Daily Archives: August 3, 2017

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If the American people actually believed that censorship was bad, they would throw away their iPhones, stop buying shampoo on Amazon, and quit going to the movies.

Why is it not a cause for concern that the world's wealthiest corporations are cooperating with the Chinese government, employing their considerable technological resources to prevent Chinese citizens from circumventing firewalls or accessing private networks designed to restrict access to information and opinions of which the authorities disapprove? Why do only nerd parodists on YouTube complain about the absurd lengths to which film producers go to appease Chinese censors doing everything from removing same-sex kissing scenes and other sequences considered vulgar or too violent to inserting brand-new characters to appease nationalist sentiment? Why is the pursuit of obscene levels of profit and record-breaking box office numbers a sufficient justification for these pathetic and, in cinematic terms, banal concessions?

The answer is simple: We don't really think censorship is wrong. Or rather, we vaguely think censorship is wrong except when it gets in the way of profits.

Anyone who went to high school in this country is familiar with what I think of as the standard textbook history of the United States. It is an impoverished, mostly uninteresting narrative that begins with some kind of bridge in Alaska and ends with the Cold War, a thing that we won. It has many gaps not much seems to happen between the War of 1812 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates or between the Civil War and the Depression. Huge lumbering abstractions abound: the Gilded Age, Tariff Reform.

One of the most dreadful of these looming specters is censorship, a bad thing that involved a senator named McCarthy who was somehow also a member of a committee in the House of Representatives. At some point or another, between the time when people said "I Like Ike" and Vietnam, censorship mostly went away. But before it did there was something evil called a blacklist that was maintained by Hollywood. People on the blacklist were good because they stood up for free speech in defiance of censorship. Being okay with the blacklist was so bad that if you appeared before the evil House committee that ran it from Washington it was a very good thing decades later for people to protest your receiving an award and for people in the audience to be rude to you and not applaud.

In other words, the fact that a handful of mediocre screenwriters did not get to make lots of money working in the movie business is obviously much more important and interesting than the intricacies of the very real decades-long struggle for world dominance between the United States and her liberal democratic allies and the Soviet Union.

I mention all this because this valorization of a few insignificant characters is one of the only salient facts that millions of Americans know about the conduct of the Cold War at its height. The badness of censorship is an unquestioned article of faith. The idea that obscenity should not be permitted on our screens is as ludicrous as, well, the idea that there is even such a thing as obscenity. Bold pro-freedom of expression warriors renew their commitments every year with annual cost-free exercises in moral preening like Banned Books Week. The notion that somewhere some parent might take issue with one of her children reading a book with sexual themes is a crisis, a kind of secular blasphemy that demands excommunication. There is no room for prudential judgement here: Thinking that some things might be bad is the only thing that it is not okay to think.

Meanwhile, tech CEOs explain away their acquiescence with blanket censorship in countries where they depend upon cheap labor in order to make world-historic profits. Hollywood pretends that absolute creative freedom is a quasi-sacred right except when it isn't and it's totally worth interfering with an artist's vision in order to placate censors with absurd fears like movies with ghosts in them and get more cash at the box office.

And we let them. Why? Because most Americans think censorship is bad as long as we don't need it to make money.

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Why are so many Americans okay with corporations bowing to Chinese censorship? - The Week Magazine

Washington Post

Apple playing China's censorship game should make tech companies really nervous Mashable Based on the events of the last few days, we now know that even the biggest tech company on the planet can't put a significant crack in that impenetrable wall of internet censorship that gives the Chinese government ultimate power over all things ... Apple, Amazon help China curb the use of anti-censorship toolsWashington Post Joining Apple, Amazon's China Cloud Service Bows to CensorsNew York Times VPNs are a vital defence against censorship - but they're under attackAmnesty International Slate Magazine (blog) -Engadget -Daily Mail all 253 news articles »

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Apple playing China's censorship game should make tech companies really nervous - Mashable

Customers come to the newly opened Apple store in Shanghai, China.

VCG/Getty Images

Apple recently removed some of the virtual private networks from the App Store in China, making it harder for users there to get around internet censorship. Amazon has capitulated to China's censors as well; The New York Times reported this week that the company's China cloud service instructed local customers to stop using software to circumvent that country's censorship apparatus. While caving to China's demands prompts a vocal backlash, for anyone who follows US tech companies in China it was anything but surprising. Apple and Amazon have simply joined the ranks of companies that abandon so-called Western values in order to access the huge Chinese market.

Doing business in China requires playing by Chinese rules, and American tech companies have a long history of complying with Chinese censorship. Every time a new compromise comes to light, indignation briefly flares up in the press and on social media. Then, its back to business as usual. This isnt even the first time Apple has complied with Chinese censors. Earlier this year, the company removed New York Times apps from its Chinese store, following a request from Chinese authorities. "We would obviously rather not remove apps, but like we do in other countries we follow the law wherever do we business," Apple CEO Tim Cook said during Tuesday's earnings call, in response to the vanished VPN apps.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of American companies that have aided Chinese censorship. In 2005, Yahoo provided information that helped Chinese authorities convict a journalist, Shi Tao. Shi had sent an anonymous post to a US-based website. The post contained state secrets, according to authorities, and Shi was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Also in 2005, Microsoft shut down the blog of a Chinese freedom-of-speech advocate. A year later, Google agreed to censor its search results in China. Internal documents show that Cisco apparently saw China's "Great Firewall" as a choice opportunity to sell routers at around the same time. In 2006, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco faced a congressional hearing about their Chinese collaboration. I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night," representative Tom Lantos said at the time.

It turns out that some corporate leaders will sacrifice a good nights sleep to reach hundreds of millions of internet usersand potential customers. In 2014, LinkedIn launched a Chinese version of its service with the understanding that doing so would curtail freedom of expression. Users who posted politically sensitive content would get a message saying that their content would not be seen by LinkedIn members in China.

In a 2014 interview with The Wall Street Journal , LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner was upfront about the Chinese bargain. Were expecting there will be requests to filter content, Weiner said. We are strongly in support of freedom of expression and we are opposed to censorship, but thats going to be necessary for us to achieve the kind of scale that wed like to be able to deliver to our membership.

Perhaps LinkedIn figured that, as a business networking site, it could dodge political controversy. But when it comes to China, its never that simple. LinkedIns community, after all, includes China-based journalists. It wasnt long before users complained about receiving notices from LinkedIn that their posts were not available in China. Just this month, journalist Ian Johnson posted one of those notices on Twitter. Twitter is blocked in China, but some people there access it with circumvention technology. In the past, China-based activists have used Twitter to get their message to the outside world. Twitter is a rare American platform that offers relative freedom of expression to the Chinese who are willing to use it.

Bending to China's will doesn't guarantee success. China remains a tough market, even for those willing to censor. Derek Shen, formerly president of LinkedIn China, recently stepped down after the company had less-than-impressive results in China. Problems apparently included missed sales targets and failure to attract new users. In 2010 Google declared wholesale defeat in mainland China, citing problems with censorship and cybersecurity.

Censorship isn't the only challenge: US companies now have to contend with fierce Chinese rivals. Apple has struggled against domestic Chinese competition, including smartphone powerhouses Huawei and Oppo. Uber flailed against incumbent ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing before eventually selling its China operations to its local rival. When it comes to the internet, Chinese users arent necessarily longing to jump over the Great Firewall to gain access to overseas sites. Many are content with domestic products, particularly WeChat, a wildly popular messaging app.

Still, US companies will always try to break through in China. Facebook has eyed the mainland for a while. A Facebook entry may appear unlikely, especially as China temporarily blocked its WhatsApp messaging service. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears willing to go the distance; Facebook has reportedly worked on a censorship tool for the purposes of getting China's approval. Conventional wisdom once held that Facebook would not risk the public outcry following a decision to self-censor in China. But is that really true? All those other companies got away with it, and Facebook probably would too.

So will Apple. The company might take a beating in China, but it wont be because of its moral choices. That doesnt mean that the Chinese internet outlook is bleak. Despite pervasive censorship, information manages to get through. Some circumvention tools will vanish, and others will appear. For every sensitive term that gets blocked, people will find a different word to replace it.

The spread of the internet will continue to expand the space for expression in Chinajust not necessarily thanks to the American companies willing to do whatever it takes to gain a foothold there.

Emily Parker has covered China for The Wall Street Journal and has been an adviser in the US State Department. She is the author of Now I Know Who My Comrades Are , a book about the power of social media in China, Cuba, and Russia.

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Apple Caved to China, Just Like Almost Every Other Tech Giant - WIRED

A still from the band Cairokee's music video "Al-Kayf." Uploaded on July 10, 2017. (photo byYouTube/CairokeeOfficial)

Author:David Awad Posted August 2, 2017

CAIRO Egyptian rock band Cairokee did not give up when the General Authority for Censorship of Works of Art on July 2 banned the sale of their new album A Drop of White. Why would they, when there is an alternative outlet in the form of YouTube? The YouTube launch of their 11-song album on July 11 was a resounding success. One song, Al-Kayf, ("Fix") has been viewed over 6 million times since its internet launch.

TranslatorPaul Raymond

"Al-Kayf" was the most popular song in Egypt in July, even after Egyptian pop superstar Amr Diab released Meaddy El Nas ("Passing People"), which has still failed to match the YouTube hits of "Al-Kayf" since the release of Diabs album July 20.

"Al-Kayf" was not the only successful song on the album. Wrong Way Blues has been watched over 4.5 million times, the title song A Drop of White 2.7 million times, while Cease-Fire and I Thought There Was Still Time each have received well over 1 million hits. So far, songs on the album have been viewed on YouTube over 24 million times.

But why did the censorship authority ban the album?

Cairokee broke news of the ban in a July 2 Facebook post, saying, The General Authority for Censorship of Works of Art rejected some of the songs on Cairokees forthcoming album 'A Drop of White.' The bad news is that for the first time, our album will not go on sale in shops and most likely will not be on radio or TV (not important). But the good news is that we are carrying on and our songs will be freely available on the internet and in digital stores, out on July 11.

The post did not specify why the authority had banned the album, a question that occupied the media even several weeks after the albums release and YouTube success. On July 26, Al-Tahrir newspaper published an interview with Cairokees lead singer, Amir Eid, in which he said, We dont know why the censor banned the album, the reasons are unclear. [But] the censor took issue with 'Cease-Fire,' 'Wrong Way Blues,' 'The Last Song' and 'Dinosaur' all of which had political overtones.

The words of the four songs are filled with passion. Cease-Fire refers to a Blind society that cant see its collapse and adds, Everybody participated in the crime and pressed the trigger, everybody chose silence and buried his head in the sand/ They are imprisoned between herds surrounded by dogs" in reference to the state's pursuit of opposition political activists after June 30, 2013. "Dinosaur," the most controversial song, says, "Moving between TV channels to kill the time and boredom, the same hypocrisy, stupidity and awfulness/ After they had sold our lands, they accused us of being the disloyal youth a reference to the maritime demarcation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, under which sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir Islands will be transferred from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Monitor sought further clarification from Ahmad Medhat, the bands spokesman, who said, I believe the censor rejected those songs as it thought they were political, although they are not; they had no fundamental political motive.

Medhat said that the songs were not political but social in nature. "They express the feelings of the young people and their disappointment with how the January 25 Revolution and their revolution against the Muslim Brotherhood ended leading to the present situation, in which activists from the January 25 Revolution are being pursued and oppressed. This is what the youth talk about in the streets and cafes. Our songs had no political goal, their only purpose was to express the feelings of the youth, because we are the youth. The censor fears any honest expression, Medhat added.

Khaled Abdulgalil, the head of the General Authority for Censorship of Works of Art, has not responded to Al-Monitors repeated attempts to seek clarification on why the album was banned.

Mehdat said, The political overtones in the songs were not the only reason they were banned; the band has faced restrictions for years. Its songs have been banned by radio and TV, its concerts have been canceled for security reasons. Our friendship with certain activists, media figures and people who oppose the current regime, as well as our support for the January 25 Revolution, may have been reasons for these restrictions.

The band was launched in 2003 with five members: lead vocalist Amir Eid, lead guitarist Sherif Hawary, drummer Tamer Hashem, keyboarder Sherif Mostafa and bass guitarist Adam el-Alfy. But it was not until the January 25 Revolution that it shot to fame. A day before former President Hosni Mubarak resigned, the group played Sout al-Horeya ("Sound of Freedom"). After Mubaraks ouster, they recorded revolutionary songs such as Ya el-Medan ("O Square") with singer Aida el-Ayoubi. In the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections, they released Wanted: A Leader. When their friend, prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, was arrested in November 2013, they released Yama fi Habas Mazalim ("In the Prison of the Oppressors").

The group performs a mixture of its own rock style and more conventional Egyptian pop. They recorded a song with pop groups Sharmoofers and El-Madfaagya, as well as performed A Stranger in a Strange Country with folk singer Abdelbasit Hammoudeh. After that songs success, they featured folk singer Tareq El Sheikh on Al-Kayf.

Banning songs is pointless in the era of YouTube, music critic Mohammad Shamees told Al-Monitor. I dont agree with the censor on these measures, because the controversy created by banning just makes them more popular. Cairokees songs have benefitted from political events in a way I dont agree with, because they have made political criticisms that were unjustifiably harsh, using any means to win an audience with the youth who are disgruntled about certain topics. The mixing of rock and pop means the songs have lost any unique nature, and the group repeats itself a lot. 'Wrong Way Blues' was the name of their 2014 album, which is a sort of artistic bankruptcy. Eids singing with Sheikh and Hammoudeh exposed the weakness of his own voice.

Cairokees experience with their new album confirms that there is no longer any room for banning and blocking songs, except from the ears of the state censors employees. Even the material losses the group may suffer due to the banning of album sales have been offset: Cairokees album was the most-sold record in Egypt on iTunes in mid-July.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/08/youth-band-beats-censorship-via-youtube.html

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Egyptian band beats censorship via YouTube - Al-Monitor