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US live through complete collapse of concept of freedom of speech, says diplomat

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman believes that the US currently undergoes mass rewriting of concepts and distortion of meanings of words

MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/. The freedom of speech and media in its true sense is no longer existent in the US, with the myth that the Americans sustained for many years being now completely busted, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during an online conference Tuesday.

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"One more regrettable trend or rather a fait accompli is the collapse of the myth of the freedom of press, of any regulating norms, rules, principles, proclaimed in the US regarding the freedom of speech, the media and so on. We witnessed the fall of the colossus, the crash of everything that they allegedly built there for many years, and what they proposed to the entire world as an example. All this is not only dysfunctional, it has all simply tumbled down," the diplomat pointed out.

According to her, the Americans will now have to work to once again to retrieve the concept of the freedom of the media and protection of the journalists’ rights.

"At this point, everything there went down so badly that even the very concept of the freedom of media is completely gone, in my opinion," the diplomat said.

She explained that the US currently undergoes mass rewriting of concepts and distortion of meanings of words; expressions are banned that "even yesterday were commonplace and uncontested."

"We see bans on movies, on books, dismantling of monuments that just yesterday were an icon of the US," the spokeswoman said.

According to Zakharova, the US enjoys a colossal influence on the global media, so these negative trends will be felt everywhere. "It is just that this destructive wave has not reached [other countries], but one way or another, the world is yet to experience all this," she concluded.

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