TikTok was never supposed to be political. When it launched in the US in 2018, the video app was marketed as a fun place to discover goofy content and experiment with its sophisticated editing software and vast music library. Yet nearly two years and 165 million nationwide downloads later, TikTok has been a platform for teachers strikes, QAnon conspiracy theories, Black Lives Matter protests, and a teen-led campaign to sabotage a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The TikTok algorithm is perfectly suited to spread political content faster and to a wider audience than any social media app in history, whether the company wants to admit it or not.

Now TikTok is proving itself to be political in a much broader way, one that challenges the very existence of the app. White House officials are talking seriously about attempting to ban it (how the government would choose to do so is less clear) in the wake of rising tensions with China, where TikToks parent company ByteDance is based.

There are two major factors at play when we talk about the risks TikToks ownership could potentially pose: data privacy and censorship. While the former is potentially easier to understand (the Equifax hack, where members of the Chinese military were charged with stealing the personal information of 145 million Americans, is perhaps the most famous example), the latter, which includes how TikTok instructs its moderators and changes its algorithm, could have more existential and more difficult-to-predict consequences for the US at large.

Will a ban actually happen? President Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said in July that a decision could come in weeks, not months. But the conversation is a lot more complicated than Is China stealing our data? although thats likely how the Trump White House would prefer to frame it. TikTok has become a straw man for fears over a serious competitor to Silicon Valley: If a generation of kids is synonymous with an app owned by China, what does that mean for Americas role in global technology?

Experts in cybersecurity and Chinese tech make it clear that the issue is not black and white, and that serious concerns about national security are likely rooted not in xenophobia but in the fact that the Communist Party of China (CCP) under President Xi Jinping has a track record of surveillance, censorship, and data theft. There are also those who warn that the US banning TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps could set a dangerous precedent for a less free and open internet ironically, the sort of internet modeled after that of China.

The governments interest in TikToks ties to China and its communist leadership stems from last fall, when Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Tom Cotton (R-AR) called for an investigation into the company. Their statements came after reports from the Guardian and the Washington Post revealed that TikTok had at one point instructed its moderators to censor videos considered sensitive by the Chinese government.

By November, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which investigates the potential national security implications of foreign acquisitions of US companies, announced that it would be reviewing ByteDances acquisition of Musical.ly, the app that would become TikTok. Meanwhile, TikTok has been steadfast in its claim that it does not send US user data to China and does not remove content sensitive to its government and would not if it were asked. Two Chinese intelligence laws from 2014 and 2017, however, require companies to assist with any government investigation and hand over all relevant data without refusal.

In a statement to Vox, a TikTok spokesperson wrote:

Protecting the privacy of our users data is of the utmost importance to TikTok. Theres a lot of misinformation about TikTok right now. The reality is that the TikTok app isnt even available in China. TikTok is led by an American CEO, with hundreds of employees and key leaders across safety, security, product, and public policy in the U.S. TikTok stores U.S. user data in Virginia, with backup in Singapore, and we work to minimize access across regions. We welcome conversations with lawmakers who want to understand our company. Were building a team here in Washington, D.C. so lawmakers and experts can come to us with questions or concerns. We know that actions speak louder than words, which is why were opening Transparency Centers in LA and DC so that lawmakers and invited experts can see for themselves how we moderate content and keep our users data secure.

In early July, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News that the US was considering a TikTok ban after months of rising tensions with China and a ban of more than 50 Chinese apps including TikTok in India the week prior. Since then, TikTok users have been panicking over the potential loss of the internets greatest time waster; the Senate just advanced a bill to ban TikTok from all government devices. Facebook, too, is closing in: The company announced it will launch its copycat product, Instagram Reels, in the US in August.

Banning TikTok isnt as straightforward as it may sound in a country built upon the First Amendment, but there are several ways it could take place. The first is that CFIUS could force ByteDance to sell off TikTok to a US-owned company by determining it a national security risk (thats what happened to Grindr after it was sold to a Chinese company). Another is that it could put TikTok on whats called the entity list so that US companies like Apple and Google would be forced to remove it from their app stores. Adi Robertson at The Verge has a thorough examination of all these possibilities, but lets get to the real issue at play.

The case for banning TikTok, for many cybersecurity professionals, is relatively simple: The risk is simply too great, no matter how wonderful the content on the app may be. Kiersten Todt, managing director of the Cyber Readiness Institute, says that despite what TikTok claims, If the Chinese government wanted that data, they would be able to get that data.

While that may not scare the apps large user base of teenagers who are pretty sure the Chinese government doesnt care about their scrolling habits, Todt says its possible China could be building dossiers on high-profile individuals, including information like passwords, bank accounts, internet addresses, or geolocation, all of which could then be cross-referenced with even more personal data on other apps.

Ive been in the national security space for a couple of decades, and there is decades worth of evidence and data around Chinese interest, intent, and capability to hack the US, whether thats through intellectual property or through data theft, Todt says. The Chinese government hacked the broadest database of personnel in the US government. Theyre the only ones who have done that.

Todts other concern relates to Chinas role in the global tech wars at large. Artificial intelligence is only as good as the data that goes into it, and so if China continues to collect all of this data from populations around the world, its artificial intelligence has a lot more data input into it. How might it aggregate that data for the purposes of innovation, research and development and science? she asks. That can sound xenophobic, but it is a national security statement, just as we are cautious about Russia and Iran and North Korea for different reasons.

There are other arguments for banning TikTok, ones that relate to moderation and censorship. I find the data privacy issue to be a bit of a red herring, says Jordan Schneider, host of the ChinaTalk podcast and newsletter. The Chinese government has many likely more impactful ways of getting blackmail or corporate secrets or just general information about individual US nationals.

Instead, Schneider argues that the problem is the Chinese Communist Partys potential ability to influence conversation about politics on the app. People today are very concerned about the amount of power [Facebooks] Mark Zuckerberg has to value one type of speech over another or impacting elections by tweaking the algorithms and end up changing peoples opinions on certain things. So imagine if someone with the equivalent of Mark Zuckerbergs level of power over the US has no choice but to do what the CCP wants it to do? My sense is that is the case with ByteDance. He uses recent examples of Chinese disinformation campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube around topics like the Hong Kong protests and Taiwanese independence.

I think theyve probably learned the lesson of 2016, which is that Russia can interfere in elections and basically get away with it, he says. What might that look like? For the average TikTok user, it wont really look like anything. You can just push certain videos more than others, and theres no open API to double-check these things, Schneider says. At the end of the day, the Chinese government clearly has the leverage to push ByteDance to do this sort of thing, and would honestly be dumb not to, because the prize is enormous, which is the ability to influence who the next president of the United States is.

It would be easy to leave it there, but Samm Sacks, a senior cybersecurity policy fellow at Yale Law Schools Paul Tsai China Center and New America who has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, warns against conflating Chinese tech companies with the CCP. There is much more of a push and pull in that relationship there, particularly around the security services access to private data, she says.

Plus, she argues that the incentive to censor content and steal user data is worth less than owning one of the worlds most important global tech companies. TikTok was intended to thrive and fly on its own overseas, and so its not necessarily in the Chinese government or ByteDances interest to set up the company to be secretly beholden to Beijing. Theres a commercial incentive at play that I think we have to take into account.

TikTok has, for many people in American politics and tech, become an existential threat that no amount of distancing itself from China building headquarters in the US and London, hiring a former Disney executive as its CEO will undermine. TikToks terms of use and black box algorithm are virtually identical to Facebooks policies, but its success has foreshadowed a potential end to Silicon Valleys dominance. Unspoken in many tech executives dismissal of TikTok is protectionism and, arguably, xenophobia.

Should the US government ban TikTok, Sacks says, it would be an important step toward the US government controlling the way that Americans use the internet, which is ironically a step toward Beijings own cyber-sovereignty, the very thing weve been railing against for years.

It also would likely be against the USs commercial interests. It offers a blueprint for others around the world to think, Maybe we dont trust the way that Silicon Valley companies are handling our data, so lets just ban them, too, she says. Were already starting to see the rise of digital sovereignty in Europe and in India in these really important markets, and when we think about the so-called tech competition with China, particularly with artificial intelligence and machine learning, what is it thats going to give US companies an edge? Its access to large international data sets. If we are increasingly closed out of markets around the world and access to that data because weve helped create a blueprint for how to do it with China, I could see those same tools turned around on us.

Instead, Sacks has called for a comprehensive federal data privacy law that would be applied to all platforms, not just Chinese-owned ones, that would create standards for better data security, algorithmic transparency, and better management of online content. All of the things that I think were using is China as a foil and saying, That company is a threat, lets stamp them out, [could be dealt with by] developing our own vision for how we want to govern the internet in a more democratic, secure way, she says.

China aside, a TikTok ban would have serious effects on American youth culture, where hundreds of teenagers have now built massive followings and spread important political messaging on an app that allowed them to reach huge audiences. Its changed not only the experience of being online but the experience of being a young person.

TikTok has serious flaws conspiracy theories in particular, some related to QAnon, Pizzagate, and the coronavirus, have thrived unchecked on the app but theres still no evidence that the Chinese government has anything to do with any of those. Would setting a precedent against any one Chinese-owned tech company solve the immediate issues that affect American social media users, namely misinformation, content moderation, and transparency? Or would it allow Silicon Valley companies like Facebook to continue to mimic competitors software and grow ever larger and more powerful? Its now in the hands of the government to decide.

Get our newsletter in your inbox twice a week.

Support Voxs explanatory journalism

Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Voxs work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.

Visit link:

Will Trump ban TikTok in the USA? - Vox.com

TikTok, the made-in-China, video-sharing platform beloved by youth and influencers alike, is suddenly everywhere in our new world of COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing.

The platforms growth has been tremendous, but this has come at a cost: it has come under increasing scrutiny from politicians in the US and allies like Australia over concerns about potential breaches of data security and the platforms perceived ties to the Chinese government.

The Trump administration is now considering banning the platform and Australia may well follow suit.

The controversies surrounding TikTok are centred around its Chinese origins, and its potential connections or compliance with the Chinese Communist Party and its authoritarian system.

Read more: China could be using TikTok to spy on Australians, but banning it isnt a simple fix

There are some reasons to be concerned. The platform is known to censor material deemed sensitive by the Chinese government.

Last year, for example, TikTok was accused of manipulating videos relating to Hong Kong pro-democracy protests and was forced to apologise for censoring a video criticising Chinas crackdown on Uyghurs. This prompted claims of it being an arm of Chinas state-run media system.

Digital security experts also point to the potential for the data TikTok collects from users to be sent to Chinas servers.

But there is not clear evidence yet that TikTok poses a threat to the national security of countries like the US or Australia, or that the CCP interferes in the overseas operations of the company.

TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based technology company Bytedance, which also operates a Chinese version of the platform called Douyin.

TikTok and Douyin are completely separate entities. They store their data in different centres and are governed by different sets of rules and business operations. TikTok is designed for the overseas market with its data stored in Singapore and the US, while Douyin targets solely the Chinese domestic market with its data stored in China.

As the pressure has mounted against the platform in the West, however, TikTok has shifted into survival mode through de-Sinicization. While users are posting videos on TikTok from the safety of their bedrooms, the company is deliberately distancing itself from Beijing.

Part of this distancing strategy involves announcing plans to move its operational headquarters outside China. According to industry reports in China this involved disbanding the Beijing-based overseas operation team, as well as cutting off the Chinese teams access to its international data pool.

Read more: TikTok is popular, but Chinese apps still have a lot to learn about global markets

The company also announced plans this week to add 10,000 jobs in the US, following a commitment to open a transparency centre in Los Angeles earlier this year.

TikToks most prominent PR move has been hiring key international players in communications, entertainment, government relations, IP protection, cybersecurity and global business solutions to change the way the company is structured and run in its overseas markets.

The appointment of non-Chinese executives, such as new US CEO Kevin Mayer (Walt Disneys former top streaming executive), illustrates its global aspirations.

Of course, bringing foreigners into the corporate tent is not a new strategy for a Chinese tech firm. Alibaba and Huawei have done this with mixed success; Huawei, in particular, has failed to convince Western governments it would not pose a security risk to their 5G networks.

But TikTok is a different kind of proposition. Unlike other Chinese tech companies and platforms (such as WeChat), TikTok does not operate in China. The platform was created to be global.

The response to TikToks rise in the US comes from the Donald Trump manual of political strategy. When the trade war between the US and China broke in January 2018, the two nations engaged in a tit-for-tat series of tariffs, from steel and automobiles to pork and soybeans.

In the latest round of recriminations and political bluster, Trump suggested he was considering using TikTok as a way to retaliate against China for its handling of the coronavirus. The idea is to erect a barrier against TikTok and ask like-minded allies to do the same.

Read more: The internet is now an arena for conflict, and we're all caught up in it

What this reaction precipitates, however, is a move toward national internet sovereignty. Some are calling this the age of the splinternet, rather than the internet as we know it, a borderless space.

For starters, erecting barriers against platforms offers limited effectiveness because users will find a way around them.

But banning TikTok, or any other Chinese platform, is also taking a page directly from Chinese President Xi Jinpings little red book for the digital age.

The list of Western platforms and news sites now blocked in China is very long. Playing Chinas game of shuttering foreign sites will only provide more ammunition for Chinese propaganda against the West and lead to more tit-for-tat closures.

Blacklisting companies or individuals based on country of origin and citing national security concerns sets a dangerous precedent. Its akin to going down the path of digital McCarthyism; not only will this erode online freedom, it wont address the more significant problems of data harvesting and news manipulation practices that are not unique to Chinese platforms.

Some critics have instead argued for more coordinated global governance of tech companies. As Samm Sacks writes in Foreign Affairs,

we need stricter rules for data security and privacy for all companies, not just Chinese ones regardless of country of origin, [to] manage online content in an era of misinformation.

As with all user-driven platforms, content moderation on TikTok runs up against issues of freedom of speech. Censorship will continue be a concern for the platform, and TikToks content moderators will inevitably be tested by those who want to use it to challenge China.

In the interest of maintaining its brand credibility as a truly global company, TikToks smartest move would be to continue to distance itself from Beijing and for Beijing to do the same.

Read the original post:

TikTok tries to distance itself from Beijing, but will it be enough to avoid the global blacklist? - The Conversation AU

Does the phrase 'Section 230' mean anything to you? Well, if you've ever used the internet it actually does whether you realize it or not. Here's what it is and why it matters.

Section 230 is just 26 words, passed into law in 1996, that protects internet providers and websites from legal liability if someone using their platform or service posts something illegal.

It reads, "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. It's often considered the single most-important piece of legislation that helped innovate the internet.

The legal protections offered by Sec. 230 have allowed sites like Google, Yelp, YouTube, Facebook and countless others to provide users a place to quickly and easily post their videos, reviews, photos, and other content. It also allows internet service providers to provide cheap and easily-accessible internet.

Without that law, websites and internet service providers could be liable for users actions online, meaning they might otherwise restrict the ability to create and post content without moderation.

Given the sheer size of user-generated websites, the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes, it would be infeasible for online intermediaries to prevent objectionable content from cropping up on their site. Rather than face potential liability for their users' actions, most would likely not host any user content at all or would need to protect themselves by being actively engaged in censoring what we say, what we see, and what we do online.

After Twitter flagged several of his tweets for violating company policies, President Trump issued an Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship that directed his administration to consider reforms to Sec. 230. He specifically mentioned Twitter, selective censorship, and the goal of eliminating political bias.

Tech companies warned the narrowing the Sec. 230s legal protections would stifle innovation online and could permanently alter the way we use the internet.

If the websites were legally responsible for every word, every image, (and) every video their users posted...they might not allow your content, altogether, said Jeff Kosseff, a cybersecurity professor at the Naval Academy and author of The Twenty-Six Words That Created The Internet. The other possibility...would be that platforms want to incur less liability, so they'll just take a hands off approach and allow everything."

Former Vice President and presumptive democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has also suggested revoking the law because he doesnt think sites like Facebook are doing enough to censor false and hateful content.

Yes. Because of Section 230, a judge ruled the Congressman could not sue Twitter over a parody account, Devin Nunes Cow, which now has more than 750,000 followers.

The First Amendment prohibits Congress from passing laws that limit free speech. However, the First Amendment does not pertain to rules created by private businesses.

You can reach out to your member of Congress to voice your opinion. And, your votes in November will help determine the future of Section 230 too.

Jeff Kosseffs book details the origins and impact of Section 230, and the EFF provides Section 230 resources and news on its website.

Sometimes, adults make things more complicated than necessary. NBCLX told this story using children on-camera because its a simple law that needed a simple explanation.

Read more here:

Why Reforms to Section 230 Could Radically Change How You Use the Internet - NBC4 Washington

I wasnt surprised by the geographical distribution of our audience, says Chenchen Zhang, a co-host of In-betweenness who teaches politics and international relations at Queen's University in Belfast. But I was a bit surprised by the number of downloads.

In-Betweenness marks a new trend in the Chinese media landscape. All media in China, state and commercial, is closely monitored and heavily censored pre- and post-publishing. Under publishing laws and regulations, non-state digital media is not allowed to conduct original reporting and publishing. At best, they are aggregators. State censorship of social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, now the primary news sources in China, has become increasingly sophisticated. The state has also cracked down on private software to circumvent the Great Firewall.

But a wave of independent Chinese-language media platforms, based mostly outside of Chinapodcasts like In-Betweenness, as well as blogs, newsletters and video serieshas sprung up in recent years to cover America and the world for a Chinese-speaking audience. Most of the audience are educated millennials living in cities in China and abroad, and most of the platforms can be accessed anywhere in the world, including China. Even if some episodes are removed by government censors from podcast stores in China, people can still access it by subscribing to RSS feeds.

In the increasingly fraught relationship between China and the United States, these new projects amount to a kind of third information channel, one neither controlled by the Chinese state nor the America-centric Western media in English. It includes In-Betweenness, the podcasts Loud Murmurs, Stochastic Volatility and New York Culture Salon; News Lab, a newsletter run by Kecheng Fang, a journalism professor based in Hong Kong; and an independent blog run by Yan Wang, a conservative-turned-liberal popular blogger who has been writing about systemic racism on WeChat, the Chinese social-media app, for years.

The unrest following George Floyd's killing has given these new outlets a new topic of huge interest to Chinese listeners: race in America. In part, the interest was fanned by Chinese state media, which tends to dramatize Americas domestic strife. As the protests grew in late spring and early summer, Chinese media portrayed a chaotic, hypocritical United States with vivid images of tumult and police violence. But these new outlets portrayed something differenta more balanced picture of race relations, a diagnosis of root causes that went beyond a two-tiered U.S. legal system and extended to global cultural and racial dynamics.

If their coverage of the George Floyd protests is a sign of whats to come, these independent Chinese media outlets could play a crucial role in demystifying, or more fully explaining, U.S. politics and culture for a select Chinese audience. They might even set the tone for a clearer, more open cultural relationship between the two countries, even as foreign-policy tensions between them boil over.

***

To Americans who have never seen their own country covered overseas, it can be shocking to see the way some Chinese media portray it.

Take HBOs removal of the movie Gone with the Wind as an example. After HBO briefly took down the film in early June because of its problematic portrayal of people of color, Chinese mediaofficial and unofficialblew the story up into such a hot-button national controversy that many in China think the United States is having its own Cultural Revolution, all triggered by one movie. (In reality, the network put it back online in a week.) One headline read American Cultural Revolution: Ridiculous and Unfortunate, Gone with the Wind Got Pulled. Another used a militant phrase popular during the Cultural Revolution, qingsuan, meaning eradicating crimes, to describe the removal of the Civil War drama.

To address this kind of inaccurate coverage of U.S. social dynamics, the newer independent media platforms have built their influence over the past few years among open-minded, liberal Chinese people home and abroad. Quite a few were already influencers on Chinese social mediaWeibo and WeChatbefore starting their own media products.

The creators are academics, journalists, lawyers and activists trained in Western universities, attracted to liberal democratic ideals, and critical of both Chinas party state and Western exceptionalism. On the American political spectrum, theyd be considered progressive. And they offer a perspectivecritical of both the U.S. and Chinathats rarely seen in the mainland discourse.

What they do is very important because progressive values barely had any space on the Chinese internet before, says Fang, a journalism professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studies Chinese media. In his view, their role isnt to shift broader Chinese public attitudes, but to cater to a highly educated crowd who already hold similar political values and then to influence a minority of others who are open-minded and willing to be challenged. They want to challenge the isolationist worldview from both China and the United States, and signal with their content as well as their distribution that globalization is here to stay.

Today, this transnational treatment of the news means translating the Black Lives Matter movement for a group of people who may be curious about the movements aims in the US, and also willing to acknowledge that anti-Black racism is far from a uniquely American problem.

People in China following the story exclusively through state media may lack all that context. Analysts say its not uncommon for Chinese readers to regard the whole uprising with shock and disapproval; some make racist comments of their on social media and in comments sections of news stories online. When social movements, such as Black Lives Matter, erupt, because of their oversimplified view of racism, they tend to misunderstand what the protestors want, Yao Lin, an In-Betweenness cohost, says, and some of them tend to stand with white supremacists and the status quo.

Many of these new independent media platforms offer a different way to see the protests in the United States. These new media outlets have explained to their audiences what racism in the United States is, and why the Chinese should pay attention to anti-Black racism. And they have also done what would be unthinkable for institutional Chinese media: They have turned a critical lens back on China itself, pointing to the rising racism against Africans in Guangzhou during the COVID-19 outbreak, when many were evicted from their apartments from landlords or turned away from hotels. Racial discrimination can be relevant even to those in China because they can draw a parallel between systematic racism and discriminations against women, sexual minorities and migrant workers, which are more common in China, says Zhicheng Zhao, founder of New York Culture Salon.

Loud Murmurs, a Mandarin podcast focused on American pop culture, is planning a three-episode series in light of the Black Lives Movement unfolding in the United States, where the shows hosts live. For their upcoming episode, they invited two Black men, one of whom is an African immigrant whos been educated in the West and in China, the other an African-American who works in China, to discuss how Hollywood portrays Blackness, how those portrayals are received in China and their personal experience with racism in China.

To address the misunderstanding that the United States is having its own Cultural Revolution, for instance, Loud Murmurs had their two Black guests talk about political correctness and how classic American movies portrayed slavery through rose-tinted glasses. We understand that conversation. We are plugged in to it, says Isabelle Niu, a co-host of Loud Murmurs. And so we can offer our own insight and analysis on how this should be interpreted.

Some of the new outlets are also focusing on these conversations to tackle popular conservative Chinese arguments on Black Lives Matter and claim space in an information environment filled with increasingly nationalistic voices, which is engineered by pervasive censorship, propaganda and misinformation.

Yan Wang, the WeChat blogger, appeals to his audience by recounting his experience of confronting and overcoming his own racism over the years, alongside his analysis of racial segregation. The San Francisco-based software engineer has been active in debating online with older, more conservative Chinese immigrants about stereotypes they commonly hold about Black people.

Based on his experience so far, he doesnt foresee swaying many peoples opinions. I have been trying to communicate with conservatives, and its been largely an attempt in vain, Wang says. Because what I say makes most of them extremely comfortable, and they dont always make rational arguments.

His goal, Wang says, is to educate those who are already interested in social justice and politics, who can, hopefully, in the future influence other Chinese-Americans, who have a reputation for being less politically engaged than other minority groups in the United States.

These media platforms arent just liberal enclaves providing reporting and analysis for their audiences; they have also been trying to have conversations with people in real life. New York Culture Salon, a nonprofit organization that holds weekly seminars and releases them in podcast or video form, wanted to respond to how the social unrest in the United States has divided generations of Chinese immigrants and social media chat groups in China. The nonprofit has organized a six-week panel series devoted to the Black Lives Matter movement.

They invited young Chinese scholars who study law, activism and immigration in the U.S. to participate in broadcast panel discussions. The speakers tackled topics that might be perceived as elementary by American intellectuals, such as the historical role of violence in pushing for progress, why Chinese people should support Black Lives Matter and how systemic racism is embedded in U.S. institutions. More than 3,000 people from in and outside of China attended the first two webinars.

***

Such platforms often have a tenuous relationship with Chinese censors. They are not high-profile enough to be erased from the Chinese internet completely. But once their content has gained steam on Chinese social media, especially on what are deemed sensitive political issues, they draw the attention of government censors.

Loud Murmurs and New York Culture Salon have both had their content, social media posts and platforms censored for touching domestic political topics, such as Chinas controversial one-child-per-family policy. Their core audiences followed them as they moved their content to platforms untouched by Chinese censors, usually domains registered abroad. And for some of the podcasts in this new wave, talking about politics in foreign countries onlyfor instance, about the Black Lives Matter movementshields them from censorship.

With pervasive censorship, we can only relieve political depression by focusing on the events unfolding across the Pacific, says China-based Shiye Fu, a co-host of Stochastic Volatility, who has a degree in anthropology from Columbia University.

None of the people I talked to for the story expect their content to attract a mainstream audience. But they hope the small audience they have connected with will connect with other Chinese speakers and go on to create something much larger than podcasts.

We got a lot of comments like, Wow. I've never heard four women talk about politics in a way that's so uninhibited, Niu says. I think just the idea that you can express yourself without fear, even that is very encouraging to people.

View post:

How a New Wave of Podcasts Is Shaking Up Chinese-Language Media - POLITICO

Ellen Pao keeps trying to make Ellen Pao happen. But, to paraphrase her own words the world doesnt seem to think shes important.

This former Reddit CEO was forced to quit after a backlash caused by her (early) attempts to muzzle and censor free and unruly-by-nature Reddit communities. And although her legacy in this sense has since been gaining more and more momentum on that fairly unique social platform few credit or still remember Pao as the pioneer of the current woeful policies.

Pao, who has since co-founded a diversity consulting non-profit called Project Include, (which is exactly what it sounds like it is) also in the meanwhile lost a gender discrimination lawsuit against former employers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

But there are still friendly outlets like The Guardian who will give her space and time, and now, its time for Pao to offer her two cents on free speech moderation on giant social media in the context of their treatment of ills such as racism, and presidents such as Donald Trump.

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

Under the headline, They dont think its important: Ellen Pao on why Facebook cant beat hate Pao whose approach to Reddit back in the day is described cynically as a more holistic view of protecting free expression shares lessons she thinks she learned while attempting to detoxify Reddit (Guardians choice of words).

The issue is Facebook allowing Trump to have a voice on the platform, even as others like Twitter, Reddit itself, and YouTube went about labeling his posts, banning subreddits, etc., all on hate speech grounds.

So why is Facebook holding out? According to Pao, Facebook has an unintelligible set of rules for moderators, and the higher-ups are simply not paying any attention.

Pao also advises less outsourced mercenary moderator staff and instead incorporates them into the full-time employee collective for better allegiance to the cause and of course, better control.

She even suggests that some Facebook moderators despite insider testimonies showing some of them stringently and openly anti-free expression might be making pro-Trump decisions because they are being bullied, unbeknownst to Facebook.

But why would Facebook disregard these points? The interviewer prods Pao on in a tiringly predictable direction.

Most of the CEOs of social media companies are white, and most of them are men. I believe that youre the only woman of color who has run a major platform. Do you think that that informed the way that you approached the job?

To nobodys surprise, Pao agreed. As for what Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Susan Wojcicki need to do Just do the right thing. Most of them know what the right thing to do is. Just have that conviction and push your way through.

See the original post here:

Ellen Pao calls for more Facebook censorship, says its the right thing to do - Reclaim The Net

Thursday, 23 July 2020, 11:06 amArticle: Eric Zuesse

Eric Zuesse,originally posted at StrategicCulture

Back in July of 2016, I did a two-partarticle, American Samizdat Publication Forbidden in U.S., which went down therabbit-hole of news-suppression (censorship) in the UnitedStates but left, for the future, a more detailed descriptionof the money-track back to the individuals who control thatcensorship in serving the economic interests of the samebillionaires who control both the Democratic NationalCommittee and the Republican National Committee both ofAmericas two national political Parties (and they thusdetermined, forexample, in the Democratic Party, that Bernie Sanders wouldnever get that Partys Presidential nomination, though hehad the highest approval-rating of any politician in thecountry, and far higher than Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump,and Joe Biden ever had yet the billionaires fooledthe majority of Democratic Party primary voters to thinkthat he was too radical to be able to beat Trump, eventhough, in all polled hypothetical matchups against Trump,Sanders beat Trump by far higher margins thanClinton did, and basicallyequal to whatBiden did, so the electability issue wasfabricated by the billionaires press, in order to get acandidate who was acceptable to the billionaires tobe running against Trump).

A dictatorship functions bynews-suppression and other forms of censorship, even morethan it does by its own lying. It functions by deceit, butthe main way it deceives is by prohibiting the truth to bepublished on any of the billionaires (or other rulinggroups) media including all of the media that havelarge audiences.

News-suppression used to becontrolled by the CIAs OperationMockingbird, in which the owners andtop executives of the major news-media took theCIAs orders and trusted it to represent in the mostreliable way the collective interests of Americaswealthiest persons, so as to weaken those individualsforeign economic competitors. However, gradually, after the1976 Frank-Church-led U.S. Senate hearings into the CIAsdeceptions of the American public, Americas wealthiest the same people whom Wall Street firms also represent relied increasingly upon the nonprofits (foundationsetc.) that they controlled, in order to transfer some ofthis censorship-function over to those nonprofits privatize the censorship function. It was done so that thesame people who controlled the U.S. Government would be ableto continue controlling it and would allow into thebillionaire class new members (mainly technocrats) of thenations aristocracy. This would enhance the U.S.aristocracys collective control over the U.S. Government.There is less need, than before, for the CIA to do thecensoring. (So: the group collectively also constitutesits own gatekeepers. They dont rely onlyupon market-forces in order to determine who is us,and who is them, but any misbehaving member willincreasingly become treated as being one ofthem, and this will be reflected in the groupsnews-media. Its an oligarchy here, and not only anaristocracy. It is an exclusionary aristocracy.)

HughWilfords 2008 THEMIGHTY WURLITZER: How the CIA Played Americadescribed how, starting in the late 1960s, Americassuper-rich began transferring (privatizing) some of theircensorship-functions away from the Government, and intotheir own controlled news-media andnonprofits.

As the former Washington Postreporter Carl Bernstein headlined on 20 October 1977, THECIA AND THE MEDIA, in the wake of the ChurchCommittees report, and described that Senate reportscontext:

During the 1976 investigation of the CIAby the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by SenatorFrank Church, the dimensions of the Agencys involvementwith the press became apparent to several members of thepanel, as well as to two or three investigators on thestaff. But top officials of the CIA, including formerdirectors William Colby and George Bush, persuaded thecommittee to restrict its inquiry into the matter and todeliberately misrepresent the actual scope of the activitiesin its final report. The multivolume report contains ninepages in which the use of journalists is discussed indeliberately vague and sometimes misleading terms. It makesno mention of the actual number of journalists who undertookcovert tasks for the CIA. Nor does it adequately describethe role played by newspaper and broadcast executives incooperating with the Agency.

Ever since that time,the CIAs direct control over U.S. media has eroded andbecome privatized largely into the billionairesnonprofits, even while the CIAscontrol over the media in U.S.-allied foreignaristocracies has continued unabated, so as to extendyet further the American empire.

At the top in Americaare the billionaires who donate the most to politicians, andwhose tax-exempt foundations collectively carry out whatused to be the CIAs Operation Mockingbird thecensorship-function.

Two organizations especiallyshould be cited here as leaders of todays Americanbillionaire-class and privatized censorship operations, andany reader here should keep in mind that the largest fundersof these two organizations are themselves only hints at thebillionaires who control each one of them, and, furthermore,since these are only two such organizations, there might beother similar organizations that, perhaps in other ways, areequally important as these two determiners of the news thatthe vast majority of the U.S. public are, and will be,blocked from seeing and hearing (such as this).

Firstis a crucial operation that serves the Democratic NationalCommittee, the DNC (for links to sources, click onto theURL):

https://www.prwatch.org/cmd/index.html

WhatWe Do

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD)is a nationally recognized watchdog that leads in-depth,award-winning investigations into the corruption thatundermines our democracy, environment, and economicprosperity.

The Koch brothers and their networkof billionaires are operating with a reach and resourcesthat exceed those of political parties and they are usingthat power to erode the integrity of our elections and saptaxpayer dollars away from investments in publicinfrastructure, education, and healthcare to benefit narrowspecial interests and globalcorporations.

CMDs investigations, publicinformation requests, and lawsuits have ignited nationalconversations on money in politics and the distortion ofU.S. law and democracy at every level of government andin every region of the country. We believe in the publicsright to know how government operates and how corporationsinfluence our democracy and the true motivations fortheir actions. When necessary, CMD litigates to defend thatright and ensure those in power follow thelaw.

Since CMD first exposed ALEC in 2011, morethan 100 corporations have dropped ALEC, including Verizon,Ford, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, General Electric, and Google. Asa result of that ongoing investigation and other reporting,CMD is often contacted by whistleblowers wanting to make adifference. CMD has also researched the array of groups thatare part of ALEC, including numerous Koch-funded entitiesand national and state think tanks that are affiliatedwith the State Policy Network.

CMD files morethan 1,000 public information requests each year. Thisinvestigative watchdog work has broken through in thenational debate. For example, CMD exposed EPA AdministratorScott Pruitt's deep ties to the fossil fuel industry andrevealed lobbyist efforts to hide Chamber of Commercemembers overwhelming support for raising the minimum wageand providing paid sick leave, among other groundbreakinginvestigations.

CMDs work has been featuredin the New York Times, Washington Post, POLITICO, theGuardian, Bloomberg, WIRED, Vice, The Atlantic and Buzzfeedas well as on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, The DailyShow, and Last Week with John Oliver. We also partner withinvestigative writers at The Intercept and ProPublica topublish new reports and findings.

The fightto keep our democracy from becoming a plutocracy doesn'thave a scrappier warrior than the Center for Media andDemocracy. Bill Moyers

CMD's scrappycrew tracks the Koch Machine every day, shines a light oncorruption in our democracy, and takes politicians to courtwhen they try to hide their special-interest ties from thepublic. Robert Reich

...watchdoggroup that studie[s] the mechanics of politicalmanipulation." -- Jane Mayer, DarkMoney

[CMD's] requests are of federalimportance. -- Sens. Carper, Whitehouse, Merkley, Booker,Markey and Duckworth

How We ExposeCorruption

CMD puts a spotlight on hidden andunreported activities, forcing those trying to maneuveraround the edges of laws and ethics out of the shadows. Ouroriginal research digs deeper than the 24-hour news cycle toanswer and understand why and how special interests and darkmoney are reshaping American politics and elections. Ourteam focuses on documenting the facts and revealing theeffects on communities and people in areas ranging fromclimate change and education to workplace standards andfreedom of speech.

CMDs groundbreakingexposs are featured on ExposedbyCMD.org.The watchdog also publishes SourceWatch, an encyclopedia ofcorporations, corporate special interest groups and theirleaders; specialized investigative websites, includingALECExposed.org;and its founding website, PRWatch.org.

Awardsand Honors

CMDs investigations have beenrecognized for their excellence and impact. Our recentawards for investigative journalisminclude:

The Sidney Award from the SidneyHillman Foundation in 2018 for the expos Two Faces ofJanus.

The Izzy I.F. Stone Awardfor outstanding achievement in independent media (sharedwith Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous)from the Park Center for Independent Media.

The Sidney Award (shared jointly with The Nation) from theSidney Hillman Foundation.

The annualProfessional Freedom and Responsibility Award from theAssociation for Education in Journalism and MassCommunication, Culture and Critical Studies Division, whosepast recipients include Izzy Stone, Bill Moyers, and MollyIvins.

The Benny from the BusinessEthics Network.

CMD has been honored by theMilwaukee Press Club for one of its investigations intoshadowy front groups influencing elections.

CMDs research was featured in Ava DuVernay's film The13th, which was nominated for a 2017 Academy Award forBest Documentary.

Ground-breaking books bywriters from the Center for Media and Democracyinclude:

Deadly Spin: An Insurance CompanyInsider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing HealthCare and Deceiving Americans

Toxic SludgeIs Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public RelationsIndustry

Trust Us, We're Experts: HowIndustry Manipulates Science and Gambles With YourFuture

Mad Cow USA

Weaponsof Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War onIraq

Banana Republicans: How the Right Wingis Turning America Into a One-party State

The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess inIraq

Governance

CMD was founded in1993 by John Stauber in Madison, Wisconsin. In March 2018,Arn Pearson became CMDs Executive Director, succeedingLisa Graves, who served as executive director from 2009-2018and currently serves as board President. CMDs teamincludes researchers, data experts, FOIA experts, lawyers,and fact-checkers. CMD is a 501(c)(3) tax-exemptnon-profit.

Board of Directors

Lisa Graves, Board President

DeborahBey

Ellen Braune

CosmoHarrigan

Jan Miyasaki

TedNace

Bo Yerxa

Arn Pearson,Ex-Officio BoardMember

Funding

The followingfoundations have provided at least one grant of $5,000 ormore to support the work of CMD since its inception in 1993.Those listed in bold are recent funders.

American Legacy Foundation

Bauman FamilyFoundation

CarethFoundation

CarolynFoundation

Changing Horizons CharitableTrust

CourtneysFoundation

CS Fund

DeerCreek Foundation

Educational Foundation ofAmerica

EttingerFoundation

Ford Foundation

Foundation for Deep Ecology

Foundation forPolitical Management

FundingExchange

Richard & Rhoda GoldmanFund

Grodzins Fund

HelenaRubinstein Foundation

HKHFoundation

LitowitzFoundation

MarislaFoundation

MostynFoundation

Open SocietyInstitute

Park Foundation

Public Welfare Foundation

ProteusFund

V. Kann RasmussenFoundation

RockefellerAssociates

Rockefeller FamilyFoundation

Rockwood Fund

Stern Family Fund

Schumann Center for Mediaand Democracy

SunlightFoundation

ThresholdFoundation

TidesFoundation

Town CreekFoundation

TurnerFoundation

Wallace GlobalFund

WinslowFoundation

Contributions from individuals andnon-profit organizations are accepted. We accept no grantsfrom government agencies or for-profit corporations, exceptfor CREDO, which makes donations to nonprofits based onvotes by its activists and customers.

CMD doesnot accept funding from for-profit corporations or grantsfrom government agencies. Learn how you can help support andexpand CMD's groundbreaking investigationshere.

Second is a crucial operationthat serves the Republican National Committee, the RNC (forlinks to sources, click onto the URL):

More here:

Who The Democratic And Republican Party Censors Are, For The 'News' You See & Hear - Scoop.co.nz

Nearly athird (32%) of employed Americans say they personally are worried about missing out on career opportunities or losing their job if their political opinions became known. These results are particularly notable given that most personal campaign contributions to political candidates are public knowledge and can easily be found online.

And its not just one side of the political spectrum: 31% of liberals, 30% of moderates and 34% of conservatives are worried their political views could get them fired or harm their career trajectory. This suggests that its not necessarily just one particular set of views that has moved outside of acceptable public discourse. Instead these results are more consistent with a walking on eggshells thesis that people increasingly fear awide range of political views could offend others or could negatively impact themselves.

These concerns are also crosspartisan, although more Republicans are worried: 28% of Democrats, 31% of independents, and 38% of Republicans are worried about how their political opinions could impact their career trajectories.

Americans with diverse backgrounds share this concern that their employment could be adversely affected if their political views were discovered: 38% of Hispanic Americans, 22% of African Americans, 31% of White Americans, 35% of men, 27% of women, 36% of households earning less than $20,000 ayear, and 33% of households earning more than $100,000 ayear agree.

Some are more worried about losing their jobs or missing out on job opportunities because of political views. Those with the highest levels of education are most concerned. Almost half (44%) of Americans with postgraduate degrees say they are worried their careers could be harmed if others discovered their political opinions, compared to 34% of college graduates, 28% of those with some college experience, and 25% of high school graduates

View post:

Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They're Afraid to Share - Cato Institute

(Getty)

But there is no question that weve got some major issues, and free speech is so dependent these days on these big tech companies, so they have to be very careful that free speech is protected. And, of course, theres a pattern now that shows otherwise

On July 21st, Merion West editor Erich Prince was joined by Rep. Jody Hice, a Republican who represents Georgias 10th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. (Rep. Hice has also joined Merion Westfor previous discussions in 2018 and 2019.) In this conversation, Mr. Prince and Rep. Hice discuss recent unrest in the country, including the Defund the Police movement, which has gained particular inroads recently in cities such as New York and Minneapolis. Rep. Hice then also weighs in on recent concerns about free speech, including allegations that various technology companies have an anti-conservative bias.

Good morning, Congressman. Nice to talk to you again and thanks so much for your time. I want to start off by quickly saying that I understand the President was in Atlanta last weekand that you had the chance to fly with him on Air Force One. How was that experience?

Great experienceits always wonderful to be with the president, but to be on Air Force One is just icing on the cake to be with him in that environmentjust an amazing experience all the way around.

I saw a video you posted on Twitter showing your constituents the conference room [on board], and you shared with them a message about getting involved in politics.

Yeah, you know we are a country of We the People; our voice matters. I feel like Im an example of that myself; [I] never dreamed Id be in a place like this. And I just want to encourage other people that their voices matter; their votes matter; and to step up to the plate in whatever capacity they can and to be involved. I thought the place, the conference room on Air Force One, was appropriate for getting that message out on.

Jumping ahead, I read your June op-ed in The Daily Caller End RacismNot the Police, as well as your recent letters co-signed with a few other colleagues to the mayors of New York, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. Obviously, this anti-police moment is gaining a lot of traction. What do you think is the best way to turn the tide against this from your perspective?

I think, in fact, Americans in generalin every polltheyre opposed to defunding the police or eradicating police departments. People understand that its impossible to have law and order if you dont have law enforcement in the mix. And this attempt to remove all law enforcement in their capacity to maintain law and order is only going to create further chaos and more crime. And, of course, thats what were seeing in all of those three cities that you mentioned: Crime is up; violent crime is up. Its ludicrous to think that we can maintain a civil society without police departments and law enforcement.

And closer to home for youobviously, Atlantas not your districtbut that was an area that was hit pretty hard by things. And there were reports about morale suffering within law enforcement, such as reports of walkouts by police in Atlantas Zone 6 in particular.What are you hearing around the state of Georgiawhether in your district or around the statefrom law enforcement?

As you mention, Atlanta is not in my district, but I have spoken to many law enforcement individuals in the 10th district of Georgia, and its a difficult time. We are not seeing the same type of protests as have happened in Atlanta and some other major cities. What protests there have been in our district have been peaceful and that type of thing, but the overarching question that you bring up is: How is the Defund the Police movement impacting these various departments, sheriff departments, police departments?

And it is impacting them. They are having great difficulty in hiring people, even receiving applications from individuals who are interested in law enforcement. And thats been an area in the past that people have been proud to be in law enforcement, to be public servants in that capacity, but now its a different scenario. And even in rural parts of our nation, that is having an impact.

On the flip side, one does see some of this effort to show extra support for police. I saw a weekend or two ago in Queens [New York] that there was a very sizable pro-police march, so perhaps some of the people on the other side [of this debate] are also trying to make their voices heard.

Yes, and I think youre going to see more of that because, again, the vast majority of Americans understand that the vast majority of police officers are great people, and theyre public servants. Are there bad actors? Of course, there are, and those are the individuals we need to go after. Thats where the problems that exist need to be dealt with and eradicated. But to punish entire departments is doing nothing other than punishing entire communities and cities. Its just the wrong way to go about it, and I think the majority of Americans are keenly aware of that, and they will be supporting the police departments.

So, yesterday when I was getting together this interview discussion, I was planning to ask you about free speech in a number of places, and one of the places was big tech. Then I saw your letter that you tweeted this morning about free speech, Twitter, big tech, and potential censorship. I know the Tom Cotton Twitter controversy a couple of weeks ago received a lot of attention. So, in the aftermath of recent events and free speech being arguably very much in the crosshairs, what is your thinking about the path forward as far as big tech?

Actually, there is going to be a hearing in judiciary with the big four big tech companies next week, so we will have a better feel next week as to where this whole thing is going to go. But there is no question that weve got some major issues, and free speech is so dependent these days on these big tech companies, so they have to be very careful that free speech is protected. And, of course, theres a pattern now that shows otherwise, and we want to stop that before it becomes a serious infringement upon peoples right to speak.

And I know a lot of people were concerned in particular with this perception that Twitter was employing its new fact-check feature disproportionately against conservatives, for example.

Yes, theres multiple examples of that, and, of course, there have been hearings trying to deal with those issues in the past during which [these companies] have assured us that their algorithms do not show bias towards conservative groupsbut its not just about algorithms. Its about the individuals who are working there, meaning those employees who do, in fact, carry biases, and they are able to override the algorithms. So, its a little disingenuous for these companies to say that our algorithms do not show any bias because thats not the only problem thats involved in this. And I think that issue has now come to light, and now well have to approach it from not only the systems themselves but also the people who are working those systems.

Lastly, college campuses have been a major discussion point when it comes to free speech. What are you seeing in Georgia [on this front]? Are you thinking about if this becomes an issue at various Georgia universities how to ensure free speech is taken care of there?

Right now, the big issue is if were even going to have college campuses and people meeting on those campuses, obviously. But, in the past, there have definitely been some issues in Georgia and across the country. And we are going to continue to keep a close pulse on that everywhere in this country, including college campuses. They should be the place where people have the right to express their ideas in the public square without fear of intimidation, or harassment, or punishment.

Unfortunately, that has not always been the case on college campuses, and there have been multiple lawsuits, and most of those lawsuits come out favorably. And, yet, the problem continues, so we will continue fighting and keeping a pulse on it here from the federal level as best as we can. Many of us up here at least have that as a major, important issue, and we will continue protecting the free rights of these students.

I appreciate your time, Congressman. Always nice to touch basethank you.

Always nice to talk with you. Thank you, Erich.

Erich J. Prince is the editor at Merion West. Erichhas contributed to a variety of publications includingThe Philadelphia Inquirer,the Hartford Courant,The News & Observer, the Orlando Sentinel, andThe Hill. His opinion writing has been honored with two awards from the Columbia University School of Journalism. He studied political science at Yale, completing his thesis on the history of polarization in the United States Congress.

Read more here:

Interview: Rep. Jody Hice on Defund the Police and Big Tech Censorship - Merion West

Screen capture from a mobile phone in Hong Kong Friday, July 17, 2020, At first glance, this graphic design poster may look like it's made up of mere circles - however, from afar, viewers can make out the eight Chinese characters for "Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our times." A protester who held this poster at a protest on July 6 was detained briefly by police but was later released. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

HONG KONG (AP) - It was one of the first protests in Hong Kong after a feared national security law came into effect.

Among a dozen or so lunchtime demonstrators at a luxury mall in the Central business district, a man raised a poster that - when viewed from afar - read in Chinese, "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times."

The government had just banned the slogan, saying it had separatist connotations and so ran afoul of the new security law's prohibition of secessionist acts.

Shortly after, riot police entered the mall, shooing away onlookers. They detained the man, telling him the slogan was banned. But when officers looked at the poster up close, no words could be made out. It merely had circular shapes against a contrasting background. They snapped a few photographs of the poster and let him go.

Since the imposition of the security law -- which bans secessionist, subversive and terrorist activities, as well as collusion with foreign forces, with penalties of up to life imprisonment -- anti-government protesters in Hong Kong, and those supporting the movement, have adapted their methods to try to make their voices heard without violating the legislation.

FILE - In this June 9, 2020, file photo, protesters show a banner "Librate Hong Kong, Revolution of out time" and gesture with five fingers, signifying the "Five demands - not one less" in a shopping mall during a protest in Hong Kong. The slogan had just been banned by the government under the new legislation, stating that it had separatist connotations. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)

Before the law took effect June 30, protesters often held up colorful posters plastered with slogans that ranged from condemning the Chinese government to calling for Hong Kong's independence. Since then, they have become creative in obscuring their messages.

Many of the protesters at the luxury mall held up blank pieces of white paper to protest against China's "white terror" of political repression. Other posters are designed to circumvent bans on slogans. The government has not yet made clear if such forms of expression are illegal.

The law has had a chilling effect on "yellow shops" that support the protest movement. Many have removed protest artwork and sticky notes bearing words of encouragement from customers, out of fear that they could land them in trouble with the authorities.

A Hong Kong Cafe, known as a "yellow shop" because its owners expressed sympathy for protesters, has a wall decorated with blank post-it notes in Hong Kong Thursday, July 9, 2020. Stores that supported the protest movement by putting up protest artwork and sticky notes filled with words of encouragement from customers have since taken them down, out of fear that its contents could land them in trouble with the authorities. Instead, they have put up blank sticky notes as a way to show solidarity with the movement. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Some shop owners, like Tan Wong, have instead put up blank sticky notes to show solidarity with the movement.

"We are doing this right now because (the shop) is private property. We are trying to tell Hong Kong people that this is the only thing that we 'yellow shops' can do," said Wong, who runs Kok Kok Chicken, a Korean fried chicken store.

"If we do not persist, we would no longer be able to deliver our message to others," he said.

Yu Yee Cafe, a Hong Kong-style diner that serves fast food, has covered its windows with blank sticky notes and even displays an origami figure of Winnie the Pooh, a playful taunt of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Chinese censors briefly banned social media searches for Winnie the Pooh in China after Xi's appearance was compared to the cartoon bear.

"I wonder if there's still rule of law if sticking a (blank) piece of paper on the wall is illegal," said Eddie Tsui, one of the diner's customers. "It's just using a different way to express our demands. If you don't allow us to protest that way, we'll find another way."

The use of blank paper or sticky notes to protest is a changing form of resistance, according to Ma Ngok, an associate professor of politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"They put up blank notes so that even if the government wants to prosecute them, there is nothing that can be used against them," he said.

A Hong Kong Cafe, known as a "yellow shop" because its owners expressed sympathy for protesters has windows decorated with blank post-it notes in Hong Kong Thursday, July 9, 2020. Stores that supported the protest movement by putting up protest artwork and sticky notes filled with words of encouragement from customers have since taken them down, out of fear that its contents could land them in trouble with the authorities. Instead, they have put up blank sticky notes as a way to show solidarity with the movement. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Protesters in Hong Kong have also come up with alternative slogans to circumvent the ban on "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times."

Some users quote the initials of the romanization of the eight Chinese characters in the banned slogan -- "GFHG, SDGM." Others have changed the words entirely to terms that sound similar but mean very different things. One alternative slogan now reads "Patronize Hong Kong, Times Square," a reference to a popular shopping mall in the city.

A popular protest anthem, "Glory to Hong Kong," has had some of its lyrics changed, with protesters replacing the words with numbers in Cantonese that sound approximately like the lyrics.

The circumventing of bans on slogans is reminiscent of how mainland Chinese internet users come up with creative ways and similar-sounding words to talk about sensitive issues without triggering censorship under the "Great Firewall of China," where censors delete posts containing sensitive terms and make such keywords unsearchable on online platforms.

"There is a long history of censorship where we know that people will find ways to circumvent the system, no matter how you regulate," said Fu King-wa, associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's journalism school.

"Sometimes, censorship can backfire, triggering more people to discuss an issue because they think that if it is censored, then it must be something important," he said.

___

Associated Press journalist Alice Fung contributed to this report.

Continue reading here:

The Daily Standard World News - The Daily Standard

50% of strong liberals support firing Trump donors, 36% of strong conservatives support firing Biden donors; 32% are worried about missing out on job opportunities because of their political opinions

A new Cato Institute/YouGov national survey of 2,000 Americans finds that 62%of Americans say the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive. This is up from 2017 when 58% agreed with this statement. Majoritiesof Democrats (52%), independents (59%) and Republicans (77%) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share.

Strong liberals stand out, however, as the only political group who feel they can express themselves:58%of staunch liberals feel they can say what they believe.

Centrist liberals feel differently, with52%who feel they have to selfcensor, as do 64% of moderates, and 77% of conservatives. This demonstrates that political expression is an issue that divides the Democratic coalition between centrist Democrats and their left flank.

Read the full survey report and results here.

Whats changed? In 2017 most centrist liberals felt confident (54%) they could express their views. However today, slightly less than half (48%) feel the same. The share who feel they cannot be open increased 7points from 45% in 2017 to 52% today. In fact, there have been shifts across the board, where more people among all political groups feel they are walking on eggshells.

Although strong liberals are the only group who feel they can say what they believe, the share who feel pressured to selfcensor rose 12 points from 30% in 2017 to 42% in 2020. The share of moderates who selfcensor increased 7points from 57% to 64%, and the share of conservatives rose 70% to 77%, also a7point increase. Strong conservatives are the only group with little change. They are about as likely now (77%) to say they hold back their views as in 2017 (76%).

Selfcensorship is widespread across demographic groups as well. Nearly twothirds of Latino Americans (65%) and White Americans (64%) and nearly half of African Americans (49%) have political views they are afraid to share. Majorities of men (65%) and women (59%), people with incomes over $100,000 (60%) and people with incomes less than $20,000 (58%), people under 35 (55%) and over 65 (66%), religious (71%) and nonreligious (56%) all agree that the political climate prevents them from expressing their true beliefs.

50% of Staunch Liberals Support the Firing of Trump Donors

Nearly athird (31%) of Americans say theyd support firing abusiness executive who personally donated to Donald Trumps reelection campaign for president. This share rises to 50% among strong liberals who support firing business executives who personally donate to Trump.

36% of Staunch Conservatives Support Firing Biden Donors

The survey finds that cancel culture goes both ways. Nearly aquarter (22%) of Americans support firing abusiness executive who personally donates to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Bidens campaign. This share rises to 36% among strong conservatives who support firing Biden donors. These results are particularly notable given that most personal campaign contributions to political candidates are public knowledge and can easily be found online.

32% Worry Their Political Views Could Harm Their Employment

Nearly athird (32%) of employed Americans say they are worried about missing out on career opportunities or losing their job if their political opinions became known. Americans across the political spectrum share these concerns: 31% of liberals, 30% of moderates, and 34% of conservatives are worried their political views could get them fired or harm their career trajectory. This suggests that its not necessarily just one particular set of views that has moved outside of acceptable public discourse. Instead these results are more consistent with a walking on eggshells thesis that people increasingly fear awide range of political views could offend others or negatively impact themselves.

These concerns cut across demographics and partisan lines: 28% of Democrats, 31% of independents, 38% of Republicans, 38% of Hispanic Americans, 22% of African Americans, 31% of White Americans, 35% of men, 27% of women, 36% of households earning less than $20,000 ayear, and 33% of households earning more than $100,000 ayear fear their political opinions could impact their career trajectories.

Read thefull survey report and results here.

The topline questionnaire, crosstabs, full methodology, and analysis of the survey findings can be found here.

Methodology:

The Cato Institute Summer 2020 National Survey was designed and conducted by the Cato Institute in collaboration with YouGov. YouGov collected responses online during July 16, 2020 from anational sample of 2,000 Americans 18years of age and older. Restrictions are put in place to ensure that only the people selected and contacted by YouGov are allowed to participate. The margin of error for the survey is +/- 2.36 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence.

See the original post here:

New Poll: 62% Say the Political Climate Prevents Them from Sharing Political Views - Cato Institute