In late July, under the pretext of fighting “deceptive publications” Facebook deleted the official page of the New Eastern Outlook analytical discussion journal of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This page created back in 2010 would allow this journal to communicate with its readers for almost a decade. Without providing any pretext, yet another American media site – Twitter joined the silencing effort headed by Facebook in a bid to suppress an alternative outlook on the events that are taking place in the world today.
There’s no denying that those actions constitute yet another Western attempt to trample freedom of speech in a truly Orwellian fashion that would certainly make senator Joseph McCarthy proud. These steps constitute a rather cynical assault on dissident voices that are only getting worse with each passing year.
There’s little doubt that by doing this both Facebook and Twitter have taken a step detrimental to the state of the international scientific and public discussion, as NEO remains popular with keen readers in over a hundred countries around the globe. No solution can be found to the most pressing challenges of today both in the West and the East without an honest discussion of the events that are taking place around the globe. And it’s clear that both Twitter and Facebook are not interested in the search for such solutions as they’re trampling freedom of speech without any concern for the matters of international peace.
Directorate of the Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS
Source