State control of publications on the Internet in Armenia – JAMnews

State control of publications on the Internet

Armenian Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan suggested that the government introduce state control over information published on the Internet and, if necessary, force the removal of any publications. The Prosecutor General actually made a proposal to introduce censorship in the network. As an example, he referred to the experience of Roskomnadzor.

The initiative of the Prosecutor Generals Office has not yet been formalized in the form of a draft law. But if this regulation is adopted, it will apply not only to the media, but also to users who publish a post on Facebook.

Human rights activists and media experts reacted negatively to the proposal of the Prosecutor General. They warn that if a structure is created to control information on the web, it could become a tool that restricts freedom of speech, a ministry of censorship.

The government has not yet commented on the proposal of the prosecutors office, and there are no comments on the critical remarks made by the experts.

From the message published by the Prosecutor Generals Office, it turns out that Artur Davtyan proposed to the government

At the same time, it is emphasized that control should be combined with a guarantee of the constitutional right to freedom of expression.

The prosecutors office also reports that it has conducted a study in the field of protecting the non-property interests of the state, which showed:

The prosecutors office said that in the absence of such control, information resources continue to freely distribute such content, distorting and abusing the democratic principle of freedom of speech.

The experience of Russia is also cited as an example, where the Prosecutor General or his deputies, in the event that information about suicide methods or drug trafficking is discovered, submit a demand to Roskomnadzor to immediately delete this information and restrict access to the relevant Internet resources.

Armenian experts believe that the goal of the Prosecutor Generals proposal is not to prevent suicide and drug sales among minors, but to control media and social media.

The experts were alarmed not only by the prosecutors proposal itself but also by the reference to the experience of the Russian Roskomnadzor.

In fact, Roskomnadzor has become a body that exercises open censorship in some cases necessary for the state. And the reference to it does not give grounds to think about anything positive, said Shushan Doydoyan, head of the Freedom of Information Center.

According to her, this creates the ground for prompt intervention, so that government agencies, if necessary, can immediately take measures and actions on the Internet. According to her, this is fraught with serious consequences.

Shushan Doydoyan agrees with the presence of numerous problems in the content published on the Internet, but believes that their resolution is not the job of the prosecutors office.

It would be good if the prosecutors office did not take on functions reminiscent of the Russian Roskomnadzor. This is in the interests of everyone, first of all, in the interests of our democracy.

Boris Navasardyan regarded the proposal of the Prosecutor General as an attempt to restrict freedom of speech. He says that the initiative has no serious justification. And the expert does not consider it a coincidence that the statement of the prosecutors office was preceded by high-level Armenian-Russian contacts.

Now, when he leaves his post [the term of office of Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan expires on September 15] and receives a medal, he is doing his duty. At the same time, he will not be obliged to complete this initiative, Boris Navasardyan emphasized.

On April 19, as part of an official visit to Russia, Nikol Pashinyan and Vladimir Putin signed a statement that refers to the use of modern information and communication technologies to commit illegal and harmful actions, interfere in the internal affairs of states and undermine their sovereignty. The document enshrines an agreement to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the field of international information security.

Recently, by decree of the President of Russia, Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan was awarded a medal.

The expert considers the initiative of the prosecutors office a proposal to introduce censorship on the Internet, an attempt to create a ministry of censorship. He says that he does not understand why the structure has only now discovered that there is an Internet where, for example, people can swear or sell drugs.

If we follow the path of Russia, then first the fight against drugs and calls for suicide will be banned on the Internet. And one fine day we will find that the state is engaged in blocking, and, moreover, mainly of posts of a political nature.

In his article published on the Media.am website, Samvel Martirosyan emphasized that it would not be possible to fight drug selling in this way, but it would be possible to block political dissent, closing websites for every unauthorized sneeze.

Under the guise of this fight against windmills, huge amounts of money for Armenia will be written off. Because if you decide to do a quality job, this implies serious costs at the level of the Internet infrastructure. Not to mention the fact that they will feed the hungry army of censors at the expense of the taxes we pay, the expert believes.

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State control of publications on the Internet in Armenia - JAMnews

Abortion ‘censorship zones’ to be trialled in Scotland – The Christian Institute

Nicola Sturgeon has announced that she intends to trial censorship zones around abortion clinics in Scotland.

Speaking at a summit on abortion in Edinburgh, the First Minister backed MSP Gillian Mackays Bill seeking to create 150m buffer zones around hospitals and abortion centres.

In similar zones in other countries, people have been prevented from handing out pro-life literature, offering prayer, and speaking to women about abortion. Sturgeon acknowledged that such a law in Scotland could be subject to legal challenge.

The First Minister admitted she couldnt force councils to trial such measures, but the leader of Glasgow City Council has indicated she wishes to introduce them in the city with Government backing. Edinburgh has also expressed interest in being one of the test councils.

Sturgeon said we live in a democracy and people are free to have different views on abortion, but added that women should not be able to be informed of these views near abortion clinics.

She is opposed by one of her own MSPs, John Mason, who has said he is not convinced there is a problem. Mason pointed out that some women want to know they have a choice not to abort.

He told the BBC that people who say they are being coerced into abortions and are not being given the pros and cons need to be listened to.

Last September, Womens Health Minister Maree Todd told abortion activists that Scotland-wide buffer zones were not on the cards. But earlier this month, Nicola Sturgeon informed Holyrood she now backed legislating for censorship zones.

The summit came days after the US Supreme Court overturned its 1973 ruling on Roe v Wade, returning the law on abortion back to the elected representatives in each of the 50 states. The ruling sparked a furious reaction among pro-abortionists.

A Christian pregnancy centre in Colorado, Life Choices, was set on fire and painted with the words: If abortions arent safe, neither are you.And in Arizona, the police used tear gas on pro-abortion protesters vandalising the states Capitol building.

Breaking: Roe v Wade overturned

Abortions hit another record high in England and Wales

Sturgeon now backing zones to restrict pro-life help

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Abortion 'censorship zones' to be trialled in Scotland - The Christian Institute

Reno v. ACLU Challenge to Censorship Provisions in the …

In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in Reno v. ACLU that the federal Communications Decency Act (CDA) is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. The landmark ruling affirmed the dangers of censoring what one judge called "the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed."

The law, passed in 1996, made it a crime, punishable by up to two years in jail and/or a $250,000 fine, for anyone to engage in online speech that is "indecent" or "patently offensive" if the speech could be viewed by a minor. The ACLU argued that the censorship provisions were unconstitutional because they would criminalize expression protected by the First Amendment and because the terms "indecency" and "patently offensive" are unconstitutionally overbroad and vague.

The government appealed the case to the Supreme Court after a federal three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the law unconstitutionally restricted free speech. A later suit, filed by the American Library Association, was consolidated with Reno v. ACLU in the lower court.

In a landmark 7-2 decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court ruled that the CDA placed an "unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech" that "threaten[ed] to torch a large segment of the Internet community." The court also wrote that "the interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship."

The 20 plaintiffs in ACLU v. Reno represented a wide variety of online users, content providers, and Internet service providers, including Human Rights Watch, Planned Parenthood, EFF and EPIC (national cyberspace rights groups), Critical Path AIDS Project, Wildcat Press (a gay and lesbian publisher) and the ACLU itself. ALA v. DOJ plaintiffs comprised nearly 30 organizations, including the American Library Association, various internet companies, public interest groups, commercial and non-commercial content providers, and more than 50,000 individual Internet users.

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Reno v. ACLU Challenge to Censorship Provisions in the ...

Vox Cinemas To Produce 25 Arabic Features In Next Five Years; CEO Talks West Side Story Ban: Censorship Is A Reality In This Industry – Deadline

Vox Cinemas, the Middle Easts largest exhibition chain, has unveiled an ambitious plan to produce 25 Arabic movies in the next five years. The announcement was made at the inaugural Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, where Vox Cinemas is the exclusive cinema partner.

Vox Cinemas, which is owned by Emirati businessman and retail mogul Majid Al Futtaim, says the move is part of the companys wider commitment to boost homegrown film production and aligns with Saudi Arabias Film Commissions recently launched strategy to develop the countrys burgeoning cinema sector.

As part of the initiative, Vox Cinemas will continue to support the next generation of homegrown content developers and provide resources for emerging filmmakers to bring their scripts to screen. Vox previously provided mentorship to Saudi production company Myrkott, which saw local and regional success with its recent animated release Masameer.

Ignace Lahoud, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Leisure, Entertainment and Cinemas told Deadline that budgets for the projects will likely be in the $1M to $10M range, with a possibility to go higher if the project called for it.

We want to do it in a small way, in a financially responsible way, Lahoud said, saying that statistical analysis at the company revealed this was the budget sweet spotin generating a success in the region.

We want to leverage local talent ranging from actors to writers to producers to directors, he said. The region is also actively now pursuing attractive packages from an incentives perspective. We know the Saudi authorities are looking at tax incentives and rebates for production. Other countries in the region offer those already so were also really encouraged by that perspective.

He added: The Middle East has a long history steeped in storytelling and a wealth of emerging talent that has been gaining international promise in recent years. Given its theme of metamorphosis, the inaugural Red Sea International Film Festival is the ideal platform to announce our ambitious plan to illuminate the untold and compelling stories from our region on the big screen.

Lahoud also touched on the recent news of a ban on Steven Spielbergs upcoming title West Side Story in various Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He said, while exhibitors naturally want to attract as many audience members as possible, they have to be respectful of eachs countrys regulations.

Censorship is a reality in this industry, Lahoud told Deadline. When the commission decides to do something, we have to abide by that. There are different countries that have censorships for different regions, whether its political sensitivities or other issues, thats the reality of the marketplace.

He added, however, that he wanted to focus on positives as well in the region, highlighting the fact that Vox Cinemas didnt even exist in Saudi Arabia a few years ago.

How fast has the [Saudi Arabian] film industry evolved in a few years?, he opined. And look at where it is today. I think its an evolution process. Yes, some things are not as youd expect but its moving and if you think of the history of cinema, thats how the world evolves.

Vox operates more than 600 screens in the Middle East, with 15 cinemas in Saudi Arabia. In addition to its new foray into production, it operates a large regional distribution division. Most recently, it distributed Al Kameen (The Ambush), the largest-ever Arabic feature film production in the GCC and which became the highest-grossing Arabic language movie to date in the UAE.

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Vox Cinemas To Produce 25 Arabic Features In Next Five Years; CEO Talks West Side Story Ban: Censorship Is A Reality In This Industry - Deadline

Students, Teachers, and Librarians are Fed Up With Book Challenges: This Weeks Censorship News, Dece… – Book Riot

Students shouldnt need to be speaking up on behalf of their right to books, and yet, in todays America, its students who are being forced to defend books about people of color, about queer people, and about inclusivity. We saw this in York, Pennsylvania, earlier this fall. We saw it in Downers Grove, Illinois, where Proud Boys showed up to a school board meeting, and that group, along with other politically-aligned censorious groups, were the reason meeting rules at the district were changed. This week, its students in Ankeny, Iowa the tenth fastest growing community in the U.S. who are demanding books remain accessible in school libraries.

The Ames Tribune covered the student comments at the latest board meeting, including this one from high school junior Natalie Jasso:

Being who I am and growing up in my community and my family, Ive had to deal with my own adversities because I am a bisexual African American young woman, she said. The looks I get from other parents, the whispers that I get in classthe most common phrase I receive is, You have two moms? with the most disgusted look on their face.

She continued, As a teenager who grew up with negative feedback in both racial and LGBTQ issues in the community of Ankeny all my life, reading books like All Boys Arent Blue and other great literary works that hit these topics really hard have really helped me acknowledge who I am and what I hope my community can be and what it means to me.

Read through the rest of the student comments, as they highlight precisely whats been said elsewhere, but from the mouths of those directly impacted by these challenges.

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More, the article itself represents what The New York Times explores in a recent piece about the things being ignored at school board meetings when political discourse over issues like masks and library books. Beyond the realities of living through a global pandemic which has killed nearly 800,000 in the U.S. alone, these meetings and the focus concerned citizens are taking is ignoring the reality of the twin student mental health crisis and extreme pressure school teachers, support staff, and other employees are having.

You want to jump up and say, This is not really what we need to be talking about! said Deborah Wysocki, who teaches 8th grade science, to The New York Times. We really need to be talking about the fact that there are 29 students in a room that holds 24. Or we need to be talking about the fact that your learning support students children who need the attention of education assistants arent getting it so that those assistants can go babysit kids in the auditorium who dont have a substitute.

This pressure from the buzzword mafia is not only creating burnout, frustration, and exacerbating mental health challenges in schools. Its happening in public libraries as well.

Last week, interim library director Martha Furman of the ImagineIF Library system in Kalispell, Montana, announced her departure from the library. Furman cites overreach from the board as why shes stepped away, and as the librarys senior librarian Sean Anderson said, hes not interested in moving into that position (or the also-vacant assistant director position) because the behavior of the board has now driven out two directors. He said that the board needs to value the work librarians do and be there to support them, rather than support their own political agendas, religious beliefs, and other affiliations.

The vice chair of the ImagineIF library board said he had no idea how library collection development worked, but he had a lot of opinions about it. According to the Daily Inter Lake:

[Vice chair Doug] Adams further questioned the librarys affiliation with the American Library Association, an organization he sees as having a radical leftist agenda disguised as intellectual freedom.

My goal is to disassociate with them completely and rewrite policies, Adams said.

Ones goals on a library board should be to support the library in its role as a place to provide information and access to information freely, without judgment or hindrance. Its not to rewrite policies.

School and library employees have been in a pressure cooker for years, with the pandemic only amplifying the systemic issues that have been ignored. And now, rather than address those issues, parents aligned with groups dedicated to anti-critical race theory and anti-mask agendas are only making progress more and more impossible. Its going to continue to get worse, and were going to continue seeing some of the most well-educated, hard-working, dedicated, and severely underpaid people in the workforce leaving these roles and choosing new jobs where they dont have to fear for their lives leaving a school board meeting.

Before digging into this weeks book challenges and censorship, which offers a mixed bag of good news and not-good news, its worth sharing this piece from The Washington Post about the continued growth of news deserts across the U.S. This matters because of the stories being missed, the issues being overlooked that are big issues in some communities but not big enough for major papers to cover, and because of how the growth of book challenges and censorship is linked to the loss of local news.

As always, here is our toolkit for how to fight book challenges. If youve got ten minutes or ten hours this month, you can do something to ensure intellectual freedom a First Amendment right remains intact.

Two more important reads for the week that are worth highlighting on their own include this piece from George M. Johnson on their book being banned in ten states and Ashley HopePrez on what happened after her book was challenged and banned in Texas.

And this is worthy of a whole deep dive in and of itself, but absolutely essential reading: the dark money behind the anti-critical race theory fervor.

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Students, Teachers, and Librarians are Fed Up With Book Challenges: This Weeks Censorship News, Dece... - Book Riot

Letter: Censorship and the CPSDB – The Suburban Times

Censorship is understood to be the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered inconvenient.

At the February 8, 2021 Clover Park School District Board meeting, Director Paul Wagemann asked his fellow board members to amend the December 21, 2020 meeting minutes to include his comments.

In response to Wagemanns request, Director and Board Vice-President Alyssa Anderson-Pearson stated, It is important to remember it (the December 21 minutes) was an overview that happened, not word for word.

The meeting minutes of that December 21 meeting clearly state that each director was given the opportunity to discuss how he or she felt about the choice of words used and to express what equity means to them.

The comments of Superintendent Banner are included.

The comments of Directors Schafer, Jacobs, Anderson-Pearson and Veliz are included.

But the comments of Director Wagemann are not included.

Why?

During the February 8, 2021 meeting, Schafer ironically stated, Objective and accurate these things are very important to me.

What has been objective and accurate about the censoring the suppression of speech of Paul Wagemanns comments during the December 21, 2020 CPSDB meeting?

Related

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Letter: Censorship and the CPSDB - The Suburban Times

For a brief period, there was a platform for sensitive political debate in China. Then censors shut it down – CNN

But on Monday night, social media app Clubhouse appeared to have been blocked in China just days after it became the go-to app for uncensored conversations on a host of sensitive issues banned on other platforms.

By Monday evening, many Clubhouse users in mainland China reported that when they tried to log onto the app, they received a red error message showing "a secure connection to the server cannot be made."

On Tuesday, the hashtag "Clubhouse" was also censored on Chinese social media platform Weibo, where it had been trending. People with mainland phone numbers reported no longer being able to receive text messages from Clubhouse, in effect blocking them from joining as invitation and verification codes are sent to a mobile phone to register a new account.

On Clubhouse, several chat rooms soon sprang up to discuss the blocking of the app. They were joined by hundreds of users, including some who said they were based in mainland China. Greatfire.org, a group which monitors internet censorship in China, also confirmed that the app had been blocked.

The ban, however, came as little surprise. With its political discussions drawing so much interest from mainland China, many users and observers expected it was only a matter of time before the app was blocked. While the censorship might deter new users, it is unclear how many existing users will be kept off the platform.

Susan Liang, a 31-year-old from Shenzhen, said she would continue to join Clubhouse chats on sensitive topics via a VPN because she didn't want to give up the frank and open discussions.

"It is too rare an opportunity. Everyone has lived under the Great Firewall for so long, but on this platform, we can talk about anything," she said. "It's like someone drowning, and can finally breathe in a large gulp of air."

But Liang expects some other users might be discouraged by having to use a VPN, as that technology has been increasingly targeted by Chinese government crackdowns. Any VPN not approved by the government is illegal.

Benjamin Ismail, an expert with Apple Censorship a project run by GreatFire.org said some users would be discouraged by the block but "it might not kill the app immediately" in China.

Popular political chat rooms

While the app first became popular in China among tech industry circles, its political chat rooms quickly drew newcomers eager for release from the tight censorship at home. As it grew in popularity, many Chinese also joined to discuss topics such as culture, lifestyle and celebrity gossip. But the space for free, inclusive political discussions was one of the rarest qualities of the app for Chinese-speaking communities.

One chat room hosted by Taiwan-based blogger Zola was running non-stop for almost 120 hours, joined by Chinese speakers in different time zones.

Another popular chat room invited young people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait to share their views and personal stories. The discussions started with lighthearted subjects but soon turned to politics, with users comparing the political systems of China and Taiwan and debating the prospects of unification.

Started Friday evening, the room soon attracted hundreds of people, and reached the upper limit of 5,000 listeners around midnight, according to Tan.

Several Han Chinese from Xinjiang also shared their experience of the security crackdown. A number of overseas Chinese broke down in tears describing the sense of guilt they feel over the alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, while others defended Beijing's policies, and questioned accounts of abuse from the region.

Other users and outside observers expressed skepticism over how representative the groups engaging in these political discussions are of broad Chinese public opinion, pointing to the self-selecting nature of the participants, as well as the barriers to using Clubhouse itself which prevent it from being a completely public app.

"Political topics on the platform are not discussed as rationally as other topics like technology or culture," the paper said.

But even before the app was blocked, there were potential security concerns for users within mainland China. Accounts are also tied to users' mobile phone numbers, which in China are registered under owners' real names. Furthermore, it would be a relatively simple task for the Chinese authorities to infiltrate open chat groups on issues such as Xinjiang and record what is being said for future use.

Badiucao, a Chinese dissident artist based in Australia, said some Chinese users, especially those within China, might not have realized the potential risk before speaking out critically against the government's policies, even semi-anonymously.

"If they were typing their opinions out, they might have the time to think it over," he said. "But when they spoke in these real-time chat rooms, they might not be able to hold their tongue."

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For a brief period, there was a platform for sensitive political debate in China. Then censors shut it down - CNN

Why I think censorship is important in the age of social media | Column – The Daily Collegian Online

When I think of important topics to discuss, politically and socially, I think of censorship especially reflecting on its endless ability to generate controversy.

Can censorship be too much or too little? For me, it really depends.

Is censoring people and content on social media outlets going to be beneficial in the long run?

I am not one to condone violence, and I think extreme and violent hate speech should not be permitted on social media platforms.

Even though I agree with the First Amendment and understand that censorship can be contradictory to that, I think it is important to censor unnecessarily threatening speech on social media.

While we cannot censor all hate speech, because it is a protected right, there are times where I think that speech can go too far.

Radical speech that I believe deserved censorship could be seen through the recent ban on former President Donald Trump from a variety of social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, due to his involvement in the Capitol riots.

Right-winged supporters of Trump thought those bans were a violation of the First Amendment.

This is simply not true because social media platforms can censor whoever they please and there is not a limit. These social media platforms are private companies, making decisions of their own free will.

Social media platforms are not owned by the government, and there is no law that prevents these platforms from regulating their content. A Twitter account is not a First Amendment right.

According to USA Today, advocacy groups called for Marjorie Taylor Greene a recently elected Republican representative from Georgia who has been a controversial figure lately to be removed from Facebook for telling dangerous lies.

Civil rights and other advocacy groups told Facebook in a statement that it allowed Greene to exploit its platform for many years without taking any action.

Greene has made many controversial remarks on social media, including that the Sept. 11 attacks were all a hoax.

The Georgia representative also liked many controversial remarks on Facebook and has worn facemasks that said Trump Won and Free Speech.

Even though the House of Representatives voted to have Greene stripped of her committee assignments, how does that prevent her from spreading misinformation?

Greene was temporarily suspended from Twitter but did that help anything? While she may have different political views than me, I think the lies she has spread through tweets and other social media platforms need to be removed because I believe her statements can be threatening and dangerous.

But is it necessary to censor everything? What should actually be censored and what is unnecessary?

Being censored isnt what we grew up on, but it was kind of forced upon us due to radical speech in the age of social media. While I agree that everyone's opinions are valid, some things said online are offensive and violent that they need to be censored.

The recent statement released by Penn States Black Caucus about the Zoom bombing during the spring Involvement Fair said anti-Semitic and white supremacist language was used as well as racial and homophobic slurs.

Penn State officials have condemned the Zoom bombing and an investigation is still ongoing. But does taking action against these criminals prevent anything from happening in the future?

According to Black Caucuss statement, these kinds of hateful attacks happen all the time in real life and online. Even though incidents like these have happened before and are still going on today, how can we aim for somewhat of a resolution?

I genuinely believe the Zoom bombing incident was disgusting, and while Penn State could not have anticipated it happening, I am glad there is an investigation that will hopefully bring those criminals to justice.

We can prevent some of these things from happening with a bit of censorship.

I dont think censoring everything is the answer to the worlds problems, but censoring violent, dangerous and discriminatory speech even though it is a right is the next step for productive politics and our social wellbeing as a whole.

If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click here.

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Why I think censorship is important in the age of social media | Column - The Daily Collegian Online

Chilling trend toward censorship – Chicago Daily Herald

Reflections on U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky's determination to censor Mary Miller's comments invoking Adolf Hitler's name to make a point, that the later was "right on one thing: whoever has the youth has the future."

A classical definition of evil is that it is the perversion of good, much like rust on metal. It cannot exist without being a leach, has to have something wholesome to hook itself onto in order to twist. Thus, an evil person has to have attributes of goodness (power, intellect, position) in order to even exist and do damage to self and others. In Western tradition, the devil was said to have incredible attributes that he uses for destructive ends. Similarly for the villain Adolf Hitler: What he said was right insofar as it went, as many other writers have said the same truism using slightly different phrasing.

Ought not Ms. Schakowsky assume the high road and give respect to another in one's stated profession? Doubly so for a first-year elected official? How would Ms. Schakowsky like it if a professional linguist or philosopher parsed her mistakes with razor-sharp accuracy for the times she has erroneously overstated something in the past?

Adolf Hitler's evil regime hurt a huge swath of humanity. But so did Josef Stalin and others. Are all evil persons hereby off-limits to quote in order to press home a point? Just where does Ms. Schakowsky's censorship end? Had Ms. Miller quoted Stalin, would she be just as irate?

Lastly, the chilling effects of government officials censoring others when the latter are making a point is quite scary. As in the medical field, a doctor's unintended therapy's bad consequences can overtake the very good that was intended.

Norman Suire

Elgin

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Chilling trend toward censorship - Chicago Daily Herald

Government censorship threats over TikTok spiked interest in VPNs – ZDNet

TikTok, the video-sharing social network, drove a lot of interest from consumers last year. It also piqued their interest in Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), according to new research.

The research by Brooklyn, NY-based security advisors Security.org found that interest in VPNs was directly correlated with newsworthy events.

The company measured the amount of web traffic in a day compared to the average web traffic of a week prior to the date and correlated this with significant events during 2020.

VPN technology is used for various reasons. It can be used to create a secure channel to communicate with the workplace protecting sensitive business information, to bypass government restrictions, or to hide activity from Internet Service Providers amongst others.

Almost one in 10 US adult VPN users cite whistleblowing, activism, or bypassing government or organization restrictions as a reason for use of VPN technology.

Security.org's research showed that interest in VPN technology tends to increase significantly whenever there is a newsworthy event that impacts travel, or internet usage, or impacts working from home environments.

On March 22020, the first deaths due to COVID-19 were reported, leading to an increase in VPN interest of 99 percent compared with average web traffic the week before..

On March 24 2020 when the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics was announced, there was a 78 percent increase in consumers' VPN interest.

This was due to people looking to secure their at-home networks for the possibility of stay-at-home orders and working from home due to the pandemic.

On August 13, average consumer interest in VPNs increased by 74 percent when President Trump proposed a ban on TikTok in August 2020. Interest also spiked by 34% on September 20th - the day the TikTok ban was said to start.

When internet censorship is threatened, average consumer interest in VPNs increases, and consumers flock to buy routers like the GL.iNet Beryl router which has VPN software built in to the router.

A VPN will allow people to access the internet in countries where restrictions are in place. Countries with levels of internet censorship can bypass firewalls to get to otherwise-restricted content.

As restrictions on free content continue to grow, I think that more and more of us will switch to VPN technology. We can then ensure that we have the freedom to access the content we want to and to communicate as if there were no restrictions at all wherever we happen to live.

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Government censorship threats over TikTok spiked interest in VPNs - ZDNet

Send a Big Message to Big Tech: Stop the Censorship – National Federation of Republican Women

By Ann Schockett, NFRW President

You know that internet censorship is a real problem when the President of the United States has his social media account cancelled while a Middle Eastern dictator can post whatever he likes. Or when an emerging social media company is de-platformed by its web hosting service. Or when a Big Tech executive must be hauled before a panel of United States senators and lambasted for not allowing a major publication to post an article on its social media account because its critical of a particular presidential candidate.

Countless conservatives have had their social media accounts suspended or canceled by the predominately left-wing employees who make up Americas high tech elite.

How is it that America, where the right to free speech is the first item enshrined in the Bill of Rights, has gotten to the point where internet oligarchs have the power to silence someone for their political beliefs, under the guise of hate speech? It seems as though conservatives are facing a David vs. Goliath battle with Big Tech.

Well, NFRWarrior Sisters, we all know who won that battle.

With your voice and your wallet, you can let the titans of Big Tech know that censorship is unacceptable in a free society. We live in a nation that has allowed people such as themselves to become enormously successful, but it should not be at the expense of our rights. We can make a difference. Heres how.

1. Use Social Media to Call Out Tech Executives When They Censor a Conservative These companies - and all businesses - monitor their social media accounts regularly for customer feedback and are often quick to respond to complaints.

2. Utilize Alternative Social Media Platforms Competition is good for business, and Big Tech companies need to know that their customers can go elsewhere if they find their business practices unacceptable.

3. Own Stock in a Big Tech Company? Participate in their Annual Shareholder Meeting Even just owning one share of company stock grants you a seat at their annual shareholder meetings where investors can submit questions to their executives about their policies and practices.

4. Engage Rather Than Boycott Its better to engage the company as a continuing customer. If youre not a customer, then youre not on their radar, and the company therefore has no incentive to change their policies.

5. Support Small Businesses and Shop Locally Big Tech retailers have made record earnings during the COVID-19 pandemic while small businesses are struggling to survive. Please consider that when shopping online.

6. Always Keep Your Comments Polite and to the Point Youre more likely to get a response if you maintain a calm and professional attitude.

Technology is an important part of all our lives. Like any consumer, we want value for our money. Lets send a reminder to Big Tech that the right to speak ones mind is the cornerstone of freedom and as such, we as a free people are willing to take our business elsewhere.

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Send a Big Message to Big Tech: Stop the Censorship - National Federation of Republican Women

Response to Censorship, freedom of speech article – The Tryon Daily Bulletin – Tryon Daily Bulletin

Letter to the editor

I would like to respond to Larry McDermott regarding freedom of speech and censorship.

It is a good idea to be aware of laws regarding slander and libel; one can get into a lot of financial trouble with careless or reckless speech. That being said I believe he should refresh his memory of the content of The Bill of Rights, First Amendment. Our Founders clearly valued freedom of religion and freedom of speech above all other Rights. It is also worth remembering that our Founders clearly understood that our Rights derived from our Creator.

We should write and speak as our founders intended, with courage, with forethought and intelligence. We should not look over our shoulders before we speak, being in fear of a government and a legal system that are more and more intimidating every day.

Censorship is always a tricky subject. Our nation has engaged in it during war time. It has been handled by the government and has always been regarded as a necessary evil to achieve our victory. Newspapers have used editorial discretion in publishing letters but there used to be newspapers of differing political viewpoints so that failure to be published in one did not necessarily preclude publishing in another.

Worth noting is that the phone company has never censored phone calls. The phone company has assisted law enforcement with wiretaps but has never on its own authority censored. Now we have communication giants, Facebook and Twitter deciding who can use their services and what their users are allowed to communicate. If FB and Twitter think individuals are a criminal threat, they should certainly contact appropriate law enforcement but otherwise it is not their business to control communication. My personal opinion is that they are monopolies which should be broken up as Bell Telephone was.

We Americans should remember that we are a free people, our problems come from an overbearing govt and people who value security over freedom.

Kim Lynch

Columbus

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Response to Censorship, freedom of speech article - The Tryon Daily Bulletin - Tryon Daily Bulletin

Facebook’s depoliticization aimed at censorship of left-wing and socialist organizations – WSWS

The ongoing drive to impose online political censorship of the left has become clearer over the past week following remarks by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the social media platform was being depoliticized.

Speaking during a fourth-quarter earnings call with investors on January 28, Zuckerberg said the company was working on methods to reduce the amount of political content in News Feed. He said that Facebook was continuing to fine-tune how this works and we plan to keep civic and political groups out of recommendations for the long term and we plan to expand that policy globally.

While individuals, pages and groups have been ostensibly blocked, banned or deleted for violating community standards in the past, Zuckerberg said the ongoing efforts to turn down the temperature and discourage divisive conversation and communities would include groups that we may not want to encourage people to join even if they dont violate our policies.

Zuckerbergs remarks were in part a response to a letter he received on January 21 from Democratic Representatives Tom Malinowski of New Jersey and Anna Eshoo of California that blamed Facebook for presenting users with content most likely to reinforce their existing political biases, especially those rooted in anger, anxiety, and fear, and for using algorithms that undermine our shared sense of objective reality, intensify fringe political beliefs, facilitate connections between extremist users.

Malinowski and Eshoo praised Facebooks decision before the 2020 elections to stop recommending that users join political and social issue groups and denounced the lifting of these restrictions before the Georgia run-off election, which caused a spike in partisan political content and a decline in authoritative news sources in users newsfeeds.

While it may appear that Zuckerberg and the Democrats are responding to the storming of the US Capitol on January 6 by a fascist mob incited by Donald Trump in a coup attempt aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 elections, their choice of words is significant. They do not refer to the far-right, fascists, neo-Nazis, militia groups and others who include in their ranks leading members of the Republican Party, law enforcement officers and active and retired US military representatives.

The reference to divisive conversation, turning down the temperature, fringe political beliefs and extremist users, make it clear that the effort to shut down political dialogue on social media is aimed at silencing left-wing and socialist politics and preventing the working class from using Facebook to organize its struggles against the capitalist system.

In comments to Politico on January 29, Rep. Malinowski elaborated on his vision of political censorship when he said did not care about how the depoliticization of Facebook would impact political organizing of progressive and left groups on the platform, as long as these new rules apply to everybody equally. He added, Access to Facebook for campaigns is a nice thing to have, but it's not necessary for democracy to function. There are a lot of ways to reach voters.

A similar line of argument was advanced by the right-wing Wall Street J ournal in a major article published on January 31 entitled, Facebook Knew Calls for Violence Plagued Groups, Now Plans Overhaul.

After the Journal makes the lying claim that the Capitol riot was the product of hyper-partisanship, the article goes on to say that the proliferation of extremist groups on Facebook was to blame. Instead of focusing on a defeated President seeking to overthrow the US constitution by mobilizing a fascist mob against Congress, the Journal presents the views of Nina Jankowicz, a social media researcher at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., who wrote that Facebook groups were destroying American democracy.

That the real target of the effort to shut down Facebook groups is the political left comes out when the Journal says Facebook conducted an investigation in August 2020 of US groups tied to mercenary and hyperpartisan entities using platform tools to build large audiences. Most of the Groups were on the right end of the political spectrum, but Suburban Housewives Against Trump appeared near the top of the charts, too, the August presentation said. Conservative or liberal, the Groups shared a common thread: They had harnessed passionate super-users and Facebook recruitment tools to achieve viral growth.

Facebooks reduction of politics in the news feed policy has been identified as a far-reaching attack on democratic rights by free speech advocate Tim Karr, senior director of strategy and communications at the advocacy group Free Press. Karr told Politico that Facebook should be able to address concerns about amplification of the far-right without hurting civic-minded groups.

Facebook has the ability to fix its recommendation algorithm to exclude white supremacist, militia and conspiracy groups still in its midst, and to do it without harming well-intentioned organizations that are using its platform to organize, Karr said. This isnt rocket science.

It could not be clearer that the entire US ruling establishment is attempting to utilize the events of January 6 as justification for shutting down progressive, left-wing, anti-capitalist and socialist political organizations and publishers on social media platforms such as Facebook. The subsequent shutdown of groups, pages and accountsincluding the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at the University of Michigan and leading members of the Socialist Equality Party in the USby Facebook that began on January 22 is part of this strategy.

Fear of growing opposition in the working class to government policiesespecially the response to the COVID-19 pandemicand against the rise of the fascist right is a critical aspect of the plans to shut down political discussion on social media and block algorithms from promoting left and socialist groups in the news feed of users.

Workers and young people must demand that socialist groups and political discussion about the threat of fascist dictatorship on social media be defended. No confidence can be placed in the Democratic Party to do anything about the danger to democratic rights represented by the January 6 attempted coup by Donald Trump and his supporters in the Republican Party.

The way to defeat the far right is not by shutting down political dialogue online but by utilizing these tools as instruments in the struggle to educate and organize the international working class in the struggle against the capitalist systemthe source of the fascist menaceand for socialism on a world scale.

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Facebook's depoliticization aimed at censorship of left-wing and socialist organizations - WSWS

Sundance 2021 Review: CENSOR, The Danger Of Confusing Fiction With Reality – ScreenAnarchy

One of the most popular arguments to despise horror films and related genres in their most violent and explicit incarnations is that they can inspire atrocities in real life. It's a thought as old as the films with Lon Chaney and remains in force to this day: just remember all the controversy generated by Joker and the Death Wish remake before their premieres.

If we talk about extreme measures against extreme films, what happened in the United Kingdom during the Margaret Tatcher years is fundamental. The explosion of the video market in the eighties changed the way of watching cinema forever. "Children can rewind and watch those scenes over and over again," says a character in Censor, a film set precisely in those years, when 72 movies on video, called video nasties, caused mass hysteria and harsh censorship.

Censor, the debut feature by British filmmaker Prano Bailey-Bond, joins the long tradition of cinema about cinema, this time from a very particular point of view: that of the censors. Enid (Niamh Algar) is responsible for deciding which images should be cut from some slasher/cannibal movie or, depending on the case, if they should be banned. Not all of her colleagues are as strict, one of them, for example, quotes Un chien andalou to defend a scene where someone's eye is gouged out, which Enid wants to remove.

But let's not get confused, she always tries to do her job in the best way, with responsibility and objectivity. It's evident that she doesn't like this type of cinema, usually made by men and with women as the main victims. She ironically calls them "masterpieces."This doesn't mean that she wants to censor everything, her seriousness allows her to differentiate between over-the-top gore and more realistic violence.

Enid can't overcome a trauma from her past: when she was a child, her sister Nina disappeared while they were strolling in a forest. Enid suffered amnesia, preventing her from contributing to the recapitulation of the events. Confronting the reality that developments in the case had stagnated, her parents decided to stop waiting for a miraculous happy ending, accepting that they would never see Nina again. When they receive the newly-issued death certificate, the parents took the opportunity to move on, even though Enid was unwilling to accept the terrible ending. Guilt still overwhelms the protagonist.

Censor explores that moment when fiction affects reality... at least in appearance. Although Enid is not a filmmaker, she's pointed out as one of the responsible people when the hysteria grows because the press connects the characteristics of a real crime with one of the horror films within the film: Deranged, notorious for a sequence in which a murderer eats the face of his victim, a scene approved by Enid and another colleague.

Likewise, the protagonist's harsh past increasingly controls her head. Reality reminds her of the tragedy: the killer supposedly inspired by Deranged declares to have amnesia and, in the midst of the scandal, she falls prey to guilt again. Fiction evokes her sister: another film within the film, Don't Go in the Church, appears to be directly based on Nina's disappearance. Not to mention when, playing detective, she discovers Asunder, a forbidden video nasty that shares a director with Dont Go in the Church andfeatures an actress that looks like her sister.

Censor creates its own mythology. It mitxes real movies for example, sequences from Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer with fictional titles: Cannibal Carnage, a banned tape that video stores rent clandestinely (there's an extremely funny interaction between Enid and a clerk), derives from the Italian subgenre led by Cannibal Holocaust. These details make noticeablethe director's taste for genre cinema of that time. It's quite enjoyable.

Like other similar contemporary films Knife + Heart, to name one Censor draws on the genre cinema that it's referencing, specifically the giallo style. Dream sequences and saturated colors represent Enid's mind and her downward spiral on screen. Censor intersperses reality with the oneiric, bordering on the nightmarish, playing with the link between the real and the fictitious.

The film explores how her protagonist goes deeper and deeper into the world of video nasties (she meets a producer, "acts" in the sequel to Don't Go in the Church), as well as real-life violence and horror. Censor doesn't fall into nonsense; everything is linked to a personal trauma and her conviction that the creators of Dont Go in the Church are true criminals that leads to delirium.

Reality and fiction, even though they have an undeniable connection, are not the same. Censor remarks on it on several occasions, similar to the Canadian 1980 filmDeadline. We hear, for instance, that the amnesic killer didn't even know about the video nasty Deranged!

In its memorable and brutal climax, the separation is marked by the change in the aspect ratio of the images. At that point Enid no longer distinguishes. And when she finally seems to wake up from that "trance," she prefers fiction over the horrors of reality and imagines herself as a vengeful movie heroine.

She prefers the miraculously happy ending. She even believes that the demonization of video nasties worked, that they were all banned and consequently the evils of British society eradicated. Her last fantasy is a poignant and satirical comment that works for that time and today.

A version in Spanish of this review was also published at Cinema Inferno

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Sundance 2021 Review: CENSOR, The Danger Of Confusing Fiction With Reality - ScreenAnarchy

Blacklisting And Censorship Are Hallmarks Of Repressive Societies – The Federalist

That is all right. I had them on my list, too, a prominent public figure joked after learning that he had been blacklisted by a political opponent.

Who said this? Was it Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., after Simon and Schuster canceled his book deal because he challenged the Electoral College results from Pennsylvania, even though Democrats had similarly objected in 2001, 2005, and 2017?

Was it a Trump administration official responding to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs call to blacklist and deny them future employment?

Was it black conservative radio host Larry Elder after Hollywood censored his documentary Uncle Tom, whose IMDB rating of 8.9 surpasses 9 of the past 10 Oscar winners for Best Documentary?

How about someone responding to veteran journalist Katie Courics call to deprogram Trump supporters?

Or My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, after Twitter banned him along with thousands of conservatives, including former President Donald Trump? Or Newmax reporter Emerald Robinsons response to CNNs call to cancel Newsmax?

No. That is all right. I had them on my list, too, was the response of David Low, a prominent British cartoonist, when he learned in 1945 that his name was one of 2,300 Britons on Adolf Hitlers blacklist. Had Hitler captured England, the Gestapo was to arrest those on the list.

No sector of English society or political opinion was spared from Hitlers British blacklist. The Gestapo targeted Jews in England, members of Parliament, executives and employees of more than 170 British firms, dozens of university professors, members of 400 social clubs and organizations, and journalists at 35 media outlets.

Censorship and blacklisting are the hallmarks of an unfree society. The Third Reich seized power in Germany in 1933 and immediately began controlling newspapers, radio, and films through censorship. Books were banned and burned.

Censorship was also a tactic used by Soviet Russia. When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in 1917, one of their first acts was to issue the Decree on Press to ban articles critical of their authority. Based on real-life experiences with censorship and other horrors in communist Russia, George Orwell wrote his book 1984 in 1949 to warn the West against totalitarianism. Today Chinas Communist Party uses the Great Firewall to block news and online information from its citizens.

Todays speech punishments by Twitter, Facebook, Hollywood, corporations, and book publishers against Americans are obviously not equal to the mass casualty horrors of totalitarian governments. A direct comparison is not the point here. Its to point out that certain tools are hallmarks of repressive societies that a society that aspires to be free should not emulate, even faintly.

Censorship and blacklisting are serious unjust cultural acts that increasingly filter Americans into second-class citizens based on their political viewpoints. The censorship and blacklisting that we are seeing in America right now is viewpoint discrimination. Censorship and blacklisting need to be fully rejected by American society before they become accepted cultural norms that make even worse injustices likely and more possible.

It was censorship that gave birth to free-speech advocacy in America and fostered the conditions for our nations unique First Amendment, which legally protects unpopular speech. After his brother was thrown in jail for publishing a newspaper in 1722the new social media of the eraBenjamin Franklin wrote a series of articles under a fake name, Silence Dogood.He had to hide his identity because he didnt truly have free speech.

His wise words are fitting for todays threats: Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

Censorship and blacklisting are narrowing Americans liberties and subduing the freeness of our nation today. We must hold the line and stop it now before the current climate of fear degrades into an even worse social and government climate in which previously unimagined restrictions become possible.

How can you help stop this vicious cycle from degrading further and refuse to do as you are told to do? Watch Larry Elders Uncle Tom. Sign up for updates from Hawleys new publisher (and one of mine), Regnery Publishing.

Use alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, and Google, such as Clouthub and DuckDuckGo. Encourage tolerance for different viewpoints at your workplace and hire conservatives. To counter Courics call to de-program, download, read, and share the 1776 Report. All these and more are strategies all of us can use to exercise our societys weakening free speech muscles.

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Blacklisting And Censorship Are Hallmarks Of Repressive Societies - The Federalist

Censorship or conspiracy theory? Trump supporters say Facebook and Twitter censor them but conservatives still rule social media – USA TODAY

President-elect Joe Biden says 'it's an embarrassment' that President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede the presidential race. USA TODAY

A former Democrat-turned-Trump supporter from Knightstown, Indiana, Gayla Baer-Taylor's blood pressure rose every time Facebook and Twitter fact-checked and restricted claims by President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the November election was rigged.

A couple weeks ago, Facebook put a notice referring users to official election results on one of her posts:"I'm going to need a MUCH bigger swear jar before President Trump completes his second term."

When did we get so stupid that we need social media to tell us what to think? she told USA TODAY.

A recent poll shows that majorities in both parties think political censorship is likely occurring on social media, but that belief is most prevalent on the political right. And,with the country in the throes of an unparalleled attempt by a sitting president to overturn the election and hold onto the White House, its growing.

Researchers say theyve found no evidence to support GOP grievances thatthe nations leading social media companies squelchconservative voices.

I know of no academic research that concludes there is a systemic bias liberal or conservative in either the content moderation policies or in the prioritization of content by algorithms by major social media platforms," said Steven Johnson, an information technology professor at the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce.

"If anything, Johnson said, there is evidence that content from highly conservative news sites is favored by Facebook algorithms.

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An analysis of millions of social media posts by Politico and the nonpartisan think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that right-wing social media influencers, media outlets and other GOP supporters drove the online conversation about the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, two of the most heated election issues.

According to research Johnson conducted with his University of Virginia colleagues Brent Kitchens and Peter Gray, typical conservative users, in months when they visited Facebook more than usual, read news that was about 30% more conservative than the online news they would typically read.Moreover, we found that Facebook usage is five times more polarizing for conservatives than for liberals, he said.

Facebook, Johnsonsaid, prioritizes content that is more engaging which is often more partisan content.

Facebook told Politico in September that right-wing personalities have a distinct advantage on the platform, not because thealgorithms favor conservatives, but because they connect with people on a visceral level.

Right-wing populism is always more engaging," a Facebook executive told Politico, when asked why Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro drive such high engagement. The executive said the content speaks to "an incredibly strong, primitive emotion" by touching on such topics as "nation, protection, the other, anger, fear."

A supporter of President Trump yells at counterprotesters across the street during a rally to protest the election results outside the Georgia State Capitol on Nov. 14. President-elect Joe Biden has been declared the winner in Georgia, becoming the first Democratic nominee to win the state since 1992.(Photo: Elijah Nouvelage, Getty Images)

Researchers agree that algorithms dont have a political affiliation or party. Instead, algorithmsfavor content that elicits strong reactions from users, keeping them hooked so Facebook and Twitter can sell more advertising revenue.

A former Facebook employee, Adam Conner, now vice president of tech policy at the liberal Center for American Progress Action, told Politico that its absurd for Facebook to say this is just something thats playing out in a neutral way.

Facebook is not a mirror, he said. The news-feed algorithm is an accelerant.

The perception that social media is biasedhas been around for a long time but intensified in recent years asthe president made social media abuses a major plank of his administration and reelection campaign.

Nine in 10 Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party say its at least somewhat likely that social media platforms censor political viewpoints they find objectionable, up slightly from 85% in 2018, according to an August report from the Pew Research Center.

With 89 million followers on Twitter and nearly 35 million on Facebook, Trump wields one of social medias largest megaphoneswhich will help him shape the national conversation long after he leaves office.

Every year, countless Americans are banned, blacklisted, and silenced through arbitrary or malicious enforcement of ever-shifting rules, Trump said during a September appearance with Attorney General William Barr.

Francesca Tripodi, an assistant professor in the University of North Carolinas School of Information and Library Science, says the bias accusations grew out of similar allegations against the mainstream media.

Part of it definitely stems from a larger distrust in institutions and access to information, said Tripodi, a senior faculty researcher with UNCs Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. Part of it is linked to the overall opaqueness of the platforms.

Underlying it all is growing discomfort with a small cabal of megacompanies controlling the nations online conversation.

Some right-wing personalities including radio host Mark Levin and Fox News host Sean Hannity have joinedsocial media alternatives like Parler where pro-Trump conspiracy theories and unfounded allegations of voter fraud trend unfettered.

I think there is definitely merit behind this question: Do we really want such a small number of corporations controlling such a wide swath of how we access information? Tripodisaid.

Fueling the current outrage are high-profile cases of platforms flagging content or banning accounts, Johnson said.

Trump has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is allowed by these platforms things that would cause other accounts to be banned have been allowed due to a different policy for national leaders, Johnsonsaid. Once the social media platforms started adding labels on misleading and false content from high-profile users like Trump, the complaints of bias have grown even louder.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, confronted Twitter's Jack Dorsey in a recent Senate hearing over Facebook and Twitter throttlingthe spread of a New York Post article which made uncorroborated claims about Hunter Bidens business dealings.

Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? Cruzsaid.

Researchers say many groups across the political spectrum feel their opinions and perspectives are under siege fromsocial media, but its difficult to make the casethat the platforms are biased against any group since they disclose so little about how they decide what content is allowed and what is not.

Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg say their platforms strike a balance between promoting free expression and removing hate, abuse and misinformation fromtheir platforms. Theyacknowledge making some enforcement errors but say their policies are applied fairly to everyone.

Baer-Taylor, whose Twitter bio jokes she'sPresident Elect Gayla, doesn't buy it.In her MAGA-infusedworld, social media has always been unfair to conservatives. I see it and experience it a lot, she said.

According to Baer-Taylor, increased censorship of right-wing voices during the COVID-19 pandemic and the presidential election helped hijack the vote to tip the election to Joe Biden.

Also frustrated is Krishnan Seshasayee, 47, an IT architect and Trump supporter from Illinois who leans Republican but worked on Obamas campaign in 2008 and donated to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign this election cycle.

Seshasayee believes social media should be treated as a tool that gives people a voice, like a mic or a pen.

Would a megaphone suppress the speech of the speaker? Would a pen suppress the thought flow of a writer? he said. It will best serve the people and themselves when they just remain as a platform to express opinions without judging the content of posts.

Facebook and Twitter have held meetings with high-profile conservatives to fend off persistent accusations of liberal bias, fueling speculationthat Dorsey and Zuckerberg were trying to appease Trump and keep out of his crosshairs.

Twitters Dorsey told lawmakers in Novemberthat the platforms should be more open with users about how content moderation decisions are made and should offer a straightforward way to appeal moderation decisions. Hed also like to see users be able to opt out of algorithms that determine what content they see on the platform.

But conservative author Denise McAllister says greater transparency wont help.

The platforms are not capable of consistently or fairly moderating content, so the only way to restore public trust is to get out of the content moderation business except in the case of violent threats or other illegal activities, even during election cycles when partisan propaganda and misinformation spreads wildly, she argues.

This is a platform, right? You don't need to act like mama Twitter or mama Facebook. Just let people say what they are going to say, whether its true, false, whatever. You have to just trust the people as individuals and not to try to impose power because you are going to do it inconsistently, said McAllister, author of What Men Want to Say to Women (But Cant) and "Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.

Knock off your good intentions and stop trying to do something you are not going to be able to accomplish and just deal with the fact that liberty is messy, free speech is going to offend everybody," she said. "One way or another, everyone needs to put their big girl panties on and their big boy panties on and just deal with it and stop trying to protect everyones feelings.

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Censorship or conspiracy theory? Trump supporters say Facebook and Twitter censor them but conservatives still rule social media - USA TODAY

OIF Seeks Information on 2020 Censorship Incidents | News and Press Center – ala.org

During the COVID-19 pandemic, libraries and schools continue to face censorship attempts. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom is seeking information on any ban or request to remove library or school materials, displays, and programs that happened in 2020.

OIF urges library workers and educators to report all censorship incidents, even if they dont need assistance or support to address the challenge. Those with information about bans and challenges that happened anytime this year are encouraged to submit OIFs online reporting form by December 31, 2020. All personal and institutional information submitted is kept confidential.

The information gathered from these reports helps OIF identify censorship trends, support library workers and compile the Top 10 Most Challenged Books list, published in April during National Library Week. OIF collects information on attempts to remove books, DVDs, online resources and displays. The office also documents attempts to cancel programs and disinvite speakers.

Recently, the office has noticed a rise in attempts to censor books that address racism and police brutality. LGBTQIA+ books and programs also continue to be targeted with censorship.

Reporting challenges not only provides essential data that allows OIF to identify and track censorship trends, said OIF Director Deborah Caldwell-Stone, it also helps OIF to improve support for the library workers and educators who are protecting users' right to access diverse books, displays, and programming.

Anyone can contact OIF throughout the year when they face a challenge, ban, or access or privacy issue. Staff provide various forms of support, including writing a letter, coaching on media relations and public statements, reviewing policies and researching laws and regulations.

About the Office for Intellectual Freedom

The American Library Associations Office for Intellectual Freedom is charged with implementing ALA policies concerning the concept of intellectual freedom as embodied in the Library Bill of Rights, the associations basic policy on free access to libraries and library materials. Established in 1967, the office provides guidance, informationand resources on a range of intellectual freedom subjects related to libraries and provides confidential support to anyone undergoing a material or service challenge.

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OIF Seeks Information on 2020 Censorship Incidents | News and Press Center - ala.org

In India, a Clash of Digital Innovation and Internet Censorship – CoinDesk – Coindesk

Earlier this month, reacting to a decision by Indias highest court, prominent comedian Kunal Kamra tweeted that Indias Supreme Court is the most Supreme joke of this country.

The following day, local media reported that Attorney General K. K. Venugopal greenlighted court proceedings against the comedian, based on a few tweets criticizing the Supreme Court. The charge levied against him: contempt of court. Kamra has refused to apologize for his tweets and local reports indicate proceedings have yet to begin.

This should be shocking, but unfortunately its not. In India, speaking out on the Internet can be dangerous. Kamra told CoinDesk that public figures can receive threats on social media, noting that users leaked his phone number on Twitter multiple times. They dox people, they release information sometimes. Thats very normal, Kamra said.

With over 700 million internet users, Indias booming digital market collides with internet censorship or outright bans.

A similar dynamic plays out in Indias crypto market. Trade on Indian crypto exchanges exploded earlier this year after the Supreme Court ruled to reverse the decision by the countrys central bank (RBI) to ban local financial institutions from providing services to crypto firms. Now, just a few months later, the federal cabinet is reportedly discussing another potential ban.

While regulators havent clarified their stance on digital assets, they have expressed concern over the fiscal and monetary policy implications of fintech applications, including distributed ledger technology (DLT). Regulators have continued to push for local control over fintech payment platforms like WhatsApp Pay, which received approval from the Indian government only after owner Facebook agreed to store user data locally in India and not offshore.

This is part of a much broader trend. Kamras case is the latest in a series of targeted attacks on internet users in the country. In a 2019 report, Freedom House warned internet freedom in India had declined for the fourth year in a row due to increasing arrests for online activity and frequent internet shutdowns.

Localized internet shutdowns, restrictions on certain content (like pornography) and wholesale bans on select mobile applications are some of the more visible ways in which the Indian government has sought to control the internet. According to a report by local media outlet Mint, in 2017 and 2018 at least 50 individuals were arrested for comments made on social media, largely for posts considered offensive to politicians.

Digital India

Indias digital ecosystems, from cloud computing to digital payments, are expanding. According to a report by consulting firm McKinsey, core sectors of the digital economy could double their contribution to Indias GDP by 2025, adding up to $435 billion.

On Nov. 19, in his inaugural address at the Bengaluru Tech Summit, Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his administrations governance model is technology first citing his Digital India initiative that launched five years ago.

Digital India has become a way of life, particularly for the poor, marginalized and for those in government, Prime Minister Modi said.

Yet, since 2014, government authorities have enforced about 450 regional internet shutdowns, with 134 in 2018 alone, according to a local internet shutdown tracker.

Reasons for the crackdowns range from anticipated public unrest to curbing malpractice in school examinations. This blunt-force approach can also lead to monetary loss for businesses and the disruption of web-based services.

If there is no internet, there is no cryptocurrency, there is no blockchain, there is no technology. The internet is the crux.

The longest internet shutdown ever recorded in a democracy was implemented by the Indian government in the disputed Kashmir region after the Modi government revoked the states semi-autonomous status in August 2019.

Indian officials justified the extended ban by calling it a necessary move to curb anticipated unrest that might have followed the administrative decision. While services were gradually restored, the blackout lasted over seven months and disrupted some 12 million peoples access to the internet.

Qazi Zaid, chief editor of Free Press Kashmir (FPK), a local media outlet, said his newsroom had to be shuttered during the blackout. The primarily online publication halted all coverage and risked losing its online readership of over 300,000 people, Zaid told CoinDesk.

When phone lines were restored, reporters called each other and dictated stories in an attempt to type and publish them, he added.

But then we also realized that our audience is not there, Zaid said.

While FPK managed to gradually come back online in May this year, the blackout had hit local businesses and dried up advertising revenue, Zaid said. He stressed that media censorship in Kashmir hasnt changed so much after last years decision to revoke the regions special status but it may have been further formalized under recent amendments to digital media policy, giving the government regulatory control over digital news and content providers.

Loopholes

When the Indian government wants to shut the internet down, it sometimes invokes a 135-year-old law: the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885. The act was created by the British rulers in colonial India to curb uprisings, Indian journalist Sonia Faleiro said in a recent MIT Technology Review podcast. The law gives the government authority over all forms of electronic communications (in 1885 that meant telegrams) in the event of a public emergency.

In 2017, the law was amended to specify that it allowed the temporary suspension of telecom services, Faleiro said.

One of the many problems with the law, Faleiro added, was it did not specify or define public emergency, thus allowing the government to label any incident as such and shut down communications.

Additionally, a controversial 2008 amendment to The Information Technology Act of 2000, Section 66A, allowed the government to imprison any person sending messages deemed offensive, menacing, false or causing annoyance through any electronic communications device. Using this law, in 2012 the government arrested two women for Facebook posts critical of the government.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of India shot down Section 66A, calling it unconstitutional. However, arrests over social media activity continued: In 2016, a Kashmiri man was charged with sedition for liking and sharing anti-India posts on Facebook.

The security argument

Amid a tense border standoff with China earlier this year, Indias government banned 60 China-based apps, including the popular social media platform Tik Tok.

When border tensions continued, leading to an Indian soldier reportedly being killed by a Chinese landmine, the Indian government restricted 118 more mobile applications from Chinese tech companies in September 2020.

The governments statement alleged it had received several reports of these applications misusing user data and surreptitiously transmitting it to servers located outside India.

Described as a move to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace in the governments September statement, the restrictions took aim at apps from WeChat, Baidu, Alipay and the popular mobile game PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds (PUBG), which had over 33 million active users in India at the time.

While the restrictions could have been a knee-jerk reaction to a geopolitical situation that has since cooled down, concerns about the integrity of user data and government surveillance on the internet have persisted as India works on the proposed Personal Data Protection Bill (2019).

According to Anirudh Burman, associate fellow at Carnegie India, the draft law, introduced in December 2019, deploys an approach quite similar to the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Burman explained that although both frameworks are based on a user-consent model, the Indian bill limits data storage outside the countrys borders and also creates compliance requirements that could burden small enterprises.

If there is a medium or small enterprise firm going to get a data protection officer or get an annual data protection audit, its a significant cost, Burman said.

The draft laws requirement to store certain types of data locally or always have a copy of it available on local servers has also stoked fears of increased state surveillance, according to a report by DW. Requiring platforms to store data locally could also afford easier access to local law enforcement which, if stored off-shore, would be subject to a different set of laws.

U.S. law permits the disclosure only of non-content data. So if you want detailed subscriber information or content data, then you have to go through the due process, said Burman. Content data here refers to data, processed or unprocessed, that can convey the substance of a communication.

The draft bill also provides for the creation of a dedicated body, the Data Protection Authority of India, to ensure compliance with the law. A portion of the legislation also grants the federal government the power to exempt any agency of Government from application of the Act, thereby creating broad loopholes for the state to duck requirements levied on private enterprises.

The draft law, Indias first attempt at creating a digital privacy and data management framework at the national level, is currently before a joint parliamentary committee. The committee also recently held discussions on law with representatives from companies including Amazon, Twitter, Mastercard, Visa and PayPal.

Reported to be in the final stages of discussion, the committee is expected to file its recommendations on the bill before the next session of parliament begins.

Sisyphus' boulder

Despite the Indian governments efforts to exercise control over cyberspace, internet policing can only go so far.

Vikram Subburaj and Arjun Vijay launched Indian crypto exchange Giottus in 2018, just a week after the central bank of India published a circular that banned crypto firms from having bank accounts. Confronted by the ban, they pivoted to setting up a peer-to-peer exchange.

In March 2020, the Supreme Court of India overruled the central bank circular and, according to the two founders, Giottus has enjoyed record growth in the last six months.

We have been growing at a phenomenal rate of 400% YTD and have been clocking a monthly trade volume of $33 million, Subburaj told CoinDesk via email.

Vijay doesnt believe internet censorship can stop web-based services from continuing to grow in India.

Censorship doesnt work with respect to the internet. With VPN and sorts, it just makes it more difficult for you to access something, but it doesnt prevent someone who wants to access it, Vijay told CoinDesk.

Even in Kashmir, where students had to make do with government-imposed low-speed internet for their online classes during the coronavirus pandemic, people found workarounds. According to an Al Jazeera report, two applications (Filo and Wise) created by educators Mubeen Masudi and Imbesat Ahmad helped students access the Internet.

Indias government seems to understand the Internet is essential for the countrys growth. While authorities sometimes lean toward stringent controls, the government will not completely stamp out digital innovation. This is good news for the crypto industry.

As Neeraj Khandelwal, co-founder of local crypto exchange CoinDCX, told CoinDesk, If there is no internet, there is no cryptocurrency, there is no blockchain, there is no technology. The internet is the crux.

Excerpt from:

In India, a Clash of Digital Innovation and Internet Censorship - CoinDesk - Coindesk

Censored Planet: University of Michigan research finds worldwide increase in internet censorship – WSWS

A group of researchers from the University of Michigan (UM) have published a global database of instances of internet censorship that shows an extremely aggressive growth of online interference on a world scale over a recent 20-month period.

The team used an automated global censorship tracking platform called Censored Planet, which was developed in 2018 by UM assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science Roya Ensafi. Between August 2018 and April 2020, the team collected 21.8 billion measurements of online censorship from 221 countries.

Among the key findings of the researchpresented at the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM) Conference on Computer and Communications Security on November 10was that censorship is increasing in 103 of the countries that were studied, including Norway, Japan, Italy, Israel and Poland.

A press release issued by the UM on November 17 described the findings contained in the teams research paper as The largest collection of public internet censorship data ever compiled, which shows that even citizens of the worlds freest countries are not safe from internet censorship. It also showed that among the countries where censorship is expanding are those rated as some of the freest in the world by advocacy group Freedom House.

The research reveals that, for the most part, the increasing internet censorship is driven by organizations or internet service providers filtering content and not nationwide censorship policies such as those in China, where online content is highly restricted by direct state intervention.

The UM press release says Assistant Professor Ensafi noted that, while the uptick in blocking activity in the US was small, the groundwork for such blocking has been put in place in the United States.

Ensafi explained further: When the United States repealed net neutrality, they created an environment in which it would be easy, from a technical standpoint, for internet service providers to interfere with or block internet traffic. She added, The architecture for greater censorship is already in place and we should all be concerned about heading down a slippery slope.

The five-member US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 on December 14, 2017 in favor of ending net neutrality, and the new policy took effect on June 11, 2018, approximately two months before the Censored Planet data collection began. Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers (ISPs)the companies that own the hardware infrastructure connecting consumers to the internet in the form of wired and wireless services, routers, switches and serversmust treat all content on their systems equally.

While the proponents of abolishing net neutrality argued that the change was necessary to modernize FCC policies and remove anti-competitive government intrusion into the corporate internet marketplace, the UM research shows that the logic of capitalist private property and nation-state-based interests in the global information infrastructure leads inexorably to undemocratic and repressive restrictions on public access to online content in a range of forms.

As the World Socialist Web Site has reported, the tech monopolies, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, have been engaged in censorship both within the US and internationally by targeting left-wing, anti-war and progressive websites and publishers with various types of internet content blocking, throttling and manipulation.

The WSWS itself and its affiliated organizations have been the target of this increasing censorship in the form of s uppression of search results by Google, banning and de-whitelisting by Reddit, account suspension by Twitter and event blocking by Facebook.

Another of the UM researchers, Ram Sundara Raman, a PhD candidate in computer science and engineering, said, What we see from our study is that no country is completely free. Today, many countries start with legislation that compels internet service providers to block something thats obviously bad like child sex abuse material. But once that blocking infrastructure is in place, governments can block any websites they choose, and its usually a very opaque process. Thats why censorship measurement is crucial, particularly continuous measurements that show trends over time.

In Norway, for example, laws were passed in early 2018 that require internet service providers to block some gambling and pornographic content. The Censored Planet data shows evidence of network inconsistencies across a broader range of content, including human rights websites like Human Rights Watch and online dating sites like match.com in Norway.

The Censored Planet automated monitoring platform is a novel approach to tracking online censorship. It uses public internet servers around the globe as data gathering nodes that monitor and report when access to websites is being blocked. It also uses artificial intelligence algorithms to filter the data, remove noise and recognize trends.

Previous censorship tracking methods have relied upon human activists to gather data manually. As the UM press release explains, Manual monitoring can be dangerous for volunteers, who may face reprisals from governments. The limited scope of these approaches also means that efforts are often focused on countries already known for censorship, enabling nations that are perceived as freer to fly under the radar.

The #KeepItOn campaign of the digital rights organization AccessNow, for example, tracks incidents of internet shutdowns annually in countries around the world. It uses some technical measurement tools and also relies upon news reports and personal accounts through a coalition of 210 organizations from 75 countries. The organization published its last report in 2019, which noted, The constraints of our methodology mean that there may be cases of internet shutdowns that have gone unnoticed or unreported, and numbers are likely to change if and when new information becomes available.

In describing their longitudinal censorship observatory, the UM researchers explain that they used four remote measurement techniques (Augur, Satellite/Iris, Quack, and Hyperquack) on six internet protocols to detect 15 prominent censorship events, two-thirds of which have not been reported previously. The reference to longitudinal measurement means that data points are gathered multiple times over an extended period of time.

Among the censorship methods that Censored Planet detects are internet shutdowns, Domain Name Server (DNS) manipulation, Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) blocking and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) layer interference. Among the countries that were studied for specific censorship events by Censored Planet (in addition to the countries mentioned above) were Egypt, Iran, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, India, Sudan and Cameroon.

The instance of censorship in Sri Lanka, following a series of bombings on April 21, 2019 that killed more than 250 people, highlights the power of Censored Planet platform. To previous reports of social media censorship, the study says, We observed 22 domains (compared to 7 reported previously) being blocked, including domains like twitter.com that were not reported. Five out of these 22 domains were only from the Alexa test list, showing that variety in test lists is important. After the initial peak, HTTPS censorship remained unusually high through April, and then spiked again in the week of May 12, 2019. This contrasts with most reports claiming that the social media ban was lifted by May 1st.

It is significant that amid the near-continuous reporting in the corporate media of the false allegations from right-wing organizations and individuals that conservatives are being singled out for online censorship, including US President Trumps complaints regarding the imposition of fact-checking labels on his Twitter account, not one of the major news organizations has reported on the Censored Planet study.

Along with publishing their methodology and disclosing the tools they are using for data collection, the UM researchers are making their data set available for further analysis by others. As Ensafi explained, We hope that the continued publication of Censored Planet data will enable researchers to continuously monitor the deployment of network interference technologies, track policy changes in censoring nations, and better understand the targets of interference. While Censored Planet does not attribute censorship to a particular entity, we hope that the massive data weve collected can help political and legal scholars determine intent.

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Censored Planet: University of Michigan research finds worldwide increase in internet censorship - WSWS

Twitter claims it has reversed ban of link to Sidney Powell’s Georgia election lawsuit – Fox Business

'Kennedy' host and panel break down hearing on Big Tech election interference and censorship

Twitter claims it has reversed its censorship of a link to the lawsuit filed by attorney Sidney Powell that seeks to change the outcome of Georgias 2020 election results.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday evening, alleges multiple constitutional violations, citing experts, fact witnesses and statistical improbabilities within the results. The plaintiffs seek to decertify the 2020 election results in the state and have Trump declared the winner.

The URL referenced was mistakenly marked under our unsafe links policy this action has now been reversed, a Twitter spokesperson told FOX Business. The warning still appeared when FOX Business clicked on the link.

Twitter says it sometimes takes action to block links to content outside Twitter. Links are blocked if they are deemed to be malicious and used to steal personal information, spamthat mislead people or disrupt their experience or violate Twitters rules.

Twitter, and other technology companies including Facebook and Google, have in recent months come under fire from Republican lawmakers who argue the companies unfairly target posts from conservatives.

CEO Jack Dorsey testified earlier this month that between Oct. 27 and Nov. 11 Twitter labeled or removed 300,000 false or misleading tweets about the election. More than 50 tweets from President Trump have been labeled since Election Day.

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Twitters censorship of conservative voices has been a boon for competing social media platform Parler, which in the days after the election shot up to No. 1 in Apples AppStore for the first time.

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Twitter claims it has reversed ban of link to Sidney Powell's Georgia election lawsuit - Fox Business