Since the beginning of 2017 the indirectly state-funded Russian broadcaster, RT, has come under fierce attack by the US. The January 6th 2017 US Senate Intelligence Council assessment into Russian interference of the 2016 presidential campaign made it clear, but without proof, RT posed a threat to the clinical propaganda narratives of the US government.

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Of the25 page report 8 pages focused solely on RT without giving any firm evidence that any of RT's news stories were fake. It did, however, present the fact that a lot of RT stories focused on America were anti-American. The intelligence assessment states that "RT's reports often characterize the United States as a 'surveillance state' and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use." I think most of us know that this is in fact, true. So it would appear the US government just doesn't like the truth.

Not only have RT recently had their UK bank accounts terminated by British banking giant NatWest, but they have also recently seen Twitter pull all of RTs adverts from its platform, Google de-rank them from search results, and You Tube pull it from its US prime ad list without notice.

‘Unacceptable!’ RT pulled from YouTube prime ad list in US without notice | RT - 10/05/2017

The move by Google to expunge RT from its premium advertising service without any prior notice is “absolutely unacceptable” but will not have an adverse effect on the channel’s outreach or its profits, RT Deputy Editor-in-Chief Kirill Karnovich-Valua said. RT, with millions of subscribers across its channels, has for years been ahead of the competition as the most viewed TV news network on YouTube, setting several records since it registered on the platform in 2007. Last month, the RT network hit another milestone after its multi-language videos were watched over 5 billion times.

Having 10 years worth of uploads, and being the most watched news network on YouTube with over 5 billion views, I expect the YouTube ad ban was the biggest coup for the US intelligence services as RT's presence on You Tube played a large part in the January 7th intelligent report.

The decision to ban RT ads on YouTube came a little less than a month after Google Senior Vice President-General Counsel Kent Walker said "We’ve not found violations of our accounts" during a Senate hearing into how Russia allegedly used American social media to influence the Presidential election.

Even though this witch hunt on Russia conducted by the US is out of control RT have still managed to see the funny side as you can see by the London Underground tube station adverts below.

Jokes aside though, this has quite a serious outcome for all media organizations and journalists. Washington's decision to force RT to register as a 'foreign agent' under a 1938 law, which was created to counter Nazi Germany, has had critics calling it "crude censorship" and a "troubling precedent".

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Retaliation

In the last few days Russia has retaliated by drawing up their own foreign agents bill which they intend to use as a tit-for-tat measure aimed at restricting US media in Russia. Although Russia have made no clear indication as to which foreign media organizations are on the list RT has suggested that the Kremlin may ban CNN if the US did force RT to sign as a foreign agent. Under the recent Russian bill, even though CNN isn't officially a state-sponsored media outlet, it would still be in the firing line.

The newly amended bill defines affected mainstream media outlets as legal entities that are "registered in a foreign nation, or a foreign structure that operates without registering as a company, engaged in spreading printed, audio, audio-visual or any other content prepared for an unlimited group of people."

Russian President Putin signs 'foreign agent' media law | BBC - 11/25/2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that allows the government to list any foreign media operating in the country as a foreign agent. The bill, in retaliation for Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT being told to register as a foreign agent in the US, was earlier approved by parliament. At least nine US-funded broadcasters, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty could be hit.

Here is a fun little video from Redacted Tonight's host, Lee Camp, explaining that his RT show is hosted by an American, filmed by Americans, in America, for Americans.

One of the media organizations that looks like it could make it on to the Russian's US propaganda list is the internationally broadcast, US backed, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), whom until 1972 was funded by the CIA as an anti-communist front.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government-funded broadcasting organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East where it says that "the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed". RFE/RL is a 501(c)(3) corporation that receives U.S. government funding and is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency overseeing all U.S. federal government international broadcasting services.

According to emails stolen from the anti-Russian, American journalist David Satter by the pro-Russian, Ukrainian hacktivist group Cyber-Berkut ,the RFE/RL, whilst under Satter's supervision, received anti-Putin articles paid for by the National Endowment for democracy. One of NED's critics, ex-politician Ron Paul, in 2005 stated that NED has "very little to do with democracy. It is an organization that uses US tax money to actually subvert democracy, by showering funding on favored political parties or movements overseas. It underwrites color-coded ‘people’s revolutions’ overseas that look more like pages out of Lenin’s writings on stealing power than genuine indigenous democratic movements."

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a U.S. non-profit soft power organization that was founded in 1983 with the stated goal of promoting democracy abroad.[1] It is funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress in the form of a grant awarded through the United States Information Agency (USIA).

In one of Cyber-Berkut blog posts they reveal that "David Satter is a chain-link between NED, Radio Liberty and Russian oppositional media". They then go on to explain the consequences of this by saying "NED materials show that Washington is ready to do everything to shatter political situation in Russia and organize the same chaos that we witnessed here in Ukraine in 2013."

Analysis of the hack was carried out by security research firm Citizen Lab, who quickly claimed that the documents were 'tainted'. According to Citizen Lab a 'tainted leak' is the "deliberate seeding of false information within a larger set of authentically stolen data. Without the security research firm giving any proof that the leaks were tainted in their research blog MSM outlets like Forbes started to report on it without question.

Russian 'Fancy Bear' Hackers Tainted Their Huge Leaks With Fake Data | Forbes - 05/26/2017

Citizen Lab started their probe with a "patient zero": David Satter, a prominent journalist and Kremlin critic. On October 7th 2016, Satter was targeted by a self-proclaimed pro-Russian hacktivist group known as Cyber Berkut, which pilfered his emails in much the same way as Fancy Bear compromised Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

Those emails were then "selectively modified" by Cyber Berkut before being published online, Citizen Lab wrote in its report released Thursday. Those "tainted leaks" contained both real and faked communications. Amongst the tampered-with messages was a report sent by Satter to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a U.S. non-profit promoting democracy across the world. It was altered in such a way as to make it appear Satter was paying Russian journalists to write articles damning of the Russian regime.

After Crowdstrike's monumental catastrophic made-up report detailing the DNC breach we can assume that without any evidence these kind of security research findings aren't fit for purpose. Looking at Citizen Lab a little further reveals that the organization is funded by none other than Mr George Soros himself.

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So there we have it, another liberal leaning cyber-security research company that has lied to change the narrative and can't be trusted.

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