We have patiently explained why the current academic freedom bill in South Dakota, SB 55, cannot possibly be construed in any reasonable manner as seeking to inject teaching intelligent design into public schools. As noted yesterday, that didn't stop a prominent lobbying group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, from working the phrase, "intelligent design," six times into a statement directed against the bill.

One of those instances was in a photo caption of an instructor in front of his class, "Teachers should not be given leeway to introduce intelligent design in science classes."

But with evolution proponents, such distortions are absolutely routine. It's bizarre. It's farcical. But this tops it. In a surreal move, a group called the National Coalition Against Censorship has plunged into the South Dakota situation to demand continued restraints on teachers and their academic freedom -- in other words, censorship.

They complain that SB 55 would "remov[e] accountability in science education." "Accountability" there would seem to mean instructors being vulnerable to career retaliation for teaching critical thinking skills to science students. These "anti-censorship" proponents advocate retaining the option of punishing biology teachers for going off message on Darwinism.

They go on: "Essentially, [the bill] removes the restraints on teachers that prevents them from straying from professionally-developed science standards adopted by state educators." The National Coalition Against Censorship favors keeping "restraints" on teachers firmly in place.

The bill, they say, "may encourage teachers who object to the scientific consensus on evolution and climate change to bring their opinions into the classroom," instead of sticking slavishly to a uniform Darwin-only script. The teachers should stick to their script.

Then there's this. Look again at the language of the bill. It's very brief:

No teacher may be prohibited from helping students understand, analyze, critique, or review in an objective scientific manner the strengths and weaknesses of scientific information presented in courses being taught which are aligned with the content standards established pursuant to 13-3-48.

That is another way of saying no teacher may be censored for challenging students with balanced information from objective science sources. Notice that the language concludes by saying that the "strengths and weaknesses" approach may be extended only to "scientific information presented in courses being taught which are aligned with the content standards" already established.

Because intelligent design isn't part of those content standards, the law extends no protection for teaching about ID. Because the content standards are already defined, instruction that's not "aligned" with them, in other words that "stray[s] from professionally-developed science standards adopted by state educators," would also not be protected.

But interestingly, if you read the statement from the "anti-censorship" group, their quotation from the bill cuts off before getting to the part about how instruction must be "aligned with the content standards." The whole proposed law is just a sentence long, but they truncate it a little more than half way through, perhaps to keep the reader from realizing that their dire prediction of teachers "straying" is undercut by the clear language of SB 55 itself. The anti-censorship activists are engaging in censorship right there in the middle of their own statement.

They conclude by comparing exploring mainstream debate about evolutionary theory with, yes, denying the Holocaust. And that is where they transition from absurdity to obscenity.

Good gravy. These complaints, whether from Americans United or from the horrifically misnamed National Coalition Against Censorship, are totally detached from a straightforward reading of the law they wish to attack. They are mere scaremongering, and frankly, contemptible.

In this, though, they're not much worse than supposedly objective news outlets like the Washington Post or ProPublica. When it comes to defending evolutionary orthodoxy, journalism and propaganda merge seamlessly.

Image: South Dakota State Capitol, dustin77a -- stock.adobe.com.

I'm on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.

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South Dakota Science Education Controversy Gets Surreal as Anti-Censorship Group Demands Censorship - Discovery Institute

Iqra Khalid is a Pakistan-born Muslim MP for the Liberals, and former campus activist.

Khalid also introduced M-103, the motion condemning Islamophobia, and calling on the government to prepare a report to eliminate it, using the full power of the state, which means everything from the CBC, to the RCMP, to the Canada Revenue Agency, to our foreign policy.

But theres something else.

Last September, Trudeau announced that the government of Canada had officially teamed up with George Soros, not only to bring Muslim migrants to the west, but to propagandize, to mobilize citizens in support of them.

And just before Christmas, the government of Canada had a big conference to start implementing this agreement:

"They also committed to working together to make sure that the global narrative on refugees is a positive one.

So its not just about actually helping refugees.

Its about making sure people only say positive things about them.

I wonder if Trudeau has ever flown on Soross private planes, or vacationed at his private getaways. I wonder if Soros has funded any of Trudeaus NGOs, like Canada 2020.

But really, we dont have to wonder, because the government of Canada put out that press release about it.

No need for a conspiracy theory, my friends.

Its a conspiracy fact.

Tonight, Faith Goldy brings us the latest developments on the M-103 story, and Brad Trost and I discuss the possible privatization of the CBC.

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Meet the foreign billionaire pushing for Canadian censorship of Islamophobia - The Rebel

A Cambridge University academic has accused the institutions alumni magazine of censorship, after a contribution she was asked to make on the future of India was edited to remove a reference to Kashmir.

Priyamvada Gopal, a Reader on Anglophone and Post-Colonial Literature at the university, was asked to contribute her thoughts, along with other academics and alumni, on my wish for the next 50 years of independence, for publication in an upcoming edition of the alumni magazine, CAM.

Her answer included a reference to her wish to see the democratic aspirations of the people of Kashmir honoured as well as for India to not deploy economic systems, political institutions, and repressive tactics inherited from the British empire. However, in an edited version subsequently sent to Ms. Gopal for her approval, the two phrases were removed, alongside other edits to the piece. After she expressed concern with the editing and omission, her passage was no longer included in the magazine set for publication. The university says it was because she withdrew the piece, though she says she made it clear that she would have allowed publication of her comments without those two parts of her passage removed.

The University of Cambridge, which considers itself the bastion of academic freedom, will not, in its own media, allow the word Kashmir to be mentioned even in the most anodyne of way, for fear of upsetting the Indian State and rich Indian donors, she concluded in her blog published earlier this week.

I am appalled particularly because it was the same office the communications and external affairs division of the university which has routinely asked me to speak about freedom of speech and academic freedom, she told The Hindu on Friday.

There is a very large silencing on the issue of Kashmir that is taking place and the university has chosen to participate in the smallest of ways, she added. The university will bend over backwards to placate the current regime in India and rich Indians. They have been targeting funding and donations from India and they are reluctant to even potentially upset anyone with money and power in the Indian context.

A spokesperson, however, said the University of Cambridge rejects the claim that it engages in censorship.

Dr. Gopal was invited to submit an opinion piece for our alumni magazine, which was then subjected to our normal editorial process. When edits were suggested as a part of that process, and long before any final agreement had been reached on the final text for the magazine, Dr. Gopal chose to withdraw her contribution. The editors of the magazine accepted her withdrawal with regret, but respect her decision. The University of Cambridge is fully committed to the principle and promotion of academic freedom, and we respect the right of all our members to express their views.

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Censorship row hits Cambridge - The Hindu

Folha de Sao Paulo and Globo, the country's two biggest dailies, were forced to halt publication online and in print of reports giving details of the attempted extortion last year by a man convicted of hacking Marcela Temer's cellphone (AFP Photo/Miguel Schincariol)

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - A Brazilian judge on Wednesday overturned a ruling that barred leading newspapers from publishing reports on an extortion attempt against President Michel Temer's wife.

Folha de Sao Paulo and Globo, the country's two biggest dailies, were forced to halt publication online and in print of reports giving details of the attempted extortion last year by a man convicted of hacking Marcela Temer's cellphone.

The reports reproduced chat messages between the first lady and the blackmailer who, at one point, referred to a video he said he had hacked that "drags the name of your husband in the mud."

On Monday, the newspapers removed reports which the judge had ruled harmed "the inviolability of the privacy" of the hacking victim.

Folha reported that another judge has now overturned the ruling.

In his ruling, which was posted on the Folha website, Judge Arnoldo Camanho de Assis said that the publishing ban was "apparently unconstitutional" as "it violates the freedom which is a true pillar of the democratic rule of law."

"There is no indication... that the journalistic activity on the part of (Folha) was meant to follow an irresponsible or abusive editorial line," he wrote.

Folha and Globo argued that the details they wished to publish regarding Temer's wife had already become available in court documents and that their suppression in the newspapers amounted to censorship.

"Those who inform have to be accountable for the relevance of what they publish. Those who feel harmed have every right to appeal to the courts," Folha said. "What is not reasonable is to censor before publication, something that should be consigned to the memory of authoritarian regimes."

The hacker, Silvonei Jose de Jesus Souza, was sentenced in October of last year to five years and 11 months in prison after being convicted of trying to extort $96,000 from Marcela Temer in exchange for not publishing audio and images on her phone.

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Brazil judge overturns 'censorship' of newspaper - Yahoo - Yahoo News

The director of a major new war museum in Poland has vowed to fight against government censorship and try to bring his collection to the public.

The Museum of the Second World War in Gdask is almost ready to open after eight years of preparation.

But a bitter legal battle has delayed its launch: the government has sought to gain control over the institution, which the ruling Law and Justice party fears will present an insufficiently nationalist view of Polands wartime experience.

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Writing in the design journal Disegno, the museums director Pawe Machcewicz said a final decision is due on the dispute in March or April. He said that before that, we will feverishly attempt to use this time to open the museum to the public before it is too late.

Machcewicz and his team want the museum to focuson the everyday experiences of millions of ordinary people, with a permanent collection centered around approximately 2,000 historical artefacts, many of them family relics donated by individuals.

But the government, he said, condemned our museum as too pacifistic, humanistic, universal, multinational, and not sufficiently Polish.

While the museum aims to make the Polish history a part of the European and world history, the government wants it instead to focus on presenting exclusively Polish sufferings and heroism, Machcewicz said.

In order to get its way, the government wants to merge the museum with an as-yet unbuilt institution, the Museum of Westerplatte and the War of 1939, a plan first announced in 2015.

This move would allow the government to appoint a new director, and gain influence over the tone and direction of the new, merged museum. But the museum has challenged the plan in the courts. Machcewicz said that the court had suspended progress on the merger. One ruling in the Supreme Administrative Court in January found in favor of the government. But the final decision is expected in the coming weeks.

Plans for the Museum of the Second World War were first announced in 2007 under the government of former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, now the President of the European Council.

The Second World War was different from all earlier conflicts because it touched civilian populations the most, Machcewicz said, As we developed the main concepts for the museum, we decided that the human dimension of the conflict is the most important to us.

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Polish Second World War Museum Director Vows to Fight Government Censorship - Newsweek

Clay Calvert Professor and Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL This post is hosted on the Huffington Post's Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and post freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

The aftermath of Donald J. Trumps stunning victory over Hillary Clinton brought with it much handwringing in news media circles and on social media platforms about the dangers of fake news. Some blame fake news for causing Clintons defeat, with the erstwhile candidate herself calling it an epidemic.

But theres a major paradox when it comes to peoples beliefs about fake news.

Specifically, many of us tend to believe that we can spot fake news we wont be fooled by it but others out there, who are more naive and less media savvy than us, surely will be duped.

For instance, a December 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that most Americans

Yet despite the fact that some 84% of those surveyed were either very or somewhat confident in their own ability to spot fake news, 64% of the same people say fabricated news stories cause a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current issues and events. This sense is shared widely across incomes, education levels, partisan affiliations and most other demographic characteristics.

In other words, Im no fool, but others are!

If thats truly the case, then why are we so worried about fake news? A few high-profile incidents like the Pizzagate shooting perhaps have caused undue panic.

The notion that Im no fool, but others are is, in fact, consistent with what communication scholars call the third-person effect. As W. Phillips Davison, the theorys founder, summed it up in a 1983 article

The danger here, as I explain in a new article published in the Wake Forest Law Review Online, is that individuals who exhibit signs of the third-person effect are also prone to call for censorship of media content in the name of protecting others. This, of course, raises serious First Amendment concerns regarding free speech. In other words, the third-person effect has both a perceptual aspect (what we believe about the influence of messages) and a behavioral component (censorship).

For example, a scholarly study on support for censorship of rap music found that those surveyed

Ultimately, consideration of the third-person effect might help to tamp down some of the rampant frets and fears about fake news. And if it does something more than that, as I argue in my article, the third-person effect should give lawmakers serious reason to take a thoughtful and deliberate pause before proposing any bills aimed at the censorship of fake news.

Remedies of educating people about how to spot fake news and publicly shaming fake news websites are far better alternatives than governmental censorship.

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Fake News, Censorship & the Third-Person Effect: You Can't Fool Me, Only Others! - Huffington Post

Jonathan Nez | Published 18 hours ago

THE ISSUE: The UC Berkeley College Republicans invited Milo Yiannopoulos to speak on campus. Protests erupted in response, leading to the event being canceled. The violent protest came from a non-student organization, but the event inspired substantial debate over free speech on campus. You can read the other sidehere.

Our disagreement is really about what free speech is and what its limits are. On one side, you have an alt-right figure whose views are pretty extreme. He has called feminism toxic, attacked transgenderism and labeled campus rape culture a myth. His views should never be normalized because they enable hate. On the other side, you have a liberal university culture. To these students, Milos words are emotionally traumatic, and by extension, they serve as an assault on their person in a way that warrantsbanishment.

While I am aware of my privilege and empathetic to those Milo belittles, violence is still not justified. No one has the right to live free of content that offends them. The victim card is not one that supersedes someone elses right to speak. What you do have a right to do is use your freedom of speech to fight back. You can organize a peaceful protest, engage in discourse with those you disagree with and publicly condemn organizations that support speakers whose beliefs you find repugnant. Attacking others and causing over $100,000 in property damage are not included in those rights.

People often conflate my support of Milos right to speak with support for his views; this is not the case. I disagree with all of his views, with the exception of those on free speech. Taking away freedoms sets a dangerous precedent that can be hard to undo. When you allow people to believe opposing views violate a nonexistent right, they will believe that censorship is not only justified, but also the only solution to the disagreement. Creating such an unhealthy culture of discourse with suppression is precariously fascist, which is why I believe we should err on the side of freedom. Milo sucks, but censorship is worse.

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Viewpoints: Err on the side of freedom, rather than censorship - The Daily Tar Heel

Wrestling Rumors

Impact Is Being Forced Into Some Strange Censorship Tonight Wrestling Rumors Normally when you hear censorship, you think violence or sexual content. Maybe some profanity, or a if we're in a dystopia, a restraint against political opinions. You don't generally expect an entire person to be censored. But that's exactly what's ... and more »

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Impact Is Being Forced Into Some Strange Censorship Tonight - Wrestling Rumors

spikeds annual Free Speech University Rankings (FSUR) was released last week, to the usual cacophony of irritation from those on the receiving end of a Red ranking. Chief among the perpetually ticked-off, of course, was president of the National Union of Students (NUS), Malia Bouattia.

The NUS always frets about the FSUR, because it collects in one place all the bans and regulations students unions inflict upon their members. Not only did Bouattia pen a ripsote to the FSUR in the Huffington Post the day before its 2017 findings came out, she also attempted another take-down in the Independent a few days later.

In the latter, Bouattia claims that she can demonstrate expertly that the project is flawed, suggesting that what spiked doesnt understand is that students want to extend, not suppress, free expression. Free speech is universal, she says, but it is not limitless. To extend it to everyone means sacrificing some of our rights, preventing those who would suppress some peoples free expression from having theirs. In other words, you need to ban your way to free speech.

This is pretty mind-bending logic, even if it is by now sadly familiar. It speaks volumes that the NUS and universities feel it is their right to decide who should and shouldnt have their universal rights suspended. Whats more, the NUSs ban on those it deems to be fascist under its longstanding No Platform policy is really an expression of contempt for students, not far-right speakers.

What the NUS doesnt understand is that allowing your opponents the right to speak doesnt render you mute. One person speaking doesnt prevent the other from answering. This is what is so important about free speech. Believing in free speech means trusting people to defeat backward ideas in open debate. The NUS simply doesnt think students are up to it.

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Campus censorship is a big deal - Spiked

View of Scott Daniel Williamss Storefront Sign for the Ungovernable City (2016) partially installed at the Loisaida Center (image courtesy the artist)

Ifyou visitthe Loisaida Centerin the next month, the firstthing youll notice is the sound of running water and voices some in English, some in Spanish telling stories about the Rio Grande river. Then youll see the rest of El Paso-based artist Zeke Peas collaboration with local musicianEureka The Butcher,River Border, a large graphite drawing on cloth that maps the stretch of the MexicoUS border where a military wallruns along the banks of the Rio Grande in the El Paso del Norte region. The combined effect of the Peas drawing and Eurekas recordingsis powerfully evocative, transporting the visitor to the rivers edge.

The next sound you mightve heard would have come from Albuquerque-based artistScott Daniel Williamss interactive sculpture, Storefront Sign for the Ungovernable City which, behind a sign that reads Police Not Welcome, can be toggledby pulling a chainto simultaneously play a recording of Ornette Colemans The Artist in America and audio ofthe killing ofJames Boyd byAlbuquerque Police Department officers in 2014. That workwas originally installed near Loisaidas main entrance by the curators ofFuture Now // Futura Ahora, Atomic Culture(the duo of Matthew and Malinda Galindo), but was removed on February 3, the day before the exhibitions opening. The decision, taken unilaterally by one of Loisaidas directors, was spurred by a fear that the centers CEO, Raul Russi a former Buffalo police officer who was injured in the line of duty would object to the work.This act of censorship repeatedly threatened to undo Atomic Culturesvital exhibition.

Its a very difficult situation for us as artists because this is a community center, and its a Latin Americancommunity center specifically, thats done a lot of really, really incredible work and we want to stand as allies with the center, Williams told Hyperallergic. It was a difficult decision to even take any sort of stand, but at the same time I think we [the artists in the show]feel like thats where we have to start. If were going to talk about expression and social justice we have to start at home, in these places where we should all be most accountable.

Russi who only became aware of the situation after Williams had issued a public statement and protested the exhibition opening, and negotiations between the artist, curators, and Loisaida directors had reached an impasse finally saw Storefront Sign for the Ungovernable City and the rest ofFuture Now // Futura Ahoraduring a visit to the center on Saturday. Today, he releaseda public statement about and apologyfor the works removal, paving the way for the reinstallation of Williamss work in a different space at Loisaida tomorrow.

Unfortunately, our team jumped to the wrong conclusion that I would object to the exhibition of one of the pieces without consulting with me in advance, Russis statement reads. I had the opportunity over the weekend to have a dialogue with the Atomic Culture organizers, to clarify all of this and to offer my apologies on behalf of Loisaida, Inc. As CEO, I let Atomic Culture know that the piece can be part of their ongoing exhibit.

Indeed, Williamss work seems especially relevant for an exhibition about social justice at a community center that represents a historically over-policed community and is located directly next to a major NYPDstation. Add to this the fact that all the featured artists in Future Now // Futura Ahoraare based in the southwestern United States, an area poised to become an intensified zoneof activity for the USs militarized border patrols under President Trump, and the show takes on an added sense of urgency.

In addition to Williamss piece, several other works in the exhibition condemn the excessive use of force and systemic abuses of agents paid to uphold the law. For instance, the mural On Both Sides of the Border Women Are Still Being Murdered (2016) a collaboration between Albuquerque-based artist Nani Chacon and author Tanaya Winder highlights the vulnerability of women in both Mexico and the US. And Peas aforementioned map of the Rio Grande and border wall includes a drawing of a threatening US Border Control vehicle alongside the words: You have the right to remain silent.In one of the exhibitions main rooms, a row of small, vintage-looking cell phones emits poetry and displays compass faces that seem to point the viewer north. The work, Transborder Immigrant Tool, is a safety systemdeveloped by San Diego-based artistsRicardo Dominguez and Brett Stalbaumto help disoriented travelers in any desert setting to find their way. The program offers tips for desert survival in the form of poetry recited in several different languages, and logs the coordinatesof known water caches, offering a vital tool for people crossing, for instance, the MexicoUS border in southern California, where the artists developed and tested it between 2009 and 2012.

Atomic Culturehas brought together a powerful group of artists from the southwestern US, many of whom are making work at theconfluence of art and activism, and most of whom are too rarely exhibitedin New York. Fortunately, Loisaida has rectifiedthe earliercensorship of one work and, in doing so, avoided jeopardizing the telling of all the other featured artistsimportant stories. Indeed, the reinstallation of Williamss piece will provide a crucial link between the issues of migrant safety and anti-immigrant infrastructure along the MexicoUS border that many of these artists are addressing. Police brutality often targets the most vulnerable residents in the country, and some US cities situated near the Mexican border are particularly prone to this type of institutionalized violence. The fact that many of the artists here are from Albuquerque is particularly poignant, since the citys police department is under investigation for use of force by the Department of Justice.Future Now // Futura Ahora is a testament to the works artists make not only to cope with such conditions, but to combat them.

Future Now // Futura Ahora continues at the Loisaida Center (710 East 9th Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through March 18.

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Despite Censorship Row, a Show Connecting Immigrant Rights and Police Brutality Goes On - Hyperallergic

Nick Cannon announced his abrupt resignation from NBCs America's Got Talent Monday, accusing the network of trampling on his free speech rights and trying to censor him following a racial joke he made on his recent Showtime stand-up special.

The comedian announced his unexpected exit on Facebook, saying he was deeply saddened about being threatened with termination after his controversial joke on Stand Up, Dont Shoot reportedly irked NBC executives.

I find myself in a dark place having to make a decision that I wish I didnt have to, but as a man, an artist, and a voice for my community I will not be silenced, controlled or treated like a piece of property, Mr. Cannon wrote. There is no amount of money worth my dignity or my integrity.

My moral principles will easily walk away from the millions of dollars they hang over my head, he added. Its never been about the money for me, what is difficult to walk away from is the fans, the people who love me on the show. This hurts tremendously.

Mr. Cannons resignation came after rumors swirled that NBC executives were considering terminating his contract following a racial joke he made about America's Got Talent on his comedy special that aired on Showtime Friday night.

Sometimes I wish I could say the stuff that I really want to say, Mr. Cannon said on stage, according to a clip posted by TMZ. Cause yall see my face on America's Got Talent? Like, This next crazy motherfer coming to the stage gonna be juggling blindfolded with knives and shit, so nas be careful! But I cant say that. I cant talk like that. Cause that would mess up the white money.

Sources familiar with the situation told TMZ that NBC executives thought Mr. Cannon was disparaging the network. Sources said NBC considered terminating Mr. Cannons contract but ultimately decided to keep him after determining the joke was a passing comment, TMZ reported.

Still, Mr. Cannon said his decision to resign was based on a moral duty to stand up for what he believes is right.

I have fought many battles in my career and have never been afraid to go up against the system. I have mulled over my process for days and felt it was best to once again speak my mind about an unjust infrastructure that treat talent like they own them, he wrote Monday. So I wish AGT and NBC the best in its upcoming season but I can not see myself returning. As of lately I have even questioned if I want to even be apart of an industry who ultimately treats artists in this manner.

Production on season 12 of America's Got Talent is scheduled to begin next month. A replacement for Mr. Cannon, who served as the host since 2009, has not been named.

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Nick Cannon accuses NBC of censorship, leaves 'America's Got Talent' after 8 years - Washington Times

As of late, a wave of censorship has swept over this campus. Those who would silence the free speech of UCSB students are not authorities but private individuals. The College Republicans have set up signs around campus in an effort to advertise for their Ben Shapiro event on the topic of Black Lives Matter. They have followed all of the correct procedure. They have been met with vandalism. Their wood signs have been repeatedly painted over and their fliers ripped from sight.

Those who have repeatedly defaced the College Republicans signs are unwilling to reason. This would be obvious to any outsider looking in to the enclosed environment of this UC campus. In a place where one-sided classes on political issues are taught as fact, it is a wonder that there are any students at the university who would challenge the doctrines imposed on them at all.

Art by Sierra Deak / Daily Nexus

When knowledge is transmitted in such a way as it is in the university system, there is little hope for dialogue. I hear those on the left clamoring for a national dialogue, yet they offer nothing but the destruction of property, both private and public. Observe the force employed by the individuals at UC Berkeley in response to the Milo Yiannopoulos event scheduled there. And now, in a small act of what is perhaps imitation of their more violent comrades at Berkeley, leftists of UC Santa Barbara have destroyed the signs advertising the Ben Shapiro event. Nothing else could be expected from those who consider speech violence.

To equivocate speech and violence is to obliterate the distinction between reason and force. Free speech is a principle of this liberal society for one reason: so that thinking individuals may partake in a discussion of their ideas with other individuals. It is the political prerequisite to freedom of the mind that is, the freedom to reason. As humans are thinking, rational animals, such an ability as reasoning is essential for our existence within a society.

Reason is exactly the means that humans use to avoid predation on each other. In the personal sphere, reasoning is absolutely essential. Consider sex, the most personal and intimate of all human relations. Any good persons intuition regarding sex would prescribe a consensual basis for it. Consent requires a state of consciousness and agency. Such a state is the state of reason. Reason demands conscious awareness and the ability to exercise ones volitional faculties, and so it is the heart of consent. When consent is not given by all parties involved, when force is substituted for reason, the interaction becomes rape or sexual assault. Voluntary, willful consent is required in the realm of sex. It is considered most vital in this context but abandoned in others.

If the free expression of our ideas is not protected by a just government, then where is justice in our law?

The person who forces another person to be his or her friend has nothing to offer. Friends help each other. Friends do good to their friends. This is common sense. If force is used, real value and worth is absent. Just as this applies to friendship, so it applies to politics. Particularly, freedom of speech. It is a truth that no one wants something that must be forced on them. Furthermore, no one wants what is theirs to be taken away by force. Ideas are the most intimate kind of possession. They make up our minds and ourselves. If the free expression of our ideas is not protected by a just government, then where is justice in our law? Are we to apply principles of freedom to one area of our life and not the other? I would say the freedom to speak and not necessarily to be heard is more valuable than a friendship. What friendship could survive without being grounded on a firm slab of truth? What truth can be arrived at except by the free expression and exploration of ideas?

When we apply the principle of reason to economic and political relationships, we get a free market. When we apply it to academics, we should get a free market of ideas. If there is any place in the nation to glorify free speech, it should be the university. Knowledge is the business of the university. Knowledge requires truth. Truth is not easy to obtain. To obtain truth, there is only one principle that can be brought to bear. This is reason and its corollary, freedom of speech.

I am an individualist, so I do not believe everyone on the left condones the savage actions of those students who defaced the College Republicans signs. I do not believe even the majority of those on the left are gripped by a fundamentally irrational Marxist ideology that denies the premises of reason and freedom. In the coming weeks, there will be events which promote unpopular ideas. If for no other reason than to affirm that it is okay to hold an unpopular idea, these events are a blessing. With regards to the administration of this university, the vandals who ruined the College Republicans signs should be found and punished. Their punishment should not be minimal. They should serve as an example so the university can assure its students that freedom of speech will be protected.

Connor Pardini believes in the right to hold an opinion, popular or not.

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Unwilling to Reason: Why Censorship is the Wrong Answer - Daily Nexus

Brazils First Lady Marcela Temer has been a victim of extortion. A hacker entered into her phone and e-mail accounts, threatening to pull President Temers name through the mud. The First Family reacted quickly. The State Court in Braslia, at the request of the President, has prevented media outlets from publishing any content acquired during the hack. Its a textbook case of censorship.

The hacker, Silvonei Jos de Jesus Souza, was convicted to five years in prison. He demanded 300,000 Brazilian Reals to not publishmessages exchanged by the First Lady. On Friday, newspaperFolha de S.Paulo described some of the messages the hacker sent Marcela Temer. He declared that they would ruin the Presidents reputation, as they suggested Temer had done something immoral or even illegal.

Today, a judge issued a ruling that forbids media outlets from printing the contents of the threat. In fact, disobeying the ruling results in a hefty $160,000 fine.

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BRAZIL'S PRESIDENT IMPOSES CENSORSHIP OVER CASE INVOLVING FIRST LADY - plus55 (blog)

The company we keep Elvis Presley, Big Bird, South Park, Lena Dunham have all been censored. Composite: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty; Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Alamy; Chris Buck for the Guardian

If Lena Dunham had her way, one episode of Girls would have featured a shot of freshly-ejaculated sperm looping through the air. This was brought up during a recent oral history of the show ahead of its last ever series as well as the fact that HBO stepped in and stopped it from happening on the grounds of basic taste.

With its money shot that never was, Girls has now entered the hallowed halls of censored TV shows. Heres a potted history of the company it keeps.

When Elvis Presley waggled his pelvis on the Milton Berle Show in 1956, an appalled New York Daily News described the performance as being tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos. So, when Elvis appeared on the Steve Allen Show some months later, nervous executives forced him to tone down his sexually suggestive dance moves by making him perform Hound Dog to a dog in a hat on a plinth.

One evening, Tonight Show host Jack Paar told a long and rambling anecdote that contained several references to the term WC as a euphemism for toilet. NBC censors, outraged at the filth inherent in discussing water closets on television, cut the anecdote without informing Paar. The following night Paar close to tears walked off set mid-episode and refused to return for a month.

An episode entitled The Fix saw Hutch get addicted to heroin, and the BBC refused to broadcast it. The episode would eventually air during a special Channel 4 Starsky and Hutch night 24 years later. Note: this video is a fan-made montage, although the original would have arguably been more traumatic had it also been soundtracked by How to Save a Life by The Fray.

A first-series episode entitled The Klansmen has never been broadcast in the UK. This could be because it deals with a violent white power organisation and is therefore full of racial epithets. Or it could be because Bodie one of the good guys, remember repeatedly outs himself as a racist in fairly graphic terms. Or it could be down to its big reveal: the leader of the racist organisation was black. Either way, ick.

No footage from the episode Snuffys Parents Get a Divorce exists, because it has never been aired in any form. The story was meant to deal with the breakup of Mr Snuffleupagus family, but test screenings revealed the litany of unintentionally negative effects the episode had on children. Reports suggested that the kids who watched it were in tears, adding They thought nobody loved Snuffy. They worried their own parents were going to get divorced. As a result, the episode was canned forever.

Although it may appear placid to the point of tedium, an episode of the plodding American sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond entitled Maries Sculpture has never been broadcast on British television. Why? Perhaps because this is the episode where Raymonds mother unwittingly creates a giant (and fairly graphic) statue of a female sexual organ. And, since Everybody Loves Raymond only airs at 8am in the UK, its likely the channel decided that a colossal ceramic vagina shouldnt be the last thing kids see before they leave for school of a morning.

When Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad in 2005, the outrage was such that South Park was bound to weigh in at some point. The episode Cartoon Wars Part II was initially supposed to show another depiction of Muhammad, but ended up running a black title card reading Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network in its place.

Between 2001 and 2006, Fear Factor was a modestly diverting dare show, like Im a Celebritys Bushtucker Trials stretched out over an hour. However, when NBC revived it in 2011, Fear Factor became a programme where girls in skimpy outfits drank donkey semen while men watched and vomited. After viewing the episode in question, NBC chose not to air it in America. Still, its good to know where the line of decency is. That line is donkey sperm.

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South Park to Sesame Street: the TV censorship hall of fame - The Guardian

Just remember, when an authoritarian government expresses interest in your opinions, its not necessarily with your best interests at heart.

Thats what the Chinese government has been doing over the last few years, according to a study by researchers in Hong Kong, Sweden, and the United States.

The study found that the regime has been selectively loosening its grip on social media censorship and allowing users to discuss some sensitive topics but its doing this in part to better track dissent and nip potential protest movements in the bud.

For the study, titled Why Does China Allow Freer Social Media? Protests versus Surveillance and Propaganda and published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, researchers analyzed more than 13 billion posts made to Sina Weibo, a Chinese-language microblogging platform akin to Twitter, and correlated these with 545 collective protest events.

They discovered that online censors often allowed free discussion of controversial topics including official corruption and pollution, in many cases accompanied by calls for protests and strikes, apparently with an eye to preventing or limiting the latter.

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Overall, around three million posts relating to protests or social conflict and another 1.3 million relating to strikes were allowed to remain by censors.

Towards that end, the authors state we find that social media can be very effective for protest surveillance, as Most of the real-world protests and strikes that we study can be predicted one day in advance based on social media content.

In one case, the city government of Chengdu simply canceled the weekend, requiring workers to show up at their workplaces and students to be in school, in order to head off a protest over a planned toxic chemical factory.

In fact, users seem to assume that their social media is being monitored, and use it as a channel to circumvent local officials and communicate directly with the central government.

In one interesting example, the user wrote: Billions of money went into the pockets of local officials and their business partners! President Xi, Premier Li, and Secretary Wang in the Central Discipline Inspection Department, do you read our microblogs? Can you hear our voice? Please eradicate these corrupt officials! Right now!

Read more here:

China Loosens Social Media Censorship To Uncover Dissent - MediaPost Communications

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Sheldon Rabinowitz, Des Moines, Letter to the Editor 6:21 p.m. CT Feb. 10, 2017

Students from City and West High lead protesters down the pedestrian mall during a rally against President Trump's travel ban on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2017.(Photo: David Scrivner/Iowa City Press-Citizen)

If we really have free speech in this country, as provided by law, then any lawful program should be able to be held on any campus. Whether any of us, including university administration or the news media, agree with the sponsors or their subject matter, should have nothing to do with the right to hold the program.

Lawful protest is to be respected, but universities and the local government have the responsibility to protect the people and the property from rioters. Are we to be ruled by anarchists and have mob rule? If the police need to get tough to enforce the law, so be it.

If universities knuckle under threats of rioters, it will only encourage more censorship of what the mob does not want to hear, all across the country.

Sheldon Rabinowitz, Des Moines

Read or Share this story: http://dmreg.co/2kYEG0s

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Mob censorship can't be tolerated - DesMoinesRegister.com

Forbes

What Wikipedia's Daily Mail 'Ban' Tells Us About The Future Of Online Censorship Forbes How was this decision made, what kind of data fed into this decision-making process and what does it tell us about the future of censorship and who decides what is real on the Internet, especially as social media platforms increasingly play the role ... WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard - WikipediaWikipedia Wikipedia bans Daily Mail as 'unreliable' sourceThe Guardian Wikipedia:Potentially unreliable sources - WikipediaWikipedia all 94 news articles »

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What Wikipedia's Daily Mail 'Ban' Tells Us About The Future Of Online Censorship - Forbes

If youre having trouble with your internet connection, one of the first things tech support will ask you to do is to run a speed test. There are dozens of websites and apps that will, at the tap of a button, measure your network speedbut they cant tell you which sites you can actually access with that bandwidth. Even with a good connection, if youre in a country that censors the internet, whole swaths of the web might be out of reach.

Now, theres an app that will test your internet connection not for speed, but for freedom. The program, ooniprobe, is part of a 5-year-old project called the Open Observatory of Network Interference, or OONI. This project is sponsored by Tor, the organization behind the privacy-preserving Tor Browser.

OONI has made censorship-testing software available for years, but it has until now required downloading a desktop software package using a command-line toola step most computer users arent comfortable taking on. The new app will allow anyone with a smartphone to run a test. Mobile is where the next billion will come online, so this app fulfills a pressing need to put censorship detection in the hands of the people, said Deji Olukotun, the senior global advocacy manager at Access Now, an international digital-rights advocacy group.

I downloaded a beta version of the mobile app to give it a spin. (It will be made available in the iOS and Google Play app stores next week.) For now, the app only includes two of the many tools available on OONIs desktop software: a web-connectivity test and a probe that checks for hardware that censors or alters traffic on a network.

The connectivity test is straightforward. For each website on a preselected list, the test sends to requests: one from my smartphone and one from a server located elsewhere. If both requests return the same result, the URL passes the test and the program moves on to the next one. But if the pages load differently, its a hint that something fishy might be going on. If that happens, OONI will test for several ways that network could censor or block access to a URL.

The list of sites that the probe uses is the product of a collaboration between OONI and CitizenLab, a research group at the University of Toronto focused on technology and human rights. The sites on the list generally provide important services, host controversial content, or are likely to be censored for some other reason, said Arturo Filast, OONIs project lead and core developer.

The other test bundled in the app is simple but clever. It involves sending an invalid request to an echo server, a computer thats designed to send back an identical copy of any data it receives. If the bad request comes back in the same form it was sent, the path between the device and the echo server is likely unobstructed. But if the echo is modified in some way, something on the network might be manipulating the traffic that crosses it.

The tests certainly arent foolproof. When I ran the second test on the wi-fi network here in The Atlantics newsroom, it showed no evident tampering. But the first test found evidence of censorship on five sites: Two religious sites, a sports-betting site, the homepage of the DEFCON hacking conference, and a sex-doll site. When I tried visiting each in a normal browsersorry, IT departmentthey loaded without issue. (There are several reasons why the connectivity test might return a false positive, including when websites look different depending on the country theyre accessed from.)

By default, test results from OONIs desktop software or from the ooniprobe app are uploaded to a website called OONI Explorer, which aggregates the results into a browsable database and an interactive map. According to a page with highlights from OONIs findings, the project collected more than 10 million measurements from 96 countries between late 2012 and early 2016.

The map paints a stark picture of internet censorship around the globe. It doesnt show a single confirmed censorship case in the Western hemisphere, but reveals a rash of censorship across Asia and the Middle East. OONI only shows one confirmed case of censorship in AfricaSudan appears to block a handful of adult sites, according to a 2-year-old scanbut networks in many African countries havent yet been tested.

Perhaps surprisingly, the club of countries that censor their internet also includes several in Europe. Greece appears to block a dozen betting sites, while Sweden, Denmark, and Italy block several bit-torrent sites. Belgium has assembled a long blacklist of both types of sites. France, on the other hand, only blocks two: the homepages of a pair of Islamic terrorist organizations.

When you first download and install ooniprobe, the app warns that in some countries around the world, legal and/or extra-legal risks could emerge. Probing a network could be illegal or considered espionage, the developers write, or a user could get in trouble for requesting data from a site thats illegal in their country: The probe requests data from porn sites, hate-speech sites, and terrorism-related sites. (OONI says its not aware of a user ever facing consequences for running a test in the past.)

Filast says the forthcoming mobile app will allow more people to contribute to the worlds understanding of internet censorship patterns. Access to that information, he says, is a fundamental human right. He pointed to an example from East Africa: Last year, Ethiopians complained that their internet access was being censored in response to a wave of political protests, but there was little evidence to prove it. By running ooniprobe, Ethiopian activists found that the government was censoring media, human-rights, LGBTI-related, and political websites, among others, in addition to blocking WhatsApp.

OONI and Amnesty International collaborated on a report that laid out incontrovertible evidence of systematic interference with access to numerous websites, which was published in December. Today, Ethiopia is in a state of emergency, said Filast. Yet the published findings illustrate that censorship events took place beforehand. This type of information can potentially aid political discussions on an international level.

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Ooniprobe Maps Countries Around the World That Censor the ... - The Atlantic

Short Bytes: Tor Project has released its new internet speed and censorship level test app. Known as Ooniprobe, this free and open source app performs three different tests, including a test for finding out blocked websites on your network. You can download the app for your Android and iOS devices.

Now, Tor Project has releasedanewapp, Ooniprobe, that can be installed on Android and iOS smartphones.Ooniprobeapp has been designed to run various tests for checking your internet speed and censorship levels. Before you can actually use the app to run different tests, you need to read some informational pages and pass a quick test.

By running these tests on Tors Ooniprobe app, you can find out:

But, how does Ooniprobeinternetspeed test app performs these functions? Let me explain the three above mentioned tests one by one.

Ooniprobes Web Connectivity Test checks whether websites are blocked using DNS tampering, TCP/IP blocking, or by using a transparentHTTP proxy. By knowing the type of interference, you can take appropriate measures,

Its HTTP Invalid Request Line test looks for the systems within the network that are used for censorship, traffic manipulation, andsurveillance.

Ooniprobes Internet Speed and performance test measures the internet speed by connecting it to nearby M-Lab servers. During the process, the test collects low-level TCP/IP information that can be used to calculate the speed and performance of thenetwork.

After the tests, you are shown test results. Red color shows connection issues. You can tap on the given options to see detailed results.

All OONI tests are based on free and open source software. You can find the source code of the same on GitHub. To do so, follow this link.

Ooniprobeapp for internet speed and censorship level test is available for Android and iOSdevices.

Did you find Ooniprobeinternet testing app helpful? Dont forget to drop your views and comments.

Also Read:BitChute: A YouTube Powered By BitTorrent Is Here With No Censorship

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TOR's Ooniprobe App Tests Your Internet Speed And Censorship ... - Fossbytes

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