Zakharova Urges Berlin to Assess Youtube's Decision to Remove RT's German Channels
14:53 GMT 30.09.2021 (Updated: 14:55 GMT 30.09.2021)
© Sputnik / Ilya Pitalev
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has called on the German government to answer how it qualified Youtube's decision to remove the German-language RT channels.
Earlier, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a briefing that the decision to close Youtube channel RT Deutsch had been made exclusively by Youtube, the German authorities had nothing to do with this.
"I have a direct question for Steffen Seibert. How does the German government qualify the actions of the US hosting platform that removed the German-language RT channels? Does the German government consider such steps 'not a very good attitude towards freedom of the press?'" Zakharova said on Telegram.
Zakharova has also called on the German government to issue a broadcasting permit to RT DE channel.
"In order to no longer make excuses in the absence of evil intentions towards RT DE and prove 'a good attitude towards freedom of the press,' just give them permission to broadcast, as was done for a number of other foreign channels," Zakharova said.
According to the spokeswoman, "the world stood still in anticipation of an affirmative from the German side."
The German side's response should include assistance in solving artificially created banking problems, demonstration of a clear position on the inadmissibility of removing news content and its distribution resources by US Internet monopolies, termination of political negotiations with European countries with urgent requests not to issue broadcasting licenses to RT DE, Zakharova added.
The German side's response should include assistance in solving artificially created banking problems, demonstration of a clear position on the inadmissibility of removing news content and its distribution resources by US Internet monopolies, termination of political negotiations with European countries with urgent requests not to issue broadcasting licenses to RT DE, Zakharova added.
On Tuesday, YouTube blocked two German RT channels without indicating the possibility that it would reverse the decision. According to Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, one of the deleted accounts, Berlin-based RT Deutsch (RT DE), ranked fourth among German-language media in terms of influence, hitting 21 million views in June. Simonyan urged Russian lawmakers to toughen punishment for global IT giants that censor the content posted by Russian media outlets.
