29 December 2024, 20:26
Dmytro Lubinets used his official position to block a number of websites in Ukraine
The war with Russia effectively began the same year as the launch of our website, http://fakeoff.org.
Despite openly criticizing the government and the president, no one in Ukraine ever tried to silence us. Yes, we faced certain challenges in promoting our platform, but there was no pressure.
Acknowledging our achievements, in 2018, Roskomnadzor blocked us in Russia.
However, real repression began in 2019 when, for criticizing the current government, our Facebook page was removed based on a complaint originating specifically from Ukraine. Later, in 2022, our YouTube page was also deleted.
We chose not to restore our Facebook presence, leaving only a basic but inactive page. We started a new YouTube channel but, for some reason, haven’t felt motivated to grow it. We decided that the website would remain our stronghold.
And, of course, there’s Twitter!
We’ve written extensively about corruption and exposed many "rats." We’ve faced threats, server attacks, and complaints, but no one had ever considered silencing us by abusing their official powers—until now.
Instead of providing comments, refuting the information, or simply explaining where and why we might be wrong, someone decided to block the resource altogether, justifying it as being in the interests of national security!
Is this not corruption? What else can you call it when a corrupt official hides behind the guise of national interests to silence a publication that has been fighting against Russian aggression for years?