‘Banned’ Russian propaganda still easy to find on YouTube
“No culture cannot cancel culture,” says the once revered Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, twice winner of the Palme d’Or. He also has French citizenship. Beard scraggly, hair and clothing artfully rumpled, Kusturica looks at the camera nonplussed: “And how can you separate Tolstoy or Turgenev from the history of Europe? This is impossible.”
Behind him in soft focus is a well-stocked bookshelf. Equally soft is the mournful tinkling of a piano, as Kusturica speaks. “If we put sanctions on Russia, we spit on our past and our history and our Christian beliefs.”
I am watching this blatant piece of propaganda on YouTube. In the corner of the screen are the letters “PS” picked out in purple and black.
Of course YouTube, like Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms have frequently claimed to have clamped down on and outright blocked Russian disinformation, particularly such state-owned media as Russia Today. Just a couple of weeks ago, a European Union court in Luxembourg confirmed the legality of a EU ban on RT France.