The Indian right wingers I know think the ban is ridiculous either on principle or because it simply plays into the Streisand effect. There is some openness to banning BBC altogether as foreign state-funded propaganda (akin to how Europe has banned RT), but everyone seems to think this selective ban of the documentary is a self-own by the Modi administration.
I can’t agree with this analogy, RT wasn’t banned before Russia started an invasion.
The difference is that prior invasion it’s a different opinions, after the shooting begins it’s part of the warfare and not a public debate activity.
For example it’s completely okay to claim that Zelensky should go and Ukraine and NATO caused the war, totally not acceptable to claim that Zelenksy left the country and requested amnesty in Poland. At war time yok can’t afford BS like that because the impact can have immediate and irreversible consequences.
The analogy works when the owner of the foreign media also is waging a war against you or your allies. Just because some time in the past you had a military conflict doesn’t make it the same thing because something happened in the past doesn’t have immediate and irreversible effects. Since there are no immediate risks, you get the chance to respond and correct and that’s why you can have free media.
Besides, everyone was once invaded by the British.
What you're saying is that you, subjectively, think that the UK's past invasion of India isn't relevant because it was long ago and not ongoing (and because the UK did this to lots of people, that makes it a lesser crime?) And I'm saying that quite a lot of people don't agree with your subjective judgement.
Objectively, the facts are that the UK once invaded India and some Indians alive today personally experienced that subjugation. But what any of that means or implies is subjective.
No, Objectively UK's past invasion of India doesn't create a cause for British media to pose immediate and irreversible risks to India.
This doesn't mean that Indians shouldn't be cautious but gives them an opportunity for healthy debate thanks to input from outside. Because there's no immediate and irreversible dangers, they can counter the British arguments or get something from it to make their own position better.
There's still a huge blind spot in the west when it comes to "our" propaganda. You never see the BBC or Radio Free Asia get the "state owned media" tag on social media that's applied to anything Russian or Chinese since 2016.
I do think that there are substantive differences in the kind of "propaganda" between Russia and the West.
The reporting in the west is certainly ideologically biased with lots of ignorance and naturally often steeped in sensationalism.
Russias reporting is very often an intentional hostile psyops directed by state forces. Whatever take damages western society most is getting air time.
Its the same with western NGOs vs russian influence campaigns.
Those NGOs were in Russia since the 90s and havent changed a bit. Its the russian state that changed in a way that those NGOs are now hostile and detrimental to the cleptocracy. Now they are all banned.
In contrast Russias support of extremist groups in the west has no ideological consistency and is only aimed at doing maximum damage.
If we're talking about war, the BBC was an active participant in the coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Iran. Ample reason for any country that values its sovereignty to ban the BBC.
This is not quite what happened. Illia Kyva [1] is a Ukranian politician who was a former presidential candidate, as well as the head of Socialist Party in Ukraine. He is pro Russia and skeptical of Western interests and motivations in Ukraine. After the war this did not change and he supported Russia while blaming Zelensky and urging him to resign.
Zelensky then decided to purge him and his entire party, charging him with treason. This led to Kyva making increasingly unhinged claims and recommendations. Among those were that Russia should nuke Ukraine, and that Zelensky had secretly fled to Poland. Some Russian outlets (I cannot find this story on RT, but perhaps I missed something?) ran this story such as here [2].
The article certainly doesn't state it as a fact. Instead it recounts the events in a relatively impartial way - two Ukrainian lawmakers said he fled. Rumors of something similar were spread shortly before the article was published and Zelensky rejected them while providing video evidence of himself in Ukraine. It also mentions that the US reportedly offered to help him escape Ukraine, and also that he rejected the offer. End of article.
Over the years the India telecommunications department has repeatedly null routed or diverted traffic to BBC websites thru scrubbers domestically. Know this because I have infra in India and can observe them do this regularly (when our customers complain I'll have to escalate to the local transit provider such as TATA). Usually it's blocking websites hosting content that is critical of any govt official or their family members. They'll not always understand what they're blocking and occasionally drop a CDNs address space which is multi tenant.
There is a a difference between someone operating as a news channel actively continuously repeatedly spreading misinformation with the intention to undermine a government and a documentation which seem to be mostly correct but unpleasant to hear information.
Also there is a difference between restricting availability in your jurisdiction (country, country union, i.e. case RT) and trying to restrict it beyond that.
While it is questionable banning BBC in India is well in the right of the Indian government, it banning BBC (content) outside of India is on the other hand not something which should be possible/allowed/tolerated.
I agree that it's a very different case (see my other comment) but like most news organizations BBC is not always fully honest and often also have people which huge influence on their reporting.
It's just that it's more about selective reporting and creating news in a way that people come to conclusions not backed by truth without making up information (tho in practice it's often not that much better then making up information as most people will be tricked into believing misinformation you just never wrote down).
Like for example a reporting about a demo consisting of a march and then multiple speech and announcements at a plaza being written highlighting that extremists taking part in it and making it look as if only a small number people took part in it. But selectively ommiting (or hiding in subtle formulations) that 80+% of protestors where "normal" people and that while the number of people during the march where small the number at the plaza wasn't.
(One of the most stupid parts is that the "independent state media" using such tricks often doesn't realize that this is perfect to convince people of conspiracies and "media is all lies" etc., e.g. in that example they did claim "they lied there where 20 times the number of people (compared to the march) here see picture of plaza" and then backed down later one to "we miscounted it where only 15 times" making many people believe that this (15x) is the truth and media is outright making up things (the truth was 3-4 times of people at the plaza compared to the march)).
