The head of the Public Fund for Support and Development of National Mass Media Komil Allamjonov has condemned attempts to break into Telegram accounts of bloggers in Uzbekistan.
He said these actions could be seen as a direct threat to freedom of speech.
“Yesterday, several bloggers wrote about attempts to hack their Telegram account. It is not clear who did it and for what purpose, but it can be considered as a direct threat to the mass media and bloggers, to freedom of speech,” Allamjonov wrote in his Telegram channel.
The head of the Mass Media Fund stressed that no result can be achieved by trying to “silence” the mass media and the blogger in this way, there is no way to artificially block information in today’s age of technology.
“The best way is to fix the situation by addressing the shortcomings and problems raised by the mass media and bloggers,” Komil Allamjonov said.
He attached a video that detailed his thoughts on the matter.
“Why is there an opinion that the mass media should be silenced or that they should be under control? Because they raise issues among the general public. In our case, instead of solving the problem, we try to silence the voices of those who raised it. But there is a problem anyway, isn’t there?
It is often said: “They exaggerate the problems, they give very little good information.” One thing must be taken into account: the task of the press is mainly to raise issues, to bring out the complaints of the people.
True, it is important for journalists and bloggers to be impartial and ethical. There may be flaws in this, but it’s better to work with it than to try to lower their voice. Because there are problems even if their voice is silenced, reports about these problems come out in one way or another, even anonymously. Telegram now has thousands of different channels. As long as there is a mobile phone, it is impossible to hide information from citizens,” Allamjonov said.
He points out that there is no point in blocking any social network, users will start using it via VPN, as a result, users who install VPN will have access to thousands of banned sites (terrorist, extremist, pornographic, arms trafficking resources).
According to Komil Allamjonov, the state should learn to work properly with the mass media, social networks and bloggers.
“Our laws are so perfect, they have to work. In practice, it is necessary to achieve strict adherence to the ethics of journalism. The most important thing is transparency, and if the issue raised by journalists is addressed immediately, it will have a very simple solution.
Of course, the activities of journalists and bloggers also have enough shortcomings. To express emotions, to take a one-sided approach to the issue or to give false information... But all these are issues that can be solved if they are worked out,” the official said.
It should be noted that for more than a month in Uzbekistan there have been significant problems with access to Facebook. So far, there has been no official comment on the matter from the authorities.
