Following years of controversy and open secrets about R. Kelly's horrifying treatment of women and girls, the disgraced R&B singer has been found guilty and convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking. His New York trial featured testimonies from many women who claim to have survived violent abuse and even imprisonment from Kelly, often starting when they were underage.

With Kelly finally convicted, the outcome of his case raises a key question of what will now happen to his music, which continues to stream on major platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, making somewhere in the millions in royalties each year, and frequently appearing in video content on social media. As streaming platforms, brands, record labels, and really any and all media companies that handle music determine what if anything should be done about Kelly's work, their approaches could set an important precedent for the many other artists accused or found guilty of abuse, moving forward in the #MeToo era.

Defenders of artists accused of abuse often condemn brands and streamers for any moves tocensorand violate these artists' "free speech" as if Spotify is the federal government or assert that these artists are "innocent until proven guilty." Kelly's conviction now pokes a significant hole in at least one of these arguments, and may openthe door for brands and music companies to take clear stances onwhat behaviors from artists aren't acceptable.

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Then of course, there's theimportant distinction between the corporate policies of a streaming service like Spotify on whether to publicly promote an abusive artist's work, and the personal music consumption and preferences of individuals. In the long history of artists accused of harm and abuse, there have never beenone-size-fits-all solutions.

R. Kelly's contemporaries also accused of abuse

To understand what fate thatR. Kelly's music could face, it's wise to look at other artists who have been insimilarbut not necessarily equivalent situations. The severity of the accusations against Kelly, including rape and assault of often underage victims, are so horrifying that the idea of stepping away from his music in some form doesn't seem that far-fetched.

Other well-known, even alarmingly popular artists accused of abuse include Chris Brown, who pleaded guilty to felony assault of his then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009, and has been accused of rape and violence by other women in the years since. He continues to feature on tracks with music legends like Drake, and create widely streamed singles, pretty much without a peep from Spotify or the other streaming giants and record labels that gleefully release his music.

The late XXXTentacion, who was killed in 2018, was accused of and admitted to strangling his pregnant then-girlfriendthe year earlier all while his wildly popular music continues to stream and generate millions in royalties for his estate to this day. And in2015, 6ix9ine pleaded guilty to the use of a child in a sexual performance, and has been charged and convicted of other crimes including racketeering and his role in a drive-by shooting. His songs and features on Nicki Minaj tracks continue to draw millions of streams.

Another artist, Ryan Adams, has been dropped by his record labels, and has struggled to put out new music since several women including Mandy Moore and Phoebe Bridgers accused him of emotional abuse in 2019. Still, Adams' existing musicand music he's released through his own PAX AM independent label, remains readily available on streaming platforms.

Marilyn Manson, accused of rape, grooming, and other jarring acts of sexual violence by several women, sings about the night he was arrested in a recent track on Kanye West's new album "Donda," streaming on music services without any issue. Just last year, Megan Thee Stallion accused Tory Lanez of shooting her in the foot and successfully obtained a restraining order against Lanez only for him to release a new album shortly after, continue to feature on popular tracks with some of the biggestnames in the industry,and appear on stage at music festivals like Rolling Loud, violating Megan's restraining orderagainst him in the process.

More famously, the late singer Michael Jackson faced numerous allegations of child sexual abuse in the 1990s that had all but faded from public consciousness for years before HBO's "Leaving Neverland" documentary released in 2019. The documentary led to significant backlash against Jackson and his surviving legacy and work, nearly 10 years after his death.

Before nearly all of these artists, Don McLean, who sang "American Pie" in 1971, was accused of intense emotional abuse by his wifelast year, and hisdaughter just this year. From a similar era as McLean, Phil Spector produced numerous albums and records for multiple artists including the Beatlesbefore being convicted of murdering a woman in 2003. Should the music produced by men accused of abuse also be reconsidered? Where should music companies and individuals begin to draw the line?

What's happened to the art of accused menbefore

For insight into how music streamers and brands might respond to R. Kelly's conviction, as well as other artists accused of misconduct, there are numerous past examples to revisit many involving Kelly himself. His music hasn't gone anywhere for those who actively seek it out for personal consumption. But there's an important difference between streaming platforms allowing users to privately listen to his music, and the active promotion of this music on radio stations, in DJ sets, in TV episodes and movies, or featuring on official, Spotify-curated playlists.

The New York Times reported that in recent years, Kelly's music has been "all but erased from the radio and other commercial placements, his high-profile concerts and record deals a thing of the past." Still, the Times found that Kelly's music remains a fixture in videos and social content among influencers on platforms like Tik Tok, ranking as one of the top 500 music artists by Chartmetric. Despite the widely shared #MuteRKelly social campaign created by Kenyette Tisha Barnes and other activists in 2017, Kelly's music has still had about 780 million audio streams in the U.S. since "Surviving R. Kelly" aired on Lifetime in 2019, and he continues to draw 5.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify, the Times reported.

Spotify has specifically addressed the misconduct allegations against Kelly before, although its response left many confused. In 2018, Spotify announced that it would take action against the singer's popular catalog of music, and instituted an awkward playlist-ban policy, which would remove music containing "hate speech" and music from artists who, like Kelly, had committed "hateful conduct" from its playlists.

However, some regarded Spotify's policy as toothless, because Kelly's music continued to stream on the platform. Others expressed confusion about the inconsistency of the ban, noting thatmany artists accused of "hateful conduct" which the platform had only nebulously defined weren't subject to the playlist-ban policy. In particular, critics named XXXTentacion, who was subsequently added to Spotify's playlist-ban list, but many other accused artists remain.

The playlist-ban policy also received criticism from those who pointed out that Kelly and other artists had only been accused of sexual misconduct and hadn't been found guilty as if all sexual abusers arereported to law enforcement and convicted. Overall, these myriad criticisms of Spotify's attempts at accountability for abusers and alleged abusers were enough to make the platform back down not overturning its policy, but no longer really publicizing it.

It's also worth noting that it's not just streaming platforms that are affected by revelations about abusive artists. For example, Kelly's song "I Think I Can Fly" initially featured in an episode of "The Goldbergs" spinoff show, "Schooled," but the song was pulled before the episode aired in 2019 in the wake of escalated controversy around Kelly.

Following the release of "Leaving Neverland," several brands, global radio stations, TV shows like "The Simpsons," and even city governments like Brussels took action in boycotting Jackson's legacy. Many canceled scheduled celebrations of the singer to mark the 10th anniversary of his death. Louis Vuitton pulled Jackson-inspired products planned for its 2019 collections, and gymnast Katelyn Ohashi removed Jackson's music and dance moves inspired by the artist from her floor routine at the 2019 PAC-12 Championships.

Responses and actions taken around artists who are accused of abuse are widely inconsistent, possibly because, among other reasons, many cases lack the now open-and-shut legal nature of R. Kelly's conviction. Ultimately, many brands and streamers seemconflicted about where to draw the line, or really, what they can and can't look the other way on without stoking controversy and backlash. Documentaries like"Surviving R. Kelly" and "Leaving Neverland" have made Kelly and Jackson's histories and allegations impossible tobe silent on. But in contrast,few big-name artists or activist movements have taken public stands against Chris Brown for the accusations against him, or Tory Lanez, for allegedly shooting Megan. 6ix9ine has yet to become the subject of a tell-all documentary.

Many brands and streamers are left to work out the calculus of what may lose them more money: platforming or promoting someone accused of abuse, or upsetting these artists' vengeful fan bases. And on an individual level, many consumers may feel similarlyconflicted, with some appalled by the behaviors of artists like Kelly, while still privately enjoying the music they've made.

The eternal debate: Artist vs. art

The debate about what to do with the art created by artists accused of abuse has been semi-recurring since 2017, when dozens of entertainment industry titans were very publicly accused of sexual misconduct.

Contrary to loud and proud right-wing talking points, private corporations ranging from social media platforms to music distributors are well within their legal rights to remove or at least not publicize content that conflicts with their values, if their values include, say, being opposed to sexual violence. But legal considerations aside, the philosophical question of whether artists, who are real human beings and as such often do real, horrible things, can be separated from their art. The answer to that question might vary pending who you ask.

For some people with the privilege of not having experienced sexual harassment or abuse, it might be easier to consume content created by an abuser without feeling triggered or devalued by it. It's certainly not wrong for individuals to be able to privately compartmentalize abusive artists from their art and enjoy it by themselves. Butthere will always be consumers who can't do thisand who shouldbe respected, too. The voices and demands of many survivors and advocates, for brands and corporations to find meaningful ways to take a stand against sexual violence and abusers, deserve to be heard.

That said, deplatforming isn't always simple in the age of the internet. As Variety's Jem Aswad points out, even if Spotify removed R. Kelly's music, or a movie streaming service somehow removed all work produced by Harvey Weinstein, their work would continue to be uploaded and distributed on other parts of the internet, and wouldn't just disappear. And frankly, none of these men produced these works alone, so those collaborators would become collateral damage if such works were removed.

Amazon's approach to hate speech or "hateful conduct" seems to be summed up by its inclusion of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" on its marketplace, with all sales of the book apparently going directly to Jewish charities and organizations.

R. Kelly isn't the first artist to be accused of abuse or horrifying behavior, leaving companies and brands with serious decisions to make. His conviction isn't the first moment that's forced them to consider making a public statement or policy regarding the art created by sexual abusers.

But Kelly's conviction certainly injects credibility and legal validation into the demands of survivors calling for him and other abusers and alleged abusers to be deplatformed, or no longer publicly promoted. How brands respond to the outcome of Kelly's case could influence how they handle theart of abusive artists going forward but ultimately, how the public receives and experiences the art of abuserswill always vary from person to person.

Link:

What will happen to R. Kelly's music? Inside the push to deplatform abusive artists - Salon

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WAFA: Human rights organizations call on PayPal to end its digital discrimination in the occupied Palestinian territory IMEMC News - International...

Last week, the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones lost by default judgment two defamation lawsuits brought by parents of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, after he failed to comply with a judges demand for information. For years, Jones has repeatedly told his Infowars followers that the attack, which killed 20 children and six adults, was a hoax and a false flag run by crisis actors leading to harassment, stalking and death threats against the victims families. The case shows that the courts can be a powerful tool for combating disinformation and conspiracy campaigns and the online harassment they fuel.

The courts can be a powerful tool for combating disinformation and conspiracy campaigns.

This is good news because there is no shortage of support for disinformation and conspiracies in the United States. More than half of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory including unsupported speculation about who killed President John F. Kennedy and QAnon-fueled fictions about child trafficking. Rising conspiracy thinking has been enabled by social media and fueled by the easy spread of fake news, some of which comes from content producers, such as Jones, who use podcasts, viral memes and publicity stunts to insert fringe ideas into the mainstream.

The combination of broad online distribution of conspiracies and an already-receptive American audience was a recipe for a disinformation disaster even before Covid-19. But pandemic conditions have made matters worse. Conspiracy theories are psychologically rewarding during uncertain times because they offer easy, black-and-white explanations for complicated or inexplicable events, placing the blame on the orchestrated efforts of an elite few in ways that can make the world feel more stable. The insecurity and fear of the past 18 months have had devastating effects in that they have spawned the growth of conspiracies and increased their impact globally.

To make matters worse, recent conspiracy theories have been legitimized by elected leaders who say of certain allegations that they might be true. When conspiracies circulated that falsely alleged Democrats had manufactured the violence at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Idaho state Rep. Bryan Zollinger, a Republican, posted on social media that while he wasnt saying the theory was true, it was completely plausible. After then-President Donald Trump asserted that unknown Middle Easterners were mixed in with migrant caravans at the U.S. southern border, he later admitted there was no proof that any were at our border but noted there could very well be.

These tactics have challenged the very notion of the observed reality that people experience, making it harder to understand the line between fact and fiction and determine what is real and what is not. Conspiracies undermine belief in science, destabilize peoples sense of truth, fuel polarization and identify key enemies who are working against us. They can also mobilize violent action, as we have seen in recent conspiracy-driven attempts to save children from a supposed pedophile ring, or protect white populations from a purported immigrant invasion. A 2019 FBI intelligence bulletin noted that conspiracy theories are very likely inspiring domestic terrorists, and the bulletin anticipates this phenomenon will evolve and grow.

Given these conditions, it is not hard to see how widespread conspiratorial disinformation about the 2020 presidential election led to a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. But while the attack was directly motivated by election fraud conspiracies and other false information, many of the attackers believe themselves to be the courageous revolutionary actors saving democracy. Conspiracies create fervent believers in false realities.

There are few options available for interrupting the spread of conspiracy theories. Attempts to refute them can backfire and strengthen individuals faith in false information. Logic or fact-based arguments dont work against conspiracy thinking, either, because even established facts are often read by believers as confirmation that someone is trying to hide the truth. More traditional counterextremism strategies are even less suited to addressing the harms caused by viral conspiracy theories. Law enforcement approaches align best with organized groups that can be monitored or infiltrated, not with conspiracy theories that spread virally online.

Online misinformation about election fraud declined 73 percent after Trump was banned from Twitter.

Removing the worst offenders from social media or other online platforms has helped reduce the spread of false information. The circulation of online misinformation about election fraud declined 73 percent, for example, after Trump was banned from Twitter after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But de-platforming individual users is an endgame solution because it requires that offenders violate companies terms of service. By then, the disinformation is already out there causing harm.

The lack of effective counterstrategies means that we need every tool available to stop the creation, circulation and amplification of conspiracy theories and false information. Defamation lawsuits and other civil legal actions are proving to be one such strategy. Coming on the heels of other successful lawsuits demanding accountability from extremists who fomented harassment or violence and less than a month before the trial in the suit against two dozen white supremacist and extremist group leaders for allegedly plotting a conspiracy that led to violence at the Charlottesville rally successful legal action against a propagator of conspiracy theories sends a strong message that the courts are a serious option for challenging dangerous, false information.

The only thing better than stopping the unfettered spread of disinformation, propaganda and conspiracies would be to live in a world where no one produced it in the first place. But until that world arrives, the Sandy Hook school massacre lawsuit is a step forward in the fight to protect the one we live in now.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a professor in the School of Public Affairs and the School of Education at American University, where she directs the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL). Her most recent book is "Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right."

See the original post:

Infowars' school shooting lies cost Alex Jones and put extremists on alert - MSNBC

The mainstream news industry has been in sharp decline since the 1990s, owing to a series of financial and cultural changes brought by the rise of the internet. Amid the closing or shrinking of newspapers, magazines, and other legacy news outlets, Americans have increasingly turned to social media and heavily partisan websites and cable networks as their main sources of news and information, which has led to a proliferation of disinformation and misinformation and fueled polarization.

Given the vital role a free and responsible press plays in American democracy and the unique protections the Constitution provides for it under the First Amendment, is it time for the government to get involved? Is it governments place to do so? And how could that happen without infringing on that freedom?

In a new book, Saving the News: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech (Oxford University Press, 2021), Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard Law School, says the First Amendment not only does not preclude the federal government from protecting a free press in jeopardy, it requires that it do so. Minow spoke with the Gazette about some of the ways to potentially clean up social media and bankroll local news, and why arguing on Twitter isnt a First Amendment right.

GAZETTE: There seems to be broad misunderstanding about what speech is protected by the First Amendment and what is not. Underlying cancel culture and complaints about deplatforming is a belief that people should not be penalized for saying things online that others find objectionable or that are inaccurate or even false because of their right to freely express themselves. Can you clarify how the First Amendment applies and doesnt apply to social media platforms, like Twitter or Facebook, and online generally?

MINOW: I wrote a book to examine the challenges and decline of the news industry during a time of exploding misinformation and disinformation, a global pandemic, and great challenges to democracies in the United States and elsewhere. Certainly, one big dimension of this context is [what] some people are calling [an] infodemic: the flood of information that is enabled by the Internet, and particularly social media. But it is not just social media. Its conventional media, particularly cable news, but also some broadcast news.

Most of the sources of communications are private, and private communications are not governed by the First Amendment. Private companies are entitled to edit, elevate, suppress, remove [speech], whether its in broadcast, cable, or on a social media platform. Indeed, private companies have First Amendment freedoms against any government intervention. We in America are very fond of rights, and rights maybe are what hold us together more certainly than shared traditions, shared identities. And one of the ways thats really evolved is how we talk about rights as if its a cultural phenomenon or its part of our identities. But that kind of informal conversation about I have First Amendment freedom may be a metaphor on a social media platform, but it is not a legal right. We sign terms-of-service agreements with platform companies. Theyre the ones that control what is communicated and whats not. Thats much less edited than broadcast or cable or print media. So, were living in an unprecedented time of lowered barriers to communicating to mass audiences almost anybody can have access to a mass audience. But thats all enabled by private providers and the private providers are not restricted by the First Amendment in what they remove or amplify.

GAZETTE: What are a few of the measures that could effectively hold tech firms to account for what is published and shared on their platforms?

MINOW: When it comes to holding the platform companies responsible for conveying, amplifying, even escalating hateful communications, misinformation, [and] disinformation, there are some techniques, but we have to be careful because if the government is involved, then the First Amendment is front and center. The techniques include eliminating or reducing the immunity currently granted under the [1996] Communications Decency Act, which has a section, Section 230, that treats platform companies differently from any other media and specifically immunizes them from liabilities that apply to all these other entities. They include liabilities for fraud, for defamation, for violating contract terms. [But] even Section 230 does not immunize the platforms from criminal responsibility or from violations of intellectual property rights. So, one very direct step to hold companies responsible would be to either eliminate this immunity or make it conditional. I actually prefer that alternative.

Companies adopt and should adhere to standards of moderation, content moderation rules. They can develop their own, but the idea would be theyd have to announce standards; theyd have to report on them; and theyd have to have processes to act on anyone calling them out for violating their own standards. Thats pretty direct, and it would put them on the same par as all the other media entities that exist in the country.

Another possibility would be to take intellectual property seriously and make the platforms pay when they take or steal or promote information from other news sources. They dont put the revenues that they gain, particularly from advertising, back into investment in news. Its not a punishment; its simply the idea of holding them responsible like [the] grown-up companies that they are.

You know, the fact of the matter is, the big disinformation source is as much broadcast and cable [television as it is online] and on those, there is a basis for government regulation. The FCC could take that seriously and withhold licenses, remove them, terminate them, for companies that are misleading people, that are labeling as news something thats entirely opinion. Cable is largely a monopoly. Local communities grant franchises to cable companies; local communities could hold them more responsible. I dont look forward to a day, I hope we never see it, that the government, at any level, is deciding the content. But when there is scarce opportunity to amplify communications given to private companies, its only fair that they should have standards that they then deliver on [by] providing some quality control of what they amplify. There is no right to have your message sent to everybody in the world anywhere. What there is, is a right to be free from government restrictions on your speech. So, one very specific suggestion that I have is that when we deal with digital communications, there could be a delay, and there could be speed bumps. Before people can spread messages to large numbers of people, there could be a delay, they could even use artificial intelligence to monitor it before it can be spread beyond a handful of people.

GAZETTE: The era of self-policing hasnt worked very well so far, but you say there are things companies can and should be doing right now to act more responsibly and to help support the news. What are a few of those?

MINOW: I agree with you that self-regulation has not worked. Its striking to me that Mark Zuckerberg has said, in effect, We need help. We cant do it alone. And so, I think this is a problem thats bigger than any one company, and it does require government action. The government can act by enforcing, or strengthening and then enforcing, consumer protection rules, including rules about the uses of our data. The government can act by limiting the immunity granted to internet platforms and condition it on the development of codes of conduct that are then enforced. And the government can act by making rules that require sharing the information about the algorithms and their uses with a watchdog, whether academic or nonprofit organizations. We need to improve the entire ecosystem in which information circulates.

GAZETTE: Local news has been a vital part of that ecosystem. Government can support local news without necessarily wading into a First Amendment quagmire, you argue. What are some ways that could be accomplished?

MINOW: Local news is more trusted by people. Theres less polarization in local communities; theres more accountability. But with its decline, which is massive, theres a loss of accountability journalism in local communities and a loss of this ecosystem. And so, one thing to consider is to tax the big platforms and to cordon off the revenues that are generated and plow them back into supporting local news and public media and nonprofit media. Theres a Local Journalism Sustainability Act introduced in the Senate [in July], and it parallels a bipartisan [bill] in the House that uses tax deductions and tax credits to strengthen local news. One of the interesting ideas there is to give a tax break to local companies that buy ads in local news. Another is to relieve payroll taxes for nonprofits and for-profit local news if they hire more journalists. And finally, a dimension that I think is interesting but has its tricky elements, is to allow [tax] deductions for individuals who either subscribe to local news or make gifts to local news. Thats great in the sense that theres no government involvement. But its problematic in that we already know that they are disguises for disinformation, for foreign governments to pretend that they are nonprofit organizations in this country and to hijack whats otherwise a good idea. So that needs some work.

GAZETTE: So, not a government-funded news service, like Voice of America, but financial assistance for individual news organizations so they can continue working independently and ideally, thrive?

MINOW: That is whats being proposed, and it certainly poses many fewer worries. It is really to strengthen this ecosystem of public and private, multiple, diverse, news sources. [These are] especially needed in the local context where we have news deserts thousands of communities that have no local news. When Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, and the Department of Justice undertook a massive investigation exposing the way that the legal system relied on fines and fees on the backs of poor people, one of the things that emerged was there was no local news. Bad things happen where no one is watching.

Interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Excerpt from:

Martha Minow looks at ways government can stop disinformation - Harvard Gazette

Have you heard the good news about cancel culture on college campuses? Did you see the story about the university that didnt cancel the speaker?

Probably not.

We all know how the story usually goes: Someone on campus voices an unpopular perspective or makes a comment that is hurtful or insensitive to some group. Then, stage right, the angry mob enters. Public pressure mounts until someone in power yields to the grievance brigade.

A job is lost or some disciplinary action taken. A reputation is tarnished. Rinse and repeat.

But it turns out that many controversial campus events are actually held without deplatforming. And it is time to acknowledge those schools that get it right.

The impression many of us have is that anytime a conservative speaker steps one foot on campus, social justice warriors phone each other to decide what time to invite antifa to show up. Overlooked are the many heartening counterexamples.

In 2018, professor Jeffrey Sachs at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, made a big list of examples on Twitter of when controversial conservative speakers werent interrupted. While there were some instances of protesters or demonstrators, most of the events went off without a major hitch.

Youve probably heard of the rallies at the University of California, Berkeley, against Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro in past years; but, youve likely heard absolutely nothing about the long list of other controversial speakers who spoke on the same campus without incident. Some of the improvement in free speech on college campuses is thanks, at least in part, to the work of groups like Bridge U.S.A. which bring together left- and right-leaning students to foster civil exchanges. Yet, few of us hear about cases where universities get pressured about a given speaker, but choose not to relent.

They do the right thing, despite mounting pressure.

That happened at Utah Valley University this past spring, with the commencement talk of Sister Wendy Nelson. After getting pressure by activists on and off campus to cancel Sister Nelsons speech because of her traditional views on marriage and sexuality, university leaders did something brave. They stuck with their plans.

The decision was criticized by a few vocal activists as an administrative blunder. But it would be better to recognize this as an example of how any university can act with courage to promote diverse including religious perspectives on Americas increasingly dogmatic campuses. To be clear, any campus atmosphere should permit differing voices to advocate for positions and speakers they favor and to critique of those they do not. Yet, amid this back-and-forth, institutions need to be the adults in the room.

Too often, however, these institutions aimed at inquiry and the pursuit of truth cave and fold to public pressure, despite the fact that academia should be the quintessential space for exchanging ideas.

How frequently do such pressure campaigns and cancellations actually happen in higher education? Thankfully, someone has been paying close attention.

Sean Stevens, senior research fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), is one of the nations foremost advocates of free speech on college campuses. The foundation has been cataloguing a comprehensive Disinvitation Database of any episode where somebody tries to block or prevent a speaker from being featured on a college or university campus. With examples dating back to 1998, theres a total of 477 documented instances of public pressure campaigns to convince a university to cancel a speaker or event.

The good news: Out of those 477 events, a little more than half (53%) still took place when universities stood firm and refused to cancel. There are concerning signs, however.

According to another FIRE database, the number of sanctioning or targeting incidents against professors has risen dramatically in recent years with a fivefold increase between 2015 and 2020, peaking at 122 incidents nationally last year. The use of petitions as a means of demanding sanctions has also increased. The foundation found that targeting and sanction attempts are increasingly coming from undergraduate students, rather than other faculty or administration.

Interestingly, the pressure to cancel comes from both sides of the political spectrum. For instance, 60% of sanction attempts/targeting incidents against professors come from individuals and groups to the left of the scholar. However, 73% of death threats, harassment, and other forms of intimidation as a means of targeting scholars come from individuals and groups to the right of the scholar. In another trend, on-campus demands for sanctions tend to come from those to the left of the scholar, whereas off-campus demands tend to come from those to the right of the scholar.

And when it comes to unpopular speakers on campus, in 289 of the documented pressure campaigns, the intimidation came from the political left (e.g., against Ann Coulter, Ben Carson, Ben Shapiro, and Ivanka Trump). By comparison, in 134 of the pressure campaigns, the intimidation came from the political right (e.g., against Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Richard Dawkins, and Chelsea Manning, etc).

Its time to stop thinking about cancel culture as a problem unique to one side of the political spectrum and confront this as a challenge for all Americans to overcome. It can unite rather than divide us, and with campus life coming back post-COVID, these issues will likely begin to resurface.

Conservatives are, of course, facing unique constraints on many campuses today. One professor shared with me recently, How do we deal with the fact that many people in our communities think that particular (usually conservative) viewpoints shouldnt be expressed because they are inherently violent? (i.e. because another person feels they are a threat to their identity)?

After noting that a lot of disinvitation attempts occur at the same schools, Zachary Greenberg, also with FIRE, observed that once a school takes a strong stand against censorship and for free speech, it may deter attempts to persuade that school to disinvite speakers. Conversely, university acquiescence to disinvitation demands encourages more demands.

Having strong policies favoring free expression is perhaps best protector against pressure campaigns providing everyone on campus a basis to say, Were not able to do this not under our own rules. A second factor is when the university president comes out and says free expression is a paramount value for us in a way that provides cover for faculty and students alike.

So how well are schools doing in this regard? Based on a rating system developed to assess these kinds of speech policies across the 475 top universities in the nation, only a subset 56 schools do not, according to the foundation, evidence any serious threats to students free speech rights in the written policies on that campus. Some of these campuses have proactively established robust campus policies that nourish open inquiry (the University of Chicago, being the most famous). In the other direction, 94 schools have policies which have at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech which they define as unambiguously infring(ing) on what is, or should be, protected expression.

Free speech, of course, does not exist in a vacuum. And speech always has some reasonable constraints. Private religious schools, for example, might choose to affirm certain standards that would not be appropriate at a public university. But, the most pressing challenges to free speech today are typically less about religious dogmas and more about secular ones.

In a fascinating piece by New York Times, journalist Thomas Edsall quotes Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at Brookings, explaining some of the larger forces that seem to be encouraging an increasingly outward display of outrage among students and, especially, why it seems to be increasingly effective at shutting down speech on college campuses. Rauch summarizes:

In the same article, Randall Kennedy, a law professor at Harvard recounts how activists have learned to deploy skillfully the language of hurt as in I dont care what the speakers intentions were, what the speaker said has hurt my feelings and ought therefore to be prohibited. He encouraged leaders on campus to, become much more skeptical and tough-minded when encountering the language of hurt so as to avoid incentivizing those who deploy the specters of bigotry, privilege and trauma to further diminish vital academic, intellectual and aesthetic freedoms.

These are not minor concerns among a mere handful of campuses, as attested to by the more than 5,000 professors, administrators, graduate students and staff who have gathered to Heterodox Academy started by professor Jonathan Haidt at New York University which aims to foster a true exchange of ideas on college campuses.

Concerned individuals span the political spectrum, but to a person they worry about narrowing viewpoint and ideological diversity on campuses across the country. Through conferences and both written and online programming, this and other organization such as the Village Squares Respect and Rebellions campus program or Braver Angels college debate program, help encourage campuses to stop merely playing defensive, and instead proactively foster a healthy environment on campus. For those feeling on their heels, Heterodox Academy even publishes a guide to help navigate the realities of the modern university its titled, When Cancel Culture Comes for You: A Toolkit for Responding.

All universities should take steps to preserve space for thoughtful differences of opinion, within the principles of their respective missions. Utah Valley University provided a good model of how to do this in the spring, but there are others. And thats a fact we ought to celebrate and highlight if were to encourage more campuses to follow suit.

Jacob Hess served on the board of the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation and has worked to promote liberal-conservative understanding since his book with Phil Neisser, Youre Not As Crazy As I Thought (But Youre Still Wrong). His most recent book with Carrie Skarda, Kyle Anderson and Ty Mansfield, is The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints.

Correction: An earlier version misstated the location of Acadia University. It is in Nova Scotia, not Pennsylvania. It also misstated a statistic regarding universities response to controversy. The increase of 74 to 114 between 2019 and 2020 refers to instances of sanctions or targeting incidents against professors, not disinvitations of a public speaker.

See the original post here:

Not all universities have given into cancel culture | Opinion - Deseret News

from the [headed-to-the-ER-to-get-my-third-degree-stupid-burns-treated] dept

Grandstands and bandwagons: that's what's headed to Social Media Town. Professional victims -- far too many of them earning public money -- have produced a steady stream of stupid legislation targeting social media platforms for supposedly "censoring" the kind of the content they really like: "conservative views." Convinced by failed-businessman-turned-failed-president Donald Trump (and his herd of Capitol Hill toadies) that social media has it in for anyone but the leftiest leftists, a bunch of legislators have hacked up "anti-censorship" bills that aim to protect free speech by trampling on free speech.

The latest (but surely not the last) legislator to grab his bandstand and board the bandwagon is Wisconsin state Senator Julian Bradley. Bradley seems convinced his low Twitter polling must be due to social media companies keeping him down.

Big tech is silencing the things I say, Bradley explained Monday morning. They are silencing and shadow banning, theyre blocking any information that I am putting out.

And he has a message for Big Social Media:

"Free expression is one of the most vital components of our democratic republic. We must ensure our citizens can engage in political speech unfiltered and uncensored by Big Tech. It's time for Facebook and Twitter to consistently and fairly enforce their own rules."

How does Bradley hope to protect free speech from the censorship private companies can't actually commit? By violating their free speech rights, of course. From the bill [PDF] Bradley says he's filing but actually has yet to file [as of July 14th, anyway]:

The bill prohibits a social media platform from using post prioritization (prioritizing certain content ahead of, below, or in a more or less prominent position than others in a newsfeed, feed, view, or search results) on content or material posted by or about a candidate for state or local office or an elected official who holds a state, local, or national office.

The bill also prohibits a social media platform from knowingly censoring, deplatforming (deleting or banning from the social media platform for more than 60 days), or shadow banning (limiting or eliminating the exposure of a user, or content posted by a user, to other users of the social media platform) a candidate for state or local office or an elected official who holds a state, local, or national office.

This compelled speech that favors only certain people is shoved into the bill alongside language that says social media companies must treat everyone equally.

Under the bill, a social media platform must publish the standards it uses for determining how to censor, deplatform, and shadow ban users on the platform. A social media platform must apply censorship, deplatforming, and shadow banning standards in a consistent manner among its users on the platform.

All social media patrons must be treated equally... except for politicians and would-be politicians, who will be statutorily more equal than others. Failure to carry compelled speech or apply rules "consistently" will potentially cost social media companies hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions per claim). And "consistency" will be defined literally on a case-by-case basis since the new law would create a private cause of action against qualifying social media platforms.

Bradley doesn't seem to know or care whether his proposal is constitutional. All he knows is he's pretty sure it's ok for the government to compel speech when courts have ruled government officials can't cut off citizens from interacting with them.

Bradley is quick to point-out that judges have ruled lawmakers and other elected officials cannot block or ban people from commenting on their posts, even if those comments are negative or ugly. The courts have ruled, essentially, that social media is the new public town hall and some online speech is protected.

Bradley is right... at least as far as getting the gist of recent court decisions. But he's wrong when he clarifies his own position:

Bradley said he is using this same logic to say that social media platforms shouldn't be able to ban elected officials, no matter the language they use.

Ah. Well then. Good luck using that "same logic" in court. This isn't junior high debate class, you rube. This is the Constitution. "This same logic" doesn't apply when there are two very clear and very distinct sets of rules that govern private companies and public servants. Public servants can't prevent the public from participating in their own governance. Private companies are free to pick and choose whose content they'll host. And social media services have cut elected officials a lot of slack over the years, keeping accounts alive that would have been shut down much earlier if platforms enforced rules consistently.

Bradley wants to create a carve-out for public officials in both the Constitution and social media platforms' terms of service. That's utter bullshit and shouldn't be tolerated by either his government cohorts or the people he's supposed to be representing.

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Filed Under: 1st amendment, content moderation, julian bradley, section 230, social media, wisconsin

Read this article:

Wisconsin Senator's Social Media Bill Aims To Save The First Amendment By Violating The First Amendment - Techdirt

Justice Thomas signals the potential for regulation of social media platforms and their power over speech.

In early April, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of Biden v. Knight First Amendment Institute. The ruling was largely insignificant, as the Court held that the case was moot. The concurrence issued by Justice Clarence Thomas, however, sent both the legal world and many parts of the internet abuzz. In his opinion, Justice Thomas issued the first words from the Supreme Court concerning the current debate around the power of social media platforms, writing:

Todays digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors. Also unprecedented, however, is the concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties. We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms.

Although most Americans agree that social media companies have too much political power, consensus on the appropriate government response has been far more elusive. Some states have already begun to take some degree of action against perceived biases in online platforms. In Texas, for example, a proposed law would treat social media companies like common carriers and prohibit deplatforming based on viewpoint. Also, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed a law that would protect political candidates from being banned on social media.

Justice Thomass concurrence appears to favor a position similar to the proposed Texas law. In his opinion, he cited the 1994 case Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, in which the Court required cable operators to carry broadcast signals. Discussing Turner, Justice Thomas questioned whyif telephone companies are required to act as common carriersdigital platforms could not be treated in a similar fashion.

In addition, even accepting the private property arguments made by opponents of social media regulation, some form of regulation would not be unprecedented. In his opinion, Justice Thomas cited PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, in which the Court concluded that a state could require a shopping mall to allow protesters to engage in advocacy on private mall property. Similarly, the Court or a legislature could find that citizens have a constitutional right to voice their opinions on social media platforms, despite the private nature of these platforms.

If states begin to pass legislation requiring social media platforms to host any speaker under the reasoning of PruneYard, they could set up a legal battle with the platforms that have used Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a justification for free reign in curating the users of their services. In analyzing Justice Thomass opinion, law professor Eugene Volokh of the University of California, Los Angeles wrote that the justice is anticipating what might be done through legislation, and whether new state laws that do treat platforms as common carriers (more or less) are going to be seen as blocked by the First Amendment or Section 230. Volokh predicts that is an issue the Court will likely have to deal with in coming years. Unless something changes dramatically in how social media companies operate or in the state of political discourse, it seems almost inevitable that this debate will come to a head in the courts.

Much of the current debate echoes similar discussions throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s about the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine required broadcasters that devoted a portion of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest to also air contrasting views on those matters. The fairness doctrine was at the center of the case Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission. It was upheld by the Supreme Court but the FCC abandoned the doctrine in 1987. Some commentators have noted that Justice Thomass opinion sounds like a call for a revival of some form of the fairness doctrine.

As a concurrence, Justice Thomass opinion does not set any precedent. But it signals that at least one justice is concerned with the current state of the First Amendment. After decades in which online platforms have relied on the protections afforded them by Section 230, is some form of platform regulation possible?

It seems unlikely that a majority of the Court will decide in the foreseeable future to curtail the independence of social media platforms. Law professor Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas at Austin noted that the bigger story behind Justice Thomass opinion is that no other member of the Court chose to join him.

For now, the Court is not likely to move one way or another on social media regulation. If, however, some of the proposed state legislation on the matter becomes law, the Court may not have any choice but to address the issue.

Eric Cervone is a lawyer who writes about issues relating to free speech.

Read more:

What Is the Future of Social Media Regulation? - The Regulatory Review

Four years after Charlottesvilles initial push to remove Confederate monuments, four plinths formerly holding icons of white supremacy and colonial oppression now stand bare. The crowds observing each removal were fairly small and supportive, cheering and chanting F**k white supremacy! as each bronze piece was lifted off its base. In 2021, its clear now that deplatformingstatues and iconoclasts of the alt-rightis an effective method of disempowering those who wish to terrorize anyone who disagrees with them and clearing space for positive change to creep in.

The monuments, all erected in the 1920s, have served as a rallying point for white supremacy since their dedication ceremonies. The Gen. Robert E. Lee statue, in particular, has been a lightning rod for conversations around race and whiteness. The park in which it stood was long called Lee Park. Its presence served as a looming reinforcement of the threat behind Jim Crow laws. In June 2017, the city renamed it Emancipation Park, but changed the name to Market Street Park in 2018.

Lets look at the three rallies and protests that occurred in response to the proposal to remove the Lee statue. First, you have May 13, 2017. This was when Richard Spencer and his goons showed up with tiki torches, shouting you will not replace us. This followed a 3-2 city council vote to remove the statues and sell them.

Then you have July 8, 2017. The KKK showed up, some 50 strong, to protest the statue removal. This followed a new statute in effect that allowed the City to recontextualize the Confederate monuments, thus altering an injunction that had stopped removal prior.

Finally, there was August 12, 2017, the one most familiar to the rest of the world. This was the Unite the Right rally, during which a neo-Nazi drove his car into protestor Heather Heyer, killing her. Each of these was centered around and in reaction to the citys ongoing efforts to remove these statues.

When I was canvassing for Gov. Northam in the fall of 2017 in Roanoke, my door-to-door conversations were often sidetracked by angry white men. They wouldnt vote for Northam, despite having voted Democrat all their lives, if he was in favor of removing Virginias monuments. This happened both in Charlottesville and Richmond, in particular.

Thats history, they said to me, over and over.

What I didnt have the time or the energy to explain has since become more commonly known: most of these statues were erected by Confederate descendents in the the early 1900s as part of the re-establishment of apartheid laws after the failure of the federal government to follow through on reconstruction efforts to protect Black Americans. The monuments in Richmond were used to signal whites-only neighborhoods around Monument Ave. These men I spoke with were right, these monuments were historybut not the kind of history they meant.

At the same time, were having a circular national conversation about critical race theory. Its wrongly framed by conservatives as an educational method designed to make white people feel guilty about their privilege. Instead, its a legal theory of understanding how racism has been intentionally woven into the fabric of our legal and justice systems. During a time like this, the monuments finally coming down feels significant.

Understanding these as symbols of a violent threat, around which terrorism against Black Americans has been rallied since their installation, is vital to understanding what kind of history these represented. They werent about the Lost Cause. They were about how the cause was reinvented and dressed up in niceties so that the violence could be shown as incidental, not deliberate and systemic.

This is why it was important to remove more than just Lee and Jackson. Its why George Rogers Clark on the UVA campus, flanked with a soldier pointing a gun at a Native woman holding an infant, had to come down too. This is why Lewis and Clark, with Sacagewea crouching behind them, had to come down too.

The mythology of an empty wilderness, the mythology of the savagethese have been just as vital as the mythology of what the Civil Wars end did and did not do to end apartheid in the US to upholding white supremacy with the fallback of performative naivete for the purposes of numbing the self against ongoing oppression.

As we celebrate the removal of these monuments, lets examine what other mythological relics weve maintained. This might feel like a triumph, but without ongoing reform of the institutions and communities that erected them in the first place, it will just become another token piece of performance art to soothe the white conscience.

Read more from the original source:

Ettinger: Virginia's Monuments Are Historical, Just Not The Way You Think - The Dogwood

DALLASIt comes at no surprise that disdain for mainstream media was a common theme among both attendees and speakers at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference, held last weekend in Dallas, Texas.

I love CPAC because it blows up the fake news narrative of the liberal media time and time again, Kimberly Guilfoyle said in a speech to the crowd on Friday afternoon.

Jeff Johnson, an attendee who sells large-print copies of the Declaration of Independence, echoed the sentiment. The liberal media is glossing things over and were just being destroyed, Johnson said. Were being destroyed by evil.

But skepticism and disdain of the press at CPAC has drifted and found a surprising targetone of the major sponsors of the event, Fox.

Richard Hedges, who drove from Houston to the Dallas confab, said he hasnt watched Fox News since November, when he said the outlet became increasingly anti-Trump. While Hedges said he occasionally watches NewsMax, he said he mostly reads things he finds online.

The far-right Gateway Pundit picked up on the CPAC trend, boasting in an article that attendees are removing their lanyards because Fox News streaming service, Fox Nation, is listed as a marquee sponsor.

Fox Nation sponsored the whole CPAC, and then theyre deplatforming Ivory [Hecker] when shes talking at CPAC with Project Veritas, said Beth Anne Keller. Its horrifying. Its like we are in Communist China screw you Murdoch.

On Saturday, The Daily Beast witnessed Ivory Hecker accusing a Fox staffer of censorship. You cut the live feed while I was speaking on stage last night, Hecker said. He later posted a video of the confrontation on Twitter.

A spokesperson for Fox Nation said the feed was never cut and that the service had already stopped streaming the event.

Hecker previously worked for the local Fox outlet in Houston until she was fired after interrupting a live on-air report to accuse the station of muzzling her.

Several women in Heckers videos said they dont watch Fox. I will never watch Fox. I watch One America News Network, one said. Thats all I watch.

While the majority of Republicans still say they regularly watch Fox News, according to two recent polls in March, the same polls suggest a growing core of conservatives are increasingly gravitating toward far-right outlets like Newsmax or One America News Network.

This shift occurs at a time when the share of Republicans who trust the media is at an all time low. As of 2020, only 10 percent of Republicans say they trust the media a great deal, compared to 73 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of independents.

These changes in media habits appear to be reflected in the media habits of CPAC attendees. Out of dozens of attendees that were asked by The Daily Beast, fewer than half said they regularly watch Fox. Most said they dont trust mainstream media at all.

Carl Lautenschlager, who came in from Washington state, felt similarly. He said he never watches Fox and occasionally watches Newsmax. Lautenschlager said he mostly reads things he finds on Telegram channels or CloutHub. CloutHub is a social networking app similar to Parler that has become popular among conservatives as fringe-right influences have been banned from Twitter and Facebook.

For those who said Fox News was a part of their regular media diet, some emphasized that it was a decreasingly significant part.

Sometimes I watch Fox, but I dont like it anymore, said Jamie Honeycutt, a resident of a suburb of Dallas. Honeycutt said she likes The Epoch Times, but also relies on Ground News, an app that allows her to compare news stories from different sources.

While Honeycutt said she occasionally watched Newsmax, she said wasnt as much of a fan of outlets like OANN, which she believes are too divisive. It depends on what your end goal is, Honeycutt said. Do you want a civil war, or do you want to bring the country together?

Grizzly Joe, a conservative podcast host who made headlines on CNN for saying that Trump lost the election, said that he does still watch Fox News, and that those who no longer do are upset over Foxs decision to call the election for Biden.

A lot of those people are people who got angry because Fox called the election too early, podcast host Grizzly Joe said. The people who say dont watch Fox News are very set in their beliefs and are not interested in hearing other views.

According to research by FiveThirtyEight, Republicans who get their news from OANN or Newsmax tend to be more extreme in their beliefs. Those who prefer OANN and Newsmax are more likely to believe in QAnon theories, to oppose getting vaccinated, and to agree that the election was stolen.

Joe said he occasionally watches Newsmax, a growing favorite among CPAC attendees, but said that some outlets are too fringe for his taste. I cannot watch One America News Network, because if I pay to watch them, Im also supporting InfoWars, because theyre a part of the same package.

Joe said his disdain for InfoWars stems from the conspiracies they peddled after 9/11. My earliest knowledge of them and Mr. Jones is that they were 9/11 truthers who say it was a setup, Joe said. I was an NYPD officer on 9/11. I was there. I have very little patience for anybody that said 9/11 was a setup.

But plenty of attendees didnt hold the same reservations with supporting outlets that increasingly traffic in conspiracy theories.

Darrin Martin, an oil and gas executive from the Frisco area, said that he still regularly watches Fox News, and while he occasionally tunes in to CNBC and CNN, he increasingly supplements it with OANN and Newsmax.

I think theyre all good, Martin said. Just different sources.

Read more here:

CPAC Attendees Turn on Conference SponsorFox Nation - The Daily Beast

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.

Last month, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure to radically overhaul how social media companies operate in his state. Under its provisions, sites like Twitter and Facebook would be prohibited from banning from their platforms elected officials who violated the sites terms of service. The pretext of the legislation, which included a hilarious but sort of incongruous exemption for Disney+, was obviousit was a response to former President Donald Trumps banishment from Twitter and Facebook for cheering on an insurrection. Equally obvious was the measures unconstitutionality. A governor cannot dictate a private companys speech; there is no constitutional right to post.

And sure enough, after a challenge from tech companies, on Wednesday a federal judge in Florida issued a preliminary injunction against the law, finding that it would likely violate the First Amendment.

DeSantis vowed to appeal, of course, and so this cycle will likely just repeat itself again a few months down the line. But the whole episode is clarifying. Earlier this year I wrote about the outsized place that content creation has taken in conservative politics. Much like a child repeating a curse word because they heard it from their parents, when a new generation of conservatives treats shitposting as the end-point of politics, you know they learned it from Trump. The ex-president often substituted the performance of governing for the real thinglook no further than the daily coronavirus briefings last yearand held elaborate signing ceremonies for what were essentially press releases. Everything was a product, packaged for consumption via an increasingly online conservative media:

Big Tech and cancel culture have emerged as key villains for the new right, not just because of how neatly they fit into long-standing tropes about cosmopolitan elites, but because so much of modern conservatism lives online. Offline, there are issues that warrant serious attention from one of the nations two governing partiescities without water, cities soon to be underwater, whole states without power, and a world still suffering from a deadly virus. But with a nudge from Trump, the right has become ever more dissociated from reality, channeling its energy into an endless series of fights over deplatforming and whos triggering whom. During the Obama years, a Breitbart provocateur interrupted a White House press conference to complain about losing his Twitter verification badge. Then, it was a sideshow; now, its the whole point.

The Florida law was a natural product of this ecosystem. Which is why, while a major piece of legislation getting gutted by the courts would be damaging for a policy-centered Democratic administration, Wednesdays injunction is sort of the best of both world for DeSantis. It frees him to continue railing against the evils of Big Tech (now clearly in league with unaccountable liberal judges!) without never having to implement the law itself. Just throw in some critical race theory (which Florida, at DeSantis urging, also banned) and this whole fight would contain the entirety of Biden-era conservative thought. The whole party is a television show now.

Read the original post:

Ron DeSantis' Deplatforming Bill Is Deplatformed and Everyone WinsBut Also Loses Mother Jones - Mother Jones