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Leningrad Siege Poll Causes Angry Reaction

From Echo Moskvy:

The TV Channel Dozhd Could Be Taken off Air as a Result of a Poll Dedicated to the 70th Anniversary of the Lifting of the Leningrad Blockade

Many considered it unacceptable. The opinion of the president of the cable TV association of Russia Yuri Pripachkin is that it is necessary to consider not only the economic side of the media, but the educational side also. Operators of cable networks should have the right to independently decide to shut down a channel if subscribers have issues with it, Pripachkin thinks. He underlined that this should not be looked at as a politically-motivated issue.

“No member of the registered media can be shut down or measures taken about it without the necessary warnings from Roskomnadzor and a court decision”, says the editor-in-chief of Moskovskiy Komsomolets, the chairman of Moscow’s union of journalists Pavel Gusev. Nevertheless, Gusev notes sadly that the authorities can do what they like with any media outlet.

The poll that brought the wave of criticism recently appeared on the Dozhd website. The question was formulated that: “Should Leningrad have been surrendered to save hundreds of thousands of lives?”. The site’s leadership later apologised for the unacceptable poll, and deleted it.

Comments from Echo Moskvy:

nasralla:

Rightly so. I’m for it!

sat_agama: (responding to above)

Why is this right? What are the arguments for it? To my mind, it’s a very good question which is in the heads of every right-thinking person. You’re such an idealistic idiot that you spit on people’s lives. You’re the perfect example of fascism.

wurm: (also responding to previous commenter)

Well turn it off yourself then, and your problem will be solved.

olgino_1180:

Shut down the channel on cable TV and call on advertisers to refuse to advertise on Dozhd. We need to start a boycott campaign against companies, products and services using advertising time on Dozhd.

nasralla:

It’d be interesting to perform a rigorous investigation into who finances this “Dozhd”.

mongol89:

Dozhd has long been a lost cause. This is long overdue, I support it fully.

[Note: the commenter deliberately misspells the name of the channel in a way that makes it look like the Russian word for “lie”]

aug:

What’s the problem with this poll, could someone tell me? Or are we not allowed to have our own opinions? If I think that we should have surrendered as many as 10 towns in order to save the lives of a million people, is there something wrong with me?

mongol89: (responding to above)

I understand your opinion. But Hitler’s opinion in terms of Leningrad was “This town needs to be wiped off the face of the earth so there are no memories of it.” That’s what Hitler said even before the siege began. Questions?

aug: (responding to above)

I’d prefer to wipe out the memories of all Russian cities, or any other country, in order to stop these million people dying horrible, scary deaths. Questions?

kom01:

I hope that Yuri Pripachkin becomes a worthy MP for the United Russia party soon.

paveleo:

“Should Leningrad have been surrendered to save hundreds of thousands of lives?” So? I don’t understand. I would have said yes (to save lives). What’s the problem with that?

podvypodvert:

Arrogance, unscrupulousness, cynicism…

fresh_breeze:

To turn it off or not is far from the most important question. But we need to make it so they filter what they broadcast.

racist:

Dozhd haven’t been filtering what they broadcast for a long time.

yuna_lena:

What toska… Nothing ever changes in this godforsaken country…

a_koluchi:

What else is there to watch if they shut down Dozhd? They won’t shut it down… it’s just a cunning advert for Dozhd.