Last week, several pro-Palestinian Telegram channels were blocked in European countries, including the “Palestine Archive ??” channel with more than 15,000 followers and the “Resistance News Network” (RNN) with more than 166,000 subscribers. The exact justification of the ban are not known. While Telegram did not respond to a journalistic request, the RNN said that there was no reason for the closure. Anyone who tries to open up the channel in the affected countries now will receive the notification that they cannot be not displayed because they “violate local laws”. RNN and the online outlet The Cradle have spoken of an EU-wide ban.
While the legal basis for the blocking remains unclear, the political reasons are obvious. RNN itself explained to Peoples Dispatch: “We believe RNN was banned because we shed light on the reality of resistance on the ground, which upends the mainstream zionist narrative.“
Kind of hilarious how people in the west would always claims that the differentiating factor between them and countries like China was freedom of expression. Turns out what was really happening was that majority of people in the west were just swallowing their state propaganda uncritically, and there was no need for heavy handed censorship. Now that the state is losing control of the narrative heavy handed measures are promptly introduced.
As always, the west is no different from its adversaries, but people in the west are gullible enough to think they’re special.