Monthly Archives: April 2017

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Getting the real story: Censorship in the digital age ABC27 Pictures are powerful. What we see (and what we don't) shapes our worldview. So who's controlling the filter? How do media outlets decide what to show, and what to blur out? And how do you know if what you're seeing is real? Amanda St. Hilaire, Dennis ...

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Getting the real story: Censorship in the digital age - ABC27

The annual list from the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tends to include a broad range of titles with the potential to offend. Repeat "honorees" include Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" for depictions of rape and incest, transgender reality TV star Jazz Jenning's coming out story, "Fifty Shades of Grey" for obvious reasons, and the "Harry Potter" books because of witchcraft.

But the embattled comedian's "Little Bill" books are believed to the first time a title has been targeted solely for its author and not its content, ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom Director James LaRue said.

"I think it's our fascination with celebrity. If we love the person we love everything about him. If we hate the person we hate everything about him. We don't seem to be able to separate the message from the messenger."

The "Little Bill" books follow the adventures and life lessons of Bill Jr., a 5-year-old Philadelphia boy. The series became an Emmy Award-winning Saturday morning cartoon series that ran on and off from 1999 to 2006.

The ranking is based on 323 challenges reported to the office in 2016 by school librarians across the country, the ALA said. The ALA's list does not specify where any of the challenges occurred.

Challenges tend to come from parents or students who choose a book for some reason or another and bring it to the principal to try to remove it permanently.

But LaRue said successful challenges tend never to get reported and the real number is likely much higher.

Books featuring "diverse" characters, such as racial minorities or gay, lesbian and transgender people, have become targets of challenges with increasing frequency this year.

Five of the 10 books on this year's list included LGBT characters, including Jazz Jennings' picture book. All five books were successfully removed from library shelves, or, in other words, banned, according to the ALA.

"Critics of this list say no book is banned in America and I beg to differ," LaRue said. "If a book is removed it's been banned."

The complete list includes:

-- "This One Summer," by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

The ALA says this young adult graphic novel, winner of a Printz and a Caldecott Honor Award, was "restricted, relocated and banned" because it includes LGBT characters, drug use and profanity, and it was considered sexually explicit with mature themes.

-- "Drama," written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier

Parents, librarians and administrators banned this Stonewall Honor Award-winning graphic novel for young adults because it includes LGBT characters, was deemed sexually explicit and was considered to have an offensive political viewpoint, the ALA said.

--"George," by Alex Gino

Despite winning a Stonewall Award and a Lambda Literary Award, administrators removed this children's novel because it includes a transgender child and the "sexuality was not appropriate at elementary levels," according to the ALA.

-- "I Am Jazz," by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas

This children's picture book memoir was challenged and removed because it portrays a transgender child and because of language, sex education, and offensive viewpoints, the ALA said.

-- "Two Boys Kissing," by David Levithan

This young adult novel, a National Book Award longlist and Stonewall Honor Book, was challenged because its cover has an image of two boys kissing and it was considered to include sexually explicit LGBT content.

-- "Looking for Alaska," by John Green

This 2006 Printz Award winner is a young adult novel that was challenged and restricted for a sexually explicit scene that may lead a student to "sexual experimentation."

-- "Big Hard Sex Criminals," by Matt Fraction, illustrated by Chip Zdarsky

This compilation of adult comic books by two award-winning artists was challenged and banned for being considered sexually explicit by library staff and administrators.

-- "Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread," by Chuck Palahniuk

This collection of adult short stories was challenged for profanity, sexual explicitness, and being "disgusting and all around offensive," according to the ALA.

-- "Little Bill Books" series, by Bill Cosby, illustrated by Varnette P. Honeywood

This children's book series was challenged because of criminal sexual allegations against the author, the ALA said.

--' "Eleanor & Park," by Rainbow Rowell

A New York Times Notable Children's Books and a Printz Honor recipient, this young adult novel was challenged for offensive language, the ALA said.

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Bill Cosby's 'Little Bill' books targeted for censorship - CNN.com - CNN

All who cherish free expression, especially on campuses, must combat the growing zeal for censorship.

By Heather Mac Donald, The City Journal

Where are the faculty? American college students are increasingly resorting to brute force, and sometimes criminal violence, to shut down ideas they dont like. Yet when such travesties occur, the faculty are, with few exceptions, missing in action, though they have themselves been given the extraordinary privilege of tenure to protect their own liberty of thought and speech. It is time for them to take their heads out of the sand.

I was the target of such silencing tactics two days in a row last week, the more serious incident at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, and a less virulent one at UCLA.

The Rose Institute for State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna had invited me to meet with students and to give a talk about my book, The War on Cops, on April 6. Several calls went out on Facebook to shut down this notorious white supremacist fascist Heather Mac Donald. A Facebook post from we, students of color at the Claremont Colleges announced grandiosely that as a community, we CANNOT and WILL NOT allow fascism to have a platform. We stand against all forms of oppression and we refuse to have Mac Donald speak. A Facebook event titled Shut Down Anti-Black Fascist Heather Mac Donald and hosted by Shut Down Anti-Black Fascists encouraged students to protest the event because Mac Donald condemns [the] Black Lives Matter movement, supports racist police officers, and supports increasing fascist law and order. (My supposed fascism consists in trying to give voice to the thousands of law-abiding minority residents of high-crime areas who support the police and are desperate for more law-enforcement protection.)

The event organizers notified me a day before the speech that a protest was planned and that they were considering changing the venue from CMCs Athenaeum to one with fewer glass windows and easier egress. When I arrived on campus, I was shuttled to what was in effect a safe house: a guest suite for campus visitors, with blinds drawn.

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Mac Donald: Time to Fight Alt-Left Censorship on Campus - Fox News

Just a few years ago, Russians had a mostly free Internet, but now, authorities are trying to imitate Chinas model of government control.

By Emily Parker

When you hear the words Russia and Internet, you probably think of Kremlin-backed hacking. But the Internet is also a powerful tool for President Vladimir Putins opposition. Last month, the Internet helped spark Russias largest anti-government protests in five years. Russia responded by blocking access to websites that promoted demonstrations.

This is part of a larger story. Just a few years ago, Russians had a mostly free Internet. Now, Russian authorities would like to imitate Chinas model of Internet control. They are unlikely to succeed. The Kremlin will find that, once you give people Internet freedom, its not so easy to completely take it away.

I lived in Moscow in 2010 after spending years researching Internet activism in China. I quickly found that Russia and China had very different attitudes toward the Web. The Great Firewall of China blocked overseas sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. In Russia, by contrast, you could find almost any information online. This was largely because Russian authorities didnt view the Internet as a serious political threat. That changed in late 2011 and early 2012, when Moscow was the site of the largest anti-government protests since the end of the Soviet Union. Social media helped organize those demonstrations, and Putin took note. A law that took effect in late 2012, to give just one example, granted Russian authorities the power to block certain online content.

Moscow clearly admires Beijings approach. Last year, former Chinese Internet czar Lu Wei and Great Firewall architect Fang Binxing were invited to speak at a forum on Internet safety. The Russians were apparently hoping to learn Chinese techniques for controlling the Web. Russia has already taken a page or two from Chinas playbook. While Facebook and Twitter remain accessible in Russia, at least for now, a Russian court ruled to ban LinkedIn, apparently for breaking rules that require companies to store personal data about Russian citizens inside the country. This could be a warning to companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook, which risk being blocked in Russia if they refuse to follow such rules.

Both Russia and China have made clear that they wish to regulate the Internet as they see fit, without outside interference. Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of Internet sovereignty, which essentially means that individual countries should have the right to choose their own model of cyber governance. Putin has taken this idea one step further by calling the Internet a CIA project. By this logic, Russia needs to proactively protect its own interests in the information sphere whether by cracking down on online dissent or using the Internet to spread its own version of events.

Russia Internet expert Andrei Soldatov, author of the book The Red Web, says the Kremlin certainly looks for something close to the China approach these days, mostly because many other things failedfiltering is porous, global platforms defy local legislation, and are still available. Soldatov says that the government would like to have direct control of critical infrastructure such as the national system of domain distribution, Internet exchange points, and cables that cross borders. He adds that this approach, which may not even be successful, would be more of an emergency measure than a realistic attempt to regulate the Internet on a day-to-day basis.

Chinas method has worked because Beijing has long recognized the Internet as both an economic opportunity and a political threat. Chinas isolated Internet culture has given rise to formidable domestic companies. It was once easy to dismiss Chinas local technology players as mere copycatsSina Weibo imitating Twitter, Baidu imitating Google, and so on. But now, some of these companies, notably Tencents WeChat, have become so formidable that we may soon see Western companies imitating them. In the meantime, Chinese Internet users arent necessarily longing for their Western competitors.

In Russia, however, American sites like YouTube have become very powerful. The recent demonstrations were in part sparked by an online report by opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexey Navalny, who alleged that Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had amassed a fortune in yachts, mansions, and estates. Navalnys video on YouTube, viewed more than 16 million times, detailed this alleged corruption. Navalny called for protests after his demands for investigating official corruption was denied by the Russian parliament. According to Global Voices, the Russian prosecutors office recently requested the blocking of a YouTube video calling on young people to rally.

Russian blogger Elia Kabanov believes that YouTube is now too big to block. I doubt the Kremlin will go there, he said. They blocked LinkedIn mostly because it was a niche site in Russia and nobody cared. And of course the government propaganda machine is using YouTube a lot, so it wouldnt make any sense to block it. If they try to take down protest announcements on platforms on YouTube, Kabanov says, new ones will appear. I really cant see the way for the Kremlin to implement the Chinese model now: Everything is too connected, their own agencies are using all these services.

Russia does have its own domestic social networks, of course. VKontakte (VK), for example, is far more influential than Facebook. Soldatov notes that VK played an unusually big role in the recent protests. But Facebook still has a devoted Russian following, especially among political activists.

According to Soldatov:

No government can entirely control the flow of information. Even in China, those determined to find information can find a tool, say a virtual private network, to jump over the firewall. Russian censors will face a similar challenge. In recent years, there has been an ongoing increase in Russian use of Tor, a browser that can be used to circumvent censorship. As a 2015 Global Voices article noted, the increase in censorship closely mirrors the upward trend in interest towards Tor.

In the short term Russian street protests may fizzle out, especially as Moscow cracks down on dissent. But the story wont end there. The Internet on its own will not cause a revolution in Russia, but it can be an effective tool for organization. Beijing figured this out a long time ago, but the Kremlin is learning it too late.

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Russia Is Copying China's Approach to Internet Censorship Will It Work? - Pacific Standard

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Hannah Hess, E&E News reporter

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) called for a fight against political censorship of climate scientists and their data today during a field hearing in West Palm Beach, Fla., on extreme weather and coastal flooding.

"If a doctor were barred from using the word 'cancer,' he or she can't do his job, and the same is true with scientists and the work they do to understand and educate the public about the Earth's own fever," said Nelson, ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Nelson hosted a panel of experts and local officials at a site less than 5 miles from Mar-a-Lago, the 124-room mansion that's been dubbed President Trump's "Winter White House," to talk about future risks and efforts to address the impacts of climate change which Trump has called a "hoax."

Like Trump, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has drawn repeated criticism from environmental groups for sidestepping questions about climate change and saying he does not believe climate change is caused by humans.

Scott, who served as chairman of a super political action committee supporting Trump during the campaign, also came under fire for reports that Florida environmental regulators had been ordered not to use the phrases "climate change" and "global warming," even as the phenomena continue to affect the state (Greenwire, March 9, 2015).

Nelson invited Ben Kirtman, a professor with the University of Miami's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, who has spoken to Scott about climate science and has offered to educate Trump on the issue (E&E News PM, Dec. 22, 2016).

"Today we sit at ground zero of the impacts of climate change in the U.S. And while there are still some who continue to deny climate change is real, South Florida offers proof that it is real and it's an issue we're going to be grappling with for decades to come," Nelson said.

Kirtman summarized evidence that sea-level rise along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States is accelerating because of a number of factors that could be due to changes in ocean circulation associated with global warming.

"Even if one is skeptical that human activities are the cause of these trends, there is a clear local need to protect lives and property and ensure economic opportunity in response to changes we see today," Kirtman said.

The panel also heard from Leonard Berry, a professor emeritus of geosciences at Florida Atlantic University who co-founded Coastal Risk Consulting LLC. The Florida-based company has estimated Mar-a-Lago will eventually be under at least 1 foot of water for 210 days a year due to tidal flooding (Greenwire, Oct. 5, 2016).

Berry testified that the work of climate scientists depends on "the continued information flow from the federal government."

Nelson used the forum to stress his concerns about Trump's preliminary budget proposal, which includes cuts to climate science funding and monitoring resources.

The Interior Department's internal watchdog today largely cleared one of the National Park Service's former top superintendents of allegations of harassment and hostility toward women.

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Hate speech has includedcritiquesof Merkels migration policies. To be in disagreement with the governments policies is now potentially criminal.

By: Judith Bergman, The Gatestone Institute

Germany has formally announced its draconian push towards censorship of social media. On March 14, Germanys Justice Minister Heiko Maas announced the plan to formalize into law the code of conduct, which Germany pressed upon Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in late 2015, and which included a pledge to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours.

This [draft law] sets out binding standards for the way operators of social networks deal with complaints and obliges them to delete criminal content, Justice Minister Heiko Maassaidin a statement announcing the planned legislation.

Criminal content? Statements that are deemed illegal under German law are now being conflated with statements that are merely deemed, subjectively and on the basis of entirely random complaints from social media users who are free to abuse the code of conduct to their hearts content to be hate speech.

Hate speech has includedcritiquesof Chancellor Angela Merkels migration policies. To be in disagreement with the governments policies is now potentially criminal. Social media companies, such as Facebook, are supposed to be the German governments informers and enforcers qualified by whom and in what way? working at the speed of light to comply with the 24-hour rule. Rule of law, clearly, as in North Korea, Iran, Russia or any banana-republic, has no place in this system.

Maas is not pleased with the efforts of the social media companies. They do not, supposedly, delete enough reported content, nor do they delete it fast enough, according to asurveyby the Justice Ministrys youth protection agency. It found that YouTube was able to remove around 90% of illegal postings within a week, while Facebook deleted or blocked 39% of content and Twitter only 1%. The German minister, it seems, wants more efficiency.

We need to increase the pressure on social networks There is just as little room for criminal propaganda and slander [on social media] as on the streets,saidMaas. For this we need legal regulations. He has now presented these legal regulations in the form of a draft bill, which provides for complaints, reporting and fines.

There also appears to be no differentiation made between primary-source hate speech, as in many religious tenets, and secondary-source hate speech, reporting on the former.

According to the draft, social media platforms with more than two million users would be obliged to delete or block any criminal offenses, such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint. The networks receive seven days for more complicated cases. Germany could fine a social media company up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law; it could fine a companys chief representative in Germany up to 5 million euros.

It does not stop there. Germany does not want these measures to be limited to its own jurisdiction. It wants to share them with the rest of Europe: In the end, we also need European solutions for European-wide companies,saidMaas. The European Union already has a similarcode of conductin place, so that should not be very hard to accomplish.

Facebook, for its part, hasannouncedthat by the end of 2017, the number of employees in complaints-management in Berlin will be increased to more than 700. A spokeswoman said that Facebook had clear rules against hate speech and works hard on removing criminal content.

If Facebook insists on operating under rules of censorship, it should at the very least aim to administer those rules in a fair manner. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness. Instead, Facebooks practice of its so-called Community Standards the standards to which Facebook refers when deleting or allowing content on its platform in response to user complaints shows evidence of entrenched bias. Posts critical of Merkels migrant policies, for example, can get categorized as Islamophobia, and are often found toviolateCommunity Standards, while incitement toactualviolence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebooks Community Standards.

Facebooks bias, in fact, became so pronounced that in October 2015, Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center filed an unprecedented lawsuit against Facebook on behalf of some 20,000 Israelis, to stop allowing Palestinian Arab terrorists to use the social network to incite violent attacks against Jews. The complaint sought an injunction against Facebook that required it to monitor incitement and to respond immediately to complaints about content that incites people to violence. Shurat Hadinwroteat the time:

Facebook is much more than a neutral internet platform or a mere publisher of speech because its algorithms connect the terrorists to the inciters. Facebook actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by offering friend, group and event suggestions Additionally, Facebook often refuses to take down the inciting pages, claiming that they do not violate its community standards. Calling on people to commit crimes is not constitutionally protected speech and endangers the lives of Jews and Israelis.

In 2016, Shurat Hadinfiled a separate $1 billion lawsuiton behalf of five victims of Hamas terrorism and their families. They are seeking damages against Facebook under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act, for Facebooks having provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook services, which Hamas then used to carry out their terrorist activities. The US has officially designated Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization which means that it is a criminal offense to provide material support to such an organization.

Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebooks bias is so strong that it recentlyrestoredPalestinian Arab terrorist group Fatahs Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of130 posts glorifying terror and the murder of Jews.

It is only a small step from imposing censorship on social media companies to asking the same of email providers, or ordering postal authorities to screen letters, magazines and brochures in the event that citizens spread supposed xenophobia and fake news. There is ample precedent for such a course of action on the continent: During the Cold War, people living behind the Iron Curtain had their private letters opened by the Communist authorities; those passages deemed to be out of line with the Communist orthodoxy, were simply blacked out.

Who would have thought that more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), Western Europe would be reinventing itself in the image of the Former Soviet Union?

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

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Back to the USSR? Europe's out-of-control censorship - World Israel News

Indian censorship of film continues apace.

The Central Board of Film Certification in India under is commonly referred to as the Censor Board. A quick glance at some of its heavily debated recent decisions will elucidate why. While primary role of the CBFC is to provide certification for different categories of films, it is also entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that films do transgressone of the express restrictions of free speech in India. This has meant that from time to time, the CBFC has withheldpermission for the screening of films or requested specific cuts and changes to the story. More recently, this has become commonplace rather than the exception.

The biggest theme that the CBFC under Chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani appears to be at war against depictions of sexuality. Recently, the film The Danish Girl was denied the required certification to be aired on TV as its topic was declared as overly sensitive and accordingly requiredtoo many cuts. The film looks at sex reassignment and gender dysphoria. Ka Bodyscapeswas similarly denied certification as it apparently glorified homosexual relationships and contained vulgarity, depicted Hinduism in a derogatory manner, and also depicted a Muslim woman masturbating.

This war is not just against depictions of desire among sexual minorities, as evidenced by the CBFCs halt on the screening of Lipstick Under My Burkha. The stated reason for this ban was that the film was too lady-oriented and had abusive words, audio pornography, and was potentially sensitive to some sections (implying the Muslim community). These bans and others have been banded together as evidence that the CBFC is extremely skittishabout depictions of sexual desire. Adding to the fray, kissing scenes are routinely cut out of the television screenings of movies, and abusive words are muted even in films about verbal violence or abuse.

This trigger-happy censorship environment has a larger context in the specific demands of cultural groups and morality crusaders. While the CBFC seems happy to lead by example, political parties, cultural representatives, and religious groups add to this growing trend towards censorship. The film Parched for instance faced opposition for depictions of female nudity inUdta Punjab, which discussed drug abuse,faced opposition for its use of language and violence and its portrayal of the state of Punjab. Alleged distortion of history is another common theme cultural groups draw upon while calling for these bans as in the case of the trouble faced by the films Bajirao Mastani and Padmavati, both of which depicted Hindu-Muslim inter-religious romances in the lives of historical rulers or leaders.

In each of the above cases, specific criticism has been levied against the ban, but collectively they allude towards a dangerous trend where existing taboos are solidified and a certain narrative of history alone is tolerated. Sexuality in some forms is accepted typically when it adheres to the male gaze, fictional license is allowed for historical movies that merely attempt to create a larger than life narrative, which does not discomfit existing understandings of power and villainy.

Prominent directors and actors, both new and veteran, have spoken out against this trend both on mainstream media and social media, but the enemy they wish to take down is not singular. While much of the anger may be directed against the CBFC, and rightfully so, the source of the CBFCs mandate comes from the public. For as long as public sentiments continue to be inflammable in the face of art, and fragile narratives of masculinity, social order and historical narrative are threatened, the lurking demon of censorship cannot be defeated.

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Sex and Sensibility: India's Censor Board and Overreach | The ... - The Diplomat