PS
“More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other online forums, a rise of nearly 50 per cent in two years, according to figures obtained by The Times.”
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-arresting-n...
Good Lord!
Comparing the BBC to Russia Today is a false equivalent (and troll bait!) as I'm sure you perfectly know.
Many in the world regard BBC worse than Russia Today. It is fondly referred to as British Bullshitting Corp.
> It is noteworthy that the article of the Administrative Offenses Code (KoAP) on discrediting [army] was most actively applied in 2022: that year, courts reviewed 5,662 protocols and fined 4,440 people a total of 151.3 million rubles. [1.7 mil USD]
> Last year, the number of protocols almost halved to 3,053, as did the number of those punished — only 2,361 people were held accountable, and the total amount of fines imposed was 76.6 million rubles. [858,721 USD]
> The number of people convicted for spreading knowingly false information about the activities of the armed forces (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code) increased from 14 to 65 (almost fivefold) last year. Of these, 30 people were sentenced to imprisonment: most often, sentences under this article ranged from five to eight years, but two sentences fell into the category of eight to ten years. For comparison: in 2022, only two of the 14 people convicted for fakes received actual imprisonment, with the harshest sentence falling into the "5 to 8 years" category.
> The number of people convicted for justifying terrorism continues to grow: from 318 in 2022 to 345 in 2023. However, the number of sentences for public calls for violent change of the constitutional order in the media or on the internet has decreased from 334 to 281. [...]
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Please site your evidence the BBC is broadcasting war propaganda. Both BBC and Al Jazeera have been quite impartial and to their credit, getting news out of Russia isn't easy.
> For a fact, more people in the UK get visits from the police over social media posts than they do in Russia.
I suspect that is because Russian police have far more pressing matters to deal with than capturing escaped swans and intervening between members of the underclass sending each other threats on farsebook!