Nexta

Nexta ( niekh-ta) is a Belarusian media outlet that is primarily distributed through Telegram and YouTube channels. The YouTube channel was founded by then 17-year-old student Stsiapan Putsila. The channel's headquarters are located in Warsaw, Poland, after its founder went into exile. It became the biggest Telegram channel in Belarus as the primary source of news covering events that followed the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests. The Telegram channel mostly featured short videos and images submitted by users taken during the rallies, while longer original videos are shared on YouTube. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nexta became an operational resource reporting on the events of the war. Nexta operates one of the largest Telegram news channels in the Russian-speaking world, with almost one million subscribers. According to a statistic of the media project "Information Policy" from July 2024, NEXTA Live is the second-largest Belarusian YouTube channel by number of views. Nexta faces pressure from Belarusian authorities. Since October 2020, Nexta and its logo are considered extremist content in Belarus. Its founder Stsiapan Putsila and the former editor-in-chief Roman Protasevich were put by Belarusian authorities on a list of "individuals involved in terrorist activity" in November 2020.…

Nexta ( niekh-ta) is a Belarusian media outlet that is primarily distributed through Telegram and YouTube channels. The YouTube channel was founded by then 17-year-old student Stsiapan Putsila. The channel's headquarters are located in Warsaw, Poland, after its founder went into exile. It became the biggest Telegram channel in Belarus as the primary source of news covering events that followed the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests. The Telegram channel mostly featured short videos and images submitted by users taken during the rallies, while longer original videos are shared on YouTube. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nexta became an operational resource reporting on the events of the war. Nexta operates one of the largest Telegram news channels in the Russian-speaking world, with almost one million subscribers. According to a statistic of the media project "Information Policy" from July 2024, NEXTA Live is the second-largest Belarusian YouTube channel by number of views. Nexta faces pressure from Belarusian authorities. Since October 2020, Nexta and its logo are considered extremist content in Belarus. Its founder Stsiapan Putsila and the former editor-in-chief Roman Protasevich were put by Belarusian authorities on a list of "individuals involved in terrorist activity" in November 2020. Amnesty International stated that the classification of the bloggers as terrorists was "arbitrary" and that the Belarusian authorities' decision was based solely on Putsila's and Protasevich's journalism. Since October 2021, NEXTA, NEXTA Live and Luxta are also classified as extremist groups. In April 2022, they were declared a terrorist organization by the Supreme Court of Belarus. ==History== ==== Protasevich arrest==== Tadeusz Giczan became Editor-in-chief after Roman Protasevich shifted to the "Belarus of the Brain" Telegram channel formerly edited by a detained blogger, Ihar Losik. On his way to Vilnius back from vacation in Greece, Roman Protasevich, along with his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, was arrested by Belarusian authorities after his flight, Ryanair Flight 4978, was diverted to Minsk on the orders of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko on 23 May 2021, because of a false bomb threat conveyed by Belarusian air traffic control. In a July 2022 report, the International Civil Aviation Organization condemned the forced landing as "illegal interference" by the Belarusian government in aviation. In June 2021, Protasevich was put under house arrest. On 6 May 2022, his former girlfriend Sapega was sentenced to six years in prison for "inciting social hatred".

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