You conflate a number of things here. First of all, Russia Today and Sputnik are no EU citizens or corporations, they are entities of the Russian government. Therefore, they are not protected from being banned or censored in the EU. And for what it's worth, their actual journalists still can work in the EU, and publish their work, just not under the banner of the two banned entities - that's assuming they want to work for the dictatorship, which many seem to not want any more [1].
Second, the "firehose of lies" that Russia Today and Sputnik have used over the last decade to sow distrust into virtually every aspect of our lives is an attack on freedom of expression here. Hard to use your freedom of expression if you end up getting death threats from a bunch of propaganda-brainwashed trolls (see e.g. the recent thread about a German anti-vaxxer, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30288582). Citizens of the UK can't enjoy any EU-guaranteed human rights any more because Russian propaganda and dark money goaded a tiny majority towards Brexit.
Third, Russia is a country that has committed what can be seen as acts of hostility towards the EU. Not just the mentioned propaganda warfare, but also cyberattacks, violations of airspace, or the string of attempted and successful murders of Russian dissidents using highly dangerous radioactive and chemical weapons. The European Union is under no obligation to support any rights of any entity associated to an enemy, an enemy that broke all rules of diplomacy and international law.
You conflate a number of things here. First of all, Russia Today and Sputnik are no EU citizens or corporations, they are entities of the Russian government. Therefore, they are not protected from being banned or censored in the EU. And for what it's worth, their actual journalists still can work in the EU, and publish their work, just not under the banner of the two banned entities - that's assuming they want to work for the dictatorship, which many seem to not want any more [1].
Second, the "firehose of lies" that Russia Today and Sputnik have used over the last decade to sow distrust into virtually every aspect of our lives is an attack on freedom of expression here. Hard to use your freedom of expression if you end up getting death threats from a bunch of propaganda-brainwashed trolls (see e.g. the recent thread about a German anti-vaxxer, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30288582). Citizens of the UK can't enjoy any EU-guaranteed human rights any more because Russian propaganda and dark money goaded a tiny majority towards Brexit.
Third, Russia is a country that has committed what can be seen as acts of hostility towards the EU. Not just the mentioned propaganda warfare, but also cyberattacks, violations of airspace, or the string of attempted and successful murders of Russian dissidents using highly dangerous radioactive and chemical weapons. The European Union is under no obligation to support any rights of any entity associated to an enemy, an enemy that broke all rules of diplomacy and international law.
[1]: https://www.t-online.de/finanzen/unternehmen-verbraucher/id_...