Daily Archives: March 27, 2020

People are sharing their bad DIY haircuts as coronavirus self-isolation prevents visits to the hairdressers – Yahoo Style

Posted: March 27, 2020 at 8:45 am

Social distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak has put many a routine appointment on hold including the likes of nails and haircuts.

In lieu of being able to visit the hairdressers, people are sharing their weird and wacky home haircuts with the nation.

The self-cut styles are offering up a moment of laughter in difficult times with more and more people sharing their haircuts-gone-wrong each day.

Josh went for a full-on bowl. (SWNS)

Perfecting a decent fade isnt easy, yet without their usual barber appointments, many people are attempting this difficult to master trick at home.

Read more: The best comfortable bras to wear while working from home

The trim usually sees the hairdresser use a razor to create a seamless line from the bottom of the hair (where its at its shortest) to the top - where its longer.

Despite the years of practice it takes to add the perfect fade to your arsenal, desperate DIY hairdressers are trying to recreate the look at home.

Perfecting the fade is no easy feat. (SWNS)

This fade didn't quite work out as planned. (SWNS)

Its one of those styles that might seem like a good idea until you start trying it - at which point its too late to turn back.

Luckily, many hairdressers who are unable to help due to social distancing are still on hand to talk you through some of the trickier styles.

Hairdresser Jordanne Barnard has offered her top tips on how to do a fade at home before you can get to a real hairdresser to perfect your attempt.

Start by picking the largest number you want to achieve on the clippers. Lets say youve chosen number three.

Choose where you want the fade to start from and clipper up to that point using the half guard (three and a half). The trick here is to reach that point and the flick your wrist on the way out of the hair.

Go over the same sections but a centimetre lower than the starting point on the hair. This time, though, use a number two.

Finally, repeat again a centimetre lower, but this time with a number one paying extra attention to around the ears. Be careful.

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If you notice any areas where it hasnt blended properly, go back over it using the half guard and the number that corresponds with that part of the hair.

To finish, take the guard off entirely and neatly follow the hairline and square off the nape of the neck using bare clippers.

If you dont happen to have a half guard on your clippers, you can always use a comb at a 45 degree angle where the two sections meet to create the same effect.

Story continues

If you need a little trim on top, Barnard recommends: Use the back fade as a guideline and pull the hair 90 degrees from the head and trim with the scissors in a point like angle. This will texturise it, hide any lines and take away the weight.

Read more: The unexpected benefits of social distancing

Its not the only haircut causing issues, though in fact, they all are.

Weve all noticed hairdressers wet our hair ahead of cutting it, so when Lara decided to start by wetting her fringe, she had the best intentions.

Somehow, though, the 22-year-old cut off a little too much than she meant to and ended up taking a huge triangle chunk out of her fringe.

Lara had the best intentions. (SWNS)

She started by wetting her hair. (SWNS)

The problem she faced is that by pulling the hair down too much, she inadvertently cut off way more than she needed to.

If you dont know what youre doing the golden rule has to be less is more. Its better to do a little regular trim than cutting it all off. If that does happen, though, there are plenty of hair growth shampoos and conditioners to help it grow back quickly.

Live: Follow all the latest updates from the UK and around the world

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Explained: Symptoms, latest advice and how it compares to the flu

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People are sharing their bad DIY haircuts as coronavirus self-isolation prevents visits to the hairdressers - Yahoo Style

Posted in Golden Rule | Comments Off on People are sharing their bad DIY haircuts as coronavirus self-isolation prevents visits to the hairdressers – Yahoo Style

Benefiting From The Majesty Of Divine Will | Thirteen Points In Making The Best Of The Situation – MuslimMatters

Posted: at 8:45 am

In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

The ethics of reciprocity, known as the golden rule, is any moral dictum that encourages people to treat others the way they would like to be treated. Although the term was originally coined by Anglican ministers such as George Boraston, the principle can be found in the sacred texts of the worlds great religions, as well as the writings of secular philosophers. Due to its ubiquity in many contexts, it has become an important focal point for interfaith dialogue and the development of international human rights norms.

The rule often appears as a summarizing principle of good conduct, the supreme moral principle of right action between human beings. Though not always understood literally, as it is often qualified by competing moral imperatives, it generally functions as an intuitive method of moral reasoning. Despite the different formulations, wordings, and contexts in which the rule appears across religions and traditions, Jeffery Wattles argues that there is enough continuity in meaning and application to justify describing the ethics of reciprocity as the golden rule.

Some philosophers have scoffed at the rule, noting that a crude, literal adherence to the outward phrasing can lead to moral absurdities. Harry J. Gensler reponds to this criticism by formulating the rule in these terms: Treat others only as you consent to being treated in the same situation. Context matters in the process of moral reasoning; what the rule demands is not rudimentary application as much as it is ethical consistency vis--vis human beings, as the first principle from which the morality of an action is analyzed. It is the locus of ones conscience, a guide for everyday behavior.

Moreover, application of the rule ought to be informed by a balanced collection of principles and values that manifest the rule in action. For this reason, writers throughout history have used the rule as a hub around which to gather great themes. Notions of justice, love, compassion, and other virtues have all been related to the rule by various religious traditions. Accounting for all of these considerations and responding to common objections, both Wattles and Gensler have convincingly defended the golden rule from its detractors and have presented it as a viable principle for a modern moral philosophy.

Islam, as a world religion with over one billion followers, has an important role to play in facilitating dialogue and cooperation with other groups in the modern world. The golden rule in Islamic traditions has been explicitly invoked by numerous Muslim leaders and organizations towards this end. Recently, hundreds of Muslim scholars and leaders have signed the A Common Word interfaith letter, asserting that the Abrahamic faiths share the twin golden commandments of the paramount importance of loving God and loving ones neighbor. The initiative grew into several publications and conferences, including the important and high-profile Marrakesh Declaration in early 2016, which cited A Common Word in its text as evidence of the compatibility between Islamic tradition and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Quran ascribes a number of beautiful names (asma al-husna) to God conveying virtues that Muslims, by implication, should practice, The most excellent names belong to Him. Among the relevant names of God are Al-Rahman (the Merciful), Al-Wadud (the Loving), Al-Ghafur (the Forgiving), Al-Rauf (the Kind), Al-Adl (the Just), Al-Karim (the Generous), and so on. Embedded in this description of God are many of the moral themes traditionally associated with the golden rule.

The distinguished Muslim scholar and mystic, Ab mid al-Ghazzl (d.1111), locates the golden rule within Gods loving nature as expressed in the verses, My Lord is merciful and most loving, and again, He is the Most Forgiving, the Most Loving. He authored a treatise on the names of God in Islamic tradition, discussing their theological meanings and his understanding of the proper way in which Muslims should enact those names. God, in his view, benefits all creatures without desiring any advantage or benefit in return:

Al-Wadud The Loving-kind is one who wishes all creatures well and accordingly favors them and praises them. In fact, love and mercy are only intended for the benefit and advantage of those who receive mercy or are loved; they do not find their cause in the sensitivities or natural inclination of the Loving-kind One. For anothers benefit is the heart and soul of mercy and love and that is how the case of God may He be praised and exalted is to be conceived: absent those features which human experience associates with mercy and love, yet which do not contribute to the benefit they bring.

In other words, God should be understood as entirely and selflessly benevolent towards His creatures, without any need or desire for repayment. God does not benefit from the worship of His servants, nor does He take pleasure in punishing the wicked. Rather, God only prescribes worship and righteous deeds for the benefit of believers. By reflecting this divine nature in action, believers should unconditionally want for others the same as they want for themselves:

One is loving-kind among Gods servants who desires for Gods creatures whatever he desires for himself; and whoever prefers them to himself is even higher than that. Like one of them who said, I would like to be a bridge over the fire [of hell] so that creatures might pass over me and not be harmed by it. The perfection of that virtue occurs when not even anger, hatred, and the harm he might receive can keep him from altruism and goodness.

Commentators of the Quran often found the rule implied in several verses. When righteousness (taqw) is first mentioned in Quran (when reading cover-to-cover), classical exegetes typically define it by appealing to traditional wisdom-sayings. Abu Ishaq al-Thalabi (d. 1035) narrates several exegetical traditions to define and explicate the meaning of righteousness. The early authorities Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 778) and Al-Fudayl ibn Iyad (d. 803) say that the righteous man (al-muttaqi) is he who loves for people what he loves for himself. Al-Junayd ibn Muhammad (d. 910), on the other hand, disagreed with them and took it a step further, The righteous man is not he who loves for people what he loves for himself. Rather, the righteous man is only he who loves for people greater than he loves for himself. In Al-Junayds telling, true righteousness is not simply the equality implied in the golden rule, but rather a definite preference to benefit others that amounts to altruism (al-ithar).

In contrast, the Quran severely rebukes cheaters in weights and measurements, Woe to those who give short measure, who demand of other people full measure for themselves, but give less than they should when it is they who weigh or measure for others! That is, they demand full payment for themselves while they give short-change to others. The golden rule was understood by Fakhr al-Dn al-Razi (d. 1209) to be the clear implication of this passage, as he reports the saying of the early authority Qatadah, Fulfil the measure, O son of Adam, as you would love it fulfilled for yourself, and be just as you would love justice for yourself.

Most of the explicit golden rule statements in Islamic tradition are found in the Hadith corpus, the sayings and deeds of Prophet Muammad . According to Anas ibn Mlik (d. 712), the Prophet said:

This is the most prominent golden rule statement in the Hadith corpus. The two leading Sunni Hadith scholars, Muhammad ibn Isml al-Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim ibn al-ajjj (d. 875), both placed this tradition in their book of faith, near the introductions of their respective collections. The implication is that the lesson in the tradition is essential to true faith itself, not simply a recommended or value-added practice.

Commentators sometimes mention that all good manners are derived from this tradition and three others, Whoever believes in God and the Last Day, let him speak goodness or be silent, and, It is from a mans excellence in Islam that he leaves what does not concern him, and, Do not be angry. Like many religious writers and philosophers, Muslim scholars took note of the summarizing function of the golden rule as a broad principle for good conduct.

A key question for the commentators was the meaning of brother in the tradition of Anas . It is generally agreed upon that brother refers to Muslims, but several commentators expanded the meaning to include non-Muslims or unbelievers. Prolific author and Shafii jurist, Muy al-Dn al-Nawaw (d. 1277), explained the tradition this way:

Firstly, that [tradition] is interpreted as general brotherhood, such that it includes the unbeliever and the Muslim. Thus, he loves for his brother the unbeliever what he loves for himself of embracing Islam, as he would love for his brother Muslim to always remain upon Islam. For this reason, to pray for guidance for the unbeliever is recommended The meaning of love is to intend good and benefit, hence, the meaning is religious love and not human love.

Al-Nawaws concept of religious love (al-mahabbat al-diniyah) parallels the distinction Christian writers made between agape () and eros (). The highest form of love, according to him, is that which is purely benevolent for Gods sake, in opposition to sinful passions, caprice, or ordinary types of love.

Although inclusion of non-Muslims in a broader brotherhood of humanity was not universally accepted, proponents of this interpretation found a strong case for their position in all of the permutations of the golden rule in the Hadith corpus. Even from the traditions of Anas alone, inclusive language was used by the Prophet often enough to justify a universal golden rule:

None of you has faith until he loves for the people what he loves for himself, and only until he loves a person for the sake of God, the Great and Almighty.

The servant does not reach the reality of faith until he loves for the people what he loves for himself of the good.

In particular, a variant in Sahih Muslim reads, until he loves for his brother or he said his neighbour what he loves for himself. In this version, Anas is unsure if the Prophet said brother or neighbor. If neighbors are included, the term would certainly apply to non-Muslims as well.

Muammad ibn Isml al-ann (d. 1768), a Yemeni reformer in the Salafi tradition, includes in his legal commentary a chapter on the rights of the neighbor, in which he employs some of the broadest language of the late classical to early modern period. Based upon the word neighbor in the version of Sahih Muslim, he concludes:

The narration of the neighbor is general for the Muslim, the unbeliever, and the sinner, the friend and the enemy, the relative and the foreigner, the near neighbour and the far neighbour. Whoever acquires in this regard the obligatory attributes of loving good for him, he is at the highest of levels.

Perhaps most significant is Al-anns inclusion of enemies (al-aduw) in the list of people covered by the golden rule. In this case, the rule has at least some kind of application to every single human being.

Abd Allh ibn Amr (d. 685), who is said to have been one of the first to write down the statements of the Prophet , narrates his version of the golden rule, Whoever would love to be delivered from Hell and admitted into Paradise, let him meet his end believing in God and the Last Day, and let him treat people as he would love to be treated. The rule here is a means of salvation and is expressed in terms of good behavior, rather than religious love.

Ab Hurayrah (d. 679), the most prolific narrator of Hadith, also shares what he heard from the Prophet , Love for people what you love for yourself, you will be a believer. Be good to your neighbour, you will be a Muslim. Like the tradition of Anas, the rule is associated with both true faith and good treatment of neighbors.

Sometimes Hadith traditions do not explicitly state the golden rule, but it is drawn out by the commentators. Tamim al-Dari (d. 661) reports that the Prophet said three times, Religion is sincerity. The companions said, To whom? The Prophet replied, To God, to His book, to His messenger, and to the leader of the Muslims and their commoners. Ibn Daqq al-d (d. 1302) explains at length the meaning of sincerity or good will (naah) in each context. As it relates to common people, he writes that sincerity is to take care of them with beautiful preaching, to abandon ill will and envy for them, and to love for them what he loves for himself of good and to hate for them what he hates for himself of evil.

Al-Numn ibn Bashr (d. 684) relates the Prophets parable of the faith community as a single body, You see the believers in their mercy, affection, and compassion for one another as if they were a body. When a limb aches, the rest of the body responds with sleeplessness and fever. A variant of this tradition reads, The Muslims are like a single man. If the eye is afflicted, the whole body is afflicted. If the head is afflicted, the whole body is afflicted. The idea is that Muslims should have empathy for one another by sharing the burden of each others pain, as stated in another tradition, The believer feels pain for the people of faith, just as the body feels pain in its head. Abu Abd Allh al-Halm (d. 1012) inferred the golden rule from this parable:

They should be like that, as one hand would not love but what the other loves, and one eye or one leg or one ear would not love but what the other loves. Likewise, he should not love for his Muslim brother but what he loves for himself.

Later commentators would develop this idea further. Ibn Daqq draws upon the parable of the faith community in his commentary on the tradition of Anas, writing, Some scholars said in this tradition is the understanding that the believer is with another believer like a single soul. Thus, he should love for him what he loves for himself, as if they were a single soul. Ibn ajar al-Haytham (d. 1567) makes the same connection, saying that to love one another means that he will be with him as one soul (al-nafs al-wahidah).

Yazid ibn Asad, another one of the Prophets companions, recalls that he said to him, O Yazid ibn Asad! Love for people what you love for yourself! In a variant of this tradition, the Prophet (s) asks him, Do you love Paradise? Yazid says yes, so the Prophet replies, Then love for your brother what you love for yourself. In yet another variant, Yazids grandson quotes the sermon of Prophet upon the pulpit, Do not treat people but in the way you would love to be treated by them.

Failure to live up to the golden rule could result in dreadful consequences in the Hereafter, especially for Imams and authorities. Maqil ibn Yasr, while on his deathbed, recounted what he learned from the Prophet , No one is appointed over the affairs of the Muslims and then he does not strive for them or show them good will but that he will never enter Paradise with them. In another wording, the Prophet said, He does not protect them as he would protect himself and his family but that Allah will cast him into the fire of Hell. In this regard, a Muslim leader must necessarily treat their followers as they would treat themselves and their own families, if such a terrible fate is to be avoided.

Ab Ummah al-Bhil (d. 705) tells the story of a young man who came to the Prophet (s) to ask for permission to indulge in adulterous intercourse. The Prophet engages him in an imaginative role-reversal, asking a series of Socratic questions and appealing to the young mans conscience to convince him against it, Would you like that for your mother? Would you like that for your sister? The young man, naturally, expresses his disapproval had someone else committed adultery with the women of his household. The logical conclusion, as stated by the Prophet, is to consider the golden rule, Then hate what God has hated, and love for your brother what you love for yourself.

Hatred for the sake of God is a fine line to walk, between righteous indignation and unjustified malice. At least some of the earliest Muslims adopted the familiar refrain: love the sinner, hate the sin. According to Mudh ibn Anas, this is how the Prophet defined hatred for the sake of God, The best faith is to love for the sake of God, to hate for the sake of God, and to work your tongue in the remembrance of God. Mudh said, How is it done, O Messenger of God? The Prophet said, That you love for people what you love for yourself, hate for them what you hate for yourself, and to speak goodness or be silent. The noble form of hatred is simply the inverse of the golden rule; if one sees another sinning, hatred should be for the evil deed because it harms its doer. At the same time, one loves good for the sinner by hoping for their repentance and divine forgiveness.

Ibrahim Adham (d. 782) remembers during his travels that he overheard a pair of Muslim ascetics discussing the love of God amongst themselves. Intrigued, he interjects himself into the conversation to ask, How can anyone have compassion for people who contradict their Beloved [God]?

The unnamed ascetic turns to him, saying:

They abhor their sinful deeds and have compassion for them, [pray] that by preaching to them they might leave their deeds. They feel pity that their bodies might be burned in hellfire. The believer is not truly a believer until he is pleased for people to have what is pleasing to himself.

The commentator Abd al-Ramn ibn Rajab (d. 1393) corroborates this interpretation, which he ascribes to the righteous predecessors (al-salaf al-li). Hence, it not correct for a Muslim to carry malicious hatred in the sense of desiring to harm others. A believer ought to love for sinners to repent, to be guided, and to be forgiven. In this regard, the Prophet admonished us, Do not hate each other, do not envy each other, do not turn away from each other, but rather be servants of God as brothers.

The irreversible march of globalization is producing an urgent need for people of different backgrounds and beliefs to find common ground. As the world grows closer together, with it grows the imperative to recognize each other as members of one human family. The ethics of reciprocity the golden rule is the best conceptual vehicle to advance this necessary intercultural dialogue and cooperation.

Islam is one of the worlds great religions, with over one billion followers living on every continent and speaking hundreds of languages. If peace on earth is to be actualized, Islam and Muslims must be a partner in it. Muslims need an entry point for understanding non-Muslims, just as non-Muslims need a way to begin understanding Muslims. Islams golden rule can provide a bridge between these worlds.

It is not reasonable to expect that the golden rule by itself can solve all the conflicts of the modern world, but what it can do is activate the innate conscience of human beings in a process of collective, intercultural moral reasoning. By accepting at the outset the premise of human equality and the obligation of moral consistency, we can work together to develop the mutual understanding and respect needed for people of different beliefs to live together in harmony. The golden rule itself is not the answer per se, rather it is the right question at the start; it is the first step in a journey we must take together, the first conversation in a dialogue we must have.

Success comes from Allah, and Allah knows best.

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Benefiting From The Majesty Of Divine Will | Thirteen Points In Making The Best Of The Situation - MuslimMatters

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Trump Is Now Openly Trying to Censor His Critics. He May Succeed. – Slate

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Trump Is Now Openly Trying to Censor His Critics. He May Succeed. - Slate

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This Was Never Just About Woody Allen. It Still Isn’t. – The Nation

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Every high-profile controversy discloses a deeper reality, and the one involving Woody Allen and the off-again, on-again publication of his memoir is no different. There is the despised celebrity and then the despised many, who have no power and for whom a sex accusation or conviction may make their very existence criminal. There is one damned book and then the damned many, banned by the thousands by state and federal prison authorities. There is one attention-seeking crowd of private censors and then the crowd working less noisily, organizing morality campaigns to remove books from school, university, and public libraries. Every year the American Library Association puts out a Top 10 Most Challenged Books list. In 2017 the list included Sex Is a Funny Word, a sex education book, challenged because of fears it might lead children to ask questions about sex. Since 2015, half the titles have had queer subjects.Ad Policy

Censorship is rarely called by its true name among those who practice it. History groans with the righteous justifications of private interests bent on erasing words and people they dont like. New excuses cant hide the old reflex. They do make it easy, though, to mistake the moral scold for the rebel spirit. Some scenes from the long contest between the vice cop of the mind and the champion of free thought offer a clarifying light.

Beginning in the 19th century, Anthony Comstock and his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (supported by J.P. Morgan, William Dodge, Samuel Colgate, and The New York Times) ruined thousands of writers lives and destroyed hundreds of thousands of pounds of books and pamphlets, many by women, in the service of protecting innocent girls. Comstocks successor, John Sumner, took up the cause in the 1910s, pressuring publishers into melting the printing plates for obscure, supposedly obscene novels, and in 1920 he and his crowd invoked the safety of young girls to get Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, lesbian heroes of the avant-garde press, arrested and prosecuted for daring to be the first in the world to publish Ulysses. Sumner also got the Post Office to burn some 20,000 copies of The Little Review, where the women had been serializing James Joyces masterwork. The vigilantes of decency had already scared off dozens of men in the reputable book trade from publishing anything by Joyce. When Dubliners finally got into print in Europe, a private citizen bought up the entire edition and had it set ablaze in Dublin. Joyce called it a new and private auto-da-f.

Joyce is but a name we know. Avowed protection from deviance, dirt, degeneracy, and the corruption of children led to such routine burning of unknown titles by unknown authors in the Western world that when the Nazis torched the library and archive of the great Magnus Hirschfelds Institute for Sexual Science in 1933, the act reverberated most forcefully among Hirschfelds fellow Jews, sex radicals, and researchers, who were already habituated to stepping cautiouslystudying womens sexual satisfaction in the United States, for instance, under the camouflage of maternal health. Depending on ones point of view, Hirschfeld might be categorized as a sexual psychopath (an American synonym for homosexual in the 1930s), part of a group to be watched, suspected, obliterated, or as a founder of the worlds first gay rights organization and a giant in the study of human sexuality (that would be current historys view; thank you, sexual liberation). One final example from a vast history: During the Red Scare and the interrelated though oft-ignored Lavender Scare, Cold War centurions in industry, the arts, media, unions, and other organizations cast themselves as defenders of democracy against radical contagion and guardians of wholesome (straight, marital) sexuality in their effort to shut people up, lock them up, oust them from their jobs, exile them, and deprive others of the freedom to see, read, know, be.

There is an element of the absurd in raising Ronan Farrows censorious zeal and Hachettes cowardly decision to pulp Woody Allens memoir, Apropos of Nothing, on the heels of such weighty history. The books resurrection by Skyhorse Publishing, announced as we went to press, does not lessen it. These are absurd times, when censors masquerade as justice warriors. For them, the degenerate man, as Allen has been labeled, is the real object of erasure. For Hachette, the cowardice was threefold, actually: first, in keeping its acquisition of Allens book a secret from Farrow, who as an author with its Little, Brown division did deserve the courtesy of a heads-up. Second, in caving to the crowd, including protesting staffers, who invoked allegiance to Farrow and victims rights to validate their censors reflex; third, in couching its public explanation of the betrayal of an author (Allen) and the destruction of a book in the soothing language of commitmentto challenging books, conflicting points of view, and a stimulatingwork environment. Hachette ought simply to have said what it meant: We fear the crowd. The crowd has power. Our US revenues dropped in 2019, so we chose the power side over the pervert.Related Article

Farrows duplicity is more obvious. He made his first splash promulgating one side of a family drama, convicting Allen of child molestation in the public minddespite copious reasons for doubt, including official investigations finding no abuse (which I discussed years ago in The Nation) and his brother Mosess severe rebuttal in a 2018 blog postand lamenting media industry efforts to obstruct his own writing about Hollywood.

Free speech for me but not for thee, as Nat Hentoff famously condensed it, is an ignoble political standard. Farrow, of course, is laden with emotion, with loyalty to his mother, Mia, and sister, Dylan, and his own lifetime of exposure to their accusing narratives. He cannot be dispassionate about Allen, and its preposterous to think he should be. Its preposterous as well that others who care about writing, ideas, independent thought, and the freedom to see should lash their intellect to Farrows prejudices. More disturbing is the pretense that theres high principle in cleansing the public sphere of anyone whos been declared a public demon.Current Issue

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For the crowd in this case, the weasels way out of complicity in censorship took routes, all of them dead ends. Censorship is an act of the state. Businesses are free to do what they want. Who needs another book by Woody Allen? Hes had his day in the sun. Hes rich; he can self-publish (and, look, his book will still come out in France). This is a down payment on justice and accountability; the powerful have always had a platform, finally the powerless have a voice. Free speech is a bourgeois construct to maintain the social order, so why care about it for Woody fucking Allen? Such were the sentiments floating in the suspect air after the staff walkout that preceded Hachettes decision to pulp the book. So brave, power agent Lynn Nesbit said of the walkout. I feel moved almost to tears. Nesbit represents not just Ronan Farrow but also Dylan and Mia, who have both profited off accusations against Allen via book contracts and considerable flattery in the press.

It requires no illusions about the social order or the free marketplace of ideas to understand that the dead end is the point at which someone commands someone else to shut up. The problem with private censorship is not so different from the problem with the nondisclosure agreement. But under the cover of #MeToo, censorship and the will to shun and silence are being renovated as social goods when exercised by the self-declared forces of good, on behalf of the good, as if definitions of whats good, whats progress, arent always politically contested. Its remarkableat a time when scientists are purging their work of dangerous terms like climate change and fetal tissue and transgender in order to maintain federal fundingthat anyone might feel confident that their own claim to purity cant boomerang.Related Article

The cowing power of the crowd suits the authoritarian spirit of the time, and some traditional defenders of free speech have gone soft or silent. The ACLU did not respond to a request for comment after the book was quashed. The Writers Guild issued no statement. PEN America issued a wobbly statement, which left Allen twisting in the wind, though its CEO, Suzanne Nossel, did slam Hachettes decision on the radio. Index on Censorship, by contrast, took swiftly to social and other media to defend principle. At the National Coalition Against Censorship, Christopher Finan criticized Hachette and pointed to the continuing relevance of The Freedom to Read Statement, first issued by librarians and publishers during the Cold War. Amid the current enthusiasm for moral cleansing, its propositions bear study, particularly one that states, No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the political views or private lives of its creators. No society of free people can flourish that draws up lists of writers to whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.

The early sex radicals and avant-garde feminists, who really were brave, recognized that the struggle to expand the realm of freedom had to include the freedom to write, read, see, and be seen, all of which broadened knowledge ofhence possibilities forhuman experience. (Its notable that Sylvia Beach, also a lover of women, was the first to publish Ulysses in its entirety, from her bookshop in Paris in 1922, thus providing the basis on which the men at Random House were able to orchestrate the landmark Supreme Court ruling on obscenity years later.) Vice, a term that in those days covered almost any writing about sex and any nonconformist behavior, was the point of a spear that helped enforce every social hierarchy and intensify every form of repression. We dont use the word much today, but the vice cop of the mind is still on the beat, allowing a certain kind of sex talkthe stories of abuse and accusationbut making it unanswerable, deciding who is worthy to speak, who is not, and who should hide. Skyhorses bet on a market for Allens book while much of society is housebound should not obscure that larger and unlovely reality.

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This Was Never Just About Woody Allen. It Still Isn't. - The Nation

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Free Expression and the Coronavirus Pandemic – Blogging Censorship

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The National Coalition Against Censorship is closely following developments in the United States that could threaten our civil liberties as responses to the coronavirus pandemic test governments and social structures worldwide. During a global public health crisis, medical needs are, understandably, prioritized. But our needs are many-faceted. As governments work to limit the spread of COVID-19, we must vigilantly protect our rights to freedom of speech and expression and defend our ability to both share and access information. And as public spaces, schools and cultural institutions shutter, however temporarily, we must look for ways to continue civil discourse, to promote artistic and cultural expression and to engage with one another as fellow citizens and humans.

NCAC continues to track and monitor pandemic-related issues that threaten to chill free speech or infringe on our rights to express ourselves, share information, think, create and explore ideas. We will update this list as the situation develops. If you have specific censorship concerns or questions, please reach out.

In the days before a national state of emergency was declared, it was revealed that Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) meetings regarding the coronavirus had been classified since January. HHS oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among other agencies. Meetings were held in a secure area usually reserved for military or intelligence operations. In addition to preventing information from being shared with the public, holding classified meetings prevents health, legal, and other experts without upper level security clearance from participating. As Defending Rights and Dissent writes, It is an abuse of the classification process to classify deliberations about a public health crisis. The American people have a right to know the extent of the threat posed by the coronavirus and what steps to take. They have a right to accurate public health information. Government officials should not be covering up information in order to downplay the extent of the threat or hide their own missteps. And now more than ever, we need strong whistleblower protections. (Emphasis ours)

It can be tempting, in times of crisis, to label dissent as dangerous. But our democracy demands participation, and we must be allowed to access dissenting views and express our own. Disagreement and debate are crucial to thoughtful decision-making.

We must be able to question our governments response to this pandemic from all angles. In an attempt to write the legacy theyd prefer, Chinese censors have taken harsh steps to track and punish those criticizing the government online, rather than allow a robust and necessary assessment of how the pandemic began, spread and was handled. What happens next time, when no lessons are permitted to be remembered? The Chinese government has also expelled US journalists, limiting dissemination of accurate information about the virus from its source.

Another example of overbroad control of information is Morocco. Authorities there have criminalized misinformation in misguided efforts to prevent panic, but their power to punish speech has been extended to voices critical of the government and its response to the crisis.

Censorship of science by the US government takes the form of distorting, discouraging, and redacting research results for political reasons. The final result is suppression of vital information. (See here for information on censorship of climate science and stem cell research.) The Trump Administration has shown a willingness to muzzle scientists and early attempts to keep discussions of coronavirus classified raise concerns about the motivations behind overly stringent control on vital scientific information and medical expertise, as well as about its human cost.

Scientists and medical professionals must be free to share their knowledge and recommendations, even when it puts pressure on governments.

Nations across the globe are instituting travel restrictions and full bans on entry for non-citizens. Travel bans can violate Americans First Amendment right to receive information by preventing citizens from interacting with the ideas and viewpoints of foreign nationals. Freedom of speech includes the ability to facilitate the free international exchange of people and ideas. These bans can be particularly devastating to artists and cultural producers vulnerable for speaking out in repressive regimes.

The nature of COVID-19 and its spread make these choices understandable, but we must ensure that these restrictions are medically necessary and as limited as possible within the recommendations of experts. Broad, indefinite travel restrictions can easily be manipulated by political motivations, as seen during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.

In the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak in the US, containment strategies involved the use of increased surveillance and tracking. These methods of infection-mapping can be useful, and necessary, during such times. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) cautions, though, that, any extraordinary measures used to manage a specific crisis must not become permanent fixtures in the landscape of government intrusions into daily life. There is historical precedent for life-saving programs such as these, and their intrusions on digital liberties, to outlive their urgency. EFF lays out principles for data collection and digital monitoring of potential carriers of COVID-19:

As Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of theSurveillance Technology Oversight Project, told the New York Times: We could so easily end up in a situation where we empower local, state or federal government to take measures in response to this pandemic that fundamentally change the scope of American civil rights. Read more here

As a growing number of Americans work from home, or have their employment curtailed entirely, and practice social distancing, social media platforms are becoming increasingly important spaces for gathering, sharing news and disseminating information. Some have criticized the platforms for allowing misinformation to proliferate or for not cracking down on racist speech relating to the coronavirus. Social media companies are adapting their rules about what information is allowed in real time as the pandemic spreads. Largely, though, platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been praised for their management of information that could be damaging to public health and for providing access to social connection in a time of physical disconnection.

Social media companies, however, have a complicated relationship with free speech. As private companies, they are free to set their own user guidelines and content standards. But as public spaces, many (including NCAC) argue that they have a responsibility to respect the principles of free speech and protect their users rights to express themselves. While both Twitter and Facebook frequently extol their commitments to free speech, they often struggle to balance user needs, commercial concerns and free speech protections. In an effort to protect its content moderators from COVID-19, Facebook is shifting most of its content moderation decisions to its algorithmic tools, however some of its most sensitive decisions are being moved to other staffers. Unfortunately, the automated tools used by Facebook often get decisions wrong such mistakes will be much more frequent while human moderators are mostly absent. The scarcity of human decision-makers will also inevitably complicate an already difficult appeals process.

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Free Expression and the Coronavirus Pandemic - Blogging Censorship

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Reporters Without Borders: If the Chinese press were free, the coronavirus might not be a pandemic – Hong Kong Free Press

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In ananalysispublished on March 13th, researchers from the University of Southampton suggest that the number of cases of coronavirus in China could have been reduced by 86% if the first measures, which were taken on January 20th, had been implemented two weeks earlier. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) demonstrates, based on the events in the early days of the crisis, that without the control and censorship imposed by the authorities, the Chinese media would have informed the public much earlier of the seriousness of the epidemic, saving thousands of lives and possibly avoiding the current pandemic.

Photojournalists at the National Peoples Congress. Photo: Lukas Messmer/HKFP.

October 18: Chinese press could have reported the chilling results of a pandemic simulation

The John Hopkins Center for Health Security, in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, carries out asimulatedcoronavirus pandemic onOctober 18th, 2019, andalertsthe international community to the chilling results: 65million deaths in 18months.

If the Chinese internet were not isolated by an elaborate system of electronic censorship and the media were not forced to follow the instructions of the Communist Party, the public and the authorities would have undoubtedly been interested in this informationcoming from the United States, which echoed the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic of 2003. SARS infected 8,000 people and caused more than 800 deaths, mostly in China.

December 20: the Wuhan city authorities could have informed journalists

One month after thefirst documented case, the city of Wuhan already has 60patients with an unknown SARS-like pneumonia, several of whom havefrequentedthe Huanan fish market. Despite the situation, the authorities do not see fit to communicate this information to the media.

If the authorities had not hidden from the media the existence of an epidemic outbreak linkedto a very popular market, the public would have stopped visiting this place long before its official closure on January 1st.

December 25: Doctor Lu Xiaohong could have expressed fears to the press

Doctor Lu Xiaohong, the head of gastroenterology at Wuhan City Hospital No. 5, beginshearingcases ofinfectionaffecting medical staff on December 25 and suspects from the first week of January that the infection is transmissible between humans.

If journalists sources in China did not face severe penalties ranging from professional reprimand to heavy prison terms, Doctor Lu Xiaohong would have taken responsibility for alerting the media, forcing the authorities to take action, which only happened three weeks later.

Dr. Li Wenliang.

December 30: whistleblowers early warning would have been picked up by the media

The director of the emergency department at Wuhan Central Hospital, Ai Fen, and a group of doctors launch an alert regarding a SARS-like coronavirus. Eight of them, including DoctorLi Wenliang, who later died from the illness, will bearrestedby Wuhan police on January 3rd for circulatingfalse rumors.

If the press and social media had been able to freely relay the information transmitted by whistleblowers on December 30th, the public would have realised the danger and put pressure on the authorities to take measures limiting expansion of the virus.

December 31: social media would have relayed the official alert in China

Chinaofficially alertsthe World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 31st but at the same time forces the WeChat discussion platform tocensora large number of keywords referring to the epidemic.

Without censorship, the social network WeChat, which has a billion active users in China, could have enabled journalists to broadcast reports and precautionary advice contributing to better compliance with the rules recommended by the health authorities.

World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo: U.S. Mission Geneva/Eric Bridiers.

January 5: the scientific media would have disseminated the coronavirus genome earlier

Professor Zhang Yongzhens team at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre manages to sequence the virus onJanuary 5th, but the authorities seem reluctant to make the genome public. On January 11th, the day China confirms its firstdeathfrom the virus, the researchers leak information on open source platforms, which will result in the punitive closure of their laboratory.

If the Chinese authorities were transparent, they would have immediately communicated the coronavirus genome sequence to the scientific media, saving the international community precious time in their research for the development of a vaccine.

January 13: the international community would have anticipated the risk of a pandemic

The first case of coronavirus infection outside of China, a tourist from Wuhan, is reported in Thailand.

If the international media had had full access to information held by the Chinese authorities on the scale of the epidemic before January 13th, it is likely that the international community would have taken stock of the crisis and better anticipated it, reducing the risk of the epidemic spreading outside China and possibly avoiding its transformation into a pandemic.

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Reporters Without Borders: If the Chinese press were free, the coronavirus might not be a pandemic - Hong Kong Free Press

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Why TikTok Is The Worst Way To Waste Time In Quarantine – The Federalist

Posted: at 8:44 am

Quarantine got me on tik tok, Erin Foster told her 500,000 Instagram followers on Tuesday. Foster is hardly alone, but thats just about the worst place to be.

Communist China hampered the dissemination of information that could have prevented a pandemic, and were spending the resultant quarantine period passing time with a stupid app that censors on the partys behalf. Its easy to understand whyTikToks addictive appeal is heightened in a world of social distance. But if ever there were a time to resist the reach of Chinas long arm, its now.

Much like Britney Spears, TikTok is not that innocent. The app has been credibly accused of censorship on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, and faces legal obligations to overturn its trove of data if the CCP asks. Vox outlined two major concerns about TikTok in December:

One of the more problematic implications is a 2017 Chinese law, which requires Chinese companies to comply with government intelligence operations if asked. That means that companies based in China have little recourse to decline should the government request to access data.

The second is what the Chinese Communist Party might do with that data.

TikTok collects data. As an app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, the CCP can access it. TikTok claims U.S. data is stored outside of China. But thats largely irrelevant, asAlex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory told the Washington Post last fall. The leverage the government has over the people who have access to that data, thats whats relevant.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) echoed these concerns in a bipartisan letter to Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire sent in November (emphasis added): Security experts have voiced concerns that Chinas vague patchwork of intelligence, national security, and cybersecurity laws compel Chinese companies to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Without an independent judiciary to review requests made by the Chinese government for data or other actions, there is no legal mechanism for Chinese companies to appeal if they disagree with a request.

As the Post pointed out, TikTok is not part ofthe Global Network Initiative, a collection of companies that have pledged to resist unlawful or overly broad requests from governments to access user data, the group confirmed.

The GNI does annual checkups of its members, including Facebook and Google, to ensure theyre keeping their promises, that report continued. But not TikTok.

Stamos further observed that TikTok is operating under a political censorship regime, and noted the Chinese government has no problem telling [its companies] where they should come down in political debates. For instance, content about the Hong Kong protests was noticeably light on the platform last year.

Consider alsothe case of New Jersey teenFeroza Aziz, whose account was suspended shortly after she posted a video explaining the CCPs oppression of Uyghur Muslims. At first, TikTok said Aziz was suspended for violating its terrorism rules in a separate video, a satirical clip about dating that included a picture of Osama bin Laden. Then the company changed its story, blaming ahuman moderation error, and restoring the video, rendering its initial excuse highly suspect.

As you might expect, TikTok claims it does not censor content in the United States based on the CCPs demands. Again, the app is owned by ByteDance, which owns Chinas version of TikTok. On Douyin, of course, a broad range of supposedly subversive topics are banned. After shuttering its comedy app, ByteDances founder issued an apology for deviation of socialist core values.

Thats whose app were using during these quarantines which, by the way, could probably have been prevented had the CCP not perpetrated a clear and despicable cover-up of the virus. The product youre using to pass the time while stuck indoors is owned by a company that is necessarily complicit with the bad actors in China who helped put us in this situation.

With kids home from school and adults home from work, people are turning to TikTok for entertainment, and understandably so. The app is fun. Celebrities are flooding it with content. But there is a legitimate ethical question as to whether bored Americans should spend their isolation time boosting the fortunes and influence of a company that is complicit with the communist government that cost us lives and jobs.

We have time to kill on TikTok because of communist Chinas cover-up. TikTok is complicit with communist China. We can probably find better way to entertain ourselves while we ride out this terrible storm Chinese communists helped send our way.

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Why TikTok Is The Worst Way To Waste Time In Quarantine - The Federalist

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Global initiative to monitor attacks on the media during coronavirus – The Shift News

Posted: at 8:44 am

Index on Censorship and the Justice for Journalists Foundation (JFJ) have joined forces and come together to set up a project that monitors and catalogues attacks and violations against the media specifically related to the coronavirus health crisis.

In our daily work in the post-Soviet region, Justice for Journalists Foundation experts and partners come across grave violations of media freedom and media workers human rights. Today, we are witnessing how the corrupt governments and businessmen in many of the regional autocracies are abusing the current limitations of public scrutiny, JFJ Director Maria Ordzhonikidze said.

This major decrease in civil liberties allowed governments to continue pursuing their interests in a less transparent manner while media workers striving to unveil murky practices are facing more risks than ever before, she said.

These violations will be recorded on a map hosted on Index on Censorship and on the Justice for Journalists Media Risk Map.

The project has three main objectives: the first is to increase awareness about the importance of media freedom at this particular point in time. The second is to support journalists whose work is being hindered by highlighting their challenges to an international audience and, finally, to continue to improve media freedom globally in the long term.

Justice for Journalists Foundation will contribute to the joint project by expanding cooperation with its existing regional partners in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Index on Censorship will use the experience it has gained running other mapping projects to gather and compare media violations in each country and further analyse the data when the global crisis is over.

It has been just over a week that Index on Censorship and Justice for Journalists Foundation started collecting data and already the numbers of journalists from all over the world reporting to the map are on the increase.

Index on Censorship has already expressed concerns about the number of incidents showing how governments are using this extraordinary health crisis as an excuse to roll back personal and media freedom.

A few examples include Hungarys Prime Minister Victor Orban, who has proposed a Bill introducing emergency legislation that gives him the power to rule by decree with a significant detail that outlines how these powers could be used against those who publicise false or distorted facts that alarm or agitate the public, with a punishment of up to five years in prison.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has issued a provisional measure which means that the government no longer has to answer freedom of information requests within the usual deadline.

In South Africa, the government has stopped epidemiologists, virologists, infectious disease specialists and other experts from commenting in the media on Covid-19 and insists that all requests for comment be directed to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

If the legislations are not reversed at the end of the crisis, many of these incidents will have long term consequences.

Strong media freedom is essential during this time. It is at the heart of helping tackle a fast-moving crisis, it must hold governments accountable if their actions threaten the safety of their people and it remains vital in finding out where help is needed and in telling peoples stories.

For those who want more information or wish to contribute to this initiative by providing information on incidents email: [emailprotected] or [emailprotected]

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Global initiative to monitor attacks on the media during coronavirus - The Shift News

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