By Kevin Reed 23 September 2020

The social media monopoly Facebook is preparing to take exceptional measures including aggressive action to restrict the circulation of content on its network if the 2020 US elections on November 3 result in chaos or violence.

In an interview with Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications Nick Clegg, the Financial Times reported that the social media corporation had drawn up plans for handling a range of outcomes including widespread civic unrest or other unprecedented political dilemmas during the counting of in-person and mail-in ballots.

Clegg told FT, There are some break-glass options available to us if there really is an extremely chaotic and, worse still, violent set of circumstances. Although he did not reveal any details about Facebooks planned responses, Clegg referenced the actions taken by the worlds number one social media platform previously in countries where social unrest erupted.

Clegg said, We have acted aggressively in other parts of the world where we think that there is real civic instability and we obviously have the tools to do that [again], adding that the company had taken pretty exceptional measures to significantly restrict the circulation of content on our platform. FT said Clegg was referring to the actions taken by Facebook to reduce the content reach of malicious actors and repeated rule breakers during recent periods of unrest in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

The Right Honorable Sir Nick Clegg is a leading political figure in the UK. He was the Deputy Prime Minister under Prime Minister David Cameron (2010-2015) and leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007-2015. He was hired by Facebook in October 2018 as a lobbyist and chief international public relations officer.

While the FT report emphasized concerns about how President Trump would use social media to interfere in the process of the elections or contest the results or call for violent protest, potentially triggering a constitutional crisis, the real fear for Facebook and Clegg is that there will be a mass response to the election crisis that will move outside of the US two-party political establishment.

Significantly, FT says, Facebook has been exploring how to handle about 70 different potential scenarios, according to a person familiar with the situation, with staff including world-class military scenario planners. In other words, Facebook is collaborating with military-intelligence and bracing for the eruption of mass social unrest in the US during the 2020 elections.

Clegg also said that any extraordinary measures taken by Facebook will fall to a team of top executives including himself and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandbergwith chief executive Mark Zuckerberg holding the right to overrule positions. He said, Weve slightly reorganized things such that we have a fairly tight arrangement by which decisions are taken at different levels [depending on] the gravity of the controversy attached.

If true, the description by Clegg makes clear that decisions to utilize the unprecedented power of Facebook political censorship in the hands of a relatively small number of corporate executives. Clegg added that Facebook was committing a significant amount of resources at its Election Operations Center and voter information hub.

Facebook has launched an infrastructure within their platform that they have characterized as the largest voting information campaign in American history. At the top of the priority list of this information campaign is election security and fighting interference which includes teams of more than 35,000 people.

Facebook says it is increasing its coordination with law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, and with state officials, civil society groups, and other technology companies. In explaining how they will prevent election interference, Facebook states that its security teams will identify suspicious activity and take down coordinated networks of inauthentic accounts, Pages and Groups that seek to manipulate public debate.

It should be pointed out that Facebooks election information infrastructure has been built in collaboration with the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). BPC is a Washington, D.C. think tank founded in 2007 by former leading US political figures Howard Baker and Bob Dole (Republicans) and Tom Daschle and George Mitchell (Democrats) to preserve and defend the US two-party system amid growing conflict within the political establishment.

Meanwhile, the FBI is spreading its own misinformation in advance of the elections. In a Public Service Announcement on Tuesday, the FBI said that foreign actors and cybercriminals could create new websites, change existing websites, and create or share corresponding social media content to spread false information in an attempt to discredit the electoral process and undermine confidence in US democratic institutions.

The latest news and information about Facebooks censorship plans for the US elections confirms the warnings issued previously by the World Socialist Web Site about the meaning of the ongoing collaboration of the tech giants with the intelligence state during both the pandemic and on election security. The secret meetings being held with White House officials and federal police and intelligence agencies were preparing the censorship regime that is now at least partially being made public.

Going back to 2016, there has been a steady stream of unproven allegations of foreign interference by the Russians, the Iranians and the Chinese in the US elections. In reality, the threat to US democratic institutions comes from the Trump administration and the refusal of the Democrats to do anything about it. Additionally, the confidence of the public in these institutions is being undermined each day by the grotesque social inequality between the super rich who control the Democrats and Republicans and the reality of life facing millions of people under the capitalist system.

The degree of emergency censorship planning by Facebookin concert with police agencies and the surveillance stateis a measure of the awareness within ruling circles of the potential for an eruption of mass struggles by the working class and youth in the US after what will be on election day nearly nine months of economic and social crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The ruling establishment is well aware that social media platforms such as Facebook are being utilized to organize the mass protests across the country against police violence as well as the growing opposition within the working class to returning to work and school under the unsafe health conditions of the pandemic. Above all, the censorship efforts are aimed at preventing the socialist political analysis and program of the World Socialist Web Site from reaching the working class under conditions of mass protests and a constitutional crisis in November.

While the open threats by Donald Trump to discredit or outright reject the results of the election and refuse to leave office should be taken seriously, workers and young people cannot place an ounce of confidence in the campaign of Biden-Harris or the Democratic Party to defend the constitution or uphold democratic forms of rule in the US. The working class must intervene independently of both parties of the corporate and financial elite, take matters into its own hands and fight for the program of revolutionary socialism represented only by the SEP in the 2020 elections with its candidates Joseph Kishore for US President and Norissa Santa Cruz for US Vice President.

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Google is blocking the World Socialist Web Site from search results.

To fight this blacklisting:

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Facebook plans political censorship in anticipation of chaos and violence in the 2020 US elections - WSWS

Check out Banned Books Week September 27 through October 3 with Milner Library

During the week of September 27through October 3, Milner Library is joining libraries nationally to celebrateBanned Books Week. This annual observance promotes our freedom to read as well as highlights past and present challenges to censor books in libraries and schools. The national theme this year is Censorship is a Dead End. Find your Freedom to Read.Milner Library values free and open access to information, and we hope this weeks event will inspire folks to consider the impact of censorship.

Throughout the week, Milners social media will highlight books that have been challenged or banned at libraries and schools throughout the country. Additionally, check out thiscollection of commonly banned or challenged books that you can borrow from the library to celebrate your freedom to read. This includes the list of 2019s top ten most challenged books as determined by data gathered throughout the year by the American Library Associations Office for Intellectual Freedom.

When a book is challenged, it means there is an attempt to remove or restrict materials based upon the objections of a person or group. A banned book means that the materials were removed. Books are still challenged today, although in the majority of cases books have remained available thanks in part to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up for our freedom to read.Learn more about the history of Banned Books Week.

Join Milner on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as we explore some of the banned books and celebrating the freedom to read! Interested in learning more about banned and challenged books? Check out this FAQ from the American Library Association.

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Banned Books Week: Milner Celebrates the Freedom to Read - Illinois State University News

Sunny Hostin detailed claims of racism from ABC in her new book and shared how the network attempted to have the narrative removed.

Read More: Maryland congressional candidate Kim Klacik accuses The Views Joy Behar of wearing blackface

In the forward for her new memoir, I Am These Truths, the lawyer opened up on the experiences at the network including a racist incident that resulted in the firing of an executive. In June, Huffpost published a report claiming Barbara Fedida, an ABC News executive in charge of talent, made multiple insensitive remarks toward Black network talent such as Robin Roberts, and was the subject of over a dozen human resource complaints.

The Los Angeles Times reported Fedida allegedly used the term low rentto describe Hostin. After an investigation, the executive lost her job, however, the damage was already done. The View co-host used her platform on the show to describe the feeling of being targeted by racist comments.

It was a tough weekend for me, and I was really disappointed and saddened and hurt when I learned about the racist comments that were made, allegedly, about me, my colleagues, and my dear friends, Hostin said. Because, if true, to reference Robin Roberts, who is one of the most respected and beloved journalists in our country, as picking cotton, to reference me, someone whos been very open about having grown up in public housing, as being low rent tells me that systemic racism touches everything and everyone in our society regardless of social stature.

Read More: Sherri Shepherd says The View was the most painful experience Ive ever gone through

Hostin expanded on these feelings in her books forward. Entertainment Tonight reports at the time of the expose, her memoir had already gone to the publisher. She called her agent and decided to add her reality deliberately to the books forward.

Ive got a book coming out. And the book had already gone to the publisher. And I called my agent and I said, Ive got to write about this and I want it to be at the very beginning of the book. Because this is my truth as I sit here today Because this is the truth that Im living right now. And if thats gonna help any woman, help anybody thats going through this during this time in our country, I gotta do it. And he said, You better do it. And I literally wrote that foreword in about 15 to 20 minutes, she said to the outlet.

According to The Daily Beast, she penned claims that she made less than her White counterparts, and initially had a dressing room on a different floor from therest of the cast.

Her proclaimed truth was not told without pushback. Hostin sought legal aid when ABC pushed back against segments of her book.

I was surprised that what was asked of me was to change the truth, to change my story, Hostin remarked on Andy Cohen Live on Monday.

I think its one thing if I got something wrong and, to be clear, they caught things that were wrong. Timing things, and direct quotes that should have been checked more closely. And I appreciated those things, but then they wanted me to change, things like things that I experienced. Discriminatory things, and I just felt that that wasnt fair because the title of the book is I Am These Truths, she continued.

Hostin revealed the racist sentiments in ABCs alleged attempted censorship in the forward.

My television agent and my book agent emailed me to express confusion that a news organization would try to censor a Puerto Rican, African American womans story while they were covering global demonstrations demanding racial equity, the forward stated.

One of them even calculated the percentages of people of color on the executive boards at Disney, ABC Entertainment, and ABC Newsaccording to him those figures ranged from 7 to 12 percent. I asked my attorneys to intervene and thankfully ABC relented. I didnt want to believe that racism played a part in their revision requestswe were just dotting some is and crossing some ts, right?

Beyond the ABC saga, I Am These Truths explores her Puerto Rican and Black upbringing in the Bronx, and her professional journey as a federal prosecutor and journalist. Hostin shared with Bustle she was nervous to pen a memoir and received encouragement from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

When I had [the memoir] in front of me, I constantly had these moments when I realized, Wow, this experience was not great. That was a failure, but I turned that failure into a lesson, which is an important tool, she said to the outlet.

Have you subscribed totheGrios podcastDear Culture? Download our newest episodes now!

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The View co-host Sunny Hostin accuses ABC of racist censorship - TheGrio

With no fans in the stands, the coaches' chatter will be more audible on TV. Guess the Guest asked Brandon Robinson which coach would need more censorship: Coach K or Roy?

It's such a great rivalry and and such a great game to be a part of it. But I think you know, just from us being in a Dean Dome where it's so many fans in there and then going thio camera when it's so small, I think it'll be different. It will be doing so that makes me think of something. You made a good point. You hear this on the n B A. They have to like, sensor it all the time. You'll hear like Sudden just breaks. You know somebody's going nuts under there, All right, So do plays Carolina next year, and the live sensor guy has to censor the two coaches who is going to need more censoring Mike Stachowski or Roy Williams Coast game? Yeah, e don't wanna be that guy, But I've heard Coach K saying like I remember one time I took the ball about, I heard Coach K say something to arrest and it made me turn my head. I was like, What did you say? You know what? I'm not gonna I'm not like you can you can say blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah like I just want to hear it kind of what it like. It was a couple of bleeps in there. I'm not gonna lie to Rev. Kinda deserved it because it was a terrible call. It, like you really just said this to the ref in the rep, Just sat there and took it.

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Which coach will TV have to censor more: Duke's Krzyzewski or UNC's Williams? - WRALSportsFan.com

University staff have criticised New South Wales police for being undemocratic and suppressing freedom of speech by repeatedly arresting protestors, even as people gathered in larger numbers at sporting events, cafes and classrooms.

An open letter, signed by over 100 staff at the University of Sydney, accused police of political censorship in breaking up multiple protests against the federal governments changes to higher education.

Universities exist to foster the free and open debate of ideas, the letter said. The University of Sydney campus should be a place where the right of students and staff to express their views is respected without fear of police intimidation or reprisal.

Last Wednesday, students and staff were arrested and fined for protesting in groups of fewer than 20 people, even as classes of 30 to 40 people went ahead elsewhere on campus.

One academic, Dr Rob Boncardo, told Guardian Australia that at one point, a police sergeant told them that people eating lunch were allowed to stay, but protestors would be arrested.

Demonstrators were protesting against the federal governments changes to university fees, which would see the cost of some degrees double, and job cuts at universities that have now totalled more than 11,000 this year.

Organisers said attendees on Wednesday wore masks, were never allowed to be in groups larger than 19 and were all spaced between 50 to 200 metres apart.

Meanwhile, contact sports, shopping malls, public transport are all up and running, with the public encouraged, but not required, to wear face masks, the letter said. At the University of Sydney, we are now allowing face-to-face, indoor tutorials of up to 30 students at a time.

Boncardo, who teaches English and European studies, said some attendees were threatened with arrest during the protest outdoors, but then had to teach in classrooms of up to 40 people indoors.

He said police told him the small groups of fewer than 20 people were illegal because they were organised for a common purpose.

The quite absurd scene we saw was of a large sergeant with a loudspeaker on the law buildings lawns saying: If you are here to have lunch, you can stay, if you are here to protest, you have to move on.

The open letter from staff said this unambiguously constitutes political censorship in how it targeted protestors.

There are relatively large numbers of people gathering to eat indoors [on campus]. The way the virus transmits, being outdoors is very low on the risk scale and being indoors is higher, Boncardo said.

Dr Nick Riemer, another academic, said police were creating a threatening environment on campus, where students feared being fined or arrested for expressing their views.

The university cant be a location for the open debate of ideas if it is constantly subjected to large numbers of police whenever students try and express a political opinion, he said.

They are expressing views about their education, their own future [and] the message they are getting is that if they do that, they risk getting arrested and fined. But they can congregate to watch football, in cafes and in classrooms.

The minute they dare to express a political view, they face the full repressive force of the NSW police. It should be a very grave concern to anyone who is committed to a democratic society.

Boncardo, who is a member of the Usyd Casuals Network and the National Tertiary Education Union, said growing class sizes also meant that the university has not hesitated to put 35 to 40 people in a single classroom or tutorial.

I have colleagues who were moved on by police, who had to double back and go sit in a classroom with 30 to 35 students, enclosed. A whole bunch of the people involved were moved on from a socially distanced outdoors activity, and have to perform their job in a tiny odd room with 30 odd students.

Continued here:

NSW police accused of 'political censorship' over university protest arrests - The Guardian

India is not a nation where anyone can claim absolute freedom of speech and expression with an exception that free speech is claimed at the time of dissent. However the recent case of Sudarshan News have open the Pandora box and weve to re-evaluate the same.

Justice Chandrachud while adjudicating the matter remarked that Article 14 (which talks about Right of equality before the court) does not have to regulate everything to regulate something. This was in response to Sudarshans affidavit where theyve talked about the NDTVs reporting in 2008 allegedly defaming Hindu.

Supreme Court passed an interim order staying the future episodes of the show which was heavily criticized on Social Media by the netizens because of its judicial overreach in the case.

On odd days, the courts work as the Executive body of the country and on even days, the same courts are acting like Censor Boards. This act of court have made me ask the reasons of having separation of power in the Indian constitution. And no, this isnt happening for the first time. I could recall that Supreme Court interfered into BCCIs administration in such a way that Supreme Court judge literally asked the then President of BCCI Anurag Thakur about his credentials of being the president. And when Thakur responded with his credentials which included him playing cricket upto state level and president of state cricket association, the judge was quick to respond that he also plays Judges league. This was followed by Court establishing a committee to regulate the BCCI.

Now theyve remarked that they may have appoint few eminent personalities to look over the hate speeches in media.

Whats the point of having statutory bodies & separation of power when the judiciary wants to do everything?

Despite producing enough evidences of infiltration and malafide invention through investigative journalism by the Sudarshan news, the court has deemed it as vilification of a community by putting a stay on the shows.

Where are the Freedom of Expression gangs?

Who is at fault if the conspirators happens to be a Muslim? Or when the gau-thives are Muslims? Before someone start calling me an Islamophobe, this was the question asked even by Sardar Patel in 1948!

Also why is the case is so restrictive to a particular society? If we look this into bigger picture, Court must also look into the shows, movies, journalism and series who are prima-facie Hinduphobic, Castist etc but allowed in the name of creativity. Will court look into those aspects where Hindu society is vilified or remain mute?

In Court, Senior Advocate Divan representing Sudarshan News perceives this to be an investigative story.

There is an enormous amount of funding from abroad which is proving to be not friendly to India. They believe it is their duty to inform citizens about it.

This was countered by Chandrachud J who have passed interim order staying further the showcase of further episodes by curbing the right if media:

As the Supreme Court of this nation, we cant allow you to say Muslims are infiltrating civil services. We cant tolerate this. No one can say journalists have absolute freedom to say anything, observes Justice Chandrachud, saying more episodes shouldnt telecast till case is heard.

SC through its interim order have stopped Sudarshan News to show remaining episodes on infiltration of Muslims in UPSC.

But are the allegations labelled by Sudarshan News so wrong and vilifying Muslims for no reason?

Sanjeeb Newar, a renowned data scientist says that governments policy favors Muslims over non-Muslims in UPSC. Muslims use benefit of both their minority status as well as caste based reservation. Also organisations like Zakat have made situation worse by infiltrating the most prestigious exam on the nation.

SC restrains Sudarshan News TV from telecasting a programme without going through the details of the program while passing adverse comments on the functioning of electronic media maybe dangerous.

Can subjective opinion be a criteria to judge content when J Chandrachud himself said that dissent is very important in a democracy. In the own words, Labelling Dissent Anti-National Strikes at Heart of Democracy.

Is the SC order the beginning of censorship of media?

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Is the SC order the beginning of censorship of media? - Goa Chronicle

Election 2020

A DPNS poster in Yangon. / DPNS: Facebook

By San Yamin Aung 21 September 2020

YANGON Myanmars Democratic Party for a New Society (DPNS) has canceled its election broadcasts on state-owned media after facing censorship.

From Sept. 8 to Nov. 6, political parties running in the election are allowed to deliver campaign speeches and explain their policies in 15-minute broadcasts. So far, 28 parties have taken part.

Under campaign broadcast rules, parties must submit a script for the broadcast for the approval of the Union Election Commission (UEC).

The DPNS chairman, U Aung Moe Zaw, said comments on childrens rights and controversial business projects affecting citizens, such as the Letpadaung copper mine in Sagaing Region, and the use of the word oppressed were ordered to be removed by the UEC from the broadcast. The DPNS broadcast was due to be aired on Tuesday.

The DPNS had highlighted child labor, mortality among the under-fives, children not going to school, the numbers not in education and poverty.

A politician shall not have his or her political view. What a sad story! Therefore, I decided not to broadcast my censored speech, U Aung Moe Zaw posted on Facebook on Sunday.

The partys vice-chairwoman, Daw Noe Noe Htet San, told The Irrawaddy that the UECs censorship harms freedom of expression.

She said even under the previous, quasi-civilian Union Solidarity and Development Party government, the DPNS did not face such limitations.

The word oppressed is not allowed. And the facts about the childrens rights are not allowed. There is legal oppression and also in other areas. We used the word as we need to fix those issues, Daw Noe Noe Htet San said.

We will make our campaign speech available through other channels, she added.

The party is contesting 16 out of 1,171 constituencies in the Nov. 8 poll.

The campaign broadcast rules prohibit any content that is deemed to disturb the rule of law, cause instability, defame the state or military, incite the civil service not to perform its duty and sparks hatred among different groups.

Human rights groups have called for the restrictions to be relaxed ahead of the election.

The Union Election Commission should revise the broadcast rules to ensure that voters are able to hear opposition parties on state-owned media speaking freely about their policies and platforms, said Linda Lakhdhir,. Human Rights Watchs Asia legal adviser.

Robust political debate lies at the heart of the electoral process, and Myanmars voters are entitled to hear all political views, including those critical of the government in power and its policies.

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Political Party Withdraws Election Broadcast After Censorship by Myanmar Authorities - The Irrawaddy News Magazine

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2020) As Facebook stepped up its efforts to remove content it deemed as hate speech in recent months, such content moderation practices, which could be viewed as censorship, is unlikely to be effective in resolving the problems associated with hate speech, a US civil liberties expert told Sputnik.

Mass protests against racial injustice broke out in a number of cities in the United States following the tragic death of George Floyd in May. As the protests turned increasingly violent, a number of right-wing groups responded on social media platforms with racist comments and even threatened to use violence.

In response, US social media giant Facebook began to remove more content that was categorized as "hate speech" from its platform.

According to Facebook's community standards, it defines hate speech as "violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, calls for exclusion or segregation based on protected characteristics, or slurs." These characteristics include race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disability or disease.

The latest Community Standards Enforcement Report from Facebook showed that the company took 22.5 million actions to remove hate speech content from its platform in the second quarter of this year, more than doubling the 9.6 million actions it took in the first quarter.

However, US experts on civil liberties and freedom of expression argued that Facebook's content moderation practices could be viewed as a form of censorship, which would be not very useful in curbing the kind of hateful and discriminative content it aimed to combat.

"We think individuals are entitled to certain basic freedoms that nobody, who's big enough, powerful enough or influential enough to infringe those freedoms, should have the power to do so, whether they're the government or not the government. It's just when you're not the government, you can't rely on the constitution as a tool to protect your freedoms. You have to look for other tools. I absolutely oppose the enormous amount of censorship that Facebook is doing very openly," Nadine Strossen, a John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law at the New York Law school who served as the national president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1991 to 2008, told Sputnik.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits the US government from making laws that would "abridge the freedom of speech." In a number of high-profile cases in US history, the Supreme Court usually defended controversial speech, including the ones that could be viewed as "hate speech."

For example, when Simon Tam, the lead singer of a rock group, decided to use "The Slants," which was a derogatory term for Asian persons, as the group's name in 2017, the US Supreme Court ruled that Tam's decision should be protected under the First Amendment.

"Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express 'the thought that we hate'," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion on the case, quoting a famous phrase that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used in 1929.

Only under certain emergency situations, when the speech would lead to imminent harm to a specific individual, such speeches would not be protected by the First Amendment.

Nevertheless, the former ACLU president acknowledged that the First Amendment could not dictate Facebook's content moderation practices.

"What Facebook does doesn't violate the First Amendment, because it's a private sector actor completely free of First Amendment constraints. And moreover, it's almost its First Amendment right," she said.

LESS TOLERANT YOUNGER GENERATION

According to a report from The Verge, Facebook employees, who were mostly liberal-leaning, voiced frustrations and demanded that CEO Mark Zuckerberg take decisive actions in removing the content they viewed as hate speech.

Although the idea of freedom of speech has been widely accepted and treasured in the United States, general public opinion has always favored suppressing controversial speech, such as hate speech, professor Strossen explained.

"The fact of the matter is I don't really see a change. Throughout my adult life time, there has always been enormous pressures from the public to censor various kinds of controversial speech. What exactly is considered the most controversial and receives the greatest pressure for censorship varied somewhere overtime. But certainly, one category of speech that has always been deeply unpopular among the public, including liberals and even many civil libertarians, is the so-called hate speech," she said.

The expert gave an example that the ACLU's membership dropped by 15 percent in 1978, after the organization took the controversial stand to defend a neo-Nazi group's plan to march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie, where many Holocaust survivors lived, on the grounds of protecting freedom of speech and assembly.

The civil liberties expert noted that the younger generation, including many employees at Facebook, became less tolerant of controversial speech.

"When you say even Facebook employees are calling for suppression of messages that are inconsistent with their political views, I would say, no. I'm not surprised about Facebook employees because they're predominately liberal and predominately young. Unfortunately, patterns through the last several decades have shown, starting with college campus, students, especially students on the left, have become increasingly intolerant of the expression of ideas that are inconsistent with their political views," she said.

Instead of censoring and removing hateful speech, engaging with those who expressed such opinions on a personal level could make it possible to change their views, professor Strossen suggested.

"I do believe that the best way to respond to ideas that are hateful is by responding to them, but also in reaching out to individual people. I think we have to do both and use the wholesale approach of putting out information that will counteract any myths, misconceptions or disinformation that persuade people to join organizations and extremist groups. But we also have to take opportunities to engage in one-on-one dialogue with people who have those ideas. There're famous examples that even leaders of extremist right-wing groups that have been 'redeemed,' because they were treated with empathy and compassion," she said.

The expert explained that many people's hateful views could have resulted from their social conditions, family problems and drug problems. Solving those underlying problems could help the person abandon the hateful ideology organizations, she added.

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Growing Censorship on Facebook Unlikely to Resolve Problems Related to Hate Speech - UrduPoint News

Last October, before the 2019 Canadian federal election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made tackling online hate speech a major election policy for his Liberal Party.

Over the last few days, the Canadian government has doubled down on this pre-election proposal and signaled renewed efforts to impose tighter internet regulations based around the censorship buzzwords hate speech and misinformation.

On Tuesday, Canadas Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, Catherine McKenna, responded to an article about the Government of Quebec having a 12-person war room that scrubs online hate and misinformation from Facebook and other online platforms by stating:

I think theres a lot that we can do, but the social media companies themselves need to step up. We dont have to regulate everything but if you cant regulate yourselves, governments will.

One of the main criticisms of regulating based on vague terms such as hate speech and misinformation is that those enforcing the rules can censor anything they disagree with or dont want to address by branding it as hate speech or misinformation.

Double your web browsing speed with today's sponsor. Get Brave.

And when McKenna was asked about this tweet by digital media outlet Rebel News, her response demonstrated these concerns, with McKenna first denying the threat to regulate social media companies and then accusing Rebel News of contributing to hate against her because theyre spreading misinformation and disinformation by asking her about the tweet.

A day after McKenna tweeted out this threat to regulate social media companies, the Canadian government again referenced tighter internet regulations during Canadas 2020 Speech from the Throne and vowed to redouble its effort by taking action on online hate.

While neither of these statements were specific policy proposals, they signal the Canadian governments intent to take a more active role in policing what citizens can say on the internet.

These statements about internet regulation follow several unprecedented censorship decisions from Canadian law enforcement, courts, and the government over the last 12 months.

These decisions include the use of a legal request to block access to a Canadian subreddit, Canadas Federal Court ordering internet service providers to block access to the pirate IPTV service GoldTV, and the Trudeau government suing digital media outlets to ban them from attending government press events.

In February, the Canadian government also proposed requiring news media outlets to get a license and said that this requirement would apply to websites that distribute content in Canada.

The rest is here:

Canadian government doubles down on its threats to tightly censor online hate and misinformation - Reclaim The Net

19 September 2020

In a major escalation of the anti-China campaign ahead of the election, the Trump administration announced on Friday that it was following through on its executive orders of August 6 and banning the social media apps TikTok and WeChat from being downloaded from US app stores on Sunday.

The move is a frontal assault on the freedom of expression and an effort to consolidate control of the internet by a handful of massive corporations working in partnership with the American government. TikTok is used by millions of people every day to connect with friends and family, share ideas and communicate, and has been used to organize social protests. WeChat is a major link of communication between the United States and China.

An official statement released by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said downloads and new versions of the two mobile apps would be prohibited on Apple and Android app stores as of September 20.

With regard to WeChat, the Commerce Department statement prohibits all electronic payments and funds transfers as well as the hosting, transferring internet traffic or utilization of the mobile applications constituent code within the US. WeChat, for all practical purposes will be shut down in the US, but only in the US, as of midnight Monday, Ross said.

TikTok faces a similar US ban on November 12, unless the Trump administration approves the proposal made last weekend by the American software giant Oracle Corporation to become a trusted tech partner with ByteDance, the Chinese company that currently owns it.

The transfer of TikTok to US ownership would be aimed at creating conditions in which it can be subject to the same type of government-backed censorship that has already been implemented by Google, Facebook, Twitter and other US-based social media companies.

TikTok is the tenth most popular social media platform in the world, with 500 million users, 100 million of which are in the US.

WeChat is the fifth largest social media platform in the world, with 1.06 billion users, of which 3.3 million are in the US. Described as Chinas app for everything, WeChat is a multipurpose instant messaging, social media and mobile payment app owned by Tencent Holdings.

The impact of this shutdown was explained by the WeChat Users Alliance, a non-profit group founded by five Chinese-American lawyers after Trumps executive order was announced: WeChat is a messaging app most commonly used by several million Chinese Americans in the U.S. Many other non-Chinese Americans also use it to communicate with their friends, clients, or business partners whose first language is Chinese. The complete ban of WeChat will severely affect the lives and the work of millions of people in the U.S. They will have a difficult time talking to family, relatives and friends back in China.

Michael Bien, a San Francisco attorney representing the organization, said that WeChat is the primary way for many of its US users to communicate, organize social groups, run businesses and engage in political activities. Bien said, It is our contention that [the ban] violates the Constitution, as you cannot censor such a fundamental part of communication, especially when it affects an insular group that has historically been a minority thats been subject to discrimination in the US, by law or by practice.

The Trump administrations actions against TikTok and WeChat are an attack on the ability of the working class to both express itself politically and to freely communicate in daily life.

Every worker and young person in the US must reject the Trump administrations attempt to whip up reactionary anti-Chinese sentiments on the basis of unsubstantiated claims of national security threats.

Not one shred of evidence has been presented to back up US government claims that TikTok or WeChat have been engaged in a malicious collection of American citizens personal data and are active participants in Chinas civil-military fusion in mandatory cooperation with the intelligence services of the Chinese Communist Party, as claimed by Ross.

Any objective assessment of the two apps thoroughly contradicts the Trump administrations attacks on TikTok and WeChat and shows that the emergence of the China-based social media platforms is part of the globalization and integration of the world economy that has been accelerating over the last four decades.

Social media platformssuch as Facebook, Twitter and YouTubeemerged as a consequence of the convergence of smartphones and tablets with wireless broadband Internet services internationally in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The initial years of this global developmentFacebook was launched in 2004, fourth generation wireless Internet access (4G) was first available in 2006 and the first model of the Apple iPhone was released in 2007were dominated by US companies.

The adoption of these technologies spread rapidly throughout the world over the next decade. For example, in 2007 only 1 percent of the population of the developing world had mobile broadband subscriptions. Today this number is approaching 85 percent.

During this period, the integration of the US and China in the development and production of these technologies expanded dramatically. The relationship of Apple to the Taiwanese Foxconn and Pegatronwhich both have facilities in Shenzhen, China where hundreds of millions of iPhones have been assembled by highly exploited Chinese factory workersis but one example of this process.

Globalization has integrated the US and China on many levels, economically, scientifically, academically and culturally. The number of Chinese immigrants in the US has grown seven-fold since 1980, reaching 2.5 million people in 2018. The effort by the Trump administration to demonize China by attacking the immensely popular social media apps expresses a level of reckless desperation within the administration.

Amidst growing social and political opposition within the US, accelerated by the disaster sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, the ruling class is seeking to divert tensions outward by provoking an international conflict with China.

The central target of the economic attacks on China is just as much the working class at home as it is the external enemy. As demonstrated by the ban on TikTok and WeChat, the US-China conflict has already become the occasion for major inroads on the freedom of speech, and the escalation of the conflict would create a pretext of further attacks on democratic rights.

No one should have illusions that the Democrats are opposed to Trumps anti-Chinese aggression. They have fully embraced the framework spelled out by the White House and have claimed that Trump is soft on China.

As Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Wall Street Journal on September 10, Regardless of who wins, US policy toward China is going to be tougher over the next five years than the last five years. China has changed, and the US thinking on China has changed.

Writing in the New York Times on Tuesday, economic historian Chris Miller wrote an op-ed column entitled America Is Going to Decapitate Huawei, where he warns that the US global lead in technology is waning. Huaweis digital decapitation is a shocking display of American power. At the whim of the American president, any other Chinese tech company could suffer such a fate. Imagine if a foreign power could do the same to Google or Amazon.

The attacks on Huawei, TikTok and WeChat are all demonstrations of the criminality of American imperialism, but also ultimately an expression of the weakness and decline of the world hegemon that emerged after World War II. The US is using its geopolitical leverage to destroy the competitors to US-based social media companies.

Only the international working class has the ability to stop the descent into nationalist antagonisms that are leading from economic wars to military conflict and a new Third World War. The objective unity of the working class across national borders is the foundation of the struggle for socialism that must be taken up in the US, China and every country throughout the globe.

Kevin Reed

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White House bans TikTok and WeChat: A major intensification of internet censorship - WSWS