The culture war engulfing schools has subjected educators like Richard Clifton to unfamiliar scrutiny including, in his case, a public records request.

In Savannah, Georgia, where Clifton is a longtime English teacher, a group of conservative activists earlier this year began calling for the school board to purge books with sexual content from school libraries. After Clifton took a personal stand against book banning, someone submitted a records request to learn what texts he assigns to students.

Around the same time, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed new laws that he said would protect students from what he views as obscene materials and divisive concepts. In response, an official in Cliftons district advised against using the term white privilege in the classroom.

Clifton didnt change the content of the screenwriting class hes teaching this school year, his 29th in the district. But as the political combat around education escalates, he is more cautious about the topics he discusses and the language he uses in class.

I am a little more gun-shy than I might have been in the past, he said.

The conservative backlash against anti-racism and LGBTQ inclusion in schools has put intense pressure on many educators. And that is causing schools to change, in ways obvious and subtle, as laws like Georgias take effect across the country.

Some of the moves are public, as when districts review challenged books or make it easier for parents to lodge complaints. But other shifts are happening behind the scenes books quietly pulled from shelves, classroom discussions cut short as teachers and school leaders seek to avoid blowback. Often it is students of color and LGBTQ young people who feel these effects most acutely as signals of inclusivity fade or vanish.

That was the case in an Alabama school district where a superintendent, facing pressure from some parents and a new state law restricting lessons about sexuality, ordered the removal of LGBTQ pride flags from classrooms, according to a teacher who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation. As the teacher took down her flags at the request of her principal, a queer student in the room began to cry.

Once you ban a symbol that shows you love and support them, the teacher said, it looks like you are no longer supporting them.

Conservative critics view the push to confront racism and champion inclusion in schools as a pretext for exposing students to liberal ideas and inappropriate content. That backlash has fueled efforts to rein in teachers and censor books.

Three-dozen state legislatures have considered bills this year to restrict teaching about contested topics, which six states passed, while schools in nearly 140 districts have removed or limited students access to books that parents or community members opposed, according to two recent reports by PEN America, a free-speech advocacy group. Other legislation makes it easier for parents to see whats taught in school and raise objections.

The combined efforts have had a chilling effect, according to analysts and educators. While there have been a few high-profile instances of districts being penalized or teachers investigated for violating the new rules, just the threat of controversy or punishment has been enough to prompt preemptive changes.

School and district leaders are taking it upon themselves to do the censors work for them, said Jeremy C. Young, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America. In some ways thats the goal of the legislation: to make everyone afraid of their own shadows so they simply stay away from this material.

The legislation, almost all of which has been introduced by Republicans, has increasingly included the threat of sanctions ranging from professional discipline to loss of state funding and even criminal charges. Some laws enlist parents as enforcers.

For instance, Floridas new Parental Rights in Education law allows parents to report and potentially sue school districts if they believe a teacher discussed sexuality or gender identity with students in grades K-3.

The overall feeling that I get is fear, said Raegan Miller, a parent in St. Petersburg and member of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, which opposes the new restrictions.

The laws have unleashed a flurry of censorship, much of it aimed at books featuring Black or LGBTQ characters and driven by conservative activists. The group has tracked more than 580 titles that faced challenges across Florida over the past year, resulting in dozens of books being removed or made less accessible.

In her own childrens district, Miller has seen schools only allow older students to check out picture books with LGBTQ characters, which she considers an indirect ban. Recently, her sons fifth-grade teacher sent home a form asking parents to indicate whether their children may use the classroom library.

Thats the first time Ive ever gotten a letter like that, Miller said.

With only limited state guidance, Florida school districts have taken steps to forestall potential violations of the new laws. Some critics say theyve gone overboard.

The Orange County school district, which educates more than 200,000 students in the Orlando area, forbade schools from adding new library books until media specialists complete a required training next year. The Miami-Dade County school board recently rejected a proposal to recognize October as LGBTQ History Month. And the superintendent of the more than 80,000-student Pasco County school district told employees this month to remove Safe Space stickers, which are meant to signal support for LGBTQ students.

People are being very cautious, said Dr. Sue Woltanski, a retired pediatrician and member of the Monroe County school board in Key West. My concern is that caution will prevent people from standing up for teachers who are trying to do the right thing in their classrooms.

Schools in her district are putting their library catalogs online in compliance with the new laws, she added, but are not removing Safe Space stickers.

Many schools fear of controversy or censure is surfacing in inconspicuous ways.

In Missouri, where Republican lawmakers proposed more than 20 bills this year seeking to limit what students learn about racism and other divisive concepts, Aimee Robertson has noticed her childrens teachers sending home more permission slips. Already this school year, her daughters 11th grade AP English teacher has sought parents consent before allowing students to choose which memoir to study or showing them a documentary about humanitys impact on the environment.

Clearly districts and educators are going above and beyond to cover their butts, she said.

Students have also noticed teachers newfound apprehension.

Kennedy Young is an 11th grader in Georgia, where a new law limits what teachers can say about racism and U.S. history.

During a recent lesson at her school in Cobb County, Kennedys English teacher started to share her thoughts about why a Black and a Latina character in A Streetcar Named Desire werent given names, but she stopped herself. The teacher said students could discuss the topic, but she wasnt allowed to participate. No one spoke up.

Kennedy, who is Black and has been helping other students talk about race under the new law, said she wanted to bring up how women of color, and Black women in particular, are often marginalized in literature. But it can be isolating for students of color to lead classroom discussions about race without teachers support.

Sometimes I can feel like my voice is quieter, that it doesnt matter, she said, because there isnt that adult or other people of color to help me and guide the conversation along.

Back in Richard Cliftons district, Savannah-Chatham County, officials have taken steps to obey the new laws.

The school board adopted policies allowing parents to object to teaching materials used in their childrens classes, and report teachers who they believe discussed prohibited topics. At a training for administrators, a board attorney urged caution and discretion when using the phrase white privilege in classrooms, according to district spokesperson Sheila Blanco.

Despite pressure from activists who urged the board to protect our children from pornography, the district has not removed any books from school libraries this year, Blanco said.

For his part, Clifton said he believes parents have a right to know whats taught in school, and hes always tried to avoid promoting his personal beliefs in class. He still welcomes robust debate in his classroom, but now if a student were to raise a politically charged topic, he might think twice before engaging.

I wouldnt delve into it deeply, he said, because of the climate we are in.

Kalyn Belsha contributed reporting.

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him atpwall@chalkbeat.org.

Link:

Censorship and scrutiny has schools scrambling to avoid backlash - Chalkbeat

In a subreddit PoliticalHumor, theyve added a comment threadcalled Were messing with Texas.Themoderators of this thread have one very clear practice of discrimination:

To be clear, the mod team is of sound mind and body, and we are explicitly censoring the viewpoint that Greg Abbott isn't a little piss baby. Anyone denying the fact that Abbott is a little piss baby will be banned from the subreddit.

In fact, the page offers up an easy-to-fill-out consumer protection link to the Texas Attorney General and subpoena fraidy-cat Ken Paxton, so you can complain that you have been discriminated against because you did not want to write about how Governor Greg Abbot is a little piss baby. Thems the rules. You dont need to hang out in their subreddit if you dont like them, mind you. But if you do, remember this:Greg Abbott is a little piss baby.Here are a few examples of the posts:

One of the things I like the most about Greg Abbott is a little piss baby is that it's so true and yet so simple. Under his leadership Texas has become a state full of whiny little piss babies making up for huge guts and teeny peeners with big trucks, guns, racism, misogyny, and nutbag flags. The fact that Greg Abbott is a little piss baby is mirrored by much of the Texas population which is actually sad and deeply pathetic given how baselessly proud they are. I guess that'll happen though when your governor Greg Abbott is a little piss baby.

There was this controversial attempt at pushing the boundaries of the subreddits criteria.

Im not entirely sure that Greg Abbott is a little piss baby. Seems like a big one.

Running right up against the line there! As TechDirts MikeMasnickexplains, Redditlike Discord, Github, and Wikipediaismoderated by the various communitiesonline users and not the company itself,like Facebook or Google. This is an interaction between a Trump-supporter lawyer and the founder of Wikipedia.

So far, there are at least 2.1k comments on the subreddit, with at least one mention of Greg Abbott being a little piss baby.

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Since Dobbs, women have registered to vote in unprecedented numbers across the country, and the first person to dig into these stunning trends was TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier, who's our guest on this week's episode of The Downballot. Bonier explains how his firm gathers data on the electorate; why this surge is likely a leading indicator showing stepped-up enthusiasm among many groups of voters, including women, young people, and people of color; how we know these new registrants disproportionately lean toward Democrats; and what it all might mean for November.

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An online group is protesting Texas' ludicrous social media censorship law in a very funny way - Daily Kos

Amanda Jones found a death threat in her email on a Sunday morning, almost a month after she had spoken at a public library against censorship.

In July, Jones, who heads the board of the Louisiana Association for School Librarians, spoke up against censorship and book bans, specifically books about LGBTQ people and people of color, at her local public library in Livingston Parish, La. She endured dozens of Facebook posts and comments suggesting she was a pedophile, a groomer, and accusing her of pushing pornography on children.

But none of those messages from the local groups scared her as much as the death threat from a man in Texas, about four hours away from where she lived in Louisiana.

It was pretty explicit in the ways that he was going to kill me, Jones said. I was actually petrified.

The next day, Jones drove to the school where she works as a school librarian and as she was going to get out of her car, saw a man she didnt recognize walking around in the parking lot. She sat in her car for 10 minutes, afraid to leave. Eventually, she called her principal and asked him to check if he recognized the man. She only left her car when she found out it was a maintenance worker.

Now, Jones is pushing back, bringing suit against some of the Facebook groups where the harassment against her occurred. This week, a judge dismissed her case, but Jones vowed to appeal.

The librarians nightmare started on July 19, when Jones went to the meeting at the public library where she has been a member since 1983 to make her case against censorship of books dealing with LGBTQ themes and topics and books about people of color and racism, which have been common targets of book ban calls across the country.

A PEN America study about school book bans in the 2021-22 academic year said 41 percent of all bans are about books dealing with LGBTQ topics. Forty percent of the books banned have main or secondary characters of color, and 21 percent directly address race and racism.

Censoring and relocating books and displays is harmful to our community, but will be extremely harmful to our most vulnerableour children, she said at the meeting.

In her speech, Jones did not mention any specific titles but talked generally about censorship and book banning. She was among 20 or so people that spoke against book bans.

On July 21, a Facebook group called Citizens For a New Louisiana operated by defendant Michael Lunsford posted a picture of Jones with the caption Why is she fighting so hard to keep sexually erotic and pornographic materials in the kids section?

Lunsford said he was also at the meeting and made a public comment.

On the same day, another group called Bayou State of Mind, run by defendant Ryan Thames, posted a meme with Jones picture which said, After advocating teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds, I had to change my name on Facebook. Through the post, Thames revealed the full name Jones used on Facebook (which was not her legal name) and her school district.

After weeks of Facebook posts by the local groups against her, Jones said she is now harassed by people on Twitter and Facebook that dont even live in Louisiana. Her complaints to the sheriffs office against the Facebook groups amounted to nothing, but she said the police are working on extraditing the Texas man who sent her the death threat. The Livingston Parish Sheriffs office did not respond to requests for comment.

In a rare pushback against online defamation that some teachers and librarians have been subjected to since book ban efforts escalated, Jones filed a lawsuit against the Facebook groups Citizens For a New Louisiana and Bayou State of Mind, as well as Lunsford and Thames. She alleged that the groups have been defaming her for weeks online, saying they damaged her personal and professional reputation. Because of the groups, she said, shes received threats of violence and even the death threat. She sought damages, a restraining order against the defendants, and an injunction prohibiting them from posting about her online.

Its not just happening to me, its happened to tons of educators across the United States, she said. I do really encourage people when this happens to make sure they build their support system and weigh the pros and cons of speaking out. Sometimes in your communities and where you live, you have to do whats safest for you.

After the preliminary injunction hearing was rescheduled twice, the judge dismissed the lawsuit per the defendants request on Wednesday, saying that Jones was a limited public official because of her position with the librarians group and that the comments made against Jones were not defamatory and were just opinions. Jones said the verdict was disappointing, but she is planning to appeal.

The defendants said their argument was about the content of the books in the library and Jones had opened herself up to criticism because she decided to speak at the meeting.

Miss Jones decided she wanted to interject herself into this library board controversy, and shes trying to persuade everybody that her opinion is right, Thames attorney, Joseph Long, said. Well, when you do that, of course, youre going to get criticism and youre going to get support. And if you cant handle the criticism without having to file a lawsuit, you probably shouldnt get in the middle of the fray.

Jones also alleged in the lawsuit that she was called a groomer online, which means an adult who fosters a relationship with a minor, often with the intention of sexual abuse. The term has been coopted by the right to insult people advocating for LGBTQ issues. Long said Jones was called a groomer because she was advocating facts for young children.

And whether she was or whether she was not [a groomer]I mean, I dont think she wasbut one would argue if you advocate teaching sex to young children, that is a technique that groomers use to sexually abuse children, added Long, who said he did not make that allegation himself.

Long and Lunsford also said that the case was not about books containing references to LGBTQ characters or dealing with topics of sexuality.

It was just sexual content, whether its heterosexual or homosexual, it is not appropriate for 11- or 12-year-olds, Long said. That was a red herring early on, but that never came up in the hearing at all.

For his part, Lunsford said he never called Jones a pedophile or a groomer, or accused her of pushing sexually explicit content.

We simply asked questions of why is this material in the library? Why are these people fighting so hard to keep it in? he said.

He said he had also received threats to his life for speaking against Jones.

People on the fringe of both sides get a little carried away, he said. Its not appropriate, people shouldnt do it. Engage on the issue, whether this is appropriate for children or isnt it.

Citizens for a New Louisiana hasnt issued any book challenges relating to books about that lifestyle, Lunsford said, referring to the LGBTQ people. He said his organizations issue is focused on books such as the graphic novel, Lets Talk about It: The Teens Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human.

The explicit images in the graphic novel are inappropriate for children and thats what his organization objects to, he said.

But the stress of weeks of online harassment has caught up with Jones. The defendants have contacted her family members through social media, she said, and people have complained about her to both the Louisiana School Library Association, of which she is president, and to her school district.

She hasnt been able to focus at work and is suffering physical effects. Jones said starting in January, shes going to take a sabbatical from work for the spring semester. But Jones said even knowing what happened, she still would choose to speak up against censorship the way she did at that public meeting in July.

Why not me? Because somebodys got to do it, she said, Because these people, they dont stop. And Im just really sick of it.

Jones friend Kim Howell, who was the former president of the state school librarians association, said if this had happened to her, she wouldve left her job. She said she admired Jones for standing up to the defendants and fighting against censorship.

Howell and her colleagues at the association have been a major support system for Jones throughout this experience, Jones said, from financially contributing to the GoFundMe that allowed her to hire the attorney to offering emotional support.

It was just devastating to watch my friend be attacked personally and these lies told about her, Howell said. Amandas got moxie. Shes making a difference and Im 100 percent behind her.

Continued here:

A School Librarian Pushes Back on Censorship and Gets Death Threats and Online Harassment - Education Week

Dr Emma Briant, one of the key researchers who uncovered the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018

The vortex of misinformation, conspiracy theories, hatred and lies that we know as the unacceptable face of the internet has been well documented in recent years. Less well documented are the players behind these campaigns. But a small and growing group of journalists and researchers are working on shining a light on their activities. Dr Emma Briant is one of them. The professor, who is currently an associate at the Center for Financial Reporting and Accountability, University of Cambridge, is an internationally recognised expert who has researched information warfare and propaganda for nearly two decades. Her approach is that she doesnt just research one party in the information war. Instead Briant considers each opponent, even those in democratic states, a breadth and detail that is important. As she tells me you miss half the story if you concentrate on single examples.

This is a world in which there is an information war going on all sides and you cant understand it without looking at all sides. There isnt a binary of evil and pure. In order to understand how we can move forward in more ethical ways we need to understand the challenge that we are facing in our world of other actors who are trying to mislead us, Briant says.

There are powerful profit-making industries that are reshaping our world. We need to better research and understand that, to not simply expose some in isolated campaigns like they are just bad apples, she adds.

Briant is perhaps best known for her work on Cambridge Analytica. She was central in exposing the data scandal related to the firm and Facebook at the time of the USAs 2016 election. So what drove her to this area of research?

My PhD looked at the war on terror and how the British and Americans were coordinating and developing their propaganda apparatus and strategies in response to changing media forms and changing warfare. Now that led me to meet Cambridge Analytica or rather its predecessor, the firm SCL group. Cambridge Analytica were using the kind of propaganda that had been used in the military, but in this case in elections, in democratic countries.

The groundwork for this research was laid much earlier, when Briant lived as a child in Saudi Arabia around the time of the Gulf War. She was shocked to find lines and lines of Western newspapers censored with black pen, to the point you couldnt read them, and pro-US and anti-Iraq propaganda everywhere.

I was amazed by the efforts at social control, she said.

Then, during her first degree, she studied international relations and politics when 9/11 happened and, as she says, the world changed.

I was really very concerned about what we were being fed, about the spin of the Iraq war, says Briant.

Like many she was inspired by a teacher, in her case Caroline Page.

[Page] wrote a bookon Vietnam and propaganda, and she had interviewed people in the American government and I was amazed that a woman could just go over to America and interview people in politics and in government and get really amazing interviews with high level officials. This really inspired me.

Briant was motivated by both Pages example and her specific work.

She wanted to really find out what was going on and understand the actors behind the propaganda. And that is what really fascinates me most. Whos behind the lies and the distortions? Thats why Ive taken the approach that I have, both in looking at power in organisations like governments and how thats deployed, and looking at how we can govern that power in democracies better.

Because of Briants all-sided approach, she says she can attract the ire of people across the spectrum. People who focus only on Russia, for instance, might dislike that Briant critiques the British government. Conversely, people who are critics of the UK and US government call into question whether she should challenge Russian or Chinese propaganda. But, as she reiterates, its really important to have researchers who are willing to take on that difficult issue of not only understanding a particular actor but understanding the conflict, protecting ordinary people and enabling them to have media they can trust and information online which is not deceptive.

Criticism of her work has at times taken on a sinister edge. Briant is, sadly, no stranger to threats, trolling and other forms of online harassment.

Its very difficult to even just exist online if youre doing powerful work, without getting trolled, Briant says.

The type of work that I do, which isnt just analysing public media posts and how they spread, but is also looking at specific groups responsibilities and basically researching with a journalistic role in my research, that kind of thing tends to attract more harassment than just looking at online observable disinformation spread. Academics doing such work require support.

Briant cites the case of Carole Cadwalladr, a journalist at the Guardian, as an example of how online campaigns are used to silence people. Like Briant, Cadwalladr pointed the looking glass at those behind the misinformation that spread in the lead-up to the EU referendum. Cadwalladr experienced extreme online harassment, as well as a lengthy and very expensive legal battle. Taken by Arron Banks, the case had all the hallmarks of being a SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit against public participation, namely, a lawsuit that has little to no legal merit. Its purpose is instead to silence the accused through draining them of emotional, physical and financial resources.

Briant has not been the subject of a SLAPP herself but has experienced other attempts to threaten, intimidate and silence her. Meanwhile, the threat of lawfare lingers in the background and has affected her work.

Legal harassment has a real impact on what you feel like you are able to say. At one point after the Cambridge Analytica scandal it felt like I couldnt work on highly sensitive work with a degree of privacy without the threat of being hacked or legal threats to obtain data or efforts to silence me. You cannot develop research on powerful actors and corrupt or deceptive activities as a journalist or a researcher without knowing your work is secure, Briant says.

The ecosystem might be changing. New legislation has been proposed that will make using SLAPPs harder in the UK, where they are most common (the US, by comparison, has laws in place to limit them). But, as Briant highlights, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

I dont think people really understand the silencing effect of threat, not necessarily even receiving a letter but the potential of people to open up your private world. The exposure of journalism activities before an investigation is complete enables people to use partial information to misrepresent the activities, it can even put sources at risk, she says.

While Briant believes these harassment campaigns can affect anyone doing the sort of work that she and Cadwalladr do, she says we cant ignore the gender dynamic.

Trolling and harassment affects a lot of different women and women are much more likely to experience this than men who are doing powerful work challenging people. This is just true. Its been shown by Julie Posetti and her team, and its also the case if you look at other minorities or vulnerable communities.

Of course if Briant was just a bit player people might not care as much. Instead, Briant has given testimony to the European Parliament and had her work discussed in US Congress. Shes written one book, co-authored another and has contributed to two major documentary films (one being the Oscar-shortlisted Netflix film The Great Hack). In todays world, the attacks she has received have become part of the price people are paying for successful work. Still its an unacceptable price, one that we need to speak about more.

Briant is doing that, as well as more broadly carrying on with her research. Shes also writing her next two books, one of which revisits Cambridge Analytica. In Briant fashion, it places the company in a wider context.

Im looking at different organisations and discussing the transformation of the influence industry. This is really a very new phenomenon. Digital influence mercenaries are being deployed in our elections and are shaping our world.

Read this article:

The woman exposing the propaganda puppet masters - Index on Censorship

MOGADISHU, Somalia 28 September 2022 On the International Day for Universal Access to Information, Somali journalists have little to celebrate about. The often precarious and volatile environment is coupled with restrictions on access to information, duress and insecurity.

Journalists in Mogadishu, Hirshabelle, Galmudug, South West and Jubbaland told SJS that they were blocked from major events and to the scenes of incidents, including sites of Al-Shabaab attacks and denied access to information on public interests. Journalists have particularly narrated acts of censorship and intimidation aimed at stopping them from uncovering serious human rights violations. Police commanders, judges, government officials, clan leaders and members of al-Shabaab were described as the key perpetrators of these violations. Journalists in Puntland told SJS that they were denied access to cover news reports revealing police wrongdoings and sexual violence against women and girls.

"In our recent human rights journalism training supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, journalists shared their plight by narrating first hand experiences. Lack of access to information creates a chilling climate of self-censorship and co-optation by a majority of the media houses and journalists nationwide, said SJS Secretary-General, Abdalle Ahmed Mumin.

Authorities in Somaliland have used severe restrictions on access to information including internet outage, detention of journalists, suspension of media houses as well as threats intended to silence critical coverage by the local journalists.

Journalists, particularly those covering human rights, have spoken about economic hardships as a direct consequence of their work to document and investigate human rights violations. The hostile attitude towards journalists covering human rights abuses and the lack of awareness for the general public also remain as part of the challenge.

Universal access to information means that everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart information. The media plays a vital role, particularly when it aims to inform the public of critical information and monitors government actions. The right to universal access to information is also bound up with the right to freedom of the press. Unfortunately, the Federal Government of Somalia and its member states are yet to introduce the Access to Information Bill which is a constitutional requirement under Article 32 of the Provisional Federal Constitution.

"The growing pressure against Somali journalists and lack of access to information call for concern. When journalists are blocked, threatened and their access to information denied, it will entrench a culture of impunity. Providing and presenting information to the general public, particularly on human rights violations promotes redress for the victims or to seek justice regarding perpetrators through legal action, Mumin said. "We call for an end to the restriction to access to information by state and non-state actors in Somalia.

On the occasion of the International Day for Universal Access to Information, SJS makes the following call to the Somali Federal Government, Federal Member States, international partners and the donor community:

Somali federal government and its FMS should:

The international partners should:

The donor community should:

Go here to read the rest:

Somalia: Restrictions on access to information entrenching self-censorship among the media - Horn Observer

Press release content from Globe Newswire. The AP news staff was not involved in its creation.

Click to copy

Washington, D.C., Sept. 01, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Attorney General of Missouri, and the Attorney General of Louisiana, have filed a lawsuit that blows the lid off a sprawling federal censorship regime that will shock the conscience of Americans. The joint statement on discovery disputes in the lawsuit, State of Missouri ex rel. Schmitt, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al., reveals scores of federal officials across at least eleven federal agencies have secretly communicated with social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech federal officials disfavor. This unlawful enterprise has been wildly successful.

Under the First Amendment, the federal government may not police private speech nor pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. But that is precisely what the government has doneand is still doingon a massive scale not previously divulged. Multiple agencies communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social media companiespressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed.

Discovery has unveiled an army of federal censorship bureaucrats, including officials arrayed at the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, the Office of the Surgeon General, the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Communications show these federal officials are fully aware that the pressure they exert is an effective and necessary way to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship. The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even griped about the need to overcome social-media companies hesitation to work with the government.

These actions have precipitated an unprecedented rise in censorship and suppression of free speechincluding core political speechon social-media platforms. Many viewpoints and speakers have been unlawfully and unconstitutionally silenced or suppressed in the modern public square. This unlawful government interference violates the fundamental right of free speech for all Americans, whether or not they are on social media. More discovery is needed to uncover the full extent of this regimei.e., the identities of other White House and agency officials involved and the nature and content of their communications with social-media companies.

The government has been uncooperative and has resisted complying with the discovery order every step of the wayespecially with regard to Anthony Faucis communications. Defendants claim, for example, that White House communications are privileged, even though such privilege does not apply to external communications. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana should overrule the government defendants objections and order them to supply this highly relevant, responsive, and probative information immediately.

NCLA released the following statements:

If there was ever any doubt the federal government was behind censorship of Americans who dared to dissent from official Covid messaging, that doubt has been erased. The shocking extent of the governments involvement in silencing Americans, through coercing social-media companies, has now been revealed. These bureaucrats continue to resist efforts to expose the degree of their unconstitutional actions every step of the way. Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel, NCLA

The incredible extent of government interference with the speech rights of Americans must be seen to be believed. Yet, even with all that this case has revealed, the government defendants are still resisting their obligation to disclose the names of all the public servants who were involved in this unlawful scheme. John J. Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

For more information visit the case page here.

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLAs public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans fundamental rights.

###

Judy Pino New Civil Liberties Alliance 202-869-5218 judy.pino@ncla.legal

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apnews.com

The World Economic Forum (WEF), notorious for its great reset agenda, featuring the now-infamous slogan you will own nothing and be happy, has published an article pushing for artificial intelligence-powered censorship to contain the problem of online abuse.

The article, published on the WEFs website, bundles together the real problems faced by online content moderators, such as detecting and removing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), with establishment preoccupations like containing misinformation and white supremacy increasingly flexible labels that tech elites use to censor the enemies of progressivism.

Joe Biden arrives on stage to address the assembly on the second day of the World Economic Forum, on January 18, 2017 in Davos. (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

Via the WEF:

Since the introduction of the internet, wars have been fought, recessions have come and gone and new viruses have wreaked havoc. While the internet played a vital role in how these events were perceived, other changes like the radicalization of extreme opinions, the spread of misinformation and the wide reach of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) have been enabled by it.

The article goes on to recommend the increased adoption of a technique already used by Silicon Valley leftists using feedback from content moderators (who are typically either leftist or following leftist guidelines from social media companies) to train AI censorship models.

To overcome the barriers of traditional detection methodologies, we propose a new framework: rather than relying on AI to detect at scale and humans to review edge cases, an intelligence-based approach is crucial.

By bringing human-curated, multi-language, off-platform intelligence into learning sets, AI will then be able to detect nuanced, novel online abuses at scale, before they reach mainstream platforms. Supplementing this smarter automated detection with human expertise to review edge cases and identify false positives and negatives and then feeding those findings back into training sets will allow us to create AI with human intelligence baked in. This more intelligent AI gets more sophisticated with each moderation decision, eventually allowing near-perfect detection, at scale.

Leftists in tech are increasingly fixated on owning and imprinting their biases on the field of artificial intelligence. The field of machine learning fairness, which blends critical race theory with computer science, is one such example of this. A devotee of the field, former Google employee Meredith Whittaker, is now a member of Joe Bidens FTC.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.He is the author of#DELETED: Big Techs Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.

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'Near-Perfect Detection:' World Economic Forum Pushes AI Censorship of ...

The right is obsessed with Critical Race Theory (CRT). It is hell-bent on censoring it where public schools are deprived of teaching students some inconvenient truths about the dark side of history in the United States.

The censoring of CRT will deprive students of a chance to gain knowledge of the U.S.s racism in the past and the overt and institutional racism of today; and how they connect. After all, present conditions are the results of past events. The past influences the present. It is cause and effect. In turn, censoring CRT will make students, and people in general, ignorant of why and how racism still exists today and thus will put obstacles in the way to finding out how to eliminate racism in the future.

There is a group called the Alliance Defending Freedom. This entity published a fact sheet on October 4, 2021 and revised it on August 5, 2022 entitled What is Critical Race Theory? In its opposition to CRT, the argument it presents sounds sophisticated, but contains a number of flaws making its bottom-line message suspect.

It starts out saying, Critical Race Theory (CRT) teaches that people are either oppressor or oppressed, good or bad based on their race. This is a simplistic claim that doesnt get to the shades of gray regarding racial conflict. It seems to imply that in CRT, one race has to be totally bad while another is totally good. This isnt realistic since there is good and bad in every race.

There is the claim that CRT wants to tear down existing institutions and replace our constitutional form of government as the only way to stop racism. This is another simplistic claim that ignores the shades of gray in CRT. Those who teach CRT probably have somewhat different ideas about it. But one of the goals of CRT is to eliminate institutional, and overt, racism. Does that mean tearing down existing institutions? It means tearing down the institutions that are inherently racist. What about our constitutional form of government? Likewise, it has the goal of tearing down only the racist aspects of government.

The sheet quoted Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, authors of Critical Race Theory: An Introduction:

The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and powerUnlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

What in hell is wrong with transforming relationships that perpetuate racism, as well as homophobia, sexism and classism? The assertions from them also includes step-by-step progress and incrementalism as though that alone will guarantee real change. In reality, one can look at the civil rights movement and see that there was not only step-by-step progress, but also civil disobedience. Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus. Was that wrong? No. There were marches led by Martin Luther King which invited oppression from the racist establishment in the South. Was that wrong? No. These were necessary steps to push the political establishment into taking action.

The sheet mentions Martin Luther King and implies that proponents of CRT would be against his legacy based on race being the only thing that matters. First, the hypocrisy: whites have historically oppressed people of color based on race. Second, the statement is a wide generalization about people of color who support CRT. There are probably gray areas among supporters of CRT.

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Other claims: CRT rejects religious freedom and free speech. Another generalization. CRT rejects racism, both overt and institutionalized; CRT views fundamental freedoms as more ways to oppress the oppressed. But there is no doubt that among the oppressed there are CRT supporters. And the oppressed have largely been targets of white racism, past and present.

As with the Alliance Defending Freedom, there are like-minded individuals in politics who oppose CRT and have introduced bills to censor it. In an article published in The Atlantic (May 7, 2021) by Adam Harris, there is mention of Keith Ammon, a Republican of the New Hampshire House of Representatives who introduced a bill that bans divisive concepts like CRT. The bill would forbid race or sex scapegoating, questioning meritocracy and not allowing the word, racist, to be used against New Hampshire and the United States itself.

Other states have been taking up the crusade. Among them, Arkansas where the state legislature approved a ban on CRT. Harris partially quoted the bill which states that there will be no promotion of division between, resentment of, or social justice for groups based on race, gender or political affiliation. The Idaho legislature passed a bill that would prohibit public schools from compelling students to personally affirm, adopt or adhere to specific beliefs about race, sex or religion. Louisiana, likewise, is considering censoring CRT.

Meanwhile in Kentucky, there are Sens. Max Wise and Robby Mills who introduced the Teaching American Principles Act. Writing for Peoples World (February 9, 2022), Berry Craiga Kentuckian who is an emeritus professor at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducahasserted that the bill promotes censorship, restricting the teaching of systemic racism in public schools. The bill is supposed to promote the teaching of diverse topics without giving a preference to a particular topic. But it may ,e.g, present pro-slavery positions and anti-slavery positions as morally equivalent.

Craig boiled it down to the following regarding the purpose of the bill: A teacher mustnt make white students feel bad by telling the truth about whites enslaving black people and whites making black people second-class citizens. Craig quoted Brian Clardy, a Murray, Ky., State University historian, who said the language of the bill is Orwellian double-talk. How is shielding students from the brutal lessons of history going to benefit the intellectual and personal development of any student? The bill is lunacy.

What those who oppose CRT have been doing is creating a moral panic. According to Thom Hartmann, writing in CounterPunch (February 4, 2022), he wrote specifically who the guilty parties are: libertarian billionaires, Republican Party leaders, multi-millionaire white evangelical preachers, white supremacist militia leaders, etc. Hartmann: These are goal-oriented crisis actors whove brought us the moral panic around Critical Race Theory that has now morphed into a book-banning frenzy.

Hartmann quoted Betsy DeVos, the unqualified Education Secretary, who wanted to end unionized, public education: Because wokeness is the lefts religion, banning critical race Theory wont fix the problem. The liberal education establishment will simply rename, rebrand, or repackage these insidious ideas to get around so-called bans. So, according to DeVos and others of the right-wing establishment, wokeness is portrayed as a bad thing. But being woke means being aware or alert. And wokeness is preferable to ignorance, the latter of which is rampant among the right.

Students in U.S. public schools need an overall education about the United States, teaching the good and the bad. That can contribute to making real change. Heres hoping that the censorship of CRT will eventually fail.

Crossposted from StarrNarrative.

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The Crusade on Critical Race Theory Is Censorship - LA Progressive

Language is our greatest tool. Its how we communicate and express ourselves, but yet, we falter when we have to listen to or say sex, menstruation, incest, masturbation, vagina, penis and other similar words.

When I was in high school I was always involved in some sort of extracurricular. I was in the school orchestra, the leadership community and on a dance team. One day when I was backstage at a dance performance, I was trying to convince my friend to watch Game of Thrones.

I was doing my best to make the case that theyd want to watch the series because of the fantasy aspects, like the dragons and White Walkers, to help show them a world of wonder. However, before I could continue, they said in a hushed tone that they were uncomfortable with the theme and concept of incest that is woven throughout the storyline.

I was taken aback by their confession. My teenage mind at the time tried to defend one of my favorite shows by saying that incest, while immoral, was not a dirty concept. Its well-ingrained in our countrys history and culture. It still exists in many areas of the world; whether you look at our species origin from a religious or evolutionary perspective, we all come from the same organisms.

This then sparked a debate about the origins of incest, and of course, this meant that wed said the word incest a lot. One rule backstage was that if someone said something that interrupted the positive atmosphere, we had the right to ask that person to stop talking about it. As per this rule, one of my other friends, in a very hushed and frustrated tone, said that I was interrupting the atmosphere by saying the word incest.

Once again, I was surprised by this common mentality that words such as incest were considered dirty or scandalous.

This led me to consider other words that our culture deems to be vulgar or taboo. The perceived nature of some words like sex, menstruation, masturbation, penis and vagina grew more apparent to me as I tried talking to students on campus. Some students I attempted to talk to were hesitant or even backed out of interviews after hearing what words I was specifically asking about.

Yarely Contreras, a sophomore and liberal studies major at Chico State, said that thinking of saying these words naturally feels uncomfortable and that this mentality is a very cultural thing that doesnt have much of an explanation behind why people are so uncomfortable saying these words.

Timothy Jay, a psychology professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, in a 2009 journal that outlines how and why taboo words are used so much, said, At the institutional level, taboos on certain forms of speech arise from authorities that have the power to restrict speech and can act as arbiters of harmful speech.

Jay further elaborates by writing that some examples of arbiters are courts of law, religious leaders, educators and mass-media managers. All of which play important roles in our society and culture.

The Federal Communication Commission, which monitors communications such as radio and television nationally and internationally, vaguely outlines how they define obscene, indecent and profane language. The FCC says that in order for content to be considered obscene or language which isnt protected by the First Amendment that it must meet the standards of a three-pronged test.

The test says that content cannot encourage sexual interest, show or describe sexual conduct in an offensive manner and must lack serious literacy, artistic, political or scientific value.

Words such as sex, vagina and penis have scientific value. The words themselves and the context we use them in are what Luke Richardson, a senior and psychology (pre-med) major at Chico State, says are straight up biology.

As a result of this, they are used in TV shows and movies that dont have a mature or restricted rating. However, we still hear these words sparingly on-screen and in our everyday lives.

Leah Schultz, a junior and biology major at Chico State said, we are conditioned as children to regard those things [taboo words] as private, they are avoided to try to protect children.

Our culture has embraced a more conservative ideology regarding sex and sexual organs as well as immoral acts such as incest because of historical and religious principles. Parents will be more inclined to want to protect their children from sexual themes that include the identification of the penis or vagina or the notion of sex or incest.

Jay expands on this idea in his journal about how children could possibly learn these words and their culturally taboo nature.

Indeed, we learn not to use them when we are punished by caregivers, Jay said. Surprisingly, no one has clearly established how a child acquires word taboos.

A child may be more likely to hear these terms in a variety of circumstances as media becomes more widely available to the general population in forms like portable devices and streaming. However, if a parent catches their child watching something that contains these words, social norms would suggest that they must attempt to direct the child away from it.

The more these words are stigmatized and restricted by caregivers, the more uncomfortable it is to speak them. Therefore, frequency in usage and exposure plays a part in assigning the idea of vulgarity to words like penis, vagina and sex.

In a 2016 journal, which outlines the impact of the frequency and intensity of taboo words in everyday language, Patricia Rosenburg, Sverker Sikstrm and Danilo Garcia, professors and researchers of religion and psychology, said, Indeed, individuals affectivity is linked to how frequent taboo words are used.

The trio approaches the discomfort of speaking taboo words from the perspective that the more frequently we hear or say taboo words, the more comfortable we become with them. So, if these words are avoided all together, people are more likely to feel uncomfortable when in the presence of someone saying the words.

Ty Whittington-Brown, a senior and psychology student at Chico State, said that the comfort of saying these terms varies depending on the context and environment.

He said that if it was just an everyday conversation surrounding a topic regarding the words, he wouldnt be uncomfortable saying them.

In an uncomfortable environment I would use the words as comedic relief to open up a conversation, Whittington-Brown said.

There are multiple reasons that our culture censors words like sex, menstruation, penis, vagina and so on. Despite the FCCs three-pronged test, lawmakers debates on the restraints of the First Amendment and attempts by parents to shield their children, these words are still heard, learned and repeated.

If we do our best to define these words as body parts like Richardson said, and remove the negative stigma behind the usage of them, we could potentially break down the walls our culture builds around the appreciation of the human body and human nature.

We could help encourage the use of terms like sex, menstruation, incest, masturbation, penis and vagina in appropriate contexts at the proper time and place without subconsciously flinching or speaking in hushed tones.

Ariana Powell can be reached at [emailprotected]

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Sex, incest and menstruation: cultural censorship The Orion - The Orion

The must-reads

Ive combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Social medias biggest companies appeared before the US SenatePast and present Meta, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube employees answered questions on social media's impact on homeland security. (TechCrunch)+ Retaining user attention is their algorithms primary purpose. (Protocol)+ TikToks representative avoided committing to cutting off Chinas access to US data. (Bloomberg $)

2 China wants to reduce its reliance on Western techInvesting heavily in native firms is just one part of its multi-year plan. (FT $)+ Cybercriminals are increasingly interested in Chinese citizens personal data. (Bloomberg $)+ The FBI accused him of spying for China. It ruined his life. (MIT Technology Review)

3 California is suing AmazonAccusing it of triggering price rises across the state. (WSJ $)+ The two-year fight to stop Amazon from selling face recognition to the police. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Russia is waging a surveillance war on its own citizensIts authorities are increasingly targeting ordinary people, not known dissidents or journalists. (Slate $)+ Russian troops are still fleeing northern Ukraine. (The Guardian)

5 Dozens of AIs debated 100 years of climate negotiations in secondsTheyre evaluating which policies are most likely to be well-received globally. (New Scientist $)+ Patagonias owner has given the company away to fight climate change. (The Guardian)

6 Iranian hackers hijacked their victims printers to deliver ransom notesThe three men have been accused of targeting people in the US, UK and Iran. (Motherboard)

7 DARPAs tiny plane could spy from almost anywhereThe unmanned vehicle could also carry small bombs. (WP $)+ The Taliban have crashed a helicopter left behind by the US military. (Motherboard)

8 Listening to stars helps astronomers to assess whats inside themThe spooky-sounding acoustic waves transmit a lot of data. (Economist $)+ The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted newborn stars. (Space)+ The next Space Force chief thinks the US needs a satellite constellation to combat China.(Nikkei Asia)

9 Well never be able to flip and turn like a catBut the best divers and gymnasts are the closest we can get. (The Atlantic $)+ The best robotic jumpers are inspired by nature. (Quanta)

10 This robot is having a laughEven if its not terribly convincing. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

Tesla has yet to produce anything even remotely approaching a fully self-driving car."

Briggs Matsko, a Tesla owner, explains his rationale for suing the company over the deceptive way it marketed its driver-assistance systems, according to Reuters.

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The Download: The Merge arrives, and Chinas AI image censorship - MIT Technology Review