An Amazon logo appears on an Amazon delivery van, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, in Boston. Amazon wont be forced to restore web service to Parler after a federal judge ruled Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021 against a plea to reinstate the fast-growing social media app favored by followers of former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, file)

Conservatives gasped with horror when Twitter banned President Trumps account and Google, Apple and Amazon banned Parler.

Why is anyone surprised? Media outlets have been censoring conservatives for decades in America.

Back in the days before iPhones and social media, the only way for politicians to communicate with the public i.e. voters was through old-fashioned, traditional means: like newspapers, television, radio and the US Postal Service.

In 1984, former Congressman Alex McMillan of Charlotte (R-NC9) won a squeaker of a race over Democrat D.G. Martin by the slimmest of margins, 321 votes out of over 225,000 votes cast.

To provide historical perspective for Millennials, Apple introduced the MacIntosh personal computer in 1984. A decade later, the internet was developed. Two decades later, along came social media. There were very limited avenues through which conservatives could communicate directly with their constituents without filters from editors and journalists who disagreed with them and essentially suppressed their free speech.

I was chief of staff to Congressman McMillan when his 1986 re-election race was the #1 targeted campaign in the country. In an attempt to build mutual trust with the Charlotte Observer, we allowed their quite capable political reporter, John Monk, full access to our office for four months to do an in-depth story about congressional life in general.

When the article came out in the Charlotte Observer, it painted McMillan in an unfavorable light right in the middle of a tight re-election campaign. After blowing out John for writing such a hatchet job, for which I had to apologize later, he sent me the full article as printed in the Augusta, Georgia, paper which was part of the same Knight-Ridder chain that owned the Charlotte Observer.

No one in Augusta, Georgia, voted for McMillan in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It was fair and balanced, just as John said it would be. But the Observer editors had selectively edited the story down about 30%, ostensibly for space concerns. It was blatantly obvious they did it to help D.G. Martin in his rematch against McMillan because they agreed with him on every issue, not McMillan.

We submitted numerous opinion pieces to the Observer over the next decade only to see most of them rejected. The Observer was owned and operated by staunch liberal Democrats who simply did not want to allow conservative Republicans a forum to air their political views and philosophy.

As a privately owned company, they were entirely within their right to deny access to anyone they did not want to publish. It was just infuriating to conservatives to be constantly told the press is fair, neutral and impartial, when in actual practice, they are not.

We went around such editorial roadblocks by mailing out eight million newsletters, town hall meeting notices and congressional updates to 250,000 households at taxpayer expense via the congressional franking privilege. Not proud to have to admit such a wasteful government expense, but the franking privilege and about $1.5 million in campaign ads, an enormous amount in 1986, were the only two ways we could get past media censorship and biased reporting in North Carolina.

It worked; Alex McMillan won re-election by 4,221 votes, a virtual landslide compared to his 1984 win.

Not much has changed in the media world politically since then except for the rise of Fox News, which used to be the news outlet of choice for conservatives for 30 years. Subscriptions and circulation have plummeted at large newspapers, but they still are echo chambers for such partisan political narratives as Russian Collusion and Moderate Joe Biden.

The most troubling thing is how elite liberal media editors use the freedom of the press guarantee in the First Amendment to pound out the free speech clause of the same amendment for others. Be completely fair to all points of view or be honest enough to admit a specific bias so readers can make up their own minds about whether they agree with you or not.

Conservatives have to stop whining about the liberal bias of the media and start owning their own news outlets. Conservatives should figure out what is going to replace social media and get ahead of the curve, not be smashed by it.

There were thousands of newspapers and pamphlets, all of them partisan to the federalist or anti-federalist point of view at the beginning of the republic, many virulently so. America is going to be far better off as a country going forward with a cacophony of opposing views instead of the silence that follows dictatorial censorship of views that media chairmen, publishers or editors dont like.

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HILL: Censorship of conservatives is nothing new The North State Journal - North State Journal

Close your eyes and imagine a world where any social media post or account could be removed without explanation at the behest of a Trump administration. Thats censorship.

Twitter banning an account? Thats debatable.

When the company confirmed on Jan. 20 that it had locked the account of Chinas embassy in the US due to a tweet defending Beijings policies in Xinjiang, many on Chinas Twitter-like Weibo were quick to mock the US company. What is freedom of speech? It is that the Weibo account of the US embassy in China can still voice its opinions, whereas the account of the Chinese embassy is locked by Twitter, posted one user.

A spokesperson for Chinas foreign ministry echoed that confusion,saying today (link in Chinese) that the embassy was merely trying to explain the truth, and that China was bewildered by Twitters decision.

The now-unavailable tweet cited a report from China Daily, a state-owned English-language newspaper, arguing that government policies in Xinjiang had eradicated extremism and emancipated the minds of Uyghur women, such that they are no longer baby-making machines. Thats contrary to how the US government and other critics understand the situation, which is that as many as 2 million Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities may have been held in internment camps in the far western region, and that Beijing has forced stark reproductive choices on Uyghur women.

A spokesperson from Twitter said the tweet violated a policy which prohibits the dehumanization of a group of people based on their religion, caste, age, disability, serious disease, national origin, race, or ethnicity. Twitter has not confirmed when it banned the account, but it has not issued a tweet since Jan. 9.

Its the second time this month Twitter is defending its decision to silence a high-profile account: On Jan. 8, the company permanently banned the account of now former US president Donald Trump, citing the risk of further incitement of violence following a Trump-encouraged insurrection at the US Capitol. The radical left and their big tech allies cannot marginalize, censor, or silence the American people, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trumps former press secretary, tweeted at the time. This is not China, this is the United States of America, and we are a free country.

Its important to debate how governments should deal with the ever-expanding influence of social platforms, and how those platforms should deal with the ever-expanding need for consistent moderation policies. But its something else entirely for both American and Chinese commentators to compare Twitters moves to censorship, especially given what constitutes censorship in China.

For starters, private US companies like Twitter usually give clear reasons when they suspend accounts or remove certain content, as Twitter did in the Chinese embassy case. For hundreds of millions of Chinese internet users, its common for content to be removed by platforms without explanation, leaving the user to wonder which word or image triggered the censorship. Chinese users even have a catchphrase to describe the sudden removal of their social media accounts: account bombing. Even Hu Xijin, the chief editor of the Chinese state tabloid Global Times, once begged editors (link in Chinese) at Weibo not to delete his followers comments.

Second, US companies generally have the right to decide what content they carry, while all Chinese internet platforms have to follow the orders of the Chinese government, which is primarily concerned with the control of information, rather than misinformation or hate speech. And because Chinese companies are held accountable for even third-party content according to Chinese laws, they spend a great deal of energy censoring political content, while allowing racial slurs to survive. The companies have no power to refuse the authorities request for access to their users information, which has led to the arrests of dissidents. For many Chinese users, it is hard to imagine criticizing or even just joking about their leaders, given that it could result in jail time.

Lastly, being shut out of one platform in the US, or even multiple platforms, doesnt mean a user has nowhere else to voice their opinions. In China, by comparison, its not uncommon for the online presence of a user seen as too politically sensitive by the state to be erased from platforms entirely. Chen Qiushi, a citizen journalist who reported on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, told Quartz last year that his Chinese social media accounts were deleted after he made a trip to Hong Kong to report on anti-government protests there. Chen has not been seen publicly since February 2020.

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Why Twitter's "censorship" is not the same as China's - Quartz

Election fraud is a result of mass media, censorship

Our constitutional republic is now at stake as a result of the fraudulent presidential election that took place on Nov. 3.

Again, the fraud that has occurred is a result of mass media, big tech censorship and rich oligarchs throwing millions of dollars at the Democratic policies that support the availability of a cheap labor market. Case-in-point: The numbers available to clearly demonstrate the fraud that took place. Hundreds of affidavits have been collected from those involved with the voting process in many key states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.

Country-wide, Joe Biden collected 212 fewer counties than Barack Obama did in 2012. Yet, Biden received more than 15 million more votes than Obama did. How is that possible? Also, what are the mathematical possibilities that tens of thousands of Philadelphia voters went for Biden and not a single one for Donald Trump? That statistical conclusion from this major urban city is not believable.

Story continues below video

The run-off election in January for two Senate seats in Georgia is pivotal for the future of this country. Should the Democrats win both seats, the makeup of the Senate will ensure two new states will be added to the Union, the seats on the Supreme Court will be increased and a global philosophy will prevail instead of an America First one. The Green New Deal will be implemented and an open borders policy will begin. Will socialism become the new philosophy of our government in Washington? Who will end up paying for it? Is that really what you want for America?

Russ Hall

New Castle

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Election fraud is a result of mass media, censorship - New Castle News

Facebook has announced a policy to remove false claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, or anything else that isnt on the official vaccine ingredient list. This seems reasonable, until you think through the details.

One difficulty is that banning discussion is a terrible way to counter a conspiracy theory; the censorship is seen as further evidence of a conspiracy. Better to acknowledge the facts and test the theorys plausibility. Radio-frequency identification chips can be as narrow as 0.15 millimeter, small enough to fit through the 25-gauge needle used for vaccinations. But objects that size can be seen with the naked eye. Thousands of medical personnel have administered the vaccines, and none have reported little black objects floating in the bottles. Further, how could one microchip per person be extracted from a single bottle containing multiple doses? And why would anyone bother to tag people now that we all carry cellphones with unique identifiers?

The notion that there are microchips in vaccines is a ridiculous conspiracy theory, best dealt with by facts, science, logic and ridicule, not censorship. But Facebooks policy of restricting discussion to substances on the official vaccine ingredient list also hinders serious discussion of what is causing the rare allergic reactions to the Pfizer vaccine.

That inquiry has centered on one of the official ingredients, polyethylene glycol, which is very rarely an allergen. We should also consider the possibility of trace amounts of other allergens accompanying the officially listed ingredients. To assess this, I showed the ingredient list to a drug-formulation scientist, Chris Moreton. He responded that some of the lipid ingredients are typically derived from plants such as beans, and traces of proteins from these plants should be considered as potential causes of the allergic reactions. That is a forbidden thought on Facebook because bean protein isnt on the official vaccine ingredients list.

Mr. Moreton and I are scientists, and Facebooks policies would suppress our brainstorming. There are ways of dealing with such controversies without censorship. In science, we have journals, seminars and conferences in which all sorts of hypotheses are floated and assessed. We have a decentralized process by which good ideas can rise to the top.

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Facebooks Censors and the Ingredients List - The Wall Street Journal

Filmmaker Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi received an usual censorship request for his 2013 film Thanakha.

There was a scene where a couple makes love in the film, he said. I hadnt filmed any adult scenes but put 5 seconds of black frames right after they went to bed holding hands. But they asked me to remove the black frames.

Their surprising answer?

The audience will think whatever they want because of those 5 seconds of black frames, he said they told him. They will imagine too much.

So like nearly every other director is forced to do, he made the cut.

All I wanted to show the audience was the moment the young couple made love according to their desire, he said. I left it for the audience to enjoy and let them take it as they want. But censorship did not allow it.

For long, a handful of people have held the power of life or death over Myanmars films by standing between them and release with the arbitrary power to hold certain scenes objectionable by a set of very subjective criteria.

While the official censors dont overtly ban films their refusal to certify them has the same result they frequently order scenes cut for capricious reasons, a frustration nearly every director has experienced in their career. Now, the countrys filmmakers are demanding changes to that system, the laws and more in the name of evolving the artform.

They want to be able to make films that include adult themes and arent held to vague rules about preserving the union, promoting ethnic harmony, preserving traditional culture and more that have been bent to fit the personal whims of the censors.

Whenever we think of making a film, we will have to avoid the list mentioned above, even if the script just makes everyone in this industry disappointed, said Ar Kar, director of the well-known 2018 film The Mystery of Burma. So the only way to fix it is to change the rating system and remove this censorship; let the artists create his/her own film freely.

That means coming up with a standard ratings system like those used elsewhere.

And theyve made headway. Na Gyi said the Ministry of Information has agreed to revise the rules and has asked for support within and without the industry to get it done.

On Wednesday, their petition was signed by Nyi Nyi Htun Lwin, chairman of the Myanmar Motion Picture Organisation.

Of the four films Ar Kar has made, he said all were censored in one way or another.

I had to reshoot, re-edit and reapply for censorship again and again, and I hate it, he said.

As the boards decisions are issued in private, no one even knows how many films have been censored or blocked by the board, at least outside the Myanmar Motion Picture Organization.

Coconuts contacted the organization to get an answer; it declined to provide one.

Director Na Gyi, director of the award-winning film Mi, said he got behind the campaign because the film industry has lagged behind other media in free expression.

Since there is no more censorship on books, paintings and other arts, film is the only thing thats still controlled by an organization, he said. Besides, those regulations are also old-fashioned. Thus, we want to change it, once and for all.

Famous performers including Nay Toe, Kyaw Kyaw Bo, Tun Tun, Daung, Ye Lay, Ye Tike, Pai Phyo Thu as well as serious directors Maung Myo Min (Yintwin), Na Gyi, Htoo Paing Zaw Oo and writer Chit Oo Nyo are among those supporting the reform campaign which began on the Writers and Directors Organization Of Myanmar, where many have contributed articles about censorship and the ratings system.

Myanmar filmmakers say the obsolete rules are holding the industry back from further evolving. Ar Kar said audiences have seen improvement since late 2018, when movies by young filmmakers overtook the tacky and reliably offensive films that had been a clich for decades. For long, the censors did nothing about routine homophobia, mocking of ethnic minorities, ridiculing of people with disabilities and more tropes of Myanmars movies.

The campaign began in earnest on Dec. 11 and is first focused on changing the ratings system. Participating artists have taken part by posting photos of them holding captive cards on their Facebook pages, saying #RatingSystemNow.

First, the ratings system. Then we will continue to push for the film bill to be implemented as soon as possible, Ri Zaw said, referring to the longer-term goal of changing the 24-year-old Motion Pictures Law, which dictates that every film must pass two layers of censorship that begin with a script review.

Director Cho Two Zaw, also known as Aung Zaw Min, said its about removing authoritarian interference from the relationship between artist and audience.

There should be no barrier between the artist and the audience, he wrote. This censorship is about a group of dictactorships dogs who insult both the artist and the audience. They will be far from the art, 10 lives away.

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Myanmar government bans screening of Twilight Over BurmaNew wave filmmakers turn an uncensored lens on MyanmarMyanmar ranked among the top ten most censored countries in the world

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Myanmar's filmmakers band together against whims of censors to demand #RatingSystemNow - Coconuts Yangon

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PAMELA ROTH, San Clemente

The day a newspaper decides it must flag and not print inflammatory or insensitive letters to the editor is the day we need a new newspaper.

Newspapers used to be a bastion of free speech. Once you start to not publish letters because it could offend someone, you get into very scary territory. All fascist countries and regimes start out censoring distasteful speech. You arent the taste committee.

I was born a New York Jew, in a Long Island suburb, that was approximately 95% Jewish. We were taught about the Holocaust at a very young age. And your apology about publishing someones viewpoint about stickers and Nazismwith a vow to censor such opinions in the futureis much more frightening than a letter to the editor comparing stickers to Nazi identifying badges.

In fact, that person writing the letter might have been Jewish.

Do you have no journalistic standards? Your job isnt to be sensitive to everyones emotions. Everyone is sensitive about something.

So, be a newspaper. Print our letters to the editor. Its not your place to judge whether a letter writers stance is justifiable. Were adults. Leave censorship to North Korea and the Taliban, please. Thank you.

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Letter to the Editor: Censorship - San Clemente Times

Yesterday morning, for scores of Indian liberals, Christmas came early. They woke up to the cheer of the UK affiliate of Republic Bharat being hit with a fine of 20,000 British Pounds for broadcasting hate speech. This is the first time I have heard of the OfCom, the UK government body that served the fine.

For scores of Indias elite liberals, this was not the day to talk about free speech. It was a day to celebrate.

There were a couple of things that were noteworthy about the reporting around the incident. First, the OfCom was described to us as a regulator for the media. Okay, what does it regulate? Apparently, all the things that you can say on air. You know we have the National Board of Film Certification in India with a similar brief for what you can show in the movies. Our media usually refers to it as the unofficial term Censor Board. So why didnt the media refer to the UKs OfCom as a censor?

Oh, I get it. When they do it, its called regulation. When we do it, its called censorship.

Second, the sense of liberal cheer was not dampened when the nature of Republic Bharats alleged offense began to emerge. It turns out that in the backdrop of Indias Chandrayaan mission last year, the folks on Republic Bharat had referred to India as a nation that produces scientists, as opposed to Pakistan which produces terrorists. Hate speech for sure. And how untrue! Seventy-three years after partition, it was heartwarming to see the imperial British government, the Pakistanis and the Indian liberals come together to celebrate a common victory.

But I wanted to know more about this OfCom. Its full name is the Office of Communications. It holds sweepingpowersover broadcasting, telecommunications and even postal industries in the UK. Thats reassuring. I do hope that the OfCom is under the Ministry of Truth in the UK. Dear George Orwell, are you hearing this?

So what methodology does the OfCom use to decide whether something is hate speech? I did a simple google search. It led me to thisletter, posted on the official website of OfCom in response to a Freedom of Information request (similar to our RTI):

Thats just awesome. The methodology is secret. And the OfComs Secretary has confirmed that it is not in the public interest to release it.

Thank you, dear Secretary to Ofcom, for looking out for the public interest. Seems the good people of the United Kingdom had some kind of meeting, where they elected this faceless bureaucrat as God. Or at least the official guardian of public interest.

As a concession to those of us who are not guardians of public interest, the Secretary was kind enough to provide Annex B setting out the reasons why this methodology must be kept secret. And it makes for truly amazing reading. They have two columns, one listing factors for disclosure, while the other lists factors for withholding. And below that, the Secretary, who is a qualified person as defined by law, has delivered the final verdict.

First, let us read the factors in favor of disclosing the methodology. Its remarkably short.

Ah, the general desirability that the actions of the regulator should be transparent! The publics right to know how their government decides what they are allowed to say? Thats just generally desirable, though apparently not important enough. You have to give it to the British. They do condescension well.

Now let us find out the much longer and more important factors for withholding this methodology. First, there is this.

Ah, the government needs a safe space where they can decide what should be censored. If the general riff-raff get to know what is being said here, the government might get its feelings hurt. And then the government might feel shy about expressing its views in the future.

Dear President Xi Jinping, do consider giving a bear hug to these sensitive souls in the British government.

And finally, there is this.

Long sentences. So, were going to have to break it down. The monitoring is only effective if the broadcasters dont know when and who is being monitored. If this information becomes public, the broadcasters might become alert in time and fix their conduct before the sword falls on them. Then, how would the government know who the thought criminals are?

So everyone is suspect, all of the time. At any time, a government bureaucracy, using a secret methodology, might decide that you have broken their secret rules. Nothing to worry here. As long as you only talk about unicorns and rainbows, you will be just fine. Hopefully.

And finally, the Secretary delivers the expected verdict. No disclosures, sorry.

Observe how long the sentences are in the latter part of Annex B. Unlike the simple, easy to understand sentence that mentioned the general desirability of things being transparent. In case you are wondering, you do have a right to appeal. In that case, the OfCom will do an internal review.

Thisis modern liberalism. A parody of itself and its alleged goals. Honestly, tell me. If I had not told you at the very beginning, would you have known if these were documents from the British government or the Chinese government?

But to scores of Indian liberal elites, all this matters little. They dont care if the bosses of some TV channel cheat investors using insider trading. They dont care if notable journalists are on tape fixing portfolios in the Union Cabinet with lobbyists and big business. And they dont care if media coverage endangers lives of security forces during anti-terror operations. All they care about is making Republic Bharat shut up about Pakistan.

In other words, yes to corruption. Yes to terrorism. No to free speech.

Read more here:

OfCom: The secretive govt censor that has fined the UK affiliate of Republic Bharat. Why people are rejoicing and what it means - OpIndia

In Jasarspahics case, Babic filed the suit even without first seeking a retraction. Jasarspahic said his article on Visoko.co.ba had simply stated the facts, as did the eventual verdict in his favour handed down by the Zenica Cantonal Court.

You are a public figure, you spend public money, you exist in public space, you give statements in public space, but you act as if I entered your private space, Jasarspahic told BIRN.

The storm the case kicked up in Visoko, however, made life for Jasarspahic and his family intolerable, prompting their move to Sarajevo.

Babic, the former mayor, declined to comment for this story.

Media and legal experts say it was far from an isolated case.

Defamation suits are used for intimidation, said Biljana Radulovic, a lawyer in the eastern Bosnian town of Bijeljina.

Politicians are mostly those suing journalists with the excuse of protecting their reputation. They file lawsuits for protection from defamation, thus intimidating journalists with the enormous amounts being claimed and often won in court proceedings, Radulovic told BIRN.

Adi Isakovic, a judge at the Municipal Court in Sarajevo, said the number of such cases grows during each election campaign and that their sheer frequency is concerning.

The abundance of such lawsuits surely affects the independence of journalists, Isakovic said. If a journalist publishes a news item of public interest and gets sued for defamation, of course it will matter in the future when they publish their next investigative story that they think the public should know about.

The growing rate of such lawsuits in recent years has led to the closure of a number of media outlets and brought others to the brink of financial collapse Sarajevos Slobodna Bosna newspaper and Respekt weekly in Banja Luka among the most prominent examples.

It was simply impossible to function within such a system, said former Respekt journalist Zeljko Raljic, because the judiciary is under direct political control, particularly over the last three or four years.

Vukelic said smaller media outlets were particularly endangered given they lack the resources to fight off repeated lawsuits.

They cannot endure the pressure, he said. Such cases can encourage self-censorship among less experienced journalists, who might ask, Why should I write about that topic when there are a thousand others I can address? he said.

Read more here:

Suing to Silence: Lawsuits Used to Censor Bosnian Journalists - Balkan Insight

Naomi Wolfs latest book, Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love, was initially scheduled for publication last year. But after its release in the U.K, the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, abruptly canceled its U.S. distribution and even directed librarians to destroy the book, says Wolf, a feminist author known for The Beauty Myth. Its an odd parallel to the content of Outrages, which details the censorship and destruction of LGBTQ+ literature in 19th-century England.

Now expanded and released by a new publisher, Outrages traces the rise of state-sponsored censorship and homophobia to an explosion of infectious diseases in the 1800s, after which filth was seen not just as a personal issue but a public one. The British government later expanded its reach to words and ideas it considered dangerous to public well-being.

At the center of the 2019 controversy was a disagreement about some historical data that Wolf cites in the book regarding men executed in Britain for the act of sodomy. Wolfs critics argued that the data reflected the execution of rapists and pedophiles, not gay men.

Wolf says the law in question was written so that it didnt distinguish between essentially adult sex and acts of violence. She adds, Fifty-six men were executed for sodomy in the 19th century [in England]. You cannot say that they were all rapists and child molesters. Thats just not true. And I think its a very homophobic thing to say. What concerns me[are the] news outlets that asserted that that didnt happen. It erases the fact that the British state did engage in this atrocity. That it did execute at least some men who were consenting adults having sex with each other.

Wolf argues that homophobia was clearly at play in the Victorian-era cases, even when the men were accused of violence or acts with children, because the victims in these cases were more likely to be male. To be clear, shes not excusing predatory behavior. Im a survivor of child rape, she explains. Its very close to home. [But] when it comes to predators, if you are a cisgender white heterosexual man, you have much higher chances of being a predator with impunity. That these men received death sentences is another example of queer people being targeted as the problem, whereas when heterosexual men rape children, the state does not prosecute it correspondinglyor proportionately.

Wolf connects this reflection to modern-day trans-exclusionary radical feminists who claim they are just trying to protect women and children with their transphobia. I want to speak to what is horrifying about engaging with these battles, with these TERFs, she says. Theyre always, always, always creating a narrative of trans people in womens bathrooms, and the trans person is always a potential child molester or a rapist. And this is [not only a] completely, statistically fake story, but its a fake story thats being used to scare and intimidate and mislead a whole nation. And what it does that infuriates me as the survivor of a heterosexual male predator is that it erases the fact that statistically you are overwhelmingly likely, if youre going to be molested as a girl, to be molested by a heterosexual adult man.

Bathroom laws are absolutely not trivial or marginal or only affecting people who are gender-nonbinary, Wolf notes. They absolutely affect all of usbecause when the state gets to say what your body can do, what you can do based on your body, that is a gigantic breach of personal autonomy and individual freedom. When the state decides that your body is wrong and starts to legislate about itit creates a context for stripping away protectors to due process, to equal rights, to just being an equal member of the community.

Furthermore, when a type of body is held up by the state as an object of hatred and contempt, it gives permission for violence to follow, she says: Hatred has death rates even in an advanced society where youre not supposed to kill.

Outrages traces the creation of these laws that granted the state new rights in regulating different types of bodies and bodily functions. But the book is also an ode to 19th-century author John Addington Symonds (before), who Wolf argues played a significant role in the formation of modern ideas about sexuality and identity.

He was a great romantic, Wolf muses. And his whole life, Symonds, all he wanted to do as the center of being a writer and a critic and a poet and a lover, I would say, was to tell the truth as he saw it about the beauty and nobility of love between men and sex between men. And at the end of his life, to advocate against the laws that discriminated against them so severely.

Wolf sees Symonds as an early LGBTQ+ activist who responded to powerful homophobic forces around him, including the state censorship of his queer manifesto, A Problem in Modern Ethics. You literally never know what your advocacy will do, she adds of Symondss efforts. You never know what your courage will do, especially in a time of bad laws and bad leadership.

Wolfs observations could just as easily be made in looking at the impact of her own maternal line. In graduate school, her grandmother documented Chicagos gay male subculture of banquets and parties and later worked with Margaret Sanger (considered the founder of Planned Parenthood), providing birth control to other women back when doing so was illegal.

In the late 1960s, Wolfs mother, Dr. Deborah Wolf, was friends with lesbian trailblazer Phyllis Lyon, a founder of the Daughters of Bilitis. Then, working on her Ph.D., the elder Wolf recalls that Lyon convinced her that as a straight researcher, if she conducted an ethnographic study on the lesbian community and how they raised their kids, she could later support lesbian moms as an expert witness in custody cases. So thats what she did, publishing her findings as the book The Lesbian Community and testifying on behalf of lesbian mothers as an expert on the psychological health of lesbian-headed families.

The younger Wolf remembers her mothers work having a big impact on her as well. And I remember being really scared by it, she admits. From a childs perspective, you dont care who your mom is sleeping with, you just want your mom. You dont want to be taken away from your mother. I think that really affected me, that homophobia could break up families and keep people from the people they needed.

Later, Wolf had kids of her own but was struggling as a newly divorced mom. I didnt know how to give my kids that stable, secure family structure that I had had growing up in an intact nuclear family, she recalls. I felt like a tiny boat in a big sea. But then two gay male couples who were family friends stepped in. And as my kids grew up, these men and their love...did give us that stability. And it did give my kids role models for lifetime commitment.

Love is a precious resource in society and anything that harms that or dams it up or punishes people for loving hurts everybody, Wolf concludes now. I experienced that both as a 10-year-old child, listening to my mom talking about these kids who are going to lose their moms because their moms loved each other. And then myself as a single mother, benefiting from there being extra love left over to give to me and my kids.

As far as her own sexual identity, Wolf says, I dont think I can identify myself as a queer person. If I were privately queer, I would be publicly queer. What I do resonate with is...I personally feel that the label straight is too rigid. ... I dont see gender as a barrier or a reason in my personal case to be attracted to someone or love someone. If I fell in love with someone, I would want to be close to them, whatever gender they happen to be. She sees an affinity in that sentiment with Symonds, whose literary work imagined our more LGBTQ-friendly times and in doing so, helped bring them to life.

Censorship is one true meaning of death, Wolf writes in closing Outrages.

Their vision didnt die because they evaded the censors, Wolf explains now about Symonds and other queer writers like Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde. That is death if the censors are allowed to do away with booksbecause some books will go on to give life to people and to create a better and more just world.

He never shut up, Wolf adds of Symondss resilience in the face of state-sanctioned repression. [And] his words did prevail and changed our world and made the world we live in.

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Naomi Wolf, Outrage, and the Terrors of LGBTQ+ Censorship - Advocate.com

Social media companies that remove posts whose content is legal can be fined up to 1.8 million under a new Polish bill. Users have welcomed its introduction as an antidote to other countries growing censorship demands.

Any social media company that removes content or blocks accounts that do not violate Polish law can be fined under the new legislation, announced in a press conference on Thursday by Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro. The bill also creates a special Court for the Protection of Freedom of Speech within one of the district courts.

Individuals whose posts have been censored will have the right to complain to the platform in question, which has 24 hours to respond. The user then has 48 hours to petition the new court to have their content reinstated, and the court then has seven days to consider the petition.

If the court finds in favor of the user and the social media platform does not restore the content or unblock the account, they will be fined up to 1.8 million by the Office of Electronic Communications. The whole process will happen online, according to Ziobro.

The victims of ideological censorship are unfairly quashed by social media platforms just because they express views and refer to values that are unacceptable from the point of view of communitieswith an ever-stronger influence on the functioning of social media, the justice minister said.

The user of social media must feel that his rights are protected. Nor can there be any censorship of speech. Freedom of speech and freedom of debate are the essence of democracy.

The new court will also be tasked with handling blocking requests regarding content that does violate Polish law. Additionally, it will handle a new type of blind lawsuit in which someone who is wronged by an anonymous party on the internet can file a lawsuit to correct the wrong, even without the defendants personal data. All that would be needed for such a suit is the offenders username, the website where the offending post was made, and the date and time of posting.

Secretary of State Sebastian Kaleta said this solution represents a significant improvement over attempts by countries such as France and Germany to handle such problems, noting that their efforts are primarily repressive and focus on the quick removal of content rather than protecting free expression.

A government press release specifically cited the European Commissions Digital Service Act a sprawling EU-wide piece of legislation which also focus[es] on removing prohibited content as one of the motivating factors behind Warsaws rollout of the new protections for online speech.

Poland wants to adopt its own regulations, effectively defending the constitutional right to freedom of expression, so that in the event of a disputethe courts will decide on a possible violation of the law, it said.

Social media users far outside Poland were thrilled by the legislation.

Many especially Americans were impatient to see such laws in their own countries. Must be nice to have such leaders, one user sighed wistfully.

Others considered a move to Poland.

And several users simply tagged US President Donald Trump, who has vowed to veto the National Defense Authorization Act if it does not include a provision to strip social media platforms of their Section 230 legal liability. Section 230 exempts social media platforms from legal responsibility for content posted by their users while still allowing them to moderate that content a loophole its opponents have claimed enables ideologically-motivated censorship.

While both houses of Congress have passed the bill with veto-proof majorities, the president still plans to veto it, according to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Unfortunately for Americans looking eastward, Poland is not yet allowing visitors from the US (except from Illinois and New York) due to the novel coronavirus epidemic.

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Poland threatens hefty fines for social media companies that censor legal speech, users everywhere celebrate - RT