(Washington) The Canadian government expressed on Saturday its “concerns” about the broadcasting on its territory of the Russian channel RT (formerly Russia Today), accused by its detractors of being a mouthpiece for the Kremlin.
Posted at 4:00 p.m.
Updated at 10:01 p.m.
Regularly accused in the West of contributing to disinformation, RT is in the crosshairs of several European countries, especially since the invasion of Ukraine by the troops of Vladimir Putin.
“I share the concerns of many Canadians about the presence of Russia Today in our broadcasting system,” Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said on Twitter.
While calls are increasing in Canada to ban the broadcast of this Russian television channel, the minister, a close friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, assured: “we are exploring all options”.
Although “RT is currently on the list of approved non-Canadian services”, its broadcast license is “a privilege [pouvant] be withdrawn,” warned Friday in the newspaper The duty the Canadian audio-visual policeman, the Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
A broadcast ban may be decided in particular in the event of a breach of the obligation to “present the news accurately and impartially”, recalled the CRTC, while RT is regularly accused of pro-Putin bias.
More and more countries have thus disconnected RT in recent weeks.
Friday, it is thus the main television access provider in Finland which stopped the broadcast. London, for its part, asked Wednesday for a review by the regulator Ofcom of the license granted to RT. And, in early February, Germany banned RT on its territory, prompting Moscow to close the office of German radio and television Deutsche Welle in Moscow.
Launched in 2005 as “Russia Today”, the Russian state-funded RT has grown with broadcasters and websites in multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, German and Arabic.
YouTube suspends revenue generated by the RT channel
YouTube announced on Saturday “suspending” the possibility for certain Russian channels, including RT, to monetize their content on its platform, because of the “exceptional circumstances” in Ukraine.
YouTube also announced that access to RT (ex-Russia Today) and other Russian channels had been restricted in Ukraine, a country facing an invasion by Russia for three days.
Revenue on YouTube is generated through the delivery of advertisements displayed when viewing hosted videos. On Friday, Facebook also said it had banned Russian state media from making money through it on its platform.
“In light of the exceptional circumstances in Ukraine, we are taking a number of actions,” a YouTube spokesperson said.
“Our teams have begun suspending the ability of certain channels to generate revenue on YouTube, including RT channels globally,” he continued.
The video platform also clarified that the recommendations, redirecting users to these channels, would be “greatly limited”.
“And in response to a government request, we have restricted access to RT and a number of other channels in Ukraine,” YouTube said.
The platform also said it had deleted “hundreds of channels” and “thousands of videos” in recent days, some of them for “deceptive practices”, in accordance with its rules.