Daily Archives: April 24, 2020

The American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE) joined with 30 free speech groups, led by the National Coalition Against Censorship, in condemning an April 14 tweet posted by the Raleigh, North Carolina, police department that declared: Protesting is a non-essential activity.

As organizations dedicated to protecting civil liberties and the First Amendment, the undersigned groups are deeply disturbed by this statement and other remarks and actions by public officials suggesting that peaceful protest can be outlawed during a national crisis, the groups wrote in a public statement. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic cannot be used to justify the suspension of First Amendment rights. People must be free to express disagreement with government decisions, even when it involves criticism of essential public health measures.

Dissent and protest are protected by the First Amendment, the groups stressed, noting that these rights are fundamental to the nations democracy. They cannot be sacrificed even, and perhaps particularly, in times of public emergency, they wrote.

David Grogan, director of the American Booksellers for Free Expression, said that its imperative to be vigilant about free expression during times when people are fearful for their health and safety. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, our worries over a future possible attack helped to pave the way for the Patriot Act, Grogan said. Despite ABFEs and many other groups concerns that the law violated our civil liberties, we were assured that the Patriot Act was just a temporary measure. But the Patriot Act was anything but temporary. Today, we are in a similar crisis. And while our health and safety are critical during and after the current pandemic, we must not allow our concerns to justify federal or state government actions that strip us of our constitutional rights.

Read the groups letter in full below.

THE RIGHT TO PROTEST DURING THE PANDEMIC

Dissent and protest are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees freedoms of speech, assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. These rights are fundamental to our democracy. They cannot be sacrificed even, and perhaps particularly, in times of public emergency.

On April 14, 2020, the police department in Raleigh, North Carolina, tweeted, Protesting is a non-essential activity, as an explanation for breaking up a protest. As organizations dedicated to protecting civil liberties and the First Amendment, the undersigned groups are deeply disturbed by this statement and other remarks and actions by public officials suggesting that peaceful protest can be outlawed during a national crisis. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic cannot be used to justify the suspension of First Amendment rights. People must be free to express disagreement with government decisions, even when it involves criticism of essential public health measures.

Upholding First Amendment rights need not be at odds with the governments authority and obligation to protect public health and safety. The emergency decrees that call for social distancing, wearing of face covers or masks, and limits on the size of public assemblies can regulate the manner in which protests occur. However, regulations should be narrowly tailored to what is necessary to protect public health and cannot be so broad that they ban protest completely or so poorly drafted that they restrict peaceful demonstrations.

Most protesters have been exercising their constitutional rights without threatening the health of their fellow citizens: wearing masks and standing six-feet apart outside hospitals and other places of business to protest inadequate safety precautions; participating in car demonstrations in Arizona, California and Michigan, and launching digital campaigns.

Public officials in Ohio and Michigan have included explicit protections for First Amendment rights in their emergency decrees. Some states have also acknowledged information-gathering and reporting as essential services.

We urge all public officials to recognize their obligation to defend First Amendment rights while they protect public safety. These rights are critically important during uncertain times like these.

Co-signed:

National Coalition Against CensorshipAmerican Booksellers for Free ExpressionAmericans for Prosperity FoundationAssociation of American PublishersThe Authors GuildThe Buckeye InstituteCaesar Rodney InstituteThe Center for Media and DemocracyCivil Liberties Defense CenterCoalition for Policy ReformThe DKT Liberty ProjectDefending Rights & DissentFirst Amendment Lawyers AssociationFirstAmendment.comFree PressFree Speech CoalitionFreedom ForumFreedom Foundation of MinnesotaFreedom to Read FoundationIdaho Freedom FoundationInstitute for Free SpeechKurt Vonnegut Museum and LibraryMackinac Center for Public PolicyMississippi Center for Public PolicyPEN AmericaPEN America Childrens and Young Adult Books CommitteeRestore the Fourth, Inc.United for MissouriWoodhull Freedom FoundationDavid A. Schulz, Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School (institution listed for identification purposes only)

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ABFE Responds to Raleigh Police Tweet That Protest Is Non-Essential Activity - BTW

While dissent is nipped in the bud instantly, hate speech flows with impunity. Just a year after the Easter bombings, the highly organised anti-Muslim discourse-generating machine is once again propagating a familiar tale in which Muslim communities are constructed as the enemy Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

By Ramya Kumar

In responding to epidemics, states are compelled to resort to restrictive measures to contain the spread of infection, including quarantine and isolation procedures, travel bans, lockdowns, and curfews. With such restrictions on movement, draconian measures are often swiftly implemented as a subdued citizenry remains compliant, in support of national efforts to combat an unknown enemy. In Sri Lanka, we are seeing strict censorship alongside the fast and furious implementation of policies and measures that would otherwise have faced widespread protest and dissension.

Restrictions on free speech are detrimental to public health efforts. Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower who succumbed to coronavirus in February, is now deemed a martyr in China for having alerted colleagues about the novel coronavirus through social media. Instead of responding appropriately to contain the spread of the virus, Chinese authorities interrogated the doctor on the grounds of spreading fake news and silenced him, in effect, delaying its response to the epidemic. Similarly, a number of healthcare workers in the United States have been fired after speaking out about their risky work conditions.

In Sri Lanka, there seems to be substantial self-censorship within the Ministry of Healths COVID-19 control program. Apart from the numbers reported by the Epidemiology Unit, we do not know on what basis decisions are being made to quarantine communities, or to extend (and lift) curfews. We do not know who is involved in making these decisions. There are concerns that the military is overriding the Ministry of Healths authority in such matters. This lack of information is enabling the spread of wild rumours, including allegations of falsified COVID-19 statistics. In this context, it may be useful to consider the World Health Organizations recommendation for a national COVID-19 risk communication strategy:

Proactively communicate and promote a two-way dialogue with communities, the public and other stakeholders in order to understand risk perceptions, behaviours and existing barriers, specific needs, knowledge gaps and provide the identified communities/groups with accurate information tailored to their circumstances. People have the right to be informed about and understand the health risks that they and their loved ones face. They also have the right to actively participate in the response process. Dialogue must be established with affected populations from the beginning. Make sure that this happens through diverse channels, at all levels and throughout the response.

Has there been two-way dialogue? Have communities been involved in this process? Unfortunately, no. Furthermore, there has been very little critical analysis of the COVID-19 response in Sri Lanka. We only hear of the glowing and well-deserved tributes to frontline healthcare workers and others involved in control efforts. There has been little engagement with communities affected by the crisis. In fact, we do not even have the space to question our pandemic control strategynow a matter of national pride.

Last week in Jaffna, we heard that 12 new cases of COVID-19 had been detected at quarantine centres. As Dr. Murali Vallipuranathan, Consultant Community Physician, reasonably opined, these cases may have been new cases that emerged after an extended incubation period or the result of cross-infection at quarantine centres.

When Dr. Vallipuranathan posted his comments on social media, the authorities could either have responded with facts to counter his theory, or, alternatively, taken speedy action to investigate and remedy the situation. Instead, Dr. Vallipuranathan was vilified for questioning the COVID-19 control program. In a letter dated 17 April, the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA), which is supposed to be a trade union fighting for the rights of doctors, complained to the Director General of Health Services that Dr. Vallipuranathan who has a controversial and racist previous history expressed views detrimental to the Health Department and Sri Lanka Army.

To make matters worse, earlier in April, the IGP instructed the Police to take strict action against those who criticise Government officials engaged in COVID-19 control. A number of arrests were subsequently reported in the media over the spread of so-called fake news. While the details of these seemingly arbitrary arrests are not known, we should be very concerned when even a mere questioning of the countrys COVID-19 control strategy is viewed to be unpatriotic. While dissent is nipped in the bud instantly, hate speech flows with impunity. Just a year after the Easter bombings, the highly organised anti-Muslim discourse-generating machine is once again propagating a familiar tale in which Muslim communities are constructed as the enemy. We are being told that Muslims are conspiring to transmit infection; they deserve en masse quarantine in (unsafe?) centres; and that it is acceptable to enforce cremation in lieu of burial. Even the medical profession is complicit here as evidenced in an earlier version of the GMOAs proposals for a COVID-19 exit strategy, which shockingly included the size of the Muslim population in a DS division as a variable for risk stratification.

Earlier in April, the Ministry of Health helpfully issued guidelines for media reporting, stipulating that personal details of patients with COVID-19, including their ethnicity, should not be reported. They called for reporting that builds solidarity in this time of crisis. In this context, the adoption of compulsory cremation as Government policycontrary to WHO guidelinesseems to demonstrate a double standard, particularly when we see mass burials taking place in other countries ravaged by the pandemic.

Moreover, the Ministry of Health has failed to issue statements to counter insinuations made by the media, as well as some political leaders, that have served to stigmatise Muslim communities as disease-laden, insular groups who are unwilling to follow public health measures. It is hardly surprising then that sections of these communities may be wary of interacting with the public healthcare system.

Even as dissent is repressed, and hate speech is nurtured, the Government is acting fast, facing little or no resistance. We saw the appointment of numerous military officials to key positions in the pandemic control program that should rightfully be occupied by civil administrative officials. Such militarisation has resulted in an autocratic style of governance with very little information sharing. For instance, we have not been informed on what basis the decision was made to partially lift the curfew on 20 April. Neither do we know who was involved in the decision-making process. It is hardly surprising then that many have arrived at the conclusion that Parliamentary Elections are being prioritised over public health.

This style of governance is also seeping into our institutions. As university teachers, we have received orders from the University Grants Commission (UGC) to commence online teaching as soon as possible. With no discussion of the merits of online teaching or the urgency for its implementation, we are adopting new pedagogical methods via Zoom and/or Moodle. Meanwhile, studentsincluding those from farming families experiencing dire financial difficulties in the Vanni and other areas (where network coverage may be weak)are expected to engage in learning activities through their smart phoneseveryone has a smartphone. The lack of foresight in decision-making is mindboggling, as is our silence.

With the curfew being partially lifted, this is a call to critically engage with the measures that are being swiftly implemented at this time of crisis. Lets demand that the citizenry be involved in processes of decision-making at all levels. Lets insist that public sector officials with the relevant expertise and experience are placed at the helm of this national pandemic control effort. And, finally, lets condemn the ongoing anti-Muslim attacks and resist ethno-chauvinist mobilisations in the run up to the elections.

(The writer is attached to the Department of Community and Family Medicine, University of Jaffna, and is a member of the Public Health Writers Collective)

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Free speech, hate speech, and COVID-19: Why are we silent? - ft.lk

A better civil discourse in letters to the editor

There currently is a crisis underway that began prior to when life as we knew it changed with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

It has permeated every inch of our lives, online and offline. It has divided the nation, fractured political parties, severed friendships and pitted family members against one another.

It's misinformation, a faceless enemy born in part through foreign and domestic efforts to discredit legitimate news entities, in addition to widespread news illiteracy.

When the need for reliable information has been no greater, misinformation permeates social media, and we find ourselves clinging to information that substantiates our beliefs, regardless of whether it's true. The line between what's opinion and what's fact is more than blurred, and many of us can no longer discern the difference between the two.

Recently, the biggest culprits of spreading misinformation are a vocal minority of society that captures news headlines with efforts disguised as patriotism but riddled with political straw man arguments that having nothing to do with the public health crisis at hand.

Don't believe me? There literally are people who believe the coronavirus is a hoax. Never mind that thousands of Americans have died. Nevermind the consensus from our health care and science communities. Never mind the facts. Whatever bolsters our beliefs, right?

Part of the blame lies with media, including newspapers. In the 2000s, we ushered in an era where we allowed anonymous comments on all of our sites. The result was a toilet bowl of mean, uneducated and irresponsible "free speech" versus a robust exchange of constructive ideas and criticism.

It took us a while, but most newspapers have moved to using Facebook to moderate comments, so as to remove the anonymity that I firmly believe contributed to the downfall of civil discussion.

Seemingly simultaneously taking place was the belief that it's not polite to discuss hot-button issues such as politics and religion. By removing those topics from America's dinner tables, we lost the ability to have courteous, thoughtful and productive conversations.

And through it all, there have been economic and societal changes that have affected newsrooms of all sizes, including our Daily News.

Newsroom layoffs haven't just affected the front page. They have impacted sports, photography, design and editorial departments in all markets, from the big metros to the small community newspapers.

One casualty that has resulted from the obstacles I outlined above is the quality of local opinion pages. Some newspapers have clung to running columns from talking heads in New York City and Washington D.C. Others, including the Daily News, have worked to localize opinion content to make it relevant to our local communities.

But all of us have struggled with letters to the editor in recent times. In fact, some community newspapers have done away with opinion pages because, in all markets, we have lost subscribers who have disagreed with opinion content. What's the point of dividing our communities and losing readership over someone's opinion? Why should we continue offering readers a platform to air their opinions when they can do so on social media at the click of the button? Online, they aren't subject to word limits and other rules outlined in a newspaper's letter-to-the-editor policy.

When I came to the Midland Daily News last summer, I spoke with multiple subscribers and a common complaint I heard was that there was no consistency on our opinion page, particularly that some people were given a platform to write long columns about national issues, while others had to adhere to the letter-to-the-editor word limit. This was from fans of both sides of the political aisle. Some subscribers said they didn't want to read long columns from local residents extolling the virtues of the president and others said they didn't want to read lengthy columns and letters criticizing President Trump.

It was clear there was no consistency regarding who was allowed to write a column and who was subject to the letter-to-the editor word limit. It was also clear people felt very constricted by the 250-word limit.

When I came on board, I met with the editorial board here (which consists of the editor, managing editor, digital editor and a reporter). We talked about what the Daily News was currently doing, and what it could improve. We also conducted a reader survey of paid subscribers. The feedback from that echoed what subscribers told me when I got here: They wanted consistency in terms of what platform residents are given on the Midland Daily News' opinion page.

Our editorial board discussed our overall mission, which is to inform and connect, and decided that we will give local non-profits and other organizations a platform via Community Connections on our opinion page to run columns about their group and what they are doing in the local area, as well as local issues that are of importance to our entire readership.

The idea was to bolster the value of our opinion page for our entire readership. But we felt there still is value in publishing local letters to the editor. We still feel that way, however, we want to make sure our opinion page is not used as a weapon for "gotcha" pieces by local political operatives. We want to ensure we are not disseminating falsehoods in the guise of "but it's just an opinion."

We know there is a greater need for fact-checking, and we've tried thinking outside the box. On two occasions, we have given subjects of letters to the editors a chance to respond on the same day a letter has run. The idea was we would do this on the front page, why not on the opinion page?

The affected letter writers were not pleased with the decision, and it was a lesson learned for us, as we found this is not a sustainable solution to the concerns at hand (fairness, quality and access). What we needed to do, and what we have since done, is update our letter policy to address those concerns.

New updates we have made to our letter-to-the-editor policy include that the Daily News will edit letters for length (the limit for letters is now 350 words), conciseness and clarity. If a topic has been thoroughly debated in the letters column, subsequent letters will not be published if they do not add new information or ideas to the debate. Letters that are libelous, malicious, inaccurate, in bad taste, demonstrably false, contain conspiracy theories or those that make attacks on private or public people will not be published.

While we are aware some letter writers may feel this infringes on their right to free speech, we believe the majority of our subscribers will appreciate the improvement in letter quality that will result from a more stringent selection process.

Another recent change we've been implementing is better sourcing on news releases that we publish in our paper and online. There have been questions from many online readers about authorship when it comes to items that are submitted for publication in the Daily News.

All items received are processed by our newsroom staffers and then edited by our editors. For greater transparency in print and online, we will be publishing which staffer processes each release, along with their contact information, so readers have a local contact to call or email if there's a question about a release.

I'm very much interested in hearing what our readers think of these changes. Please give me a call or shoot me a letter or email with your thoughts.

Or you can always write a letter to the editor.

Kate Hessling is the editor of the Midland Daily News. She can be reached at khessling@hearstnp.com.

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A better civil discourse in letters to the editor - Midland Daily News

Websites using .org domain names fear they could lose their web addresses as intense backlash over the domain registrys proposed sale continues.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the not-for-profit organization that coordinates the internets domain name system, is deciding whether control of .org will be sold to a private equity firm about which little is known.

The change of hands has raised concerns about censorship and how internet infrastructure affects free speech.

Websites using .org can be registered by anybody, but over the past decade the suffix has become the go-to domain term for not-for-profits and charities. The transfer of control of .org domains has left many concerned that a new owner could raise the price of addresses on the .org registry, making it prohibitively expensive for not-for-profits that have come to rely on its name recognition.

The not-for-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with the Domain Name Rights Coalition, Access Now, and others, wrote to Icann last week urging it to stop the sale.

Essentially it means selling censorship, Mitch Stoltz, a senior staff attorney at EFF focusing on free speech and trademark issues, said of the sale. It could mean suspending domain names, causing websites to go dark when some other powerful interest wants them gone.

These concerns were exacerbated when in 2019, Icann removed the cap on the price customers could be charged for a .org domain, having previously prohibited charging more than $8.25.

Until now, .org has been managed by the not-for-profit Public Interest Registry (PIR) created by the Internet Society exclusively for the purpose. Icann awarded control of .org to the Internet Society, another not-for-profit, in 2002.

Icann is deciding if it will approve the sale of the domain registry to Ethos Capital, a private firm that emerged recently. Ethos has stated that it will keep prices low, but critics say because it is a for-profit company, it has no economic incentive to do so.

Icann abruptly delayed its decision on Monday after receiving a scathing letter from the California attorney general, Xavier Becerra, on 15 April about the potential sale of .org.

Becerras letter came after not-for-profits and other internet freedom advocates said privatizing the domain registry would saddle it with more than $300m in debt.

Because Icann is incorporated in California, Becerra is in charge of ensuring it is living up to its commitments. It will provide an update on 4 May.

There is mounting concern that ICANN is no longer responsive to the needs of its stakeholders, Becerra wrote.

The attorney general of Pennsylvania is also reportedly investigating the deal. Because PIR, the organization selling .org, is incorporated there, the state would have the power to stop it from happening.

Andrew Sullivan, the CEO of the Internet Society, said those using the .org domain registry would be better served by Ethos, which would have more resources than a not-for-profit to fund them.

He noted that the firm had been making changes responsive to criticism about the potential sale. Commitments include a cap on price increases for eight years from the start of the current contract and a stewardship council that will have a say over policies affecting .org sites.

This shows Ethos is trying very hard to be a good steward of this resource, he said.

Former members of Icann disagree. On Monday, its former CEO, Michael Roberts, and other former members wrote a letter criticizing the decision and imploring his successors to delay the transaction for six months.

We write to express our deep dismay at ICANNs rejection of its defining public-interest regulatory purpose as demonstrated in the totally inappropriate proposed sale of the .org delegation, they wrote. ICANN has not meaningfully acted to address the likely proposed service cuts, increase in prices or trafficking of data of non-profits to obtain additional revenue.

The debate has taken on new life amid the coronavirus pandemic. Advocates for not-for-profits are concerned about the debt incurred by the sale as coronavirus creates economic uncertainty.

In his letter to Icann, Becerra said the $300m in debt will change the relationship .org has with its sites.

If the sale goes through and PIRs business model fails to meet expectations, it may have to make significant cuts in operations, Becerra said. Such cuts would undoubtedly affect the stability of the .org registry.

This is of particular concern as not-for-profit sites have become more important than ever during the coronavirus pandemic, said Amy Sample Ward, CEO of the technology not-for-profit NTEN.

Most of the entities leading in data and information aggregation, scientific investigation and developments, community resourcing and response are all non-profits with .org websites, she said. Those organizations also stand to lose a great deal if this deal proceeds.

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'Selling censorship': proposed sale of .org web registry sparks fears for non-profits - The Guardian

From his offices inside the bleak walls of the Carcere dei Penitenziati palace in Palermo, the great inquisitor Luis de Paramo seemed to barely notice the Black Death had begun to sweep across the Spanish empire in 1596, killing hundreds of thousands. His mind was fixed on an even more dangerous disease that threatened his world, corrupting not just the bodies of men, but their minds. The holy offices of the Inquisition annihilated the heretical plagues, he smugly recorded two years later.

God reserved his worst torments, Paramo solemnly wrote, for the heresy: Nestors tongue was eaten by worms; Marcus Ephesus reduced to excreting ordure from his mouth; Calvins body overrun by great swarms of lice as he coughed out blood this before the eternal torments of hell. Protecting people from poisonous ideas, thus, was at least as important as guarding against plagues.

Inside the dungeons of the inquisition, the agents of heresy intellectuals, witches, dissident priests and nuns were quarantined to secure the health of the Kingdom of God.

As the greatest pandemic in a century continues its grim progress, India is seeing the unfolding of an unprecedented campaign to ensure the Republics intellectual hygiene.

Thousands are facing prosecution for something they wrote or said: Left-wing intellectuals and journalists like Siddharth Varadarajan, right-wing television anchors like Arnab Goswami, Islamic activists, Hindu nationalists, even plain-vanilla panicked citizens. For years now, the criminal justice system has become ever more focused on silencing thought and speech; a climax could be nearing.

Luis de Paramo would have found this world almost indistinguishable from his own. For any democracy, this is evil news. India needs much more free speech even evil, toxic speech not less.

***

Even though the term has become entrenched in public debate, the idea of hate speech rests on less-than-firm ground. Bengaluru Member of Parliament Tejasvi Suryas now-infamous tweet 95 percent Arab women have never had an orgasm in the last few hundred years, attributed to the gadfly anti-Islamist agitator Tarek Fateh is a useful prism to examine the issue. Erased from the internet after furious protests from Saudi and Kuwaiti commentators and demands for the Prime Ministers intervention, the tweet has been cited as a textbook example of hate speech.

Feminist writing in the Middle-East, though, has made much the same argument for decades. In a 2005 paper, for example, anthropologists Abdessamad Dialmy and Allon Uhlmann examined the cultural memes that ensured the sexuality of the respectable wife is confined to satisfying her husbands desire and producing a large number of male offspring.

In the Fez region, Dialmy and Uhlman noted, a proverb held that if the wife were to move during intercourse, she would be divorced because her movement would indicate the presence of desire and pleasure.

Fatahs polemic is an agit-prop rendering of the work of generations of Middle-East feminists among them Mai Ghoussoub, Afsaneh Najmabadi, Haleh Afshar, Haideh Moghissi, and Hammed Shahidian who have long critiqued the use of religion and culture to repress womens freedoms.

The Muslim man conceives woman as uncontrollable and untameable: a being who can therefore only be subdued by repression, Ghoussoub famously argued in a seminal essay in The New Left Review, back in 1987. It is difficult to utter your frustrations if a veil seals your lips.

Little intellectual insight is needed to see that Surya like Fatah is a propagandist. Neither, for example, acknowledges that feminists have also shown how Hindu texts and cultural norms like Christian and Buddhist texts sustain tyrannical phallocracies.

The lines between crude propaganda and serious critique arent, however, as well-etched as we might imagine.

In 1924, the Arya Samaj activist Mahashe Rajpal published Rangila Rasul in Urdu, the colourful prophet a polemic on the Prophet Muhammads sexual mores. Lower courts condemned Rajpal to prison. Lahore High Court judge Dalip Singh, however, reasoned that if the fact that Musalmans resent attacks on the Prophet was to be the measure, then a historical work in which the life of the prophet was considered and judgment passed on his character by a serious historian might [also] come within the definition.

Tejasvi Suryas now-infamous tweet is a useful prism to examine the issue of hate speech. Here the BJP MP is seen with journalist Arnab Goswami. File Photo

Legislators responded to the Lahore High Courts admonition by amending the Indian Penal Code to outlaw deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class. That law continues to be used to ban an array of serious books, and persecute atheists and heterodox religious sects.

Propagandist polemic, it could be argued, can be distinguished from serious speech because of their intent and consequences. This argument, however, leads to another cul-de-sac. The purpose of all political text, after all, is to incite. The Bible, the Quran, the Mahabharata and the works of Karl Marx and Mao Zedong have all been cited as inspiration for large-scale killing at various points in history; so, too, have Batman and Catcher in the Rye. Abul Ala Maududis Jihad has indeed been read as a manifesto for violence by Islamists but millions of others have encountered the text without being moved to swat a fly.

To characterise Suryas tweet, or other chauvinist propaganda, as a form of illegitimate speech is to make a moral judgment about politics valid or otherwise. To allow moral judgment to decide whether speech ought to be illegitimate, history tells us, ought to lead to perdition.

***

For decades, the case against free speech has assailed by pointing to the apparent role of mass media in engendering genocides and mass violence. The role of Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines in inciting genocide in Rwanda is often cited as evidence for this claim. The rigorous empirical work of political scientist Scott Strauss, though, has demonstrated that that data does not show RTLM was the principal vector by which the genocide spread and by which most ordinary Rwandans chose to participate in genocidal violence.

Indeed, scholar Mary Franks, has pointed out, laws outlawing propounding wickedness or inciting hatred are now used by the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Peoples Front to persecute of the very journalists and NGOs who fought the genocide. Leading opposition figure Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza and her lawyerwere imprisoned for arguing that communal reconciliation required acknowledging not only Tutsi victims, the primary target of the genocide, but also Hutu victims.

For Franks, the real problem in Rwanda lay in the fact that power actors held near-monopolies on discourse through Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines prior to the genocide, and through the shutting-down of dissenting media platforms thereafter. The answer to hate speech, she proposes, isnt silence: its a loud, cacophonic media.

Lazy claims that the rise of German Fascism illustrates the power of toxic propaganda are similarly misleading. For one, Nazi propaganda grew despite the existence of the expansive hate speech laws of Weimar. Perhaps more important, Richard Evans magisterial work shows us, Nazi propaganda failed to persuade anything resembling a majority of Germans before the coup of 1933. The hegemony of Nazi ideology was ensured by stamping out of all alternate voices and points of view.

In India, the case is often made that hate speech propagated and amplified through digital media has accelerated communalisation.

The evidence, though, is far from unambiguous. Even a cursory glance at Violette Graff and Juliette Galonniers summary of communal riots shows that the intensity and frequency of communal violence in India has diminished not intensified. The largest chauvinist mass-mobilisations in India the Ram janmabhumi movement, for example, or the Kashmir jihad took place long before most homes even had a telephone.

Even though hate-speech is claimed to be sharpening the divisions between Hindus and Muslims engendering ghettoisation of the mind, as it were theres plenty of reason to be suspicious of such claims.

In a study of the 1974 riots in Delhi long before the evil influence of Facebook emerged three out of every 10 Hindus and almost two out of 10 Muslims, reported never even meeting with members of the other religious community in any social context political, casual, or even business. An investigation by the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights in 1987, similarly, noted that old Delhi was sundered into caste and communal agglomerations whose inhabitants understood each other, in the main, through communal invective.

The rise of social media has done little other than to provide a new platform for voicing the long-held prejudices and hatreds of a society hatreds earlier voiced within the family, during social interactions, or in the village square. Put another way, hate speech is an artefact of a dysfunctional society, not its cause.

***

Indias urge to police thought crime impulses predate the birth of the republic, the Rangila Rasul debates demonstrate. Less than two years after independence, though, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru amended the Constitution to carve out restrictions against free speech and embedded the inquisitor at the heart of the Indian state. Free speech, it was argued, made India vulnerable to the dangerous tides of communist propaganda and communal hatred; words could even explode into war with Pakistan.

The debris from those decisions is all around us. Wendy Donigers provocative readings of Hindu text; Aubrey Menens irreverent retelling of the Ramayana; DN Jhas The Myth of the Holy Cow, James Laines history of Shivaji, or Paul Courtrights exploration of Hindu mythologys fraught sexuality. We still cannot read an uncensored text of the path-breaking Urdu collection Angaarey, proscribed in 1933.

Salman Rushdie, MF Husain and Taslima Nasreen are the best-known victims of the Indian inquisition, but theyre not the only ones. The progressive cultural organisation Sahmat came under attack in 1993, merely for recording the existence of variant texts of the Ramayana in which Ram and Sita were siblings; Narendra Dabholkar and H Farook were assassinated.

Book-bans, prosecutions and killings have not, however, engendered pluralism: India remains a mosaic of warring religion and caste-based agglomerations, and the petty tyrannies which run them.

Propaganda, history teaches, succeeds only when it is unchallenged: The real answer to hate speech is plurality, not censorship. Ensuring that Indians hear a diversity of voices is a formidable challenge. Large swathes of the media, increasingly dependent since the 1980s on government advertising for survival, have surrendered their role as a space for the exchange of ideas. Efforts to create alternatives have, for the most part, floundered, with even lite audiences proving unwilling to pay for independent news and opinion.

The only kind of censorship which is legitimate in a democracy is the right each of us has to turn off our television sets. To give that power to the state is to assent to bodies, and minds, being broken on the wheel.

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Hate speech in the time of a pandemic: Answer to malevolent, incendiary language is plurality, not... - Firstpost