Category Archives: Censorship

Weve probably seen similar images during a news blooper reel, people camera bombing behind the reporter during a live news report. This time, the kiss signaled something bigger than just a kiss.

Channel News Asiais a 24-hour multinational news television channel headquarteredin Singapore. Vice News shared that Channel News Asiareporter Low Minmin was reporting on the atmosphere during the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Doing a field report, she visited a local pubholding a watch party. While reporting live from the pub, two men enter the frame behind her and begin kissing passionately. They then give a knowing smile to the camera and exit.

Who are the two men? Pranksters? Protesters? Either is a possibility.

The significance of the action lies in the fact that Singapore still has Section 377A in the countrys penal code. The law, a holdover from British colonialism, gives a sentence of up to two years in jail for gross indecency. That makes Singapore one of 69 countries with laws that criminalize LGBTQ people and their relationships.

Singapores criminalization partners with a censorship law that prohibits "contents which depict or propagate sexual perversions such as homosexuality, lesbianism."

Due to censorship laws, this kiss could not normally be aired or depicted on Singapore television. And the kiss was edited out of the clip posted to the Channel News Asia website. By staging the kiss during a live news broadcast from Beijing, the Singapore population, including LGBTQ Singaporeans, witnessed something to which they are regularly denied access.

Section 377A has survived court challenges so far. Three men have waged a legal battle to have the law declared unconstitutional, but in 2020, Singapores high court dismissed the case.

"This kiss, while a small action, is a breakthrough for the Singaporean LGBTQ community, who are still criminalized and censored in Singapore," said Ross Murray, Senior Director of the GLAAD Media Institute. "Let this Olympian kiss be a call to strike down Section 377A of Singapore's penal code, and end the criminalization of LGBTQ people globally."

Read more:
This Olympic gay kiss challenges censorship and criminalization - GLAAD

On March 4, 2003, the City of Pasco apologizes to artists Sharon Rupp and Janette Hopper, the culmination of lawsuit brought by the artists after their works on display at Pasco City Hall were taken down because of public complaints about their content. Defended by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the artists had contended that their First Amendment rights had been violated. A federal appeals court sided with the artists, writing, "The mere fact that the works caused controversy is, of course, patently insufficient to justify their suppression" ("Court Sides With Pasco Artists"). In addition to apologizing for its actions, the City of Pasco pays $75,000 to cover the plaintiffs' legal fees.

A Case Study

When officials in Pasco opened a gallery for art displays, they envisioned showing pastoral landscapes and pleasing scenes. What they got instead was a major public controversy and a landmark legal case about art censorship. Or as a federal appeals court called it, "a case study in the politics and law of public art" ("Pasco Apologizes ...").

In 1995 the City of Pasco launched a program to display artworks at its City Hall, a newly renovated former high school. The project was the brainchild of Pasco Assistant City Manager Kurt Luhrs, who thought art would enhance the building's barren expanses of walls. The Mid-Columbia Arts Council was to provide works by local artists to be exhibited for three months at a time. Pasco City Manager Gary Crutchfield paid for the program with discretionary funds, planning to seek permanent support from the city council after a year.But as an old adage has it, the road to perdition is paved with good intentions.

For the program's third quarter, two women were invited to exhibit their art. Sculptor Sharon Rupp's submissions included a satirical bronze sculpture titled "To the Democrats, Republicans, and Bipartisans," which featured a woman with her head stuck in a wall and her backside exposed in effect, mooning the viewer. Her works were displayed at City Hall for only a week before city officials ordered them removed. Rupp was informed that the action came because of the works' sexual nature, because the city had received a complaint about them, and because displayingher sculpture would make the exhibition "political."

Visual artist Janette Hopper submitted black-and-white linoleum prints depicting a naked Adam and Eve touring German landmarks. But Pasco officials prevented the Arts Council from hanging the pieces. Hopper was told that the works were considered "sexual" and "sensual," and officials worried they might generate complaints from a local anti-pornography crusader.

The two artists were incensed, feeling their artwork had been censored. The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington (ACLU) took up their cause and filed suit (Hopper v. City of Pasco) in federal court on the artists' behalf, with attorneys Paul Lawrence and Dan Poliak handling the case. Pasco officials resisted the suit, asserting that the works had violated a "non-controversy" policy for the arts program. The nudity had upset some citizens and civic employees. The city manager contended that excluding the artists' work was not an act of censorship, as they were free to display it elsewhere in town.

The ACLU countered that the city's administration of the program was so inconsistent and arbitrary that it violated First Amendment rights. Some works selected earlier included nudity, and one, featuring an emaciated man, had drawn complaints. Yet those works had remained up.

Legally, the matter turned on case law about the nature of the venue where the artwork was shown. The City of Pasco contended that its arts program had established a "limited public forum," under which the standard for evaluating censorship was the "reasonableness" of its actions. U.S. District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle agreed and threw out the suit in 1998. The judge said, "... the case boils down to a matter of taste and perception." He found the City's decision to exclude the artwork reasonable given the controversy it provoked. He noted that "bare rumps and cavorting nude couples are not family fare" (Justia, February 15, 2001).

Overturned on Appeal

The artists took the case to the 9thCircuit Court of Appeals, which accepted the ACLU's characterization of the venue as a "designated public forum." This required that the City of Pasco's actions be subjected to "strict scrutiny" and serve a "compelling public interest."Under that standard, the appeals court in 2001 reversed the lower court, finding that the City of Pasco had violated the artists' rights to freedom of expression. Writing for the 2-1 majority, Judge Margaret McKeown said, "We do not endorse Pasco's cramped view of what constitutes censorship, and we find none of the city's reasons for excluding the artwork compelling" ("Court Sides With Pasco Artists").

A key consideration was the city's failure to establish a review process or specify criteria for the selection of public art. City manager Crutchfield had expressed concern that any controversy generated by artwork could torpedo the program, given Pasco's conservative climate (Justia, February 15, 2001). The 1990s, after all, were a decade marked by high-profile conflicts over public art, notably photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe in Cincinnati and policies of the National Endowment for the Arts. But the city manager had left it to the Middle-Columbia Arts Council to select art which would not provoke controversy, while the Arts Council claimed that it assumed the city manager would review its selections.

The appeals court ruling agreed with the ACLU that the city's non-controversy policy in practice was no policy at all, calling it a "standardless standard." Getting to the heart of the matter, the court said, "The mere fact that the works caused controversy is, of course, patently insufficient to justify their suppression" ("Court Sides With Pasco Artists").

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the ruling. Pasco and the artists reached a settlement in 2003. The city apologized to the artists for censoring their work and paid $75,000 in legal fees and costs to their lawyers.

The case set a precedent for the handling of public art displays and was cited in cases around the country. "That gives me pleasure that we have made things better for other artists," Rupp said ("Pasco Apologizes ..."). The city terminated the public-art program soon after the controversy arose. As for the sculpture that helped spark the conflict, Rupp gave it to her attorney, Paul Lawrence.

David Henderson, "Local Artist Faces Censorship in Pasco," Central Washington University Observer, February 12, 1998; "Janette Hopper and Sharon Rupp, Plaintiffs-appellants, v. City of Pasco and Arts Council of the Mid-columbia Region," Justia, February 15, 2001; Mike Carter, "Court Sides With Pasco Artists," The Seattle Times, February 16, 2001, accessed January 15, 2022 (seattletimes.com); Linda Ashton, The Associated Press, "No Supreme Court Briefs for Pasco Nudes," Ibid., October 10, 2001; Kim Bradford, "Richland Decision Shows Cities Don't Have to Shun Public Art," Tri-City Herald, October 28, 2001, accessed January 15, 2022 (tri-cityherald.com);ACLU of Washington, "Pasco Art Censorship," Annual Report, 2000-2001; Dori O'Neal, "Artists Get Apology in Censorship Lawsuit," Tri-City Herald, March 4, 2003, accessed January 15, 2022 (tri-cityherald.com); Sarah Anne Wright, "Pasco Apologizes Over Artwork," The Seattle, Times, March 5, 2003, accessed January 15, 2022 (seatttletimes.com); ACLU of Washington, "Pasco Apologizes to Artists for Censorship," Civil Liberties, April 2003.

Read more:
Artists receive an apology from the City of Pasco in censorship lawsuit on March 4, 2003. - HistoryLink.org

This is Underreported with Nicholas Lemann, from the publishing imprint Columbia Global Reports. We dont just publish books; we use books to start conversations about topics that werent getting the attention they deserved. At least, until we took them on. This podcast is your audio connection to these important topics.

This season, were is focusing on our upcoming book, The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters. This three-part series will explore not only the content of the book, but the issues surrounding it.

In The Subplot, journalist and critic Megan Walsh takes the reader on a lively journey through the last two decades of Chinas literary landscape, illustrating the countrys complex relationship between art and politics. She also dispels assumptions Westerners make about censorship, and opens up a view of Chinese society that you dont see through conventional news coverage.

Before we speak to Megan Walsh herself in upcoming episodes, we want to set the stage, so were joined by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellors Professor of History at UC Irvine. Hes one of Americas leading China specialists and has written several important books, including Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink, also published by Columbia Global Reports. Theres no better guest to help us wade into the intricate and nuanced realities of China, a country that the US has locked in its gaze.

From the episode:

Nicholas Lemann: If there were a sort of typical urban Chinese citizen, can that person walk into a bookstore? What would be for sale?

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Yeah, its a great question. And I will bracket off this sort ofwhen we talk about typical, clearly urban is different from rural. But lets just imagine walking into a bookstore in Shanghai or Nanjing or Beijing. There are amazing bookstores in terms of just varieties of things that you can buy. Some of the things that would be probably surprising, and radically different from the United States in a positive sense, is theres much more translated literature. There are plenty of books by Chinese authors, but there are also really quite extraordinary selections of translations of Western fiction, and fiction from many different languages. Fiction in Eastern European languages and novelists from Africa.

I mean, in some ways, though we can go into a kind of feeling superior to people who are living in a censored society, theres another way in which at least the kind of intellectually curious Chinese reader has an amazing number of choices. There are lots of popular genres there, and this is something that The Subplot goes through very well. So its interestingit can be in a way a very cosmopolitan thing. Even at this moment when its harder to physically have people move across the border, there is plenty of translated literature.

________________________

Subscribe now on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever else you find your podcasts!

Jeffrey Wasserstromis Chancellors Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, where he also holds courtesy appointment in law and literary journalism. He is the author of six books, including Eight Juxtapositions: China through Imperfect Analogies from Mark Twain to Manchukuo, and Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink. He is an adviser to the Hong Kong International Literary Festival and a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Follow him on Twitter at@jwassers

The rest is here:
Jeffrey Wasserstrom on Censorship and Translated Literature in China - Literary Hub

Wanda Nara He continues to deny the rumors about a new break with Mauro Icardi. The Argentine influencer makes it clear that both are living together in her impressive Paris mansion and she also expresses her tranquility in one of her last posts, a dangerous photograph on the verge of censorship with which she has revolutionized networks as forever.

Spa Sunday at home, Wanda Nara wrote next to the inn, in which she appears in the private indoor pool of her house with the straps of her swimsuit lowered, to the limit that an oversight reveals more than necessary and playing with it to delight her millions of followers.

A few hours ago, the Argentine businesswoman and representative spoke about her relationship with Mauro Icardi and the fact that the PSG striker first stopped following her and then closed her account. There was no hacking, there was nothing. Faced with so many messages that he received, and that everyone had an opinion, he said I am unsubscribing and I am no longer interacting. She received messages from all over the world. They all asked him things. They werent love messages, huh. Eye , she said.

A Wanda Nara which has also been in the news in recent days because the Argentine press has leaked part of the audios that the influencer sent to Eugenia la China Surez when the actress had an affair with her husband, a slip by Icardi that almost caused her divorce but was finally forgiven by Wanda. Tell me what happened that day, the strikers wife told him in the aforementioned audio. Chinawhose flirtation with the PSG footballer ended up causing the famous Wandagate.

Read more:
The most dangerous pose of Wanda Nara on the verge of censorship from her Paris pool - Then24

The editors of a peer-reviewed medical journal penned a scathing letter demanding that Facebook reevaluate its bogus third-party fact-checking processes after the journal was censored for publishing information about COVID-19 vaccine trials.

BMJ editors Fiona Godlee and Kamran Abbasi addressed the letter to Facebook creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg with the intention of raising serious concerns about Facebooks third-party fact-checking system.

According to the editors, one of the well-researched articles BMJ published on a host of poor clinical trial research practices occurring at Ventavia, one of the companies facilitating trials for Pfizers version of the COVID-19 vaccine, was suppressed by Facebook and censored with labels that directed readers to a fact check by the obscure website Lead Stories, which routinely issues fake fact-checks.

Those trying to post the article were informed by Facebook that people who repeatedly share false information might have their posts moved lower in Facebooks News Feed. Group administrators where the article was shared received messages from Facebook informing them that such posts were partly false, Godlee and Abbasi wrote.

The editors said that this fact check, which Facebook used to justify threats against users who shared the BMJ article, however, was inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible.

Not only did Godlee and Abbasi say that Lead Stories went out of its way to circumvent any direct accusations of wrongdoing or falsity in the BMJ article, but it also falsely labeled the prominent, longstanding medical journal as a news blog. Like most other Lead Stories fact checks, the webpage thats linked to the missing context warning on Facebook features a big, bolded title claiming to discredit the BMJs findings.

Fact Check: The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal Disqualifying And Ignored Reports Of Flaws In Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials, the headline states.

As the BMJ editors note, Lead Stories refused to make any changes to its bogus fact-check and instead issued an unapologetic counter-statement to its letter. Lead Stories complained that BMJ wouldnt allow the fact checkers to see their basis for the story and did not make the documents available on a transparency site and attempted to justify the censorship label.

Godlee and Abbasi concluded their letter by demanding that Facebook, if it continues its censorship campaign against so-called misinformation, choose wiser and more competent organizations for fact-checking such as Cochrane, which reviews medical evidence on a regular basis.

Rather than investing a proportion of Metas substantial profits to help ensure the accuracy of medical information shared through social media, you have apparently delegated responsibility to people incompetent in carrying out this crucial task. Fact checking has been a staple of good journalism for decades. What has happened in this instance should be of concern to anyone who values and relies on sources such as The BMJ, the letter states.

The Federalist, much like BMJ, has been the target of fake fact-checks and censorship on Facebook thanks to third-party organizations such as Lead Stories. Just last week, Facebook flagged a Federalist article, titledForcing People Into COVID Vaccines Ignores Important Scientific Information,with a missing context label and linked to aLead Storiesarticle dissecting a United Kingdom publicationsarticle.

The purported fact-check, authored by a former CNN employee for the obscure third-party company with ties to the sketchy Chinese companyByteDance, however, doesnt actually address The Federalist article or any of the claims made in it. Instead, the fact-check tries to downplay the fact that COVID case data from the U.K. shows that vaccinated people are increasingly contracting COVID-19.

Earlier this year, Politifact, another leftist organization employed by Facebook to curb misinformation, targeted a Federalist article focused on green energys inability to hold up during the Texas winter storm. The fact-check claimed that natural gas plants were the biggest cause of the power shortfall, not wind. The author, however, did acknowledge that wind farms ran at about half of what was expected, which contributed to the widespread blackouts, a similar point made in the article by Federalist contributor Jason Isaac and by The Wall Street Journal.

That same week, Lead Stories also added a false information label to the article. The fact-check did not address The Federalist articles argument directly but merely focused on criticizing a Facebookpostearlier in the week from a user who noted the green energy sectors failures during the Texas power crisis.

When The Federalist confronted Politifact for its selective fact-checking and failure to call out any of Vice President Kamala Harriss lies with an article, the organizations Editor-in-Chief Angie Holan demanded corrections even though there were no inaccuracies in The Federalist article.

Earlier this month, Facebook admitted that its so-called fact-checking program is actually cranking out opinions used to censor certain viewpoints. In a legal battle with TV journalist John Stossel over a post about the origins of the deadly 2020 California forest fires, Facebook, or Meta,claimedthat its fact-checking program should not be the target of adefamation suitbecause its attempts to regulate content are done by third-party organizations who are entitled to their opinion.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordangdavidson.

Original post:
Medical Journal Blasts Facebook For Using Fake 'Fact ...

Amid rising concerns over misinformation online including surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, especially vaccines Americans are now a bit more open to the idea of the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online. And a majority of the public continues to favor technology companies taking such action, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Roughly half of U.S. adults (48%) now say the government should take steps to restrict false information, even if it means losing some freedom to access and publish content, according to the survey of 11,178 adults conducted July 26-Aug. 8, 2021. That is up from 39% in 2018. At the same time, the share of adults who say freedom of information should be protected even if it means some misinformation is published online has decreased from 58% to 50%.

When it comes to whether technology companies should take steps to address misinformation online, more are in agreement. A majority of adults (59%) continue to say technology companies should take steps to restrict misinformation online, even if it puts some restrictions on Americans ability to access and publish content. Around four-in-ten (39%) take the opposite view that protecting freedom of information should take precedence, even if it means false claims can spread. The balance of opinion on this question has changed little since 2018.

To examine Americans attitudes toward restricting false information online, Pew Research Center surveyed 11,178 U.S. adults from July 26 to Aug. 8, 2021. Everyone who completed the survey is a member of the Centers American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATPs methodology. Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.

This is the latest report in Pew Research Centers ongoing investigation of the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Partisan divisions on the role of government in addressing online misinformation have emerged since 2018. Three years ago, around six-in-ten in each partisan coalition 60% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents and 57% of Democrats and Democratic leaners agreed that freedom of information should be prioritized over the government taking steps to restrict false information online. Today, 70% of Republicans say those freedoms should be protected, even it if means some false information is published. Nearly as many Democrats (65%) instead say the government should take steps to restrict false information, even if it means limiting freedom of information.

Partisan views on whether technology companies should take such steps have also grown further apart. Roughly three-quarters of Democrats (76%) now say tech companies should take steps to restrict false information online, even at the risk of limiting information freedoms. A majority of Republicans (61%) express the opposite view that those freedoms should be protected, even if it means false information can be published online. In 2018, the parties were closer together on this question, though most Democrats still supported action by tech firms.

Some demographic differences that existed on these questions in 2018 have now largely disappeared.Three years ago, older Americans and those with less education were more likely than younger and more educated adults, respectively, to say the U.S. government should take steps to restrict false information online, even if means limiting some freedoms. Now, Americans across nearly all age groups are fairly evenly divided between the two views. Similar changes have occurred when it comes to Americans educational background.

Women still tend to be more open than men to the idea of both the government and tech companies taking action to restrict false information online, though both groups have become a bit more supportive of the government taking such steps.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.

Go here to read the rest:
How Americans view government restriction of false ...

The Heartland Institute's Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, Justin Haskins, Chris Talgo, and Samantha Fillmore present episode 331 of the In The Tank Podcast. On this episode, the ITT crew talks about how our previous episode was removed from YouTube, Big Tech censorship, and the chilling effect that type of censorship has for speech and expression.

OPENING CHIT CHAT

Heartland In The Tank (BANNED EPISODE) The COVID Narrative is Collapsinghttps://rumble.com/vtcvsn-in-the-tank-live-ep330-the-covid-narrative-continues-to-collapse.html

JOE ROGAN AND SPOTIFY

Breitbart White House Recommends Spotify Do More to Censor Joe Roganhttps://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2022/02/01/white-house-recommends-spotify-do-more-to-censor-joe-rogan/

THE CHILLING EFFECT

EFF -Right or Left, You Should Be Worried About Big Tech Censorshiphttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

Liberties -How Big Tech Censorship Is Harming Free Speechhttps://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/big-tech-censorship/43511

[Please subscribe to theHeartlandDaily Podcast for free on iTunes atthis link.]

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Podcasts - 331. Chilling Effect of Big Tech Censorship - The Heartland Institute

Individuals could sue social media giants like Facebook and Twitter for allegedly discriminating against a particular viewpoint and collect damages if the charges are upheld, under proposed GOP Ohio legislation.

The measure now in the House Civil Justice Committee targets what backers say is ongoing censorship of conservative viewpoints by social media companies, according to testimony from sponsoring GOP Reps. Scott Wiggam of Wooster and Rep. Al Cutrona of suburban Youngstown.

They argue the bill will prevent big tech companies from engaging in viewpoint discrimination without violating the First Amendment right to free expression.

The measure is drawing criticism from some conservatives as well as free speech advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union. Bill opponents say conservatives are in fact well-represented on social media. They also argue an easier solution to concerns over viewpoint discrimination is to use sites with an expressed conservative bent.

Forcing social media companies to accept all viewpoints could lead to the protected proliferation of harmful content including pornography, extremist speech, foreign propaganda, conspiracy theories, as well as spam messages currently blocked by sites, bill opponents say.

Federal judgesin Floridaand Texas last year blocked similar laws from taking effect.

Read the original post:
Ohio lawmakers pushing bill that would stop censorship of conservative viewpoints on Facebook - WTRF

Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Most of us dont know what we think, really. Throughout our lives we encounter so many influential entities from our family, our culture, our schools, by advertising, by the media that we rarely have thoughts that are totally original. Most are variations of what we already know or have been conditioned to think and feel.

How might we learn which thoughts really belong to us, and which are thoughts planted by others? Which shared thoughts are helpful for social cohesion? Do we have curiosity to explore new thoughts, together?

Exploring the concept of thinking is called critical thinking. It may be our path out of the division and turbulence within the United States and lead us to a new social contract. Critical thinking, however, is no easy task. It requires exposure and openness to new ideas, followed by healthily dealing with the discomfort of our new thoughts.

As a result, we often hear calls for censorship because new ideas are considered dangerous. Unknowingly. the thought police are here; and it is us.

Our freedom of speech is paradoxically a tool for authoritarian mindsets to demand censorship. Broadly speaking, there are several main arenas where censorship and freedom of speech are currently debated. As you read the following, what are your thoughts? Do you find yourself celebrating one area of censorship while decrying it in another?

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This last point about how we tell the story of our shared history has especially captured my attention because I have two friends who hold opposing views, which naturally challenges my own thinking.

One is a friend who saw a tweet claiming that "ethnic studies" was a cover or code for teaching CRT in California schools. She feels national pride is necessary for social cohesion and that CRT will cause students to be ashamed of our nation. In previous conversations, she shared with me her school and home experiences growing up in post-war Germany. When she would ask her mother about World War II, mother wouldnt talk about it, presumably feeling ashamed. National pride was lost and my friend emigrated to Canada and then the United States, where she became a naturalized citizen.

My other friend is concerned about history being erased, and young minds being assimilated into the dominant culture, which would cut off people from their ancestral roots. He drew a similarity to the Babylonians, who attempted to erase the history of the Israelites, as chronicled in the book of Daniel. This friend is a Baptist minister, and discovering his ancestry has taken extra effort, due to our nations history of enslavement. His identity was not connected or represented in American history. His family was not included in the dominant culture, but have shared their stories within their communities that other Americans either dont know or cannot resonate with.

This is the tension that leads to censorship in schools. A fear of shame about our past and/or anger at being left out of the story. An accurate representation of history gives us the opportunity to learn from the past mistakes of others. It helps us understand why people behaved as they did and why they may behave the way they do now, and which in turn helps future generations to become better citizens. This is why the full teaching of history will shape our future. Its one element to build social cohesion.

Its why we fight over censorship, too. Some people like to surround themselves with like-minded people and avoid challenges to their thinking. This is known more scientifically as confirmation bias. They short-hand and denigrate group-think in others with labels like snowflakes and cult members, recognizing tendencies in others but not themselves.

As we hear increasing calls for censorship, how might we engage to think more critically instead? And how might we come to understand that some of those uncomfortable thoughts can help us learn and grow? We need outliers.

Outliers were defined by Malcolm Gladwell when he chronicled people whose achievements fall outside normal experience, and are a fascinating and provocative blueprint for making the most of human potential. Outliers challenge our assumptions and point them out. Outliers can prevent group-think. Outliers are often mistaken as conflict entrepreneurs (or provocateurs) because of the discomfort they create while challenging the status quo as insufficient.

Whereas conflict entrepreneurs exploit our divisions as a way to profit, while claiming outlier status. How might we distinguish between them?

When exposed to an outlier, I will think or feel:

When exposed to a conflict entrepreneur, I will think or feel:

Youll notice that outliers invite curiosity, engaging in a way that allows us to find our own way to agree or dream with them. The exploration is the point. The conflict entrepreneurs speak with certainty and offer answers, so we can bypass the analysis of points of view, the judging based on evidence, and the forming of opinions based on deductive reasoning. This is the essence of critical thinking needed to build social cohesion.

I crave more critical thinking. More connection. More exploration. I dont crave more censorship. What do you think?

From Your Site Articles

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Critical thinking on censorship - The Fulcrum

South Carolinas greatest strength has always been its history and the people who made it.

This is the land of William Moultrie and Mary Moultrie. One defended the city from British invasion in 1776, the other defended Charleston hospital workers from being criminally underpaid in the 1960s.

It is the home of a patriot named Isaac Hayne, who went to his death rather than fight his countrymen in the Revolution. And its the home of Septima Clark, an educator who stood beside Martin Luther King Jr., taught adults to read and was part of a group of South Carolinians who forced the most momentous Supreme Court decision of the 20th century: desegregating public schools.

And this state is the birthplace of John C. Calhoun, South Carolinas most accomplished statesman and one of the most influential American figures of the early 19th century.

Point is, our states history has seen more than its share of the good, the bad and the ugly on our journey to create a more perfect union. In a state as diverse as this, some of that invariably brushes up against issues of race.

So, itd be a shame if some cynical elected officials and perpetually perturbed malcontents prevent future generations from ever hearing those stories.

See, state lawmakers are promoting a series of bills allegedly to ban critical race theory from South Carolina schools. What they actually want to stop is the teaching of history.

Critical race theory is an academic concept mostly taught in law school (and in no South Carolina public schools), and concerns racial bias baked into institutions redlining in the banking industry, etc. Few people understand that. Even these misguided lawmakers concede they didnt know exactly what CRT is.

So they made up their own definition.

In one House bill, the first line of the definition says public schools arent allowed to teach that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.

So these geniuses are inadvertently banning Calhoun, who once said, The Whites are an European race being masters, and the blacks are the inferior race and slaves. Thats according to William Montgomery Meigs The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun published in 1917.

Some of this is pandering and plain ignorance, but mostly its about courting voters who also dont know what critical race theory is, but they sure are mad about it.

Fact is, they want to ban anything that presents African Americans or Native Americans as victims of discrimination. They fear unvarnished history, as opposed to the whitewashing it got back when we (and they) were in school.

This is happening in many places today; the Florida legislature wants to bar teaching anything that causes white discomfort. Which sounds like one of the side effects of those nebulous pharmaceuticals advertised on TV.

Who is so sensitive they melt down anytime they hear that someone in the past, with no relation to them other than skin color, did something bad? Identity politics much?

Truth is, history is messy, and doesnt fit neatly into any one box. A few years before South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond ran for president as a Dixiecrat on a pro-segregation platform, he was honored by the NAACP for his role in prosecuting a Greenville lynch mob that took a black man out of a jail and killed him.

The people who cry that moving Confederate monuments erases history now want to do that exact thing where it matters most. Some even want to ban books, when anyone who really knows history realizes that book banners are never the good guys.

All this is stirring because race is again center-stage in our national shouting match (debate is too dignified a word). Even Charleston City Council is having a tough time creating a Commission on Human Affairs and Racial Conciliation.

Council members have been bashed by folks who falsely claim that the committee is intent on paying reparations and defunding the police. Which is baloney.

Fact is, this proposed commission is clearly meant as a compromise to those low-information voters. When an ad hoc commission did recommend such radical ideas last year, City Council wouldnt even take official possession of the report that included them. Proposing a more modest, and moderate, commission like cities around the country have had for decades was a polite way to show the first group the door.

But thats not good enough for people who believe only what they choose, what matches their narrow worldview. Those people clearly dont know history and therefore are doomed to repeat it.

Too bad they want to drag everyone else into that scarcely illuminated safe space with them.

See the original post:
Hicks: Censoring history has never been a good idea. History proves that. - Charleston Post Courier