Once again, we live in a war where information is one more weapon, where the Internet is censored, where fake news generates hatred and confusion, and where social networks can help show realities that do not appear in mainstream media.
It is very difficult to make decisions in this sector. Deciding to carry out an action that violates freedom of expression, justified by a greater good, is delicate, which is why there will always be controversy when those responsible for the distribution of content carry out information control actions.
Now we come to the fact that the EU has asked Google to remove Russian state media websites from search, an action that could generate as much controversy as the censorship of Russian media that has already been practiced in many country. .
The European Commission has sent Google a request to remove results from Russian state media for searches in EU countries, as reported in lumen database.
In the letter, they indicate that the ban on the transmission of RT and Sputnik in the European Union also applies to search engines and Internet companies in general, but the results appeared in Google for said media, and they could be read using cache, so there was no effective ban.
The objective, according to the European Commission, is to prevent these media from spreading lies to justify Putin’s war. Facebook, Twitter and TikTok were quick to restrict access to RT and Sputnik, but Google only banned the YouTube channel.
The letter says:
The activity of search engines plays a decisive role in the general dissemination of content, since it makes the latter accessible to any Internet user who searches on the basis of the indication of the content or related terms, including Internet users . that otherwise, they would not have found the webpage on which this content is posted… Therefore, if search engines like Google did not remove RT and Sputnik, they would be facilitating or contributing to public access to the content of RT and Sputnik. to access.
They therefore want internet search service providers to remove all links to RT and Sputnik, including short text descriptions, visuals and links to relevant websites.
Google has already applied the query, searching for site:rt.com in Google, nothing more shows up.
In the results, the takedown request appears as a link to lumendatabase.org, both from rt.com and sputniknews.com
