what the proponents of the idea of the Russian world and the "defenders" of all the disaffected were aiming at. In August, RT finally had to bury the idea of quickly obtaining a broadcasting permit - the Luxembourgers, not without pressure from the German authorities, did not give a license. With all the millions of euros invested, the purchase of a factory building in Berlin and the complete equipping of the broadcasting complex, there is only one way left for Russian propagandists - the Internet. And it was here that "the foot hit the wheel".

Youtube's official wording stated that RT was spreading "false medical information about the coronavirus infection". This led to the suspension of the rights to publish the video.

We are talking about an interview with the Swiss immunologist Beda Stradler, former director of the Institute of Immunology at the University of Bern. Back in June last year, he said that PCR tests were not effective, and masks should not be worn. “Those young and healthy people who are currently walking with a mask on their face would be better off wearing a helmet, because the risk of something falling on their head is greater than the risk of seriously contracting the coronavirus”, - Stadler said.

He also claims that the measures to prevent the virus are "excessive" and that people have immunity to covid because this is "not the first time a person has encountered coronaviruses".

What the professor spoke about on August 23 this year, viewers who do not watch the RT program, for obvious reasons, will no longer succeed. The Americans warned the channel that they were spreading false information.

In another interview, for which the channel received a second warning, therapist Klaus Kenline, who at one time claimed that there was no HIV, stated that covid was treated with poisons. They damage human DNA and kill cells in the body. Kenline likes to say that there is no spread of coronavirus, it's just that the authorities themselves create the appearance of an epidemic, imposing tests and masks on the population, and the WHO is also conducting dangerous experiments on humanity.

As they write on the Internet, there is, by and large, no big difference between what the Russian media show and tell in Russia and what RT offers in Germany. In our country, these fakes are under the heading “alternative point of view”. Conspiracy theorists get unlimited opportunities to spread any horror story.

The vaccination of 1 billion Chinese people is called the "disposal" of 95% of the country's population, the pandemic is called the "new world war", mRNA vaccines were made in order to "grow and educate the right people".

Such tricks do not take place in the German media space. Of course, there are a large number of anti-vaxxers in Germany, and the proportion of the vaccinated population, despite all the efforts of the government, is growing very slowly. Therefore, the authorities are closely monitoring all information on covid. Naturally, Youtube complies with all the instructions of the authorities to cover the pandemic. But didn't the same Google fulfill the instructions of Roskomnadzor and removed Smart Voting from the search before the elections? And why do Simonyan and Zakharova think that restrictions do not work in Germany?

There is another layer in this story that is little talked about. The fact is that anti-vaxxers are a breeding ground for expanding the influence of the right-wing radical Alternative for Germany party, whose members consider RT to be their, practically "home" channel. It was thanks to the anti-vaxxers that the right-wing radicals lost fewer votes in the recent elections to the Bundestag than they should have. Fortunately, the opponents of vaccination, although they could not fully compensate for the outflow of voters from the ADG to the democratic parties, nevertheless brought them their votes. Therefore, the authorities did not want to give them a tribune before the elections.

The warnings received did not stop the creators of the German-language channel with Russian roots. After the broadcast was temporarily suspended, RT aired the same thing on a parallel channel called Missing Link. This is where the unlimited ban came in.

It is hardly possible to believe that on RT no one calculates the consequences of such actions. But even more careful in terms after the refusal of the license, the channel's management was not going to act. It is obvious that now the Russian authorities, who already suspect enemies under every bush, will not hesitate to allocate an additional, "military" budget to propagandists.

RT has no friends among the media in Germany, so Simonyan's righteous anger fell on the German public-legal channels ARD and CDF. It is them, in the opinion of the editor-in-chief of RT , that it is necessary to cover them up in Russia. The German authorities in the person of press secretary Merkel shrugged their shoulders - they say, we have nothing to do with it, there is a platform, with it and solve your problems. But there is still relief that “Akela missed the kil”. The less RT will excite the already unstable anti-vaxxers and skeptics in Germany, the easier it will be for everyone. For competitors, this is also not bad - the 4th place among information resources will not remain vacant. Part of the channel's audience will flow to them. As you know, a holy place is never empty.