Caution: Free Speech May Be Hazardous to Your Health. Such a rewording of theoriginal 1965 warningon tobacco products could soon appear on social media platforms, if a Senate hearing this week is any indicator. Listening toformer Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, senators decried how Facebook is literally killing people by not censoring content, and Haugen proposed a regulatory board to protect the public.

But before we embrace a new ministry of information model to protect us from dangerous viewpoints, we may want to consider what we would lose in this Faustian free-speech bargain.

Warnings over the addiction and unhealthy content of the internet have been building into a movement for years.In July,President BidenJoe BidenMajority of Americans concerned about cyberattacks on critical groups: poll Labor secretary says 194K jobs added in September was 'not the best number' Biden task force has reunited 52 families separated under Trump: report MORE slammed Big Tech companies for killing people by failing to engage in even greater censorship of free speech on issues related to the pandemic.On Tuesday, many senators were enthralled by Haugens testimony because they, too, have long called for greater regulation or censorship. It all began reasonably enough over concerns about violent speech, and then expanded to exploitative speech. However, it continued to expand even further as the regulation of speech became an insatiable appetite for silencing opposing views.

In recent hearings with social media giants, members like Sen. Chris CoonsChris Andrew CoonsDemocratic lawmakers, Yellen defend Biden on the economy Sunday shows - Scalise won't say if election was stolen under questioning from Fox's Chris Wallace Democrat on controversial Schumer speech: Timing 'may not have been the best' MORE (D-Del.) were critical of limiting censorship to areas like election fraud and insteaddemanded censorship of disinformation on climate changeand other subjects. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has repeatedly called for robust content modification to remove untrue or misleading information.

Haugen lashed out at what she said was the knowing harm committed against people, particularly children, byexposing them todisinformation or unhealthy views. Haugen wants the company to remove toxic content and change algorithms to make such sites less visible. She complained that sites with a high engagement rate are more likely to be favored in searches. However, the problem is that sites deemed false or harmful are too popular. Haugen said that artificially removing likes is not enough because the popularity or interest in some sites will still push them to the top of searches.

It was a familiar objection. Just the week before,Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenBuilding back better by investing in workers and communities Throttling free speech is not the way to fix Facebook and other social media Senate poised to stave off debt crisis MORE (D-Mass.) called for Amazon to steer readers to true books on climate change.Her objection was that the popularity of misleading books was pushing them to the top of searches, and she wants the algorithms changed to help readers pick what she considers to be healthier choices meaning, more in line with her views.

Similarly, Haugens solution seems to be well, her:Right now, the only people in the world who are trained to analyze these experiments, to understand what is happening inside there needs to be a regulatory home where someone like me could do a tour of duty afterworking at a place like [Facebook],and have a place to work on things like regulation. Censorship programs always begin with politicians and bureaucrats who in their own minds have the benefit of knowing what is true and the ability to protect the rest of us from our harmful thoughts.

Ironically, I have long been a critic of social media companies for their rapid expansion of censorship, including the silencing ofpolitical critics,public health expertsandpro-democracy movementsat the behest of foreign governments like China and Russia. I am unabashedly aninternet originalistwho favors an open, free forum for people to exchange ideas and viewpoints allowing free speech to be its own disinfectant of bad speech.

Facebook has been running a slick campaignto persuade people to embrace corporate censorship.Yet, now, even the Facebook censors are being denounced as too passive in the face of runaway free speech. The focus is on the algorithms used to remove content or, as with Haugen and Warren, used to flag or promote popular sites.

Haugen describes her approach as a non-content-based solution but it is clearly not that.She objects to algorithms like downstream MSI which tracks traffic and pushes postings based on past likes or comments. Asexplained by one site, it is based on their ability to engage users, not necessarily its usefulness or truthfulness.Of course, the objection to those un-useful sites is their content and claimed harm.

Like Warren, Haugen is calling for what I have criticized as enlightened algorithms to protect us from our own bad choices.Our digital sentinels are non-content-based but will magically remove bad content to prevent unhealthy choices.

There is no question that the internet is fueling an epidemic of eating disorders and other great social problems. The solution, however, is not to create regulatory boards or to reduce free speech. Europe has long deployed such oversight boards inremoving what it considers harmful stereotypesfrom advertising andbarring images of honey or chips but the results have been underwhelming at best.

It is no accident that authoritarian countries have long wanted such regulation, since free speech is a threat to their power. Now, we also have U.S. academics writing that China was right all along about censorship, and public officials demanding more power to censor further. We have lost faith in free speech, and we are being told to put our faith into algorithmic guardians.

We can confront our problems more effectively by using good speech to overcome bad speech. When it comes to minors, we can use parents to protect their children by increasing parental controls over internet access; we can help parents with more or better programs and resources for mental illnesses. Of course, it is hard to advocate for restraint when the image of an anorexic child is juxtaposed against the abstract concept of free speech. However, that is the sirens call of censorship: Protecting that child by reducing her free-speech rights is no solution for her but it is a solution for many who want more control over opposing views.

Free speech is not some six-post-a-day addiction that should be cured with algorithmic patches. There is no such thing as a content-neutral algorithm that removes only harmful disinformation because behind each of those enlightened algorithms are people who are throttling speech according to what they deem to be harmful thoughts or viewpoints.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates on Twitter@JonathanTurley.

Excerpt from:

Throttling free speech is not the way to fix Facebook and other social media | TheHill - The Hill

There are still a couple of months left to meet the 2021 calendar, but we can already assure you that this years big surprise was The Squid Game, the streaming service series Netflix which arrived on September 17 and to this day continues to be the most chosen by subscribers of the platform around the world. However, it is not all good news, as news came from Belgium that alerted parents.

Several people at risk of exclusion and with serious financial problems receive a mysterious invitation to participate in a game. 456 contestants of all kinds and conditions end up locked in a secret place where they must compete in several games to win 45.6 billion won. Its about traditional Korean childrens games (red light, green light, etc.), but the losers die. Who will win and what is the point of the game? , marks the synopsis of the show.

According to what various local media in Belgium have spread, they discovered students from a school in the Erquelinnes commune recreating one of the games in the program and has already attracted the attention of both the authorities of the nation and the parents themselves for the degree of violence they began to see in children.

One of the first tests of the Netflix series is Red light, green light, which consists of the participants having to approach a giant doll when it shouts Green light, but when he intoned Red light all contestants had to be immobilized. In the case of any movement, they were brutally murdered. In the case of the school in Belgium, the same methodology was followed, but the punishment consisted of receiving a strong blow to the face.

We are very vigilant to stop this unhealthy and dangerous game, they communicated from the local schools, in addition to the call of the directors to the parents so that children do not have any type of eye contact with what is shown in The Squid Game. Although some have spoken out for it to be censored, those responsible for Netflix in Belgium they have not made reference to this and it is expected that everything will continue without modifications.

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Excerpt from:

Controversy over possible censorship of The Squid Game in Belgium - Market Research Telecast

Perched nude and contrapposto at the Galleria dellAccademia in Florence, Michelangelos David is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture. Visitors to Expo 2020 Dubai now have the chance to see a 3D-printed reproduction of the chiseled marble statue, but only from the shoulders up. The replica stands 23 feet tall within the Italian pavilions octagonal two-story gallery, but only diplomats and VIPs will have exclusive access to the pavilions lower floorand unimpeded views of Davids undercarriage.

Italian media is decrying the decision. When the statue was uncovered and seen by the Emiratis, there was enormous embarrassment, an anonymous Italian source told La Repubblica. We even considered putting underpants on him or changing the statue, but it was too late. Art critic Vittorio Sgarbi describes it as an unprecedented, unacceptable, intolerable humiliation made in deference to Islamic tradition. While not stated outright, its believed that artistic director Davide Rampello reckoned with concerns over showing the heroic male nude in front of conservative Emiratis.

Rampello denied the allegations of censorship. According to him, the decision was purely functionalto allow visitors to see David from eye level, a vastly different and more personal perspective than what tourists typically enjoy in Florence. An Emirati tour guide, meanwhile, doesnt seem to mind: We look at nudity as something which shouldnt be displayed but in practice, when it comes to art, I feel people are opening up to it.

The censored David will be on display in the Italian Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai until March 31, 2022.

Read the rest here:

Censorship of David Replicas Manhood Stirs Controversy in Dubai - Surface Magazine

Is keeping up with all of the attacks on intellectual freedom getting tiring? Of course it is. But to keep these conversations going and ignite change, we need to continue bringing up challenges and books being pulled in order to highlight exactly how wide spread and endemic this is.

Each of these stories hit the news in recent weeks, ranging from an author being uninvited from an event in Katy, Texas, to a Hudson, Ohio, mayor demanding school board members resign over a books writing prompt, showcase the ways and means censorship is alive and well in the U.S.

Read and understand whats at stake in each of these stories and then, whether youre local or not, take steps to help put these books back on shelves where they belong. This guide to how to fight book bans and challenges will help you find the right way for you to get involved however you can.

In Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston, award-winning author and illustrator Jerry Craft was uninvited from his scheduled event to speak to 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students. Parents called his New Kid graphic novel an example of Critical Race Theory, which is not allowed to be taught under Texas law. (It is not, of course, a book about or in any way, shape, or form, related to Critical Race Theory).

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From Katy Magazine Online:

Katy mom Bonnie Anderson received the flyer from her twin third graders school, like many Katy parents did.

I review all of their instructional material whether its a math worksheet or something like this, says Bonnie Anderson, who previously ran for a Katy ISD Board of Trustee position.

Anderson read Jerry Crafts books and grew concerned over how racism was presented in them and believes they push a critical race theory curriculum.

According to Anderson, the book depicts white children displaying microaggressions to children [of] color. She admits that the books do not come out and say, we want white children to feel like oppressors, but that is what she feels the books do.

SB 3739 became law on September 1 and prohibits schools from presenting critical race theory material in social studies.

This is very subversive because they arent calling it Critical Race Theory and its not being presented in social studies, says Anderson.

Anderson created a petition that had 500 signatures before Change.org removed it for violating their policies.

The book is being reviewed by the district and Craft has been invited to speak again just outside the school day.

A single prompt in a book used to help students generate writing is at the center of the Hudson, Ohio, mayors ire. The book, 642 Things to Write About, used in one college-level credit class in the high school called Writing in the Liberal Arts II, has prompts in it parents have complained about. Mayor Craig Shubert said the board should resign or face criminal charges for exposing kids to child pornography.

From the Akron Beacon Journal:

One speakersaid he was appalled by the content and requested that cameras be put into the classroom so parents could monitor what is being taught to their children. Another speaker said the materialwas disgusting and that it amounted to grooming.

Shubert on Monday night gave the board an ultimatum.It has come to my attention that your educators are distributing essentially what is child pornography in the classroom, Shubert told the board.Ive spoken to a judge this evening. Shes already confirmed that. So Im going to give you a simple choice: You either choose to resign from this board of education or you will be charged.

His statement was met with cheers and applause from many of the audience members.

The mayor said he would like to see all five members resign by the end of the month.

Its not clear whether the board can be held criminally liable formaterial that was being used in a class.

Ohio has a new law effective as of September 30 that will allow parents of high schoolers taking part in college-level classes to review the material being used.

The headline for this piece is deceiving, which does some injustice to anti-censorship work. Last week, Kelly Yangs middle grade, New York Times bestselling and award-winning book Front Desk was stopped as a classroom read aloud in Plainedges Eastplain Elementary School. The book wasnt at the center of a ban, but rather, the center of attempted censorship the book wasnt actively being pulled from shelves (it was temporarily for review, per district policy) but from the opportunity of a read-aloud. This distinction may seem minimal, but its not. A book being pulled from a read-aloud is censorship, but it is not an outright ban. The book is back in the classroom.

Whats especially interesting in this case is the complaint not only of Critical Race Theory its a book about an immigrant girl but specifically, its anti-police rhetoric in a community that is home to 200 New York Police Department officers.

From Yahoo News:

This authors books are extremely divisive and controversial, and we are shocked and disappointed that this CRT book is part of Plainedges teachings, wrote the parent behind the letter, referring to the controversialcritical race theory a teaching methodology that acknowledges the role of systemic racism in shaping American history, with tenets including racism has always existed according to screenshotsposted to Yangs Instagram.

The letter continued, Our children are not to be audiences to any books that portray cops as racist, foster the notion of white supremacy or white privilege, teach that America is a racist country where all people are not equal etc.

According to Yang and reports on social media, her book was temporarily banned until the district came to the decision to reinstate it in classrooms while giving parents the choice to opt-out their children from reading it. Those who do opt out, according to the unidentified parent who had been tweeting out details of the unfolding situation, will instead readHome of the Brave,a middle-grade book about an African immigrant written by Katherine Applegate, who responded to the decision by tweeting about how she had bought 20 copies ofFront Desk.

Reiterating the distinction here matters. The book is available again, which is a win. But its a dangerous precedent: teachers now need to worry about the books they can read aloud to their entire class, knowing it can at any time be subject to complaint. This is where quiet censorship thrives not in the big bans, but in the smaller scenarios like this.

We reported on the uniquely challenging book challenge happening in Campbell County, Wyoming, earlier in the week. Librarians were threatened with charges for carrying sex education books in the collection.

As of this week, six of the 35 challenged books were advanced to the final step in the review process and retained in the collection. One of those books advanced to a further step level five where the original complaint seeks further review because they were unsatisfied with the outcome.

The six books retained so far include A Quick Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identitiesby Mandy G. and Jules Zuckerberg,This Book Is Gayby Juno Dawson,Trans Mission: My Quest for a Beardby Alex Bertie,The V-Word: True Stories about First-Time Sexby Amber J. Keyser,Mary Wears What She Wantsby Keith Negley andMeenaby Sine van Mol.

Dawsons book is the title moving to another round of review.

Bastrop, Texas, becomes the third school district with parents challenging Ashley Hope Prezs award-winning novel Out of Darkness. We reported on Lake Travis ISDs challenge last week, where an unhinged parent whod lost the election for a seat on the board this year complained about the books depiction of anal sex. The historical novel indeed has a scene in it with anal sex, but the context of that scene is vital in understanding power and race then and now.

What shes reading from, explained Prez on Instagram, is from a part of the book where the whole point is to capture the utterly relentless sexual objectification and racialization the Mexican American main character endures.

Earlier this fall, Leander Independent School District banned the book, along with several others.

Now Bastrop parents are weighing in, asking the school district to remove the book from libraries. They, like parents in Leander, also complained about Lawn Boy.

From the Austin American Statesman:

Two concerned mothers voiced their frustrations to school trustees Tuesday duringthe public comments period of the boards meetingand read aloud frombooks with explicit imagery that they said areavailable in school libraries.But before reading from the book, Kim Dunlap offered other parents at the meeting a warning to keep their young children from listening.

They may not want to hear this, though they can read it in our library, she said.

Dunlap recited a sentence from Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison: I sucked his (explitive) [sic] and he sucked mine.

Why are we allowing that to be available to our children? Dunlap asked the school board. Is anyone OK with that because I know Im sure as hell not.

Kristi Lee, the districts spokesperson, said Dunlap was referring to the wrong book. The school library, she said, has Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen, a humorous book recommended for middle schoolers about a young boy who learns about capitalism when his grandparents give him a lawnmower.

Lee confirmed that the districts high school libraries do carry Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Prez, which includes the sexually suggestive material, brought up at Tuesdays school board meeting.

Whats clear in this situation is the copycat effort to remove books from shelves across suburban Austin. The parent complaining elected the same titles being challenged in Leander and in Lake Travis, failing to even look at the librarys collection to see there was no Lawn Boy by Evison.

Only Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen.

Groups like these continue to band together and seek out opportunities to censor whats available to students. These efforts replicate and play out in similar patterns, ensuring their morality standards are universal, rather than one part of a larger range of freedoms to think, read, and speak.

How about a frustrating story but in a different manner?

Last week, a couple of board members at Mid-Continent Public Library were blasted for their comments about the librarys banned books week display and honoring of intellectual freedom. Theyre being asked to step down from their positions, given that their voices counter the freedoms which the library and their positions as governance of that library stand for.

From NPR:

In bright red lettering surrounded by paper flames and yellow caution tape, the display reads, Caution: These books are dangerous! Like many others in libraries across the country this week, the display at the North Independence Branch location is meant to highlight the value of free and open access to information a key aim for Banned Books Week.

But three members of the librarys board of trustees took issue on Facebook with the display.

Appalling, Yummy Pandolfi and board Vice President Michael Lazio posted online. Pandolfi continued, Im saddened by this lack of judgment from library employees.

You are crossing a line thats not yours to cross, wrote trustee Michelle Wycoff, in a now-deleted Facebook comment. Influencing someone elses children like this is unacceptable quite frankly.

This isnt the first expression of the boards anti-queer, anti-intellectual freedom stance for the library.

Austin Gragg, a former MCPL employee, said the comments are just the latest in a string of anti-intellectual and anti-LGBTQ views that he said has no place on the librarys board. Those views, he said, have caused some queer former employees to leave their jobs at the library.

It really does seem that these board members are more interested in not only furthering political goals, but treating the library board as a political country club, said Gragg, who is helping organize a group of current and former library employees who want to see the trustees off the board.

Read this piece to look at the history of the boards discriminatory behavior and where and how the library and community are working to get these politically driven appointees recalls from their seats.

Go here to read the rest:

Censorship Attempts in Texas, New York, and More - Book Riot

How convenient that Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen just gave the social network another excuse to crack down on conservative content.

In her congressional testimony Tuesday, Haugen, a data scientist, called on Congress to enact more regulations on her former employer to combat misinformation on the platform, saying the company puts profits over public safety.

At issue for Haugen is Facebooks algorithm, which in 2018 the company changed to prioritize high-engagement content, thereby contributing according to Haugen to increased divisiveness and polarization among users. Haugen even went so far as to say that Facebooks switching off of safeguards after the 2020 election led to the Jan. 6 US Capitol riot.

Fast forward a couple months, we got the insurrection, she said in an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Whatever you think of the Capitol riot, Facebook did not cause it. The way Haugen used the word insurrection hinted of her likely progressive-lefty politics revealing her true motives. And what Haugen means by safeguards is no doubt censoring of conservative content, in a way Post readers know all too well.

Thats her main objective: censorship. She wants a complete overhaul of the content-moderation rules on Facebook, including an independent governmental body overseeing such changes. And as a good progressive, she pushes these new regulations under the guise of safety.

Facebook has demonstrated they cannot act independently, Haugen told 60 Minutes. The company over and over again chooses its profits over safety. It is subsidizing it is paying for its profits with our safety, and Im hoping that this will have a big enough impact on the world that they get the fortitude and the motivation to actually go put those regulations into place.

Like clockwork, a couple of hours after Haugens congressional testimony, Facebooks Director of Policy Communications Lena Pietsch jumped on Haugens push for more regulations.

We dont agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about, Pietsch said in a statement. Despite all this, we agree on one thing; its time to begin to create standard rules for the Internet. Its been 25 years since the rules for the Internet have been updated, and instead of expecting the industry to make societal decisions that belong to legislators, it is time for Congress to act.

It seems like Haugen and Facebook have been on the same side this entire time. And it makes sense, as Haugen doesnt actually want to break up Facebook.

Instead, shed like the company to remain a billion-dollar monopoly imposing extreme-content regulations on its users. All while this is overseen by a federal agency created at her behest and staffed, no doubt, by former Facebook employees.

Haugen did leak some important information on Facebooks coverup of Instagrams negative effects on teen girls mental health (although who doesnt know this to be true?) and its lax treatment of drug cartels and human traffickers on its platform. But her drive for censorship wont remotely fix those issues.

Her objective is censorship. She wants Facebook and Instagram and all social-media companies, for that matter to enact safeguards to combat misinformation and hate.However, given the hyper-politicized arena and the Democrats past form for weaponizing supposedly impartial government agencies to push a progressive-elitist agenda, many will assume thismeans banning of conservative content or that which is negative to the Democratic Party.

It is one thing to propose an independent body to force Big Tech platforms to reveal the mechanics behind their algorithmicmachines of virality to spark a transparent discussion about how information is distributed and controlled. But it is far more perilous to police what is acceptable or fact. Without proper independence and rigor, it has been proven time and again that what is deemed fact and what is not merely depends on whether the person in charge wants it to be.

In this case, without once defining either misinformation, or hate, (again, the subtext was clearly right-wing content all along), Haugen opened the door for all content Silicon Valley dislikes to be banned.

If that happens, say goodbye forever to stories like The Posts expos of Hunter Bidens e-mails, which Facebook banned. Or suggestions that COVID may have originated at the Wuhan lab the theme of another squelched Post column long before the idea gained broader acceptance.

Some whistleblower, Frances Haugen. She just gave Big Tech and its progressive buddies the go-ahead to ramp up its censorship and control of the American public.

Victoria Marshall is the Collegiate Network Fellow atThe Post.

See the original post here:

What Facebook 'whistleblower' Frances Haugen really wants: more censorship of conservative views - New York Post

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, the Daily Wires Ian Haworth, host of the Ian Haworth Show and a former Facebook software engineer, joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss hisarticle Facebook Releases Content Distribution Guidelines, Will Target Untrusted News and his time on the fact-checking and misinformation teams at Facebook.

The whole point of the fact-checking organization or arm of the company was to add a layer of truth to things. Whether or not you agree with fact-checking it at all, the goal was to push something forward as is this true or not true? and give people more tools to handle information. But now if theyre demoting things via the fact-checking arm without actually fact-checking, then its really just an abuse of power in another way thats going to impact conservatives even harder, Haworth said.

Haworth said its right to be skeptical of Big Techs influence and inclination towards censorship but he is optimistic about change.

I think there are a lot of people who just want their tools to be used for people for the good. And I think if we can create a culture that mirrors what we believe to be a bit more moderate than what we have right now, I think some elements of Big Tech will follow suit. Id like to be slightly optimistic in that manner, Haworth said.

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Former Facebook Engineer On Censorship And The Future Of Big Tech - The Federalist

Former BBC producer Patrick Howse explores why the broadcaster is unwilling to speak truth to power over Brexit

A recent exchange on BBC Question Time told us a lot about the current state of the country, and the BBCs reporting of it. Supply chain problems resulting from a lack of lorry drivers was the issue being discussed. As the vast majority of people acknowledge, Brexit has undoubtedly played a role in this crisis.

A man in the audience told presenter Fiona Bruce that there was a bit of an irony in the current situation because, in his opinion, a lot of people voted Brexit because they didnt want foreign workers coming over here and taking their jobs. And now thats exactly what weve got weve got a lack of foreign workers, which is why weve got these shortages.

Bruce snapped back that she wanted to hear from someone who voted for Brexit, only to be told by the man in the audience: actually, I did.

Bruces clear irritation was accompanied by an almost throw-away remark with which she moved on the discussion. A majority of people here voted for Brexit, we select this audience very carefully to be representative.

I found this remarkable even though Ive had serious concerns about Question Time and its sister Radio 4 programme Any Questions for a long time. It raises two big questions: how do these programmes determine whether someone is pro-Brexit, and why do they feel its so important to ensure their audiences are stacked in this way?

The BBCs press office confirmed to me that the evaluation is based on referendum and election results. They did not elaborate on which elections they mean, nor how a Labour vote for example is interpreted: was a vote for Labour in 2019 pro- or anti-Brexit?

All of which suggests that the BBC is basing its calculations on the 2016 referendum. Ergo, the BBC has taken a decision that the people of the UK irrevocably made up their minds in 2016, voted Leave, and ended the debate. More than five years later, theres no room in a Question Time audience for anyone who has come to understand the reality of the project and has thus changed their mind.

Fiona Bruces clear exasperation at the audience member is telling. The BBC is frightened. It fears the wrath of the Government, but it is also terrified of Leave voters, and wants to avoid at any cost appearing to say that they got it wrong.

I have previously written for Byline Times about a feeling among some former colleagues that there was something approaching a BBC policy not to run stories that might undermine public trust in Boris Johnson.

Its likely that key people in the BBC have decided that Brexit must be respected, and that its not the BBCs job to take a view on it particularly if that means portraying the project in a negative way. Both the chairman and the director general are known to have been Conservative supporters, after all, with the former having donated more than 400,000 to the party.

Anyone who has worked at the BBC will confirm that the corporation is not cohesive. It is a diverse, loose coalition of hostile fiefdoms and mini empires. Even within news, there are competing factions: newsgathering against programmes against the World Service; radio against TV against online, and dozens of further, mind-boggling sub-divisions.

Former colleagues of mine tend to blame other departments for the reluctance to tackle Brexit-related issues. For example, one household name told me, its all coming from Millbank, a reference to the BBCs offices in Westminster a view that appears to be quite widely shared in the New Broadcasting House newsroom.

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and support quality, investigative reporting.

Its clear, though, that the 2016 referendum took the BBC into anxious territory. I had left the BBC by this time, but friends tell me that the result shook the corporation. The result was taken to be an unambiguous statement of disillusionment from a large group of voters against the establishment. The BBC didnt understand this group, and feared that it wasnt addressing or serving it.

Since then, the BBC has desperately sought to represent these voices on air and crucially to not offend them. The net result has been fear-driven self-censorship at every level. This is not just a desire to appease the BBCs Government critics, but to placate Leave voters as well.

This has been felt across the BBCs output. Theres a clear reluctance to mention the B-word at all. That is unlikely to change any time soon because the BBC does not feel as though its job involves holding the Government to account over Brexit.

In normal times, with a government presiding over such a mess, you would expect Britains newspapers to be scenting blood. The BBC would be following in their slipstream, always taking care not to find itself at the head of the pack.

But we are not in normal times. The right-wing press is complicit, compliant, and silent on the grave problems looming ahead. Labour has shown that it doesnt really want to talk about Brexit. And at every level within the BBC, theres an institutional reluctance to fill the gap; to inform and educate the nation about the consequences of Brexit.

Aside from harming the country, this poses a danger to the BBC. When this all plays out, and the disastrous impacts of Brexit become clear as they are beginning to will the people of Britain feel they were well served by our public service broadcaster?

At the moment, the answer is an emphatic no.

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The BBC Has an Institutional Culture of Brexit Self-Censorship Byline Times - Byline Times

Stand-up comedian, actor, and writer Jim Norton will perform at the Punchline in Atlanta, tomorrow through Saturday. After a hiatus from live shows due to COVID, Nortons spicy and irreverent humor returns to the stage with new material and plenty to joke about. The comedian joined City Lights host Lois Reitzes via Zoom for a conversation covering such weighty topics as flat-Earthers, Lost, and gaining pounds in quarantine.

Interview highlights:

On committing to comedy:

It was honestly the only thing I ever wanted to do. I wanted to be a lawyer at one point, but Princeton wouldnt accept me because I had dropped out of high school. So I said, You know what? I have no education, Im driving a forklift and this is what I really want to do. I left myself no backup plan on purpose because it forced me to be a good comic, or I would have no way to make a living.

On Joan Rivers and other heroes:

I saw [Joan Rivers] at the Cutting Room here in New York She was 80 at the time, and she had note cards on the stage, on the floor, said Norton. She was a barbarian for an hour, and it was great. There was nothing off-limits Shes one of the all-time greats and she doesnt get the credits she deserves.

[Richard Pryor] was my favorite comedian of all time. I imagine if he saw my act now, he would say, Take my name out of your bio. Hed be slightly embarrassed that I love him so much, but he was the guy that made me want to do comedy.

On sensitivities and censorship in comedy:

Comedians have to deal with things through humor, but no one is telling Stephen King not to kill children in his books. No one is telling actors not to play slave-owners, not to play slashers, not to play murderers, or not to play rapists. So for people to think that comedy is harmful, when portraying someone committing a horrible act in seriousness can get you an award, I just reject the idea that comedians as performers should be limited in a way that any other form of the arts is not limited.

I think, as a performer, any subject you want to touch is absolutely acceptable; all that matters is, do you do it well, or do you do it poorly? And I think thats what you should be judged on.

Jim Norton performs stand-up at the Punchline in Atlanta on Thursday, Oct. 7, and Saturday, Oct. 9. Tickets and information are available at http://www.punchline.com/shows.

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Comedian Jim Norton discusses censorship, flat-Earthers and his admiration for Joan Rivers | 90.1 FM WABE - WABE 90.1 FM