- Mr. Dainius Radzevičius, first of all, I would like to congratulate you on your new position as the Media Ombudsman in Lithuania. You have held several important positions over the years. With your extensive experience in both leadership roles and academic activity, how would you define the role of free media in the democratization of societies?

- I can bring an example of my country of Lithuania, which is the most important part. Even during Soviet occupation in Lithuania, we had independent underground media all the time during the Soviet system, which used a propaganda machine with official media. But in Lithuania, we published many newspapers in the Lithuanian language, providing people with alternative information, critical voices about occupation, the Soviet system and so on. And based on that, as you know, Lithuania was the first country which left the Soviet Union and independent critical media, so-called pluralistic media, was different - even official state-owned broadcasters had journalists who criticized more than in most Soviet countries some problems and challenges in the country. That's why, I would say, even for bringing independence and democratic system for the country, the media is more important than the constitution or all the regular regulations and systems. Because independent pluralistic media is part of communication between people and for people and about people. That's why this is a key role, actually. This is even more important, as I mentioned, the most important of human rights issues is the media. That's why in 1996, for example, in my country, with the adoption of the new media law and also the new law on public broadcast activities, Lithuania decided that it is not allowed for any governmental or municipal institution to own media. In 1996, a law was adopted about a system with two types of media, a public broadcaster and private media only.

The state even decided to bring the news agency, which was owned by the state, into the process of privatization. And all media workers, including journalists, any persons in media, not only journalists, actually, all the workers of media, they immediately started to be owners of media. Because of that, we have in my country, but not only in my country, in most countries, we have these two types of media. At least public media, with support of the state, usually, with different systems, which brings some guarantees about pluralism and different voices. And the rest is like private media. I would say from my perspective, it is one of the best, or maybe even the best system in the world, even in small countries, even in countries which do not have very high competition, but they bring different media types for different audiences, for different needs. And that's about democracy, different voices, different pluralistic media, different types. That's a democracy. It is crucial.

- After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, considering the rise of Russian propaganda, fake news and disinformation, Lithuania banned several pro-Russian TV channels. How effective has this step been in protecting Lithuania's information space from Russian propaganda, and what challenges still remain?

- Officially in Lithuania, not only Lithuania, but in Lithuania it was very clear all the time that the invasion of Russia started in 2014. This official position of my country and a country like Ukraine was a reason why - me, for example, I was part of Commission of Radio and Television, which are regulatory body of radio and television - I remember when we decided to investigate cases about spreading war propaganda based on hatreds, hate speech, including different nations like Russians, Ukrainian people and so on, with fake stories and everything.

Because you know, they are different, in types of media, country of residence and country of destination. Country of residence, is when you are based in this country. But in my case, in the Lithuanian case, we had a lot of channels, which had different regulations. They are based somewhere in European Union countries, in Russia, but also in Sweden, in the UK, for example, “Ofcom” licenses, France. But they provide information mostly in Russian language, also English language, German language, spreading information for the audience in Lithuania.

And based on that, after investigations and searches, we decided that a few programs like one of the so-called famous propagandists, Mr. Solovyov, and also some more guys, I will not provide the advertisement for them, but you know, Kiselev, Solovyov. First programs were investigated as hate speech and hatred-provided programs with propaganda of war. We decided with legal process, with the court system and everything to inform these channels that they break our law. We had some negotiations. They still provided disinformation based on so-called freedom of speech values. We asked them, “It is normal in your country, for example, in Russia, to provide the same information, for example, please kill the Russians. Would it be okay for you?” They said “No”. We said, “Why does your country provide information in our countries?” And we announced a legal decision that these programs cannot be transmitted to our country.

This was a challenge for IPTV channels, but also so-called cable TV, because they cannot be interrupted in the programs. Usually, we have the whole channel. But we decided because only these programs included hate speech, according to our decision, we cannot and we don't like to ban all channels. Please exclude these programs only. And most channels decided that they cannot cut the program according to the licenses and everything, and they excluded all the programs. Officially, most of the platforms, OSCE platforms, I heard many times that Lithuania is banning channels. We didn't ban channels, we banned programs which provided hate speech, which is less restrictive than the channel, but all channels were excluded by providers of information and so on.

I would say the best effect of that is this message for society. That, some kind of programs, it is like poison for you, for your friends. Because it is based on specific, negative impact, hate speech and hatred. And even communication on that, an explanation for society, why so bad? We had data that then in programs of these channels, this propaganda, these fake stories - guys are lying with some, for example, “kids were crucified in Eastern Ukraine”, which was a fake story, actually, after such fake stories, in my society, more and more people started to hate Russians.

Because if Russian-speaking media and the Russian so-called journalists propagandists in Russian language, like Russian people providing fake stories based on hate speech, Russians who are living in Lithuania, they are outside this business actually, but just because they are also Russians, they got some negative impact. And that's why it was not to protect Ukrainian people, but to protect the Russian people from Russian propaganda. Because Russian propaganda and hate speech brings more negative emotions against Russians. Like nowadays we have in many countries, it's very toxic to be Russian, with a Russian passport, and even to speak in Russian language is so bad.

Some people who went to different European countries, being not Russians, but speaking Russian language, sometimes they hear something like “Putin - khuylo!” and so on. Because if people hear the Russian language, they mean you are Russian and maybe you come from Russia. And this effect in Lithuania, we already in 2015, we faced in my country, that official Russian state-owned propaganda is affecting people with very bad emotions against Russians even.

You asked me about 2022. In 2022, most European countries did the same, which was already done by us in Lithuania many years ago. But this affected very good because it's not about restrictions, not about banning. Because many people have alternatives, they have VPNs, you know, satellite TV. It's not about access to such kind of information, but knowing that this is poisoned content. This is even more important for people who are saying this is just another opinion.

They know it is not opinion; this is fake, which is based on hate speech. And this is an official decision made by experts, by the community, by people. Because in our decision-making, we use independent experts. Usually, two experts, who, during linguistic and visual research, bring a detailed explanation of why such a kind of, for example, reportage for a program brings hate speech and hatred effect to the public sphere. This is not just noting: no, no, no, no.

We need to go through a process in democratic countries to explain and to prove a few times, is it just an opinion or this is already something breaking the law?

- One of the main priorities of the office is the monitoring and analysis of the public information in Lithuania. How do you verify violation reports received from citizens, especially from the NGOs and initiative groups engaged in media monitoring? And if such cases, reports are confirmed, what actions are taken?

- It depends. Because we are dealing with disinformation, hate speech, hatred, also information that has a negative impact on minors, but also GDPR issues, private information. I mean, we have a lot of human rights issues related to the media. Also, insulting of reputation and privacy, as already mentioned. Depending on this, we have different decisions.

In practical life, we have many, many, most of complaints, which have no real ground about it. I mean, people are complaining because they are unhappy with some kind of negative information, but this is not breaking the law, actually. I mean, this is a question of, I don't like this kind of information. And that's why we need to explain for people, maybe it sounds bad for you, maybe some words are not good for your ears. Criticising someone with very critical words and something like that. But this is not breaking the law. And we explain for people, look, this is a question maybe of ethical issues a little bit, or culture, or morality, but it is not against freedom of speech. That's why this is okay.

But in some situations, usually we are bringing decisions to people and to NGOs, saying that, okay, this is a problem for some human rights and everything. We usually, during the process, inform media channels, social networks, platforms, and so on. If they break a law, and there are arguments for this decision, usually it depends on the kind of information. Sometimes it is private, for example, information, they put it out. Sometimes they just change some definitions, some issues or change some kind of content, which bring some negative impact for people, according to the law.

We can also bring some orders to the court if the media are breaking like really a lot of things, even maybe to close the media. But the decision, I think, is only in the courts in Lithuania. My institution can bring a decision that this is breaking a law, some evidence, and we can go directly to the court.

In some cases, we are banning websites. In Lithuania, we have some cases I will share with you. You can open it with VPN, for sure, but in Lithuania, officially, you cannot open such kinds of websites, which bring hate speech, hatred, and disinformation, officially. But you can open it freely with VPN, people do if they like. But if you would just put a website from a Lithuanian official, I don't know, web browser and everything, you will go directly to the website of my institution with a disclaimer that this site is banned from Lithuania because they are breaking the law.

In some cases, depending, for example, on GDPR issues - like we are also using this for disinformation - we can bring some sanctions, but not directly by our institution. Usually, we bring to the prosecutor's office, for example, this kind of information, and then police officers and prosecutor's offices, usually, they complain to us. They are sending that complaint. If they have complaints about pornography issues or disinformation cases, based on our expertise, they can even go to criminal procedure issues. But this is very few, actually, cases. In most cases, we don't have really big issues about it. I mean, it is more of an exception than the rule, what we have here.

- As we are discussing the violations of mass media, relevant institutions and organizations play a critical role in media monitoring and imposing penalties in case that kind of violations are detected. But today, social media also plays a critical role, especially in disseminating fake news and hate speech. So, we also saw the rise of gender-based hate speech, especially in media and social platforms, especially targeting female journalists, politicians, and activists.  What strategies does the office have to combat gender-based hate speech and discriminatory narratives in both traditional and social media?

- Let's talk about platforms, because all the media nowadays is more or less traditional already. Because for some people, Facebook is like the traditional media, more traditional than print media, actually, because print media is old-fashioned for them.

Maybe you know it. In Lithuania, we have two institutions which are officially dealing with, for example, TikTok, Facebook platforms, and we can report them. We have persons, for example, in my office who can officially, with specific channels, communicate with them about excluding some kind of content, which violates human rights, including disinformation, deepfakes, and so on, which are quite complicated issues on one hand, because we have a local legislation system, but we also have European Union legislation, the DSA Act, the Digital Services Act. And that's why we are using different actions, actually. Sometimes, we are reporting these platforms, and they exclude some content. Sometimes, we are using some more detailed action plans, including some institutions with cooperation with them.

I would say the main challenge in this case is only one. According to European Union legislation, most of the relation of human rights issues are more or less a question more related to the country of residence. In the case of Google and Facebook, it is Ireland. We are dealing with this country's regulatory body. We have a Lithuanian regulatory body, and we are using, let's say, European Union structures and local structures to communicate about violation of human rights, and making decisions depends on concrete situations or systematic violations and scams and everything.

We have different challenges in “breaking the law” situations. But if you mention some people, for example, who are facing this problem, now we have the challenge that many journalists' faces and voices are used for deepfakes. And we already did a lot of things with media associations and media organizations, how to protect themselves directly. Not just using our institutions, but bringing reports directly from media institutions to Facebook platforms and so on, just to stop spreading this kind of different scams, disinformation cases, hate speech.

Different formats are used in deepfake issues with the voices and faces of journalists, just to bring in more valuable information. That's why, I would say, cooperation with media organizations, on one hand, police officers, another one, and also regulatory bodies and partners dealing directly with media platforms and representatives of platforms with changing algorithms and everything, this is the third part. And also legal systems sometimes also, but generally speaking, this is a cooperation between institutions using legal instruments that are already acknowledged by the European Union and local legislation.

- Sometimes the principle of freedom of expression in the media environment is used as an argument to justify the spread of hate speech, disinformation and discrimination. In such cases, how does the office distinguish between freedom of expression and hate speech discrimination? Also, how do you prevent the abuse of free speech while preserving its essence?

- It is a very good question because in any situation which is discussed or investigated in my office, usually because of local legislation - we have a constitution in Lithuania which is very similar to so-called international human rights standards - we need to evaluate both sides. I mean, any complaint or any investigation about breaking a law or violation of some human rights automatically brings an evaluation with public interest, for example, to get this information, to freedom of speech, to free-accessed information generally about opinions, for example, freedom of opinion. And it is not a very simple answer because in most cases, it is about “how”, but “not about”. I mean, this is like a filtering system.

We have all the topics in our media sphere, and this is no question. We can discuss any of them, very clear message. The second how, this is already our business to investigate here with our experts.

I use some specific tools, words, visualizations which break a law because of insulting some specific groups or people or bringing some systematic hate speech or hatred, to effects and everything. And this is usually a case which needs more than one evidence somehow or arguments, more than one argument. This is not just, you know, wow, wow, wow, this is a bad thing. No, no, no. You need to bring a lot of arguments, bias in the context of freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of the media, free-accessed information. And this is not easy actually for most of my colleagues, because if they find that public issues in most cases, even if it is quite complicated, let's say opinion, but if they don't clearly break a law, you would protect freedom of speech actually. Because, as I said, it is freedom to speak about everything. Sometimes people say this is a problem. It would be better for some topics not to discuss publicly at all, but that's not our case actually.

This is an argument to protect your opinion. I mean, everything is fine. If people speak very critically about something, very negatively about something, and they have this feeling, this is part of freedom of speech and public interest, it is good.

We have a lot of cases in courts, actually. Many, many of our decisions taken in my institution got a lot of complaints, and we have court cases in the first instance, second instance, appeal instance, even in the high courts. That's a normal process in a democracy.

We need to prove first and second and maybe third time, depending on how brave people are to protect themselves. It's okay. It's okay, but it's complicated.

- At times, certain restrictions stemming from journalistic ethics may be perceived as the suppression of freedom of expression. So, how does the office balance between the freedom of expression and the ethical principles?

- That's the best question ever. Long story short, in 1996, for a very short period, the Commission of Ethics of Publishers and Journalists, we have a different name of this institution nowadays, which is Association of Ethics of Provision of Information to Society, including publishers, media, producers, journalists, and even academics in the commission. But already many, many years, it is very clear, restriction. My office deals with human rights issues in the media, but all the questions of ethics and adoption of ethics rules are part of self-regulation. The state is not involved in this process at all.

And the good news is also about cooperation. It is only one thing that candidates to be media ombudsman in my country, Lithuania, are provided by the media self-regulation system. It is approved by parliament, but candidates are selected by media organizations.

It is only one connection between my institution and the Commission of Ethics. We have some activities together about, for example, leads on articles, how it provided sensational news and everything, but it is based on cooperation, discussions, regulation, and self-regulation. Usually medias are trying to bring more self-regulation issues to avoid regulation of the state. And that's good. Long story short, it is based on self-regulation. If we have some complaints about the ethics of journalists, we immediately transmit all these messages to the self-regulation.

- In the end, we have a traditional question. It is about book recommendations. And I would like to ask you this famous question. What book or books would you like to recommend to our audience to read?

- Well, many books, starting with Montesquieu, a classical book about The Spirit of Laws and Regulation. But my favourite books nowadays are about people, about the audience, about humans who are consuming media and speeches. And they are involved in the process of communication. This is “Irrational Ape”.

You can buy this book on Amazon. It provides for my students, which is a very good book for all the people who are dealing with media regulation and self-regulation to understand. But it doesn't matter how you speak sometimes. But most people have personal opinions and contexts. Sometimes, if you provide negative information about people, they can think about these people positively. it's like, example, I mentioned Mr. Trump was criticised by many, many professional media, and that's okay. But some people, they say, “Okay, if the media is criticisingç you are a good guy”. It has a very different effect.

And this book is about “Irrational Ape” as a human nature, that people, they would like to avoid arguments and logic. They have personal opinions about everything, and they don't need arguments in most cases. That's why this book is very good to understand that human nature, so-called human nature, is so strange thing. It is not about regulation. I recommend this book for many people, at least for 10-20 more years, maybe some new books will do something like that. But this book is good advice and a very easy way to understand people and human nature nowadays.

- Thank you so much for this insightful interview and for the book recommendation.

- You are welcome. All the time.

Malak Hajiyeva

29.08.2025