Nilov at 30 BSPC

30TH BSPC: SECOND SESSIONDemocracy in a changing media landscapeSpeaker: Mr Oleg Nilov, Member of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of theRussian Federation- reported speech -Chairwoman Stålhammar introduced the third speaker of this session who had been amember of the state duma of the Russian Federation since 2016. He was now the firstdeputy chairman of the Committee for Control and Regulation as well as a member ofthe Committee of Education. She yielded the screen to Mr Oleg Nilov.Speech by Oleg Nilov, MP, State Duma, Russian FederationMr Nilov began by noting that it was a difficult issue they were talking about:digitalisation and democracy. These were two rather general terms, and that could leadto the opposite result of what the words actually said. Over the course of thedevelopment of digitalisation, one had to ask the question of the necessity for MPs asrepresentatives to decide important issues in their countries. If one said, “The powerbelongs to the people”, “The wealth of the country belongs to the people”, and if theopportunity was given – as was the case, more or less -, citizens were allowed to makedecisions and almost make laws on their own, without mediators. Important items inthe budget could almost be decided by the citizens, if all these trends developed in linewith democracy. Nevertheless, there was another problem in play here, he cautioned.Mr Nilov believed they had to look at where this could lead, to discuss the future.Going back to the freedom of the media and the freedom of the press in the new realitythey were living in, he pointed out that this was at the same time accompanied by thequestion of combatting misinformation, disinformation and fake news. In a sense, thatwas an oxymoron. Talking about freedom of the press and freedom of the media, thatwas one subject. Or one could talk about combatting the media. It was the same media,essentially. At least, the Russian side took the view that it could only be seen in relativeterms. Either it was not the news or not the priorities they wished to see, or it was. Itwas almost like a vicious circle, Mr Nilov said, or a Gordian knot. What platforms,according to what rules, what was the meaning of freedom or of the lack of freedom?When would they decide that news were fake news? It could not just be theirperspective or the perception of the citizens. This was a very tricky point. One couldalmost say that all of these processes, first of all, were joined together, and then therewas the battle against misinformation, disinformation, lies, fake news. Mr Nilovconsidered it a somewhat deplorable state of affairs. It was necessary to have clearstandards. He compared the situation to an infection. It was spreading, contaminatingand killing many, and that was particularly true in the area of politics and the contextof the media.In that context, Mr Nilov addressed his homeland of Russia. To put it mildly, it seemedto be problem of double standards, and it was not confined to Russia. He wished tolook at where the issue could be found and where examples of such things occurred.In a political sphere, obviously, but that sphere also reflected the media landscape.The problem was like trying to square a circle. People perceived things differently intheir different countries. A good example was the Taliban in Afghanistan. The wholeworld was shaken by what had happened there. The results might well be difficult. Butat some point, the Taliban had been created as a virus, created to combat the Soviets.They had been an antidote at some point, strengthened to fight against the Soviets.And they had been created, pursuing so-called reasonable ends. That had been theirorigin, Mr Nilov insisted, and how they had been strengthened. It was a very sad stateof affairs. It was almost like a virus that had been created in a lab, such as the situationthey had in a different field, with the creation of another virus. It was depicted as a nicevirus, and this was the Ukrainian Taliban. There were very different views – Russiasaw it one way, European countries another way. These were the double standardsthat he had been talking about to measure these occurrences. That meant that socialpersonalities, politicians and the media were assessing these issues differently – very,very differently. Here, he raised the examples of Edward Snowden and Julian Assangeand how they were seen. American and European colleagues saw them as traitors andcriminals, as spies. Traitors who had betrayed their countries, who had spread statesecrets to the world. But if one spoke about Russian fighters against corruption orpeople who were actually corrupt, like Alexei Navalny, then everybody said, “No, theywere in prison even though all they did was follow their conscience”. Again, verydifferent assessments were made, depending on who one spoke to. Mr Nilov believedthey would never make any progress if unified standards were not set andimplemented. There were plenty of examples of this, such as Kosovo, Crimea or whatwas happening with the tigers in the Russian province of Yakutia. There were millionsof hectares of forest that had burned, and the forest fires were continuing, even today.A year earlier, Mr Nilov had asked the BSPC to find forms for assessing the hugelosses for their planet that were taking place and to the environment. He had called onthem to talk about what policies impacted worse on the environment. As an example,he mentioned policies led by Greta Thunberg in terms of the reduction of carbonemissions, and she had been sorry for the poor cows, but on the other hand, they weredoing nothing against the fact that the Russian forests were burning. Nor were thereunifying international efforts in order to combat this evil. The green agenda simply didn’tfocus on these issues at all, and that was not the right way to proceed. Mr Nilovbelieved there were countless problems of this kind.So, talking about the free media as a reflection of reality, it was either a mirror reflectingreality as it really was or it was a distorted mirror distorting reality as well. One couldnot blame the mirror for what it was reflecting. Combatting the mirror was not the wayforward. What had to be done first and foremost was to talk about how they couldachieve these unified standards and stop having a double standard and applying that.He called on his colleagues to think about how long it had taken to stop these doublestandards in terms of Russian inventions. Here, Mr Nilov spoke about the invention ofthe Paralympics as an example. People in Tokyo, the Russian Paralympic athleteswho had been libelled for years. First, they had been allowed to compete in theParalympics and then they had been told they were not allowed under a Russian flagin the Paralympics. But these were people with disabilities, he pointed out, people whowere ill in certain cases. It could not be the case that they measured everyone thesame way. These double standards had to be dropped, he underlined, or at least thelimitations of policy-making had to be reflected in the mass media as well.Mr Nilov concluded his speech at this point by referring to Omar Khayyam who hadsaid, “Who has lived on our earth and not committed a sin,” and if anyone had livedwithout a sin, then they had not lived. He further quoted, “If you punish the evil that Ihave done by evil, What is the difference between you and me?” Responding to evilwith evil did not make the responding side any better, he said. Mr Nilov very muchappreciated that they could speak freely in the BSPC, expressing their ideas freely.What he would like to see was that they should be less prejudiced and biased in theirencounters with one another and be more honest with one another. Combatting thedouble standard had to be something that they should achieve and keep high on theiragenda. He called on the BSPC to fight against russiaphobia and Russia-bashing andfake news regarding Russia. Russia was an independent nation.