Category Archives: Censorship

In the run-up to Novembersmidterm elections, Twitter is priming itself to go on a censoring spree in the name of fighting misinformation.

What could possibly go wrong?

The social media platform made the announcement Thursday that it was activating enforcement of our Civic Integrity Policy for the 2022 U.S. midterms.

The tech giant said it would institute so-called prebunks, information designed to counter misleading narratives, on top of putting its finger on the scale to prevent tweets containing misinformation from reaching users through notifications.

Twitter plays a critical role in empowering democratic conversations, facilitating meaningful political debate, and providing information on civic participationnot only in the U.S., but around the world, the company concluded. People deserve to trust the election conversations and content they encounter on Twitter.

This new policy is ripe for abuse. Twitter has proven time and again it cannot be trusted to serve as a neutral judge of what is or isnt misinformation.

The most obvious example of this failure to act neutrally is the botched handling of the Hunter Biden laptop case.

Twitter was perfectly comfortable prebunking the story before the 2020 presidential election. It aggressively blocked the New York Post story reporting on Hunterslaptop and prevented anyone from linking to it on the site.

That decision may very well have altered the results of the election.

Per The Washington Times:

Trump pollster John McLaughlin found that 4.6% of Biden voters would have changed their minds if they had known about [the Hunter Biden laptop], easily enough to flip results in key states. Another survey by The Polling Company showed that even more Biden voters in seven swing states 17% would have switched their votes if they had been aware of the laptop and other stories.

Not content to indirectly impact the results of an election, Twitter literally takes its marching orders from Democrats.

Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter who was smeared as a COVID-19 conspiracy theorist, obtained documents revealing the White House demanded the site ban him.

Berenson said on his Substack that according to internal Slack conversations between Twitter employees, Andrew Slavitt, a senior member ofBidens COVID-19 response team, had mentioned Berenson specifically as a source of COVID-19 misinformation and encouraged the platform to ban him.

The Daily Signal reached out to Twitter for comment but did not receive a response.

On top of colluding with the Democrats to eliminate their opposition online, Twitter has permitted blatant lies surrounding elections to stay posted, so long as they benefit the Democrat Party.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted in May 2017 following President Donald Trumps election victory that our election was hijacked, while in April 2020, future White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted about how Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp stole the election from Stacy Abrams.

Isnt that misinformation?

Despite both tweets being blatantly false and calling into question the integrity of legitimate elections, Twitter has allowed the tweets to stay up with no markings or warnings.

And were supposed to trust it can be neutral for the midterms?

Heritage Foundation policy analyst Will Thibeau sees the extreme danger in allowing Twitter to unilaterally act as unelected and unreliable arbiters of truth.

While the meat of Twitters announcement details efforts to protect against deception about election results, times, and locations, the platform gives themselves broad leeway to protect against misleading information about the procedures or circumstances around participation in a civic process, he told The Daily Signal. What political conversation on Twitter wouldnt fall under this scope in an election year?

He continued:

In 2021, the Media Research Center found Twitter censors Republican Members of Congress 53 times for every instance of censorship applied to a Democrat Representative. By wrapping their effort to censor information in an announcement on the civic process, Twitter is, once again, laying the groundwork to de-platform voices who dont align with the political ideology of Silicon Valley.

The Daily Signal is the media arm of The Heritage Foundation.

Its clear that Twitter cant be trusted to fairly and neutrally judge what is considered misinformation. It has proven time and again that all it cares about is promoting the radical lefts policies and political goals.

Now, more than ever, there must be reforms to how Big Tech platforms like Twitter are allowed to operate.

Twitter claims it wants to ensure fair elections take place around the world.

Then it should open source its algorithms to ensure people know exactly whats going on behind the scenes, as well as provide details into its content moderations and decisions.

How better to ensure that everything is fair if people know they wont be censored for political speech that offends the sensibilities of coastalelites?

If Twitter wants to be viewed as a reputable source of information, it needs to prove to the American people it deserves that trust.

Its previous behavior should make everyone suspicious.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Twitter Vows to Fight 'Election Misinformation.' More Censorship Incoming. - Daily Signal

After being smeared by Big Tech censorship partner The Dispatch as a frequent purveyor of bad information for calling out the Pfizer CEO for not being fully vaccinated last year, Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson was exonerated by an admission in the CEOs own book but not before being deplatformed by Twitter.

Robinson published an article on her Substack on Monday morning triumphantly declaring, I Was Right About The Pfizer CEO! after journalist Jordan Schachtel noted that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla admitted to canceling his March 2021 trip to Israel because he had not yet received his second Covid-19 jab.

In his book Moonshot: Inside Pfizers Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible, published in March of 2022, Bourla confirmed that he declined to advise researchers in Israel in early March of 2021 because he was not in compliance with the countrys two-jab requirement.

Getting vaccinated had created a crisis of confidence for me, Bourla wrote. I chose to wait until my vaccination might be used to encourage those with vaccine hesitancy later on.

Shortly after that cancellation, Bourla received his second jab.

In August of 2021, Robinson tweeted a link to a report explaining why Bourlas plans changed. Robinson emphasized that, out of all people, it was the Pfizer head who was not fully vaccinated.

But at the time of Robinsons tweet, Big Tech censors and their partners jumped at the opportunity to take down someone who regularly questioned the Covid-19 shot. Twitter added a context warning to Robinsons tweet, and The Dispatch published a false article attempting to refute the reporter.

In the fake fact check, Dispatch fact-check editor Alec Dent shamed Robinson for sharing that Bourla has not been vaccinated against coronavirus months after the trip was canceled. He lamented that the misleading tweet went viral.

A Newsmax correspondent tweeted a story about Albert Bourla without noting it was from March, the subheadline of the article states.

Dent cited a statement from Steven Danehy, director of media relations at Pfizer, who denied that Bourla was not fully vaccinated as proof that Robinson was lying to thousands of people on Twitter.

That is categorically false. Dr. Bourla has been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Danehy said in a statement.

Dispatch editor and CEO Stephen Hayes amplified Dents article and noted that Robinson is a frequent purveyor of bad information.

[She] tweeted yesterday that the CEO of Pfizer had to cancel a planned trip to Israel because he was not fully vaccinated, Hayes wrote. The Pfizer CEO was fully vaccinated in March.

But even though Robinsons tweet didnt occur until months after the canceled trip, Bourlas book confirms she was right: The CEO had to cancel a planned trip to Israel because he was not fully vaccinated. Theres nothing misleading about it. Robinson clearly did not forget how The Dispatch targeted her for reporting the truth and hinted in her recent Substack that she plans to take legal action.

Did The Dispatch receive any funding from Big Pharma or its affiliates? Or from the federal governments HHS to push the COVID vaccines? My attorneys will be asking them such questions very soon, Robinson warned.

The Dispatch has a longstanding partnership with Big Tech to suppress and censor conservative voices. During the 2020 election cycle, The Dispatch colluded with Facebook to block two advertisements from the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, which detailed then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harriss support of abortion on demand up until the moment of birth. The Dispatch rated the ads partly false because they said Biden has not explicitly stated that he supports late-term abortions, even though he has repeatedly said he wants no restrictions on a womans right to choose.

After The Federalist published an article detailing the censorship, the Dispatch claimed that even though its main Twitter account retweeted the article, it was accidentally published in draft form by the editorial staff.

The fact-check was published in error and in draft form, before it had been through final edits and our own internal fact-checking process, Hayes wrote. As a result, the viral post was assigned a partly false rating that we have determined is not justified after completing The Dispatch fact-checking process.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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The Dispatch Smeared Reporter Who Called Out Not-Fully-Vaxed Pfizer CEO - The Federalist

NEW YORK The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) released the following statement in response to todays horrific attack on Salman Rushdie, a brave defender of free speech. The NCAC is an alliance of 59 national nonprofit organizations that is committed to the non-partisan defense of free expression.

Todays horrific attack on author Salman Rushdie during a public lecture at the Chautauqua Institution is deeply disturbing. Although the motive for the assault remains unknown, it inevitably raises the suspicion that it was an attempt to punish Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses, which the Ayatollah Khomeini condemned as a blasphemy of the Muslim religion in 1989. Khomeini issued a fatwa that called on Muslims to kill Rushdie, who was forced into hiding. He spent almost a decade under police protection.

Mr. Rushdie has bravely defended freedom of expression throughout his career, determined not to be silenced by fear and encouraging others to speak out. An established advocate for writers protections, Mr. Rushdie is founding president of the International Parliament of Writers (which has since evolved into the International Cities of Refuge Network), which offers resources and shelter to artists and writers at risk of persecution. At the time of the attack, Mr. Rushdie was participating in a public discussion on the role of the United States as a refuge for artists and writers in exile.

Mr. Rushdies famous refrain, What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. underscores the key democratic tenets-the right to disseminate and access ideas, the right to public debate, and, crucially, the right to disagreewhether it be with fellow civilians, institutions, or governments.

We hope for his speedy recovery.

About National Coalition Against CensorshipSince its inception in 1974, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has functioned as a first responder in protecting freedom of expression, a fundamental human right and a keystone of democracy. Representing 59 trusted education, publishing, and arts organizations, NCAC encourages and facilitates dialogue between diverse voices and perspectives, including those that have historically been silenced.

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National Coalition Against Censorship Deplores Assault on Rushdie - Blogging Censorship

Charita Goshay wrote one of her usual insightful articles in The Repository on July 24about the proposed "divisive subjects bill" ("Ohios divisive subjects bill a dangerous drift toward censorship"). She outlined rightful concerns that the bill would stifle the horrid parts of our history and would lead to censorship.

Based on the framework she detailed in her article, I don't see incompatibility between teaching history and eliminating hate in the curriculum. The history of slavery should be taught. Part of that lesson would be the justification used by slaveholders to practice slavery. The only reason for exposure to that rationale for slavery would be to expose how terribly wrong it was, not to defend it. End of the history lesson.

If the curriculum were then to go on to promote the idea that because some whites owned slaves all white people are oppressors, that would be prohibited, according to Charita's outline. It should be prohibited as being terribly wrong and terribly divisive.

As for censorship, it's here. Many news media and social media outlets already filter, slant, or ignore items they don't wish to feature. Recently, President Biden wanted to establish the Disinformation Governance Board. It had a narrow purpose, but many things with a narrow, well-intentioned purpose morph into something ghastly. Who knows where that would have gone? Fortunately, the effort has been paused. Censorship has no place here, but it is becoming more commonplace.

Donald J. Groom, Plain Township

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Letter to the editor: Don't filter history or news; that's censorship - Canton Repository

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling for the repeal of the Espionage Act. Greg Nash/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling for the repeal of the Espionage Act.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling for the Espionage Act to be repealed amid a federal investigation into the possible mishandling of government records and classified documents that were found at former President Donald Trump's Florida home.

"The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment," Paul wrote.

The statement comes less than a week after the FBI search at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Investigators took multiple sets of classified documents from the property. The search warrant lists three laws that appear central to the federal investigation, including one that's part of the Espionage Act. So far, neither Trump nor any of his aides have been charged in the investigation.

This would be the first time in U.S. history that a former president has been known to be investigated under the Espionage Act, but it's not the first time the law has been under scrutiny, experts say. Indeed, though Trump has not been charged with any wrongdoing, holding onto classified documents is against the law.

The Espionage Act was passed in 1917, a few months after the U.S. entered World War I. The original law made it illegal for people to obtain or disclose information relating to national defense that could be used to harm the U.S. or benefit another country.

That description has helped prosecute some spies, but increasingly it has been used to threaten or put to trial those who leak sensitive information, Sam Lebovic, a history professor at George Mason University, told NPR.

During the Obama administration, eight people were charged with leaking national security secrets to the media under the Espionage Act more than all the previous administrations combined. At least six more leakers were charged during the Trump administration, according to Lebovic.

Over the years, press freedom advocates have grown concerned that administrations cherry pick what leaked information is deemed a threat to national security.

"Government officials leak classified information to the press all the time. That's how huge amounts of journalism happen," Lebovic said. "Most of it is let go and allowed to happen. Only the instances that really upset the government in power are the ones that are prosecuted."

Heidi Kitrosser, a law professor at Northwestern University, told NPR the danger with the act is that it's too vague and broad.

The law does not explicitly define what "national defense" is or what information could threaten it, she added. Although the U.S. has since created a classification system, there is still a lot of room for interpretation.

More concerning to Kitrosser, the law does not explicitly care about public interest or whether the leaker in question had good motives. That's why a broad spectrum of people can be under threat.

"If the act had a public interest defense, that would give us some kind of focal point around so that we could draw a distinction between somebody leaking information about abuse of a government program to the American media versus someone storing highly classified secrets in a resort hotel," she said.

Yes but it would be difficult for the law to be applied the same way today, Lebovic said.

The anecdote referred by Paul has to do with an early section of the law that targeted people who spoke out against the war.

Roughly 1,000 people were jailed for criticizing World War I but that effort drew intense criticism, according to Lebovic. In 1920, lawmakers repealed the harshest censorship sections of the law. Over the coming decades, the rise of the First Amendment movement also helped protect dissident speech.

That being said, Lebovic said the Espionage Act still raises some concerns about censorship and dissent.

"There's been a shift in the way censorship works, that the government no longer censors expression or opinion or speech. It now censors information," he said.

Excerpt from:
Why Rand Paul wants the Espionage Act to be repealed - NPR

How should God be represented? How about the word of God? Without these two fundamental questions, neither religion nor literature would have come into being.

The study of literature and language is the secular version of the classic human search for the meaning of the word of God. God is The Great Absent -- some faithful scribe took down Their words atop the Hill, but what do those words really mean? The attempt to read the scriptures gave birth to the field of hermeneutics -- be it the Talmud, Bible, Koran, or the Vedas -- a field that later lent its essential mechanism to secular literary or linguistic study. Dont trust the surface; true meaning is always hidden. Along the centuries, God came to be replaced by the literary Symbol, and trying to make sense of them gave birth to entirely new disciplines. God or author, dead or immortal, earthly or divine?

So much for (wo)mans search for meaning, but do different religions inspire different kinds of narrative representation? In a famous book of literary criticism called Mimesis, Eric Auerbach tells us the difference between what he considers the two fundamental modes of Western narrative realism -- one coming from the Greek epic poet Homer, and the other from the Bible: the former is externalized, sensory, digressive, while the latter is more abstract and obscure, directed towards a single goal. While Homeric epics take erotic delight in the senses and lie and equivocate as they feel, biblical stories claim an absolute, singular Truth. The Bibles claim to truth is not only far more urgent than Homers, Auerbach writes, it is tyrannical -- it excludes all other claims.

The Hindu epics -- and its roster of gods -- resemble the Hellenic pantheon and Homeric narration far more than they resemble the Biblical insistence on Absolute Truth. Both humanise gods as playful, alternatively noble and petty, jealous and generous. Amit Chaudhuri has reminded us of the way the recently deceased Peter Brook, in his dramatised version of The Mahabharata, showed a serious, metaphysical Krishna as a giver of The Bhagavad Gita, consigning the cunning, diplomatic, playful, erotic Krishna to the status of folk aberrations. The moral ambivalence of the latter would have bewildered an Anglo-Protestant audience.

If Catholicism retains sensory, Protestantism is intellectual and abstract. The Abrahamic religion that has the most rigorous dicta about representation is Islam.

**************

Hindus become Islamic in their behaviour when they resent playful representation of their deities. Just the way todays Hindu nationalists become stern Victorian Christians when they try to limit the endless range of human sexuality to the heteronormative. The limits of sensory representation of The Divine is an Abrahamic, particularly Islamic dictum, not one that is Hindu in any way. Any attempts to standardise Hinduism runs counter to its plural, amorphous, and expansive spirit. In the land where versions of Ramayana run from the cheering for a Lanka-burning Hanuman to mourning for the slayed Ravana, nothing is more un-Hindu or un-Indian than the attempt to suppress a hundred -- or 300 -- Ramayanas.

But given the Abrahamic insistence on epistemological rigour and the Islamic strictures about representation, Muslims are within their right to resent divergent representations. Bringing these Abrahamic strictures to the representation of Hindu gods is to fundamentally misrepresent Hinduism itself.

Would Kali come to exist but for this mythical and regional plurality? It is not enough to be a Hindu to get her. One has to be a Bengali -- and who better than an outspoken female political leader? Does Kali eat meat, consume alcohol? Growing up Hindu Bengali in Calcutta, Ive never seen her otherwise. Shes married to a guy who meditates with marijuana in crematoriums. She drinks blood, for Shivas sake.

Probably the greatest Kali devotee in the modern Bengali memory is Shree Ramkrishna Paramhansa, the guru of Swami Vivekananda. Anyone who knows anything about Ramkrishnas ways of Kali worship know the richly ambivalent, even polyamorous relationship he practised with the goddess -- imagining her as mother, lover, daughter. Their play of love, hurt, devotion and anger was as deeply sensory as it was spiritual. In the intricate nature of his living relationship with Kali, he is one of Bengals great Bhakti poets -- as evinced by the earthy poetry of his gospel -- the Kathamrita. Ramkrishna ate fish, fowl, and mammal with great relish, and so do the monks of the order established by his followers, the Ramkrishna Mission. I spent six years in an elite boarding school run by the order in Narendrapur outside Calcutta, and every week, we eagerly looked forward to the chicken curry served to us, the teachers, and the monks for dinner on Fridays.

The great tradition of Bengali theatre in 19th century Calcutta would have been nothing without one of Ramkrishnas greatest devotees, Girish Ghosh, also a great alcoholic. Ramkrishna never asked Ghosh to give up drinking (though Ghoshs doctors certainly did). The mystic somehow came to acknowledge an inevitable relationship between Ghoshs literary creativity and his dependence on alcohol. Ramkrishnas moral attitude to alcoholism, a socially and politically sensitive subject for the bhadralok Bengali, however, was drawn from the culture of Kali-worship, where alcohol and other substances often played defining roles. Take Kalis name before you drink, Ramkrishna told Ghosh, the alcohol will become karon-bari, naming the divine, tantric elixir. A simple and chaste man with childlike excitement about the simplest pleasures of life, Ramkrishna did not smoke or drink himself. But it is well-known that his famous disciple, Vivekananda, loved his hookah. It is the unconscious reluctance to share his hookah with a person of unknown caste that got his great social conscience going, eventually making him one of modern Indias greatest champions of caste equality, a fact conveniently forgotten by many who seek to reclaim a model of militant Hindu masculinity through the Bengali monk.

All of these eddies create the spiritual culture through which a regional Hindu goddess such as Kali must be understood. Shakti, indeed, takes on myriad and bewildering forms.

People protesting the eclectic representation of Hindu deities are bringing the rigour of Islam into the playfulness of Hinduism. But they dont know that, do they?

Saikat Majumdars books include The Scent of God, The Firebird, and The Middle Finger. @_saikatmajumdar. The views expressed in the article are personal.

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Essay: Hindu nationalisms censorship of the gods - Hindustan Times

by DAVID KEATING

Assaults on the culture of free speech grow by the day. Unfortunately, much of the assault is coming from the major social media platforms.

The power of our democracy and the genius of our First Amendment is our recognition that no single authority can dictate what is true. We work out our disagreements through speech, publishing, and organizing into groups.

For centuries, reaching others with our views was difficult work, and in many respects it still is. But thanks to social media, most Americans can publish anything and theoretically reach millions of fellow citizens and even much of the world.

As noted by the U.S. Supreme Court, social media platforms for many are the principal sources for speaking and listening in the modern public square, where Americans share vital information and express their opinions.

Social media allowed more Americans to engage in public speech than ever before, but like past revolutions in communications technology, it also triggered a backlash. Politicians, media outlets, or activists increasingly pressure companies to censor speech they deem false or misleading, or simply oppose. Lately, much of this speech concerns issues related to elections and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Certainly, you can find false claims about both topics online (and off) with ease. Yet the platforms judgments are far from infallible, and their heavy hand threatens to stifle important debates about unsettled issues. In fact, this has already happened.

Early in the pandemic, Facebook and YouTube censored claims that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated from a lab leak in China, a theory that remains plausible to this day. And, of course, Twitter and Facebook restricted the New York Posts reporting about emails on Hunter Bidens laptop in the leadup to the 2020 election, claiming they were the product of foreign misinformation. After the election, the emails proved to be authentic.

Many Democrats have encouraged this trend towards censorship. Recall that then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki urged faster action against harmful posts and suspension of accounts across all platforms. The Biden Administration created the so-called Disinformation Governance Board before disbanding it in response to public outrage.

Many Republicans say they oppose censorship but want to repeal Section 230, which immunizes social media companies from liability for posts by users. That would likely result in even more censorship from platforms eager to avoid costly litigation. It would also make it effectively impossible for new social media companies to take down the incumbents.

What to do?

Lets stipulate that there are no easy answers. But many of the actions taken now pose real threats to free speech while doing little to stop misinformation and may enable more of it.

Some of the wealthiest corporations in the world operate social media sites, and their mission is to maximize profits. Getting on the wrong side of government officials is bad for business. This creates terrible incentives for the platforms to censor based on the views of the party in power.

Politicians who attempt to influence platforms speech policies are a menace to free speech. Platforms should focus on empowering their users, not their critics or the government, to control what content they see.

The government has a role to play in protecting free speech on the internet. We can create ethics laws and rules preventing government officials from using threats against platforms to get them to censor. And we should consider creating a legal defense against government enforcement actions against social media platforms if the government initiates action based on its interest in retaliating against a platforms refusal to censor or silence itself or its users.

Throughout history, free speech and open debate have been societys best tools for discovering the truth and managing our disagreements.

We also need more information on how the platforms use algorithms to promote and suppress content. Right now, all we get are random information dumps from whistleblowers. If no one knows how social medias black box algorithms are working and failing, how can we come up with sensible government policies?

Ultimately, the solution must come from the platforms themselves. They should return to the more speech-friendly mindset embraced before 2016. Taking on the role of a private sector Ministry of Truth has been a disaster for their reputations with no clear benefit to the public. And it is especially dangerous given the threats wielded by government officials against the platforms.

Throughout history, free speech and open debate have been societys best tools for discovering the truth and managing our disagreements. The technology that we use to express ourselves has changed many times, from the printing press to the telegraph to radio and television and now, to social media. The underlying principles of the First Amendment will always stand the test of time.

David Keating is the president of the Institute for Free Speech in Washington, DC.

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To Protect Free Speech, Social Media Platforms Must Stop their Overreach - The Ripon Society

As an independent news organization dedicated to reporting the truth, The Epoch Times has been subjected to excessive censorship by Big Tech.

In the latest such incident, Twitter on July 28 censored all of our content by putting up a blockade to our website, describing it as unsafe, and encouraging users not to proceed.

Twitters actionsjust like those by other tech giants such as Facebook and YouTubespecifically targeted the reach of our independent news and video content.

Twitter hasnt responded to multiple requests for comment and appeal, nor has the company explained what led it to censor our content or what caused it to lift its blockage two days later, following a public outcry.

The move by the social media giant came less than a week after we published our new documentary The Real Story of January 6 and, on the same day, posted an interview with sex trafficking survivor Eliza Bleu, on our program American Thought Leaders.

While it remains unclear why Twitter targeted us, what is clear is that The Epoch Times is different from most other major news organizations, in that we dare to follow the stories where the facts lead.

In our Jan. 6 documentary, our reporters take an unvarnished look at the events of that day and present new witnesses and evidence that challenge the prevailing narratives. It provides extensive evidence of excessive use of force by police that broke protocol and policy, and raises questions about the lack of security that day. So far, the documentary has received more than a half-million views on our EpochTV platform.

In recent years, there have been other major stories on which The Epoch Times, because of our independence and adherence to traditional journalism, has differed from other major news organizations, only to be proven right.

For example, The Epoch Times reported accurately on events surrounding allegations that then-candidate and later President Donald Trump had colluded with Russia. From day one, The Epoch Times reported on the facts and through our reporting uncovered significant problems with the FBIs probe of Trumps campaign, which included problematic conduct involving surveillance.

While other news organizations won Pulitzers for their articles suggesting collusion between the president and Russia, The Epoch Times was, in fact, correct in reporting that the allegations had no supportas confirmed through investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice inspector general, as well as the ongoing probe of the origins of the FBIs investigation by special counsel John Durham.

The Epoch Times also was among the first to report on the possibility that the novel coronavirus was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Our April 2020 documentary on the subject was censored by Facebook. Today, a lab leak is now held as the most likely explanation for the spread of the virus, by both media organizations and many government officials.

The danger of allowing platforms such as Twitter to take on the role of arbiter of the truth is that they, in many cases, are plainly wrong. The most prominent example was Twitters suppression of the New York Post over its reporting on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

This censorship behavior, which is antithetical to the protections Big Tech receives under Section 230, has also raised concerns about social media platforms censoring content on behalf of the government. Most recently, a federal judge ordered the government to cooperate in a lawsuit that alleges behind-the-scenes efforts to target the dissemination of information of stories related to COVID-19including its possible origins and alternative treatmentsthat didnt fit the governments narrative.

Government cant outsource its censorship to Big Tech, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said.

The public outcry against Twitters censorship of The Epoch Times was swift, with three U.S. senators publicly questioning the social media platformwhich in recent years has repeatedly found itself in hot water for acts of censorshipover its targeting of the news organization.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) demanded that Twitter explain itself for this outrageous act of censorship.

Meanwhile, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) asked, Wheres the respect for free speech and freedom of press, Twitter?

We all remember your biased censorship of [the New York Post] and how that ended for you, he said.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) described the action by Twitter as alarming.

Twitter is censoring [The Epoch Times] under the guise of unsafe speech. Remember what happened the last time corporate media and big tech tried to censor my investigation on Hunter Biden corruption? he wrote. The truth always prevails.

Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, described Twitters action as an outrageous act of censorship.

Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya called out Twitters suppression, writing: It is perfectly safe to click through to the [Epoch Times] site in the quote tweet. For some reason, Twitter decided that today was a good day to suppress access to Epoch Times.

Sex trafficking survivor Bleu, who was among the first to notice the censorship by Twitter because of its blockage of her interview withtheEpochTV program American Thought Leaders, posted a video condemning the platforms actions that went viral.

It also created a stir among Twitter users, with many condemning the platforms actions.

The Epoch Times wants to thank everyone who spoke out against this latest instance of censorship.

We will keep reporting the only way we know how, rooted in our tagline Truth & Tradition, without favor or fear. The fight for truth is one that has no shore and that is as old as the ages. We believe that only with brave individuals going the distance and striving to record the truth of what happens can the world have an accurate picture of events and history.

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Condemning Twitter's Censorship and Thanking Our Supporters - The Epoch Times

Hulu caves to political pressure on ads. Hulu will now accept ads from Democratic groups criticizing Republican stances on abortion and guns. Previously, the Disney-owned streaming service rejected these political adsprompting fierce outcry from groups including the Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

The groups ridiculously accused the streaming service of "censorship" for rejecting their political ads, even though Hulua private companyis under no obligation to air speech about hot-button political topics. A "person familiar with Hulu's policies" told The Washington Post the company avoids ads that take any position on controversial issues.

"Their shady policies amount to outrageous political censorship," the DSCC tweeted. "Americans deserve to know the truth about these issues, and Hulu has no right to block it."

This is exactly wrong, of course. Hulu has a right to block ads from Democrats, Republicans, or any advertiser on whatever topics it chooses. Part of the beauty of the First Amendment is that it protects us from government-compelled speech, too. It's politicians who have no right to force Hulu to run particular ads.

The groups harassing Hulu over its decision are not government bodies or elected officials (rather, they're devoted to getting Democrats elected), so this stops short of being a First Amendment violation. And it's understandable that the groups didn't like Hulu's decision. It would be totally defensible for them to publicly criticize the company, encourage supporters to do the same, or encourage a boycott.

But where things cross the line is their attempt to mislead people into thinking that Hulu "has no right to block" Democrats' political ads.

Aren't Democrats the ones always crowing about how more must be done to stop misinformation on social media? And yet here are some of their biggest groups spreading misinformation in a self-serving manner and encouraging followers to retweet it.

This may have led to a short-term win for them, with Disney announcing that "Hulu will now accept candidate and issue advertisements covering a wide spectrum of policy positions." But it's bad news for free speech and liberal, democratic values more broadly.

Throughout the Trump era and continuing today, Republicans have insisted that search engines, social media companies, and other digital entities must platform their candidates, causes, and pundits, frequently condemning and threatening those that reject conservative content. Throughout this, Democrats often pointed out that these private companies are well within their rights to block user content, ads, and accounts as they see fit.

Democrats rejecting that wisdom just so they can get some midterm ads against Republicans on Hulu seems like a strategy bound to backfire. But alas, neither Democrats nor Republicans seem to have any principles in this realm beyond "digital companies should platform the content we like and not the content we don't like"

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is going after the Miami bar and restaurant R House for allowing minors to eat at the restaurant during drag performances. DeSantis and the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation have filed a complaint against the restaurant, accusing it of disorderly conduct that is "manifestly injurious to the morals or manners of the people." The complaint cites a 1947 Florida Supreme Court ruling saying that "men impersonating women" in "suggestive and indecent" ways was a public nuisance. The state is now seeking to have R House's liquor license revoked, DeSantis said at a press conference.

The state's complaint, obtained by NBC News, goes on to state that a video shared by the Twitter account Libs of TikTok "shows what appears to be a transgender dancer leading a young girl by the hand and walking through Respondent's dining area.The dancer's buttocks were fully exposed, and his 'g-string'-style bikini bottom was stuffed with dollar bills a practice that is commonly known to occur at strip clubs. The dancer's breasts unmistakably female in appearance were also fully exposed except for the nipple and areola, which were covered with adhesive 'pasties.'"

"We are an inclusive establishment and welcome all people to visit our restaurant," said R House in a statement. "We are hopeful that Governor DeSantis, a vociferous supporter and champion of Florida's hospitality industry and small businesses, will see this as what it is, a misunderstanding, and that the matter will be resolved positively and promptly."

This is why we can't have nice things:

You can find the full letter here.

Most Americans think we're in a recession.

"The big question is not whether the U.S. is in a recession. It's whether the economy will soon worsen," writes David Leonhardt at The New York Times.

The RAP Act would restrict the use of musical lyrics and "artistic expression" as criminal evidence.

After Dobbs, Democrats and Republicans are switching places on Section 230.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has now been "holding America back" for two decades, write John Berlau and Josh Rutzick in The Wall Street Journal.

The "the antitrust duel of the summer" doesn't involve tech companies, but a much more traditional industry.

The family of a boy murdered over a water-gun fight is trying to hold TikTok responsible, since water-gun shooting videos have been popular on the app.

The American Data Privacy and Protection Act "mimics some of the worst flaws found in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), while creating new problems that the GDPR had avoided."

"Home distilling, unlike home brewing and winemaking, is still prohibited by federal law," points out Reason's Jacob Sullum.

"55% of America's top startups were founded by immigrants," so why won't Congress let more of them in?

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After 'Censorship' Claims, Hulu Will Air Democrats' Abortion and Gun Ads - Reason

Recently, there has been a drastic increase in outrage against loli and loli-style artworks and characters.

Source: Dead or Alive 6 (2019), Koei Tecmo

RELATED: Square Enix Heavily Censors Sexualized Artwork From Various Series For English Release Of Manga UP! App

Unable to separate the concept of young females drawn with baby-like big eyes, a chubby face and a small build from the real world, critics of the art style and fandom have falsely accused both of promoting sexual violence against real-world minors.

Believing themselves to be performing a societal good, the vocal condemnation campaigns undertaken by opponents have resulted in such outcomes as a Japanese mangaka being harassed, Patreon blanket-purging any art even slightly fitting the styles standard, and a player being banned from a fighting game tournament for liking the genres numerous loli characters.

Source: New Character Demo Diona: Wine Industry Slayer, Genshin Impact YouTube

In light of this ongoing attempt to erase any trace of the loli-style from anime and video games and curious as to how this attitude has affected the actual industry, Bounding Into Comics reached out to an insider for their insights.

Graciously taking time out of their day to speak with us after we reached out, writer, 3D artist, developer of Japanese video games, Haru47 spoke with us about this rising trend and what it means for the future of Japanese media in the West.

Source: Miss Kobayashis Dragon Maid S Episode 10 Troupe Dragon, On Stage! (They Had A Troupe Name, Huh) (2017), Kyoto Animation

RELATED: Patreon Begins To Purge Fan Art Of Characters Below A Certain Height And Bust Size

Nerdigans Inc.: What anime and what video game kicked off the rise in loli censorship?

Haru47: I think the anime that started everything was Kodomo no Jikan, the controversial anime about a loli falling in love with her teacher. Ive seen a lot of anti-lolicons bring this anime as an example.

Source: Kodomo no Jikan Episode 1 A Friendly Step (2007), Studio Barcelona

As for games it was the Nekopara series or any ero loli visual novels. I think also the Senran Kagura series, considering a lot of people were celebrating the censorship it received by Sony.

Source: Senran Kagura: Estival Versus (2015), Marvelous Inc.

Nerdigans Inc.: When would you say this sudden shift in loli erasure begin?

Haru47: I personally felt it began in mid-2016. I know its probably a longer debacle, but from personal experience, mid-2016 was when anime was becoming more mainstream.

All these Normies are just watching the seasonal shows without even bothering to investigate the tropes of the media they consume.

Source: The Saga of Tanya the Evil Episode 10 Path to Victory (2017), NUT

Nerdigans Inc.: Would you say it was around the same time in video games?

Haru47: Actually, yes at least for Sonys part, since in 2016 is when they started with their censorship policy over the #MeToo movement.

Source: BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma (2012), Arc System Works

RELATED: Study Finds Video Games With Sexualized Content Do Not Cause Misogynistic Attitudes Or Body Image Issues

Kind of ironic they are now facing a gender discrimination lawsuit and one of their VPs got fired for trying to hook up with a minor, but loli bad according to Sony.

(One of the games referred to by Haru47 is Star Ocean 5: Integrity & Faithlessness. At the start of the MeToo era, Square Enix increased the size of Mikis panties in the overseas release of the series fifth installment due to the Western accusations that it oversexualized its underage characters.)

Source: Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness (2016), Square Enix

Nerdigans Inc.: Why in particular is there such a prejudice against lolis? Why cant the loli critics seem to comprehend that the illustrations they are fighting to protect are not real children (and that some lolis are adults)?

Haru47: Projection. And I wish I was making this up, but most of the time most of these people are guilty of the same thing they accuse everyone of.

Source: Granblue Fantasy: Versus Cagliostro DLC Character Trailer | PS4, PlayStation YouTube

As for the drawing part, they insist its illegal, but the part they missed is that its actually pornographic drawings of IRL children that are illegal, while loli is not because its based on fictional characters. This was the main reason why Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, reported lolicon content on the site to the FBI, only for the agency to label his reports as a waste of time.

Source: Hello, Goodbye (2019), NekoNyan Ltd.

RELATED: To Heart 2 Spin-Off Dungeon Travelers 2 Denied Release On Steam

Nerdigans Inc.: I recently spoke to a professional translator regarding the state of the English localization industry and he revealed that the stranglehold a certain group of English localizers had on the video game industry was worse than it was for anime and manga. Are they involved with the western coordinators on the escalated censorship on loli content?

Haru47: Yes, I believe so, considering that localizers were always complaining on social media about tropes they hate and have actually lied and said the word lolicon translates to pedophile in Japanese. In reality, the Japanese use another word called shouniseai or jidouseai.'

Source: Seton Academy: Join the Pack! Episode 12 The Animal Students I Know (2020), Studio Gokumi

Nerdigans Inc: By now, video game publishers like Sony should have realized that lolicons are a fierce community who are loyal to their loli waifus. Why would the publishers ignore that money in favor of an audience that are more-than-likely not going to play their games?

Haru47: Now, thats the funny part. People want to erase any skimpily-dressed female character, but are ok with sexualizing male characters.

Source: Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (2003), Nippon Ichi Software

One of my favorite examples of this hypocrisy is from YouTuber Noralites. She made a long video complaining about loli characters by using the term minor coded just for people to find that she made a video lusting over Hanako-kun a Shota character and her art page was full of explicit yaoi content of underaged characters.

Source: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun Chapter 87 (2022), Square Enix. Color Spread by AidaIro.

RELATED: Climax Of Night Tournament Bans Player Who Shared Meme In Appreciation Of Loli Fighting Game Characters

Nerdigans Inc.: What are your thoughts on the Climax of Night loli ban scandal?

Haru47: I think it was a really stupid ban. Imagine getting banned over meme that says you like lolis.

The organizers of the event started calling the devs of Melty Blood pedos while still using their product for their own monetary gain. Weve come to the point you cant express yourself if you like a certain character trope because higher ups will throw you under the bus to appeal to a minority of annoying people.

Source: DNF Duel (2022), Arc System Works

RELATED: The House In Fata Morgana Author Pushes Back After Western Localizer Boasts Of Rejecting Inward-Knee Female Character Designs For Being Unnatural

Nerdigans Inc.: What actions can the video game community take to fight back against censorship?

Haru47: As a developer, I say dont buy their censored products. Hit publishers where it hurts them. As a consumer they offered you a product a certain way, just so they later backpedal and expect you to give them money.

Source: Melty Blood: Actress Again: Current Code (2016), French Bread

Nerdigans Inc.: Recently, the manga community has taken their English localization concerns to the Japanese publishers. Should video game fans begin to take a similar approach?

Haru47: Theyve basically been taking the same approach. The thing is whether or not the publishers are willing to listen.

Source: Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax Ignition (2015), French Bread

(Editors Note: Originally, this article and its title referred to @Haru47 as a Japanese video game developer. While this phrasing was meant to describe his role as a developer who works on Japanese game, it unfortunately but understandbly gave some readers the mistaken impression that the developer was a Japanese native.

As such, the text has since been updated to clarify that @Haru47 is a developer of Japanese video games.)

NEXT: Anime Matsuri Teams With Vic Mignogna To Launch New Dubbing Studio, Sparking Outrage From Voice Actors Critics

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Interview: Developer Of Japanese Video Games Discusses The Rise Of Loli Censorship In Anime And Video Games - Bounding Into Comics