Category Archives: Censorship

Chinese election interference tests Taiwans capability to defend freedom of speech – Index on Censorship

Posted: January 4, 2024 at 3:31 am

As Taiwan gears up for the presidential and legislative election on 13 January, the Chinese government is also ramping up its efforts to interfere. From sponsored trips to China for local leaders, economic coercion, fake opinion polls, and disinformation campaigns, some analysts say the wide-ranging tactics that Beijing has unleashed will have an impact on the elections outcome.

In recent weeks, Taiwanese authorities have launched investigations into several cases of individuals attempting to sway voters by inviting local borough chiefs and village leaders on group tours to China. These trips are partially sponsored by local Chinese authorities.

During the trips, participants were allegedly encouraged by officials from Chinas propaganda department to vote for political parties and candidates favoured by Beijing. At least one man has been indicted while several others are facing ongoing investigations.

Apart from sponsored trips, Beijing also rolled out coercive economic measures to pressure Taiwan, suspending tariff relief on imports of 12 Taiwanese petrochemical products, and blaming it on the trade barriers enacted by Taiwans ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Since 2023 is a major year of cross-strait exchange for China, Chinese authorities have devoted a lot of resources to facilitate influence campaigns against Taiwan, Puma Shen, chairperson of Taipei-based research group Doublethink Lab, told Index on Censorship. They want to make sure that Taiwanese people feel threatened but also are not too afraid of the influence campaigns from China.

The most recent example of Chinas influence campaign is an investigation into alleged lip-sync by popular Taiwanese rock band Mayday, a practice that is banned for live musicians in China. A Taiwanese security agency internal memo claims the investigation is Beijings attempt to pressure the rock band into publicly supporting the position that Taiwan is a part of China.

Shen from Doublethink Lab said Taiwanese people who have huge financial stakes in China, such as artists and businessmen, often become targets of Chinas influence campaign. Even though they are earning money in China, they are more like victims, he said.

Multi-pronged cognitive warfare

In addition to economic coercion and influencing local politicians, some experts say China has also launched multi-pronged cognitive warfare against Taiwan ahead of the election, amplifying narratives criticising the ruling party through state media outlets and initiating disinformation campaigns on social media platforms, including TikTok, YouTube and Facebook.

Over the last few months, Chinas state-run media outlets have repeated the narrative that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is pushing Taiwan to the brink of war with its efforts to pursue Taiwan independence. The narrative resonates with criticisms against the DPP by opposition candidates in Taiwan, who have repeatedly accused DPPs presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, of being the golden child of Taiwan independence.

There are also signs that Chinese state media and online troll groups are amplifying narratives aimed at damaging the image and credibility of the Taiwanese government, including controversial domestic issues such as the de-sinicization of Taiwans curriculum and scepticism toward the Taiwanese governments deepened relations with the USA.

According to Taiwan AI Labs, online troll groups have mirrored narratives promoted by Chinese state media, including the Peoples Daily, Haiwainet, Xinhua News Agency, Global Times, and China Central Television (CCTV). While there is no direct evidence to prove that China is behind all online troll groups, Taiwan AI Labs said their behaviours fit the criteria of autocratic countries interference in democratic elections.

Since the online troll groups promote narratives about Taiwanese domestic issues and U.S. President Joe Biden and there is a high similarity between the narratives they promote and the narratives preferred by Chinese state media, we can conclude that it fits the methods that autocratic countries use to interfere in democratic elections, Ethan Tu, the founder of Taiwan AI Labs, said.

Compared to Chinas efforts to interfere in previous Taiwan elections, it is becoming harder to determine whether disinformation targeting the upcoming Taiwanese election originates from China or not.

This time around, its very difficult to determine whether the disinformation originates from China or is created by actors within Taiwan, Chiaoning Su, an associate professor in communication, journalism, and public relations at Oakland University, told Index on Censorship.

In her view, China has built up a better understanding of public opinion in Taiwan and they realise that for efforts of election interference to work, the narratives they amplify need to match the trend in Taiwans public opinion.

The way that China is amplifying social economic issues such as the controversy of lack of eggs or the debate about reducing the amount of ancient Chinese literature in the curriculum shows that their efforts to initiate disinformation campaign are becoming more localised and harder to trace, Su said.

Shen from Doublethink Lab said one of the main goals of Chinas disinformation campaign is to denigrate democracy. They want to show the Taiwanese public that Taiwans democracy is a mess and that while the DPP claims to protect democracy and freedom, in the end, it is not democratic and free at all, he told Index on Censorship.

Since Taiwan is a democracy that values freedom of speech, Shen thinks Taiwanese authorities need to deal with the threats that come with Chinas election interference through ways that will safeguard Taiwanese peoples freedom of expression, by specifically identifying remarks which originate from sources external to Taiwan.

Otherwise, they will fall into Chinas trap, he said.

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Chinese election interference tests Taiwans capability to defend freedom of speech - Index on Censorship

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Laws banning semi-automatic weapons and library censorship to take effect in Illinois – Index-Journal

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Laws banning semi-automatic weapons and library censorship to take effect in Illinois - Index-Journal

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Censorship and the case for institutional literacy – The Hill

Posted: December 20, 2023 at 10:23 pm

Censorship and the case for institutional literacy The Hill

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Release Of Aquaman And The Lost Kingdoms Dubbed Versions DELAYED Due To Censor Board – Times Now

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Release Of Aquaman And The Lost Kingdoms Dubbed Versions DELAYED Due To Censor Board Times Now

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Release Of Aquaman And The Lost Kingdoms Dubbed Versions DELAYED Due To Censor Board - Times Now

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Gary Simmons on Censorship, Minstrelsy, and the Scourge of Art Fairs – Interview

Posted: at 10:23 pm

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Gary Simmons on Censorship, Minstrelsy, and the Scourge of Art Fairs - Interview

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Jeff Crouere: Censorship is un-American; free speech is the answer – The Franklin Sun

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Jeff Crouere: Censorship is un-American; free speech is the answer - The Franklin Sun

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Why Middle East scholars are self-censoring in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war – NPR

Posted: at 10:23 pm

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli supporters converge at a demonstration of New York University students in November. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images hide caption

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli supporters converge at a demonstration of New York University students in November.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is testing the limits of free speech across college campuses. And it's also affecting those who study the Middle East.

Who are they? They are the scholars who research and teach about the Middle East on college campuses in the U.S.

What did it find? Notably, it found that a clear majority of U.S.-based scholars (69%) didn't just feel the need to self-censor when speaking about the Middle East in general, but specifically in academic and professional settings.

Want to learn more on this conflict? Listen to Consider This on whether Biden's unconditional support of Israel is nearing its limit.

Members of Columbia University's faculty hold a protest in support of free speech on the Columbia University campus in November. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption

What are people saying? The poll was conducted by Shibley Telhami a professor of government and politics and the director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll and Marc Lynch a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.

Telhami spoke to All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro about the findings and how the academic climate has shifted.

On the motivations for scholars choosing to self-censor:

The key is that most of it was actually fear rather than sensitivity. And so that was fascinating.

There are many who self-censor because they got advice from senior colleagues or from administrators not to say anything that might be interpreted offensively by people, and it wouldn't be good for their careers, particularly assistant professors and graduate students.

So that's not exactly self-censorship because you're sensitive. It's more about worried about the consequences. We had a lot of colleagues who said they were not invited when the university held events on their very issue of expertise because they were worried that their views may not conform to what is needed on campus.

There were some who were told by administrators to watch out what they say publicly. So we were struck by the kind of atmosphere that a lot of our colleagues across U.S. campuses faced on this issue, much more than I would have expected.

On how it is playing out:

I think the universities are facing different pressures. One of the pressures, obviously, we do have real, genuine increases in antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian, anti-Israeli sentiment.

And universities have to manage all that, and make sure that all their people feel safe. A lot of it is genuine there's nothing un-genuine about it it has to be taken seriously.

But there are a lot of groups that act disproportionately on some of the issues. And undoubtedly a lot of the scholars who follow the issue feel that the public space does not conform to their own professional interpretations of Israel-Palestine. So they're concerned about criticizing Israel publicly.

On the importance of gauging the experiences of scholars:

When you explain violence, you are not embracing violence. This is something that we as social scientists all, of course, understand. We never have to repeat to ourselves.

But society around us does not get it all the time because they think you're taking side when you're explaining why things happen. But if you don't explain why things happen, you're going to repeat the same mistake over and over and over again.

Learn more:

The interview with Shibley Telhami was conducted by Ari Shapiro, produced by Karen Zamora and edited by Tinbete Ermyas.

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Why Middle East scholars are self-censoring in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war - NPR

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Mother Russia. Who is the face of Russian online censorship, scourge of Russian rappers and Gen-Z icon – .

Posted: at 10:23 pm

Mother Russia. Who is the face of Russian online censorship, scourge of Russian rappers and Gen-Z icon .

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"Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States" – Reason

Posted: at 10:23 pm

A very interesting new article, by Profs. James L. Gibson (Wash. U.) and Joseph L. Sutherland (Emory). Here's the key chart, updated to include 2023 data, gathered before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel (the 2023 data is credited to Peter Enns and Verasight):

Here's the breakdown of the 2020 data by ideology (with the usual cautions about the small size of some of the subsamples, especially on the extremes, and the fact that different people will interpret vague terms such as "free to speak your mind" differently). What struck me is the magnitude of the felt lack of freedom among the three most moderate segments, even setting aside the different reactions on the extremes:

And here's an excerpt from the introduction to the article (read the whole thing here):

[A] large segment of the American people engages in self-censorship when it comes to expressing its views. We define self-censorship as "intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in [the] absence of formal obstacles." In an influential study, Michael MacKuen refers to this more simply as deciding to "talk" or "clam."

In a nationally representative survey we conducted in 2020 (seeAppendix Aonline), we asked a question about self-censorship that Samuel Stouffer first put to the American people in 1954: "What about you personally? Do you or don't you feel as free to speak your mind as you used to?" While we readily acknowledge that there are a number of potential frailties with this item, its utility is that the same question has been repeated over a number of surveys between 1954 and 2020 (Appendix C addresses several potential threats to the validity of the indicator, concluding, generally, that like many, if not most, analyses of change in public opinion over time, the value of investigating how responses to the query have evolved exceeds the limitations of the question).

While some might understand these data to indicate that those with "bad" views are no longer free to express themselves, which may be a good thing, we have no means of discerning whether the speech lost is "good" or "bad" speech. Owing to the benefits of deliberations among citizens for democratic politics, most democratic theorists would regard these results as too important to ignore.

What accounts for this remarkable loss of perceived freedom in the United States? How is it that four in ten of the American people do not feel free to express themselves today? Is this loss of free speech a function of fear of being misunderstood by friends and colleagues, or are the causes more systemic, such as government surveillance of social media, telephone, and email discussions? Is the explanation associated with a culture of "political correctness" that many conservatives rail against, or is the source even more elementary, reflecting little more than growing political polarization and incivility, as well as increasing political intolerance in the country?

Our purpose in this article is to explore several hypotheses about the correlates of self-censorship at the aggregate and individual levels. Our analysis here is assuredly not comprehensive or definitive, but in light of the presumed importance of unbridled political discourse for the health of democracies, our findings raise many troubling issues for American democracy. Our most imperative objective in this article is to use these provocative results to spur additional research on why people seem to have learned that keeping their mouths shut is the best thing to do.

To be clear at the onset, our analysis makes few claims to causal certitude in the relationships it investigates. Our cross-sectional analysis is particularly vulnerable to causal doubt (although most demographic attributes are unlikely to be consequences of political attitudes, for most people). We contend that determining what goes with what, and what does not go with what, is a valuable first step in understanding how and why people engage in self-censorship.

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"Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States" - Reason

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EU TARGETS Elon Musk’s Twitter for MORE CENSORSHIP Over ‘HAMAS PROPAGANDA’: Rising Reacts – The Hill

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EU TARGETS Elon Musk's Twitter for MORE CENSORSHIP Over 'HAMAS PROPAGANDA': Rising Reacts The Hill

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Category Archives: Censorship

Chinese election interference tests Taiwans capability to defend freedom of speech – Index on Censorship

Laws banning semi-automatic weapons and library censorship to take effect in Illinois – Index-Journal

Censorship and the case for institutional literacy – The Hill

Release Of Aquaman And The Lost Kingdoms Dubbed Versions DELAYED Due To Censor Board – Times Now

Gary Simmons on Censorship, Minstrelsy, and the Scourge of Art Fairs – Interview

Jeff Crouere: Censorship is un-American; free speech is the answer – The Franklin Sun

Why Middle East scholars are self-censoring in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war – NPR

Mother Russia. Who is the face of Russian online censorship, scourge of Russian rappers and Gen-Z icon – .

"Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States" – Reason

EU TARGETS Elon Musk’s Twitter for MORE CENSORSHIP Over ‘HAMAS PROPAGANDA’: Rising Reacts – The Hill

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