Monthly Archives: January 2024

News outlets worldwide have been heeding demands to remove articles about an Indian tech company called Appin and its co-founder, Rajat Khare. Major U.S. outlets are among those that have been successfully pressured to take down their reporting not just in India, but here as well.

The ordeal raises serious concerns about the global reach of local judges thousands of miles away. It also raises questions about the adequacy of existing legal safeguards to deal with international censorship campaigns arising from countries like India, with governments that dont respect human rights, let alone press freedom. Even when the government is not directly involved in a censorship campaign, its reputation precedes it, and it would be impossible for news publishers not to take note.

Multiple news outlets take down stories globally

Everyone from Reuters to the U.K.s The Sunday Times and outlets in Luxembourg and Switzerland has censored their reporting about Khare and Appin after either lawsuits or takedown letters, according to a report in the Daily Beast. The legal actions often come from an entity calling itself the Association of Appin Training Centers or its alleged executives.

Reuters, for example, ran a detailed investigation last November about how Appin functioned as a hack-for-hire powerhouse. Khare and Appin vehemently deny the allegations. Reuters published the article despite an injunction, entered in 2022, prohibiting it from reporting anything defamatory about the association. Presumably, Reuters believed the article wasnt defamatory, so the injunction wouldnt apply.

But within weeks, an Indian court deemed the article indicative of defamation despite failing to identify any fallacies in the report and ordered it removed from the internet. Reuters complied, taking down the article not just in India but around the world. Even the Internet Archives Wayback Machine removed the Reuters story. Fortunately, DDoSecrets has stepped up to host the Reuters story and other censored reporting. (Sidenote: It is raising funds so it can continue doing its important work.)

The order doesnt expressly limit the required takedown to India, which may suggest the Indian court intended it to be removed globally. But Indian courts dont have global jurisdiction. And a U.S. court would be particularly unlikely to enforce the order, given the nearly insurmountable constitutional presumption against prohibitions on publication, or prior restraints. Theres even a law in the U.S., the SPEECH Act, against honoring defamation judgments from countries that dont protect free speech.

So why did Reuters remove the story in the U.S. and everywhere else, replacing it with an editors note that it stands by its reporting and plans to appeal (a slow process anywhere, but especially in India)? And why have so many others complied with takedown demands?

Some publications, like The New Yorker, have kept their stories up despite reported threats from Khares lawyers (which reportedly included the firm Clare Locke, known for representing Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News), but at least 18 other outlets also either removed articles about Appin outright or erased mentions of Khare.

It cant just be ignorance of the law. Khare is far from the first rich guy to try to silence critics. Reuters and other censored outlets have plenty of First Amendment lawyers and must know U.S. law is on their side. They also know that Clare Locke succeeded in the Dominion case largely because it had some very helpful evidence to work with, not because it possesses some secret legal magic wand that makes the First Amendment disappear.

Demands for removal leverage risk of deplatforming by tech companies

A closer look at the associations tactics may provide answers. For one, the order in the Reuters case not only requires the story to be taken down by Reuters but to be deindexed by Google. The association is making sure to let its other targets know about that, including in a recent takedown letter to Ron Deibert of the Citizen Lab (judging from Deiberts X post about the letter, hes unlikely to take down his article). Others have received similar letters.

Perhaps the message is that resistance is futile: Theres no point in paying lawyers to fight takedown demands if, at the end of the day, Google can make the articles invisible anyway.

But another line from the letter to Deibert stood out even more: It claims the article is contemptuous not only to the Plaintiffs concerned however it is absolutely derogatory to the entire Indian Nation. The article says nothing about India in its entirety.

Further nationalistic language appears in correspondence to Meta, attached to court documents filed in the Reuters case. Those letters, from the association's Indian counsel, baselessly accuse the journalists behind the Reuters story (Christopher Bing, Zeba Siddiqui, and Raphael Satter) of a serious unusual espionage operation and a well-planned modus operandi to malign Ruling Indian Government, demanding Meta therefore block their WhatsApp accounts.

According to court documents, the association also sent demands to block the journalists accounts on LinkedIn and Naukri, an Indian platform they allegedly used to contact potential sources. Fortunately, neither LinkedIn nor Meta appears to have complied to date, but the threat of deindexing or deplatforming is a powerful cudgel. Tools like WhatsApp are essential for journalists these days.

Veiled threats have an impact regardless of credibility

The allusions to the nation of India and its current rulers in legal correspondence about disputes between private companies also may serve another purpose.

The administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is infamous for its crackdowns on speech and the press, especially online. India, for example, managed to tame Twitter with its hostage law, requiring social media companies to keep representatives in the country for authorities to arrest if their employers misbehave. That law may not bind news outlets, but it doesnt have to. They need to have personnel in India if they want to cover news there.

Lawyers in the suit against Reuters have already asked for the three reporters to be jailed. Theyre not based in India, but might authorities arrest someone else in their place? News outlets may not want to find out the hard way, especially if theyre under the impression that theyve offended the Ruling Indian Government.

Were unaware of any indication that the Modi administration takes criticism of Appin or Khare personally or would even care at all. The claim that the Reuters article maligns the current government is perplexing given that the reporting focuses on events predating Modis 2014 inauguration. As for Khare, hes now an Antiguan national living in Switzerland.

Nonetheless, perhaps the associations intent in invoking the Ruling Indian Government is to issue a not-so-subtle reminder, to anyone considering flouting its demands, of who they may be messing with. And it seems to be working. Bluff or not, news outlets may be afraid to call it.

American legal protections cant stop foreign censorship tactics

While the U.S. may not always be the global leader in press freedom it thinks it is, its legal protections against foreign censorship orders are relatively strong. But that may not matter if others follow Appins playbook.

U.S. outlets know the First Amendment cant protect them from stories being suppressed, or reporters deplatformed, by tech companies at the behest of foreign courts. It also provides no solace against veiled threats, however noncredible they may be, to sic authoritarian regimes on journalists.

The aforementioned SPEECH Act was intended largely to stop U.S. courts from enforcing judgments entered under the U.K.s plaintiff-friendly libel laws. Thats helpful when U.S. outlets are primarily worried about legal risk back home. But in cases arising from countries ruled by governments like Modis, there may be larger concerns than that.

And if the U.S. is going to continue its partnerships with such countries, then policymakers here need to think seriously about how to address those concerns.

The Biden administration has maintained that it wont lecture India about its domestic human rights problems (although recent reporting says alleged Indian assassination plots have complicated the U.S.-India relationship). But censorship emanating from Indian courts is not a domestic issue when its stopping U.S. citizens from reading important news about a U.S. strategic partner. Whether or not Indias government had any direct involvement with this latest campaign to silence the press, it may have created the climate that enabled it.

If the U.S. insists on partnering with censorial regimes, then policymakers need to start thinking seriously about the consequences for free speech back home, and the administration needs to do more to stand up for American values than empty talk. Otherwise who is going to tell us about the next hack-for-hire operation or assassination plot, for that matter?

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Global censorship campaign raises alarms - Freedom of the Press Foundation

It is a rough time to be a teacher. Having parents who are interested in their childrens curriculum was the dream once upon a time. Thats become nightmarish as helicopter parents go out of their way to redefine any and everything as too controversial to belong to a learning environment you cant even take kids to see high art anymore. In Texas, there were several highly esteemed authors Shakespeare and Toni Morrison among them that you couldnt teach for fear that it would offend the parents moral sensibilities. Thankfully, Texas teachers have hope of a little more autonomy in their classrooms. From Jurist:

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on Wednesday that Texas legislation aimed at restricting or banning sexually explicit books in public school libraries likely violates the Constitution, affirming a lower courts injunction against it. Representatives from the plaintiffs side welcomed the judgment with a sense of triumph and relief: The courts decision also shields Texas businesses from the imposition of impossibly onerous conditions, protects the basic constitutional rights of the plaintiffs, and lets Texas parents make decisions for their own children without government interference or control. This is a good day for bookstores, readers, and free expression.

It is a good day for students, too. Laws that prevent kids from being able to learn are literally stultifying, and its a shame that the main motivator is petty politics. The motivation for these book bans seem more concerned with parents egos than childrens well being. Just take a look at some of the books Texan parents want banned. A Michelle Obama autobiography got shot down because it painted Trump as a bully. 1) So? 2) Hows that second defamation case going for ya? A book called A Good Kind Of Trouble about a 12-year-old joining a protest was attacked for causing a white child to feel confusion or distress. Excuse me, were we not all forced to read Lord of the Flies growing up? Because the thought that my classmates and I would all go feral if the teachers left us to our own devices was far more harrowing than people using the First Amendment.

Best of luck to the teachers in Florida. Even if the books are available to your students, it wont be easy getting them to read them when you have to compete against TikTok.

US Appeals Court Upholds Injunction Against Texas Law Censoring Sexually Explicit School Books [Jurist]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord in the Facebook groupLaw School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim,a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email atcwilliams@abovethelaw.comand by tweet at@WritesForRent.

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Texas Library Censorship Attempt Struck Down By 5th Circuit - Above the Law

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Marione Ingram. Shes an 88-year-old German American Holocaust survivor whos been protesting for months outside the White House calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She was scheduled to speak this month at eight different schools in her native Hamburg, Germany. She was planning to address students receiving awards recognizing their commitment to social justice activism. Then, in December, she was told by an event organizer that her appearances were canceled. The trip was eventually postponed until May.

AMY GOODMAN: Marione Ingram is author of The Hands of War: A Tale of Endurance and Hope from a Survivor of the Holocaust and also the book The Hands of Peace: A Holocaust Survivors Fight for Civil Rights in the American South. Shes joining us from Washington, D.C.

Marione, Im sorry you had to leave the studio because there was an alarm in the building and everyone had to evacuate, but youre back now. And you have heard the previous guests, two Palestinian American esteemed artists, talking about having been canceled, like you, Samia Halaby by Indiana University, and Emily Jacir was about to give a talk in Berlin. Talk about the reason you were given for going back to Hamburg, Germany, where youve gone a number of times to speak to young people, but the reason why your talks were canceled this month.

MARIONE INGRAM: Good morning, Amy. Yes, a bit of excitement, so I missed I heard Samias explanation of her cancellation Im really sorry about that and missed the other, because we were evacuated.

The reasons for my cancellation have been extremely vague, given a climate in Germany right now of a lot of antisemitic events, apparently. And the only concrete explanation I got from someone was that I, as a Holocaust survivor, would be used by the AfD, which is the Alternative for Deutschland, the Alternative for Germany, which is a neo-Nazi and a primarily antisemitic group. But I was told that they would use my picture and my protest sign in a propaganda I cant even figure out what kind of propaganda that would be used for, since they are basically Nazis and would be a destruction of

AMY GOODMAN: The sign youre talking about is, standing outside the White House, Survivor says peace not war?

MARIONE INGRAM: Yes, yes. But on the flip side, it says Stop genocide in Gaza. And that has upset the powers that be, politicians who decide what can be said and what cannot be said.

I have been speaking to students for years, and I was also told by several teachers that right now my presence, talking to students, is of the utmost importance, because the schools in Hamburg are so diverse and there are many students who come from countries where there is war, oppression, poverty, and students in really terrible positions of trying to manage what is going on, conflict with each other. And I was told that my presence is so important because I have a rapport with students, and they were looking forward to expressing their thoughts, because they know that in talking to me and with me that they can say everything that is on their minds without being criticized or ostracized.

I find it extremely I understand Germanys sensitivity because of their gruesome history. But Germany has also been the only country, maybe other than Rwanda, that has acknowledged its horrific history, and it has taught this history as a never again thing. We must face our history so we can learn from it. So it is surprising to me that Germany has chosen to silence me.

But I think the worst part of it is that they are silencing young people who are experiencing especially in Germany, they are close to the war in Ukraine. They are troubled by what is going on by the war in the Mideast and the horrific slaughter of innocent people. It should be an absolute standstill of all governments when you are told that over 10,000 children are being murdered. There is no excuse for that.

And then to turn around America and Germanys support of Israels politics is extremely disturbing and, to me, frightening, because any time any government decides to silence the voices of people who oppose government policies, whatever they may be, this reminds me so much of my childhood. My childhood was spent in the first 10 years much the same way as the children of Gaza. I know exactly what they are going through. I know exactly what they are thinking. And this, apparently, has upset the Ministry of Culture, because I have compared the onset

AMY GOODMAN: We have less than a minute to go.

MARIONE INGRAM: The silencing of the last survivor of all three major events in Hamburg the firestorm, the worst bombing in the European war, and the Holocaust, where I lost almost all of my family and the silencing of voices like all of our voices when they are most needed is indicative of something more frightening, because I believe when governments decide to silence voices in opposition to the stance that they are taking, then we have to really question very deeply why are they doing it and for what reason.

AMY GOODMAN: Marione Ingram, were going to have to leave it there, but we thank you so much for being with us, 88-year-old Jewish German Holocaust survivor, has been protesting, calling for Biden to support a Gaza ceasefire.

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Censorship over Palestine: Holocaust Survivor Decries Repression After Talks in Germany Are Canceled - Democracy Now!

Amid the continuing layoffs and plummeting public trust, traditional mainstream media have tended to favor censorship far more than they used to. As John Lloyd, co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, put it recently at Quillette,

The US media enjoys the worlds strongest protections of speech and publication, so it might have been counted on to oppose this movement in the name of those freedoms. But instances of journalists being fired or forced to resign for writing or saying the wrong thing have been growing, and these cases tend to follow a similar pattern. First, a writer or editor publishes a piece that is deemed offensive to one or more groups of marginalised individuals. Second, activists, influencers, celebrities, and not infrequently the writers/editors own colleagues informally collaborate in a sustained social-media mobbing of the publication in question and any staffers unwise enough to defend the article at issue. Third, following a period of agonised indecision, the writer/editor is pushed out and the publication releases a craven apology detailing the hurt caused and the lessons learned. Upshot? The mob is greatly empowered and the spectrum of permissible opinion shrinks.

For what its worth, even as late as the turn of the millennium, media people tended to be reflexively against censorship. Thats partly because most treasured the hope of discovering an embarrassing or unspeakable truth. Bluntly, that made a journalists career. But today, major media no longer exist to inform the public so much as to convey to the public the values that the mediums key personnel believe they should have. So censorship feels much more comfortable now.

One factor that probably helps media personnel feel that way is the sense of belonging to an academic elite. Far more journalists today have degrees:

Masters degrees in journalism now dominate the hiring at newspapers. Newspapers prefer degrees from prestigious schools, which always made me smirk because if you have a degree from Harvard, why are you working for peanuts at the Charleston Gazettein West Virginia?

Some are trying to fight back though

Filmmaker and former network news producer Ted Balaker points out, that The New York Times stood its ground when confronted by GLAAD, and execs at HBO (now Max) ever-so-cautiously announced a partnership with the formerly untouchable J.K. Rowling.

If Cancel culture finally expires some day, its obituary should recognize these profiles in courage (or profit seekingunder normal conditions, it wouldnt take courage to partner with the worlds most successful author).

But fighting back will mean acknowledging that the publication exists for the readers, not for Cancel Culture and yes, that will take courage.

James Bennet, one of the journalists fired in the same New York Times purge that claimed Bari Weiss, offered a key observation late last month at The Economist: Courage is what media dont have any more.

The Timess problem has metastasised from liberal bias to illiberal bias, from an inclination to favour one side of the national debate to an impulse to shut debate down altogether. All the empathy and humility in the world will not mean much against the pressures of intolerance and tribalism without an invaluable quality that [his former boss publisher, A.G.] Sulzberger did not emphasise: courage.

The reality is that journalism schools do not even value debate any more; they deride it as bothsidesism.

Government-funded news media?

Employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reports that broadcast, print and digital outlets all together experienced 2,681 journalism job cuts in 2023, up 48% from 1,808 in 2022 and 77% from 1,511 in 2021. Media analysts now warn of news deserts to come, as a result. But that, of course, is nonsense. People are largely curating their own news now, as they often must.

However, the Canadian solution the government funds the legacy media is starting to be spoken of in the United States in veiled terms:

All available evidence suggests that the commercial future for journalism is especially dire, Victor Pickard, a professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvanias Annenberg School for Communication, told The Wrap. We cannot simply let the market drive local journalism into the ground. I expect to see more legislative efforts, especially at state government levels, aimed at shoring up and even expanding local journalism.

For that, read: The government subsidizes the legacy media to stay in business and they act thereafter as public relations outlets for the governments that fund them. Expect to see such proposals floated more often in the United States in the next few years.

The rest is here:
As Legacy Media Continues in Decline, It Espouses Censorship More - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Commentator Dan Bongino says that censorship and left-wing riots will increase as former President Donald Trump gains momentum on the campaign trail.

Bongino issued the warning on his Rumble broadcast this week and referenced two articles that he claimed serve as a guidebook to stopping Trump from reassuming the presidency.

The first article is a piece in Time published in February 2021 titled The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. The article details the alleged efforts of left-wing activists to pressure platforms to enforce their rules, both by removing content or accounts that spread disinformation and by more aggressively policing it in the first place. Another section refers to a national mobilization network that purportedly prepared to hit the streets if Trump remained president after inauguration day in 2021.

The other article Bongino mentioned in his broadcast was a January 2017 piece in Foreign Policy titled 3 Ways to Get Rid of President Trump Before 2020.

The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders, wrote Rosa Brooks, the author of the article.

Bongino claimed his Facebook account has been throttled recently, and he suggested social media companies may further suppress or inhibit certain voices.

As Trump closes in on the nomination, you are going to see two things ramp up: censorship under the guise of, hey, were just trying to get free and fair elections and prevent misinformation, so we need to censor people. And youre going to see an increase in calls for riots and coups, Bongino said.

This is going to get worse, Bongino added. Censorship number one. Number two, get ready for their calls for riots and calls for coups.

As previously reported byThe Dallas Express, Trump won the Iowa caucus by a wide margin after maintaining his front-runner status among those vying for the Republican nomination.

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Trump Nomination: Pundit Expects Censorship, Calls for Riots - The Dallas Express