Daily Archives: May 4, 2021

How Surrogacy Harms Women and Children – The National Interest

Posted: May 4, 2021 at 8:28 pm

By now many Americans have read a glowing news article about the latest celebrity to have a child via surrogacy or watched a human-interest piece about a woman carrying a child for a loved one. From New York, which just quietlylegalized commercial surrogacy,to California, which remains a hotspot for individuals and couples from across the country and around the world seeking such services, surrogacy is often positioned only as a positive good. No equivocation or mention of the harms it poses to women and children is even mentioned.

Avoiding the other side of the conversation does a disservice to us all, however. Its time to talk about the dangers of surrogacy.

Just ask some of the children themselves. There are a lot of days where I feel adrift, kind of like a tumbleweed... Its days like today where my heart hurts a bit more over a surrogacy agency, doctors, lawyers, and the rest of the adults involved not successfully making sure that this product they were creating would be o.k.,writesjkiam83 an anonymous surrogate-born woman on her blog. Where are the resources and communities for us products of surrogacy? [I]s this really what is in the best interest of a child? From the perspective of Brian, a surrogate-born man, its not; hewrites, It looks to me like I was bought and sold.

What is surrogacy?

In a surrogacy arrangement, a woman carries a child for an individual or couple who is unable to do so themselves. Sometimes the child is genetically related to the commissioning parents, but often donor gametes are used, and the child is related to only one, or in some cases neither, of the commissioning parents. Sometimes the surrogate mother is genetically related to the child she carries, but often she is not. Some surrogacy arrangements are domestic, but many commissioning parents pursue international surrogacy arrangements, which adds an additional layer of logistical and legal difficulties.

Surrogacy is fraught with ethical and moral considerations. It is a process that can exploit vulnerable women. It carries significant health and psychological risks for the women whose wombs have been rented, the women whose eggs have been harvested to create an embryo, and the children who are born from these arrangements. All too often, the desires of adultsnamely, the commissioning parent(s)supersede the interests of children. Unfortunately, discussions of surrogacy in mediaand culture more broadlyrarely focus on the latter.

Commodifying human life, risking health and safety

At the recent United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, The Heritage Foundation and the Center for Family and Human Rights drew attention to surrogacy and the dangers it poses to women at aneventthat highlighted several instances of women who had been trafficked, rendered infertile, or even died as a result of surrogacy.Michelle Reaveswas one such surrogate mother from California. She lost her life last year while delivering a baby for someone else, leaving her own son and daughter motherless and her husband a widower.

By its very nature, surrogacy commodifies both a womans body as well as that of the child. The women targeted to become a surrogate by the multi-billion-dollar fertility industry are often wooed by the opportunity to make tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for renting their body. In some cases, a surrogate arrangement is altruisticperhaps the surrogate mother may want to help a friend or family member who desperately wants a baby, and she does not profit financially from the exchange. Nevertheless, regardless of the circumstances or motivation, in a surrogacy arrangement a womans body is used as a conduit for a transaction that provides a baby for someone elseand the risks for both her, and the baby, are significant.

Whether a surrogate mother is compensated or not, serious concerns involvinghealth risks to mothersand babies remain, and the rights of children must not be ignored.

Children who are born as theresultof a surrogacy arrangement aremore likelyto have low birth weights and are at an increased risk for stillbirth. When a woman carries a child conceived from an egg that is not her owna traditional gestational surrogate arrangementshe is at athree-foldrisk of developing hypertension and pre-eclampsia. Egg donors havespokenup about experiencing conditions such as loss of fertility, blood clots, kidney disease, premature menopause, and cancer, and the lack of data and studies on both short and long term health outcomes for egg donors makes true informed consent unattainable. While scientists do not fully understand the scope of these health considerations, it is clear that for both short and long-term outcomes, surrogacy is a frontier of unknowns; children, egg donors, and surrogate mothers may pay a physical or psychological price nobody yet fully knows or understands.

Childrens rights matter

Surrogacy gives little consideration to the rights of a resulting child, who in many cases will beintentionally separatedfrom at least one biological parent, as well as potential half-siblings in cases where the commissioning parents are using egg or sperm donors in conjunction with the surrogacy arrangement. In cases of anonymous egg and/or sperm donation, children have been denied part, or in some cases all, of the details of their biological origins. Genealogical bewilderment and adjustment difficulties among surrogate-born children are welldocumented.

Even in cases where a child is raised by his or her biological parents, childrens rights advocate Katy Faustnotesthat many surrogate-born children in these circumstances experience theprimal woundof losing their birth mother, an experience well-documented among adopted children. She argues that surrogacy is, by its very nature, an injustice to the child. Birth is intended to be a continuation of the mother/child bond, not the moment at which the child suffers an intentional, primal wound. Its the day when a baby should see the mother she already loves for the first time not the last.

Sometimes parallels are drawn between adoption and surrogacy. But this is a false comparison. In many cases surrogacy intentionally creates a situation in which a child will be denied his or her biological parent-child relationship. In every circumstance, the children of surrogacy arrangements are deliberately separated from the only mother they have ever known the moment they are born. Adoption, in contrast, responds to this separation rather than creates it.

Surrogacy knows no borders

International surrogacy arrangements can be even more complicated than domestic surrogacy arrangements because issues of citizenship and nation-specific determinations of legal parentage come into play. While there are no exact numbers available of how many children have been born from surrogacy worldwide, it is currently a global industry that isprojected togrowto over $20 billion within the next few years.

As Professor David Smolin, a leading legal expert on surrogacy and author ofThe One Hundred Thousand Dollar Baby: The Ideological Roots of a New American Export, explains, the United States is attractive to foreigners seeking surrogacy services because it is one of the few nations that offers stable legal systems explicitly supportive of commercial surrogacy. While America is a popular destination for surrogacy for those who can afford it, some commissioning parents engage in international surrogacy arrangements in countries with even less regulation such as Ukraine and Russia, which raises additionalconcernsabout maternal and postpartum health care for surrogate mothers and babies.

Heartbreaking stories at the height of the coronavirus pandemic exposed the uglier side of international surrogacy as travel restrictionsseparated surrogates and babiesfrom commissioning parents across the globe.

With such international variation in the legal status of surrogacy, as well as the establishment of parentage and citizenship, commissioning parents and surrogate mothers can find themselves navigating aminefieldof unanticipated practical and legal issues.

Internationally, womens rights groups are split on the issue of surrogacymuch as they are in the debates over prostitution or sex workabout whether it exemplifies a womans autonomy and choice over what to do with her body or whether it constitutes commodification of a womans reproductive and life-giving capabilities.

Sadly, the international surrogacy market appears to have significant and growing overlap with human trafficking. Given the amount of money involved, traffickers stand to profit substantially from selling women and girls into surrogacy arrangements. AsDr. Sheela Saravanan, author ofA Transnational Feminist View of Surrogacy Biomarkets in India,wrotein asubmission to the UN Special Rapporteuron the sale and sexual exploitation of children, The surrogacy trafficking trade used the same network that was used for domestic work and sex trade from the poor regions of India into urban areas. These unmarried girls [were] impregnated with embryos without their consent. Others were confined in homes and when some girls tried to run away, they [were] caught, brought back and beaten.

How are governments responding?

The international community is currently debating a new protocol on international surrogacy arrangements. A group of expertsincluding onerepresenting the U.S. Government, convened by theHague Conference on Private International Law(HCCH)is discussing how to address legal parentage, jurisdictional, and ethical questions about surrogacy, particularly from the perspective of protecting children.

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Volunteering is an Engine of Social and Business Value Creation – Los Angeles Business Journal

Posted: at 8:28 pm

When focused on community needs first, new research finds workplace volunteering can also double a customers loyalty to a company

Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP), in collaboration with Credit Suisse, New York Cares, New York Life, Philanthropy New York, USAA, Vanguard, and ViacomCBS, has released a new report, Value Volunteering, designed to uncover the true dynamics of corporate volunteering, pinpointing where and in what order the impact takes place. This research will allow companies to better utilize volunteering to address societal needs first, unleashing the power of people within corporations and sending benefits back to the company.

Workplace volunteering has been a staple of corporate community engagement for decades but is often designed first as an employee engagement tool, said Kari Niedfeldt-Thomas, Managing Director, CECP. Value Volunteering flips that notion on its head, saying to companies, Root your programs in the community, first. The business benefits will follow, and they will be significant.

Key findings from the report include:

The most successful workplace volunteering programs are intentional, thoughtfully designed, and authentic. Volunteer program design must be rooted in the needs of nonprofit organizations and community stakeholders.

Social impact and meeting community needs are the main results and value produced through workplace volunteering program, but successful programs can have ripple effects on business results.

Value Volunteering has proven that people reward companies for high-quality workplace volunteering in terms of reputation, trust, and customer loyalty. Even more, the effect on trust and customer loyalty approximately double when people believe that workplace volunteering truly makes a difference.

Workplace volunteering has built-in and built-for results, both of which are key for success:a) Built-in results include positive contributions to employee engagement, reputation, trust, and team building.b) Built-for results include positive contributions to recruitment, leadership skills, customer insights, employee retention, and client relationships.

Corporate community service serves community first, but also builds the company: 78% of the time, volunteers say that understanding the impact they are making motivates them to stay engaged.

Over half (55%) of nonprofits surveyed say that including corporate volunteers in an organizations strategy and program management helps deliver on mission achievement and builds relationships at the same time.

Workplace volunteering has greatly expanded over the last 10 years: 40% growth in both aggregate and average corporate volunteer hours is driven by efficiencies from technology/software, employee interest and demand, and the expansion of skills-based opportunities.

The report is the product of the Service for Impact working group, led by CECP and Philanthropy New York. Service for Impact was founded in 2009 to help corporate philanthropic leaders support their nonprofit partners in implementing the principles of Reimagining Service The group consists of corporate grantmakers and corporate volunteer leaders, fostering a peer network to share successes and challenges, brainstorm solutions, and explore new opportunities to make a difference in society while supporting business objectives through volunteerism. Talmetrix, an employee feedback and analytics company, executed the survey in the Variations in Value section, and served as an important thought partner on research design and interpretation of insights.

Credit Suisse is pleased to co-sponsor this research which digs deeper into the social and business value of corporate volunteering. We expect it will spark further dialogue among nonprofits and corporate practitioners, resulting in programming that has an even greater impact in the community, said Lalita Badinehal, Vice President, Credit Suisse.

Addressing pressing community needs requires a multi-faceted approach both in partnership and programming. When Covid-19 shut down our city, New York Cares stayed open thanks to the versatility of resources provided by our corporate partners, said Gary Bagley, Executive Director, New York Cares. From volunteer relief programming focused on emergency food assistance for families to virtual education for students and wellness checks for isolated individuals, our corporate stakeholders partnered with us to ensure an immediate and innovative response to community needs.

The findings from The Value Volunteering research shows how volunteering is an imperative for business, while driving social impact, said Matthew Nelson, Corporate Vice President, New York Life.

The Value Volunteering research affirms that focusing volunteer engagement on true community needs is critical to the design and implementation of workplace volunteering programs, said Kathryn ONeal-Dunham, Chief Executive Officer, Philanthropy New York. Deep partnership with nonprofit organizations and community stakeholders creates opportunities for companies to support meaningful social change.

USAA employees are passionate about serving the military and local communities through volunteerism, said Harriet Dominique, Chief Diversity, Inclusion, and Corporate Responsibility Officer, USAA. Throughout the pandemic, theyve continued to serve through many virtual volunteer events such as reading to military children and mentoring at-risk students, demonstrating that volunteering makes a significant impact for those in need in our community.

Vanguard has long been dedicated to supporting inclusive, resilient communities in which our crew live and work by donating our time, talent, and treasure, said Carra Cote-Ackah, President, Vanguard Group Foundation and Executive Director of Community Stewardship, Vanguard. This research emphasizes the power of effective partnerships and the potential of having a shared purpose.

Rooting workplace volunteer programs in the community can have ripple effects on both ends of the engagement spectrum not only driving community impact, but business results that prove the importance of these programs, said Adam Robinson, Vice President, Social Responsibility, ViacomCBS. As a content company with global reach and influence, this is essential to our mission of positively and powerfully impacting the audiences and communities we serve.

Value Volunteering engaged both nonprofit and corporate partners. A landscape analysis of the research was done to assure that this work would be additive for nonprofits and companies. Focus groups and surveys helped fill in gaps in existing research, all with intention of understanding nonprofit and corporate perspectives toward greater impact.

CECP is a CEO-led coalition that believes that a companys social strategy how it engages with key stakeholders including employees, communities, investors, and customers determines company success. Founded in 1999 by actor and philanthropist Paul Newman and other business leaders to create a better world through business, CECP has grown to a movement of more than 200 of the worlds largest companies that represent $11.2 trillion in revenues, $23 billion in societal investment, 14 million employees, and $21 trillion in assets under management. CECP helps companies transform their social strategy by providing customized connections and networking, counsel and support, benchmarking and trends, and awareness building and recognition. For more information, visit cecp.co.

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Populism, polemics, pandemic and cadre base helped BJP win Assam: Experts – Down To Earth Magazine

Posted: at 8:27 pm

With its populist schemes and organisational strength, the BJP endeared itself to various segments of Assamese society

Populist policies, polemical rhetoric, a strong cadre base and even the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) helped the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tide over anti-incumbency and retain power in Assam, experts said May 2, 2021.

The incidents in the run-up to the COVID-19 pandemic making its appearance in India and the state governments handling of the crisis may have helped it win the poll, Deban Bhattacharya, state secretary of the Communist Party of India, told this reporter.

Wide-spread protests against the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) had rocked Assam as well as other parts of India after the CAA was passed in December 2019.

The leaderless protests led by people of Assam, especially students, forced the BJP government to go on the back foot on the implementation of a nationwide NRC.

There were huge protests against the CAA in Assam in December 2019. Five persons lost their lives during such protests in Guwahati.

However, the protests had to be suspended in February 2020 after COVID-19 hit the country.

Bhattacharya said:

The BJP swiftly carried out all their core agendas in the first year itself including the abrogation of Article 370, triple talaq and the CAA. The upshot of what they did was the deepening of the communal divide in the country.

He added that COVID-19 played the role of a speed breaker for anti-CAA protesters. Protests against the BJP slowed during the pandemic. The BJP took advantage of it, he added.

Others said the pandemic did not have a role to play in the win. Santanu Borthakur, political analyst and advocate of the Gauhati High Court attributed the victory to three factors. Management was the main factor, he said. The BJP succeeded in winning tea garden voters to their side.

The party also promised to increase the financial assistance given to pregnant women of the tea garden community to Rs 18,000, from the current amount of Rs 12,000, Borthakur said. They also succeeded in convincing the states voters that there was no credible alternative to them, he added.

Others credited the BJP and its ideological parent the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs strong cadre base.

We campaigned from door-to-door and met every voter. We organised 27,000 booth-level committees in Assam during the election. The booth-level committees played important role, BJP Guwahati district president and ex-Mayor of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation, Mrigen Sarnia, said.

Akhil Ranjan Dutta, political analyst and professor at the political science department of Gauhati University, agreed on the populism and organisation points:

They (the BJP) have two things. One is populism and the other is organisation. The partys populist policies like the Orunodoi scheme for low-income families, Arundhuti scheme for womens welfare, giving a free two-wheeler to girls, free admissions for poor students, endeared them to various segments such as girls, women and tribal communities. Given their cadre base, they also reached out to all ethnic groups.

The BJP, along with its allies Asom Gana Parishad and United Peoples Party Liberal was leading in 75 of the 126 Assembly seats for which trends were available by 6 pm May 2. The Congress-led 10-party Mahajot was leading in 50 seats.

Assam Pradesh Congress committee (APCC) President Ripun Bora said, We have accepted the verdict of the people. I do not want to give any comment before party-level committee discussions.

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In India, Facebook and Twitter walk censorship tightrope with government – Roll Call

Posted: at 8:27 pm

When we receive a valid legal request, we review it under both the Twitter Rules and local law. If the content violates Twitters rules, the content will be removed from the service, the spokesperson said. If it is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only.

Some advocates have slammed the companies for complying with the order, citing Facebooks partnership with the Global Network Initiative, a coalition that seeks to limit online censorship by autocratic governments, and Twitters stated mission to serve the public conversation.

Facebook, Twitter, and other technology companies have a responsibility to respect human rights, including right to free speech, said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in an email interview. Online censorship can have a debilitating effect on dissent. It is important for companies to protect the human rights of their users and not censor information in violation of international standards.

Despite the Indian governments order, the companies should interpret and implement legal demands as narrowly as possible, to ensure the least possible restriction on expression, notify users, seek clarification or modification from authorities, and explore all legal options for challenge, Ganguly said.

But the choice by social media companies facing government demands isnt only a moral one but a business decision, too. India has more than 755 million internet users second in the world only to China making it an attractive market for U.S. companies. Modis use of the countrys digital regulation laws places the companies in an unenviable position.

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Free speech, censorship and the constitution – Newnan Times-Herald

Posted: at 8:27 pm

Jack Bernard was formerly SVP of a national healthcare corporation and the first Director of Health Planning for GA. He was Chairman of the Jasper County GA GOP. He's now Vice Chairman of a Board of Health in Fayette County, a suburb of Atlanta.

This Supreme Court decision is a huge win for the First Amendment and protection of speech on college campuses.- Rep. Drew Ferguson

Rep. Ferguson was referring to the little known Uzuegbunam v Preczewski case (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-968_8nj9.pdf). It was recently decided by SCOTUS, 9-1 in favor of a Georgia Gwinnett College students right to free speech, even if the damages sought are only nominal and the schools policy has changed. And Ferguson was 100% correct; it is a big win for all Americans who are against censorship, regardless of political or religious affiliation.

Essentially, the case boiled down to the issue of whether or not Gwinnett could restrict Uzuegbunam from proselytizing on campus, including handing out LDS religious materials, if it disturbs the peace and/or comfort of persons. Gwinnett had complaints and campus security stopped Uzuegbunam, threatening disciplinary action. Later, Gwinnett refused to give him a permit to speak and hand out literature in a campus free speech zone. When the case was filed, Gwinnett did away with these policies and then argued that the suit should be disallowed.

As for myself, I believe religion is something that is personal to each individual. And I do not like proselytizing which invades my space. However, I still support the right of other Americans to speak about their religion in public if they so choose. And that includes Christians, Moslems, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Wiccans and anyone else. But this case goes far beyond religious free speech on campus. It relates to censorship coming from both the left and right.

Far left censorship has recently become an issue at numerous other American universities. The best example is debate regarding the Israeli-Palestinian situation.As someone who firmly believes in an equitable two state solution, I see fault with both the Palestinians (especially terroristic Hamas) and the Israelis (especially Netanyahus right wingers) on this issue. Both sides should be able to express their viewpoints on our campuses. However, pro-Palestine campus protestors do not let both positions be publicly expressed. In undemocratic fashion, they have prevented debate from occurring on numerous campuses including UNC, Duke, SFSU, Columbia, UC Irvine, U of Va. and elsewhere.

Censorship coming from the right is also at work in our society. Colin Kaepernick was the star quarterback for the San Francesco 49ers. When the National Anthem was played before a game during the 2016 season, he chose to kneel in solidarity with black people who have been wronged by police. President Trump then stated that athletes who did not stand during the National Anthem should be fired.

Kaepernick became a free agent after the season was over and NFL owners decided to censor him, punishing him for exercising his free speech rights. Although many teams were and still are in need of a fine quarterback, he has yet to be signed. He has now reached the age (33) where it would be increasingly unlikely. Kaepernick has become a victim of right wing cancel culture simply for expressing his free speech rights under the Constitution.

Over the last decade, our nation has become more tribal. Free speech has become a casualty of these right-left divisions. Regardless of our personal politics, we must all push back against stifling the non-violent views of others from being heard.

Jack Bernard was formerly SVP of a national healthcare corporation and the first Director of Health Planning for GA. He was Chairman of the Jasper County GA GOP. He's now Vice Chairman of a Board of Health in Fayette County, a suburb of Atlanta.

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Ban Trump? Not so fast. Florida is about to pass a law to stop Facebook and Twitter from censoring politicians – USA TODAY

Posted: at 8:27 pm

Former President Donald Trump told Fox Business on Thursday that Rudy Giuliani was "the greatest mayor in the history of New York and a great patriot. (April 29) AP Domestic

One of the nations largest states is taking on Big Tech.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is likely to sign into lawa bill that would prevent social media companies Facebook, Twitter and Googles YouTube from deplatforming politicians such as former President Donald Trump.

The bill was approved Thursday by the Republican-controlled state Legislature.

It would ordersocial media companies to publish standards with detailed definitions of when someone would be censored or blocked and makecompanies subject to as much as $250,000 daily fines for deplatforming a Florida candidate. The bill would requirea social media company to notify users within seven days that they could be censored, giving them time to correct posts.

Republican lawmakers in Florida said legislation is needed to curb the influence the nations leading social media companies have over the national conversation.

"What this bill is about is sending a loud message to Silicon Valley that they are not the absolute arbiters of truth," state Rep. John Snyder, a Republican from the Port St. Lucie area, said Wednesday, according to NBC News.

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"What this bill does is send a loud message that the Constitution does not have an asterisk that says only certain speech is free and protected," he said.

The legislation is likely to face industry opposition.

This bill abandons conservative values, violates the First Amendment, and would force websites to host antisemitic, racist, and hateful content. Content moderation is crucial to an internet that is safe and valuable for families and Floridian small businesses, but this bill would undermine this important ecosystem, Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of trade group NetChoice, said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Szabo argued that the legislation would make it more difficult for conservatives to get their voices heard.

He told Florida lawmakers this monththat conservative speech has never been stronger.

No longer limited to a handful of newspapers or networks, conservative messages can now reach billions of people across multiple social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Gab, Parler, Rumbleand MeWe, Szabosaid. Weve seen the rise of conservative voices without having to beg for an op-ed in The Washington Post or New York Timesor a speaking slot on CNN. Social networks allow conservative voices to easily find conservative viewers.

Donald Trump was booted off social media after the Capitol riot by a mob of his supporters Jan. 6.(Photo: AP)

Conservatives intensified attacks on social media companies after the ejection of Trump and other conservatives in response tothe attack Jan. 6 on the U.S. Capitol.

DeSantis, a Republican and a Trump ally,condemned the oligarchs in Silicon Valley for deplatforming Trump and other conservatives.

Without citing evidence, DeSantis said Facebook, Twitter and YouTube use their size, advertising power and global reach to influence thought and play favorites being tougher on those who comment from the political right than left.

DeSantis revived his criticism after a roundtable he held in March was taken down from YouTube because the governor and scientists he invited were accused of airing COVID-19 misinformation.

Now accepting reader submissions: Creating a gaming community at USA TODAY

If conservatives want to remain on social media platforms, they should follow the rules, State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando-area Democrat, told NBC News.

"There's already a solution to deplatforming candidates on social media: Stop trafficking in conspiracy theories. That's the solution. Stop pushing misinformation if you're a candidate or an incumbent elected official. Stop retweeting QAnon. Stop lying on social media," Smith said.

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COVID-19 Is Devastating India. Its Government Is Trying To Censor Social Media. – BuzzFeed News

Posted: at 8:27 pm

As thousands of people die each day, the Modi government is cracking down on people criticizing it online.

Posted on April 29, 2021, at 5:05 p.m. ET

A worker adjusts a funeral pyre of those who died from COVID-19 during a mass cremation at a crematorium in New Delhi on April 29, 2021.

India, a country with 1.4 billion people, has been gripped by a deadly second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. But even as its healthcare system gasps for breath and its crematoriums burn with thousands of funeral pyres, its leaders are scrambling to censor the internet.

Last week, Indias IT ministry ordered Twitter to block more than 50 tweets from being seen in the country. Days later, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Times of India reported that Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube had also taken down posts that were critical of the government. Over the last week, ordinary people running WhatsApp and Telegram groups to help people find medical oxygen and hospital beds have complained of threats demanding that they shut them down, and police in the state of Uttar Pradesh filed a complaint against a man who asked for medical oxygen for his dying grandfather on Twitter, claiming that he was spreading misleading information. On Wednesday, posts with the hashtag #ResignModi disappeared from Facebook for a few hours. And even though the company restored it and claimed that the Indian government didnt ask for it to be censored, it didnt provide details about why the hashtag had been blocked.

These incidents which happened within days of each other as criticism of Indias government reached a fever pitch highlight the shrinking space for dissent in the worlds largest democracy. As social unrest against an increasingly authoritarian government grows, it has cracked down on social media, one of the last free spaces remaining for citizens to express their opinions. New regulations have given the government broad powers to restrict content, forcing US tech platforms, which count India as a key market, to strike a balance between growth and free expression.

This isnt the first time that an Indian government has attempted to censor speech online. In 2012, before Modi came to power, Indias United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government ordered internet service providers to block more than a dozen Twitter accounts, including those belonging to people from the right wing.

In February, Indias government ordered Twitter to take down more than 250 tweets that criticized how the government handled protests over new agricultural laws. Although Twitter blocked most of the accounts, it unblocked the ones belonging to journalists, activists, and politicians, despite jail threats from the Indian government.

Indias current internet censorship ties directly into social criticism of the governments policies.

But now, there is an increase in the frequency and scale of the censorship that is being demanded, Apar Gupta, director of digital rights organization Internet Freedom Foundation, told BuzzFeed News. Indias current internet censorship ties directly into social criticism of the governments policies.

Over the weekend, Indias IT ministry attempted to explain its reasoning in an unsigned Word document it shared with the press, and which was accessed by BuzzFeed News.

The [g]overnment welcomes criticisms, genuine requests for help as well as suggestions in the collective fight against COVID19, the note said. But it is necessary to take action against those users who are misusing social media during this grave humanitarian crisis for unethical purposes.

The ministry cited a handful of the 53 tweets that it ordered to be blocked as examples of problematic content. There are four tweets that call the coronavirus pandemic a conspiracy theory, and four more containing old and unrelated visuals of patients and dead bodies. At least two of these four instances are genuine examples of misinformation, fact-checkers from Indian outlets Alt News and Newschecker who examined the images told BuzzFeed News.

In an example of how thin the line between removing dangerous rumors and censoring political expression can be, the ministry offered no explanations for any other content ordered down. A BuzzFeed News examination of the rest of the restricted tweets showed that at least some of them appeared to make legitimate criticisms of Indias prime minister. One of the restricted tweets, for instance, belongs to Moloy Ghatak, a minister from the state of West Bengal. He accuses Modi of mismanaging the pandemic and exporting vaccines when theres a shortage in India.

Neither Ghatak nor the IT ministry responded to requests for comment

One of the tweets restricted in India belonged to Pawan Khera, a national spokesperson of the Indian National Congress, Indias main opposition party. The tweet, which was posted on April 12, shows pictures from the Kumbh Mela, a religious Hindu gathering held earlier this month during which millions of people bathed in a river even as coronavirus cases were rapidly rising. Both ordinary Indians and the global press have criticized Indias government for allowing the gathering to happen. In his tweet, Khera contrasts Indias lack of reaction to the Kumbh Mela with an incident last year, when members of a Muslim gathering were accused of spreading the coronavirus when the country had fewer than 1,000 confirmed cases.

Why was my tweet withheld? Khera told BuzzFeed News. Thats the answer I need from the government of India.

What laws am I violating? What rumors am I spreading? Where did I cause panic? These are the questions I need answered, said Khera, who sent a legal request to the IT ministry and Twitter this week.

If I dont hear back from them, Ill take them to court.

If I dont hear back from them, Ill take them to court, he said. I need legal relief to protect my freedom of expression.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Experts said the ministrys note didnt provide sufficient justification for ordering social media platforms to censor posts. Since when did the government start sending takedown notices for misinformation? asked Pratik Sinha, editor of Alt News. And why have just these tweets been cited [out of 53]?

Social media platforms havent been the only places seeing a crackdown. Over the last few weeks, volunteer-run networks of WhatsApp and Telegram groups amplifying pleas for help, and getting people access to medical oxygen, lifesaving drugs, and hospital beds have sprung up around the country. But over the last few days, some of them have disbanded. According to a report on Indian news website the Quint, volunteers running these groups received calls from people claiming to be from the Delhi Police asking them to shut them down.

The Delhi Police denied this, but by then, people were spooked. A network of WhatsApp groups run by more than 300 volunteers disbanded days ago even though they didnt get a call. We decided not to take a chance, the founder of this group, who wished to remain anonymous, told BuzzFeed News. [I felt] frustration and anger.

Experts said one of the biggest problems in this situation is a lack of transparency from both the government and the platforms. Last week, Twitter revealed the details of the IT ministrys order on Lumen, a Harvard University database that lets companies disclose takedown notices from governments around the world. But Facebook, Instagram, and Google havent commented on alleged censorship in one of their largest markets, either to the public or to BuzzFeed News when asked.

They didnt even put out a public statement about this, said the Internet Freedom Foundations Gupta. The primary duty of transparency lies with the government, but there has been absolutely no transparency by the platforms.

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Memo to Dems: Call The GOPs Populist Bluff – The Bulwark

Posted: at 8:27 pm

To: The Libs; Interested PartiesFrom: A New FriendRe: Wedging the crap out of the new working-class party phonies

If you havent seen it yet, my padna James Carville is on one this week. In a Honey Badgeresque Vox interview, which was helpfully transcribed for the faculty-lounge Yankees who cant decipher his clipped Cajun, Carville laid out the problems he sees with his party in the wake of a narrow victory over a world-historical buffoon that also resulted in the loss of congressional seats.

Carvilles concern is a practical one: An imbalance in the Senate, Electoral College, and to a lesser degree the House gives working-class white voters disproportionate sway in our politics. Thats just a fact. And it isnt going anywhere, no matter how it makes you feel.

Democrats who want to win campaigns need to come up with a plan to address this fact and not just fantasize about Joe Manchin getting hit by falling piano, suffering amnesia, and waking up wanting to end the filibuster, add three new states, and coin a new tagline for Ocean Breeze soap.

As Carville says:

Heres the deal: No matter how you look at the map, the only way Democrats can hold power is to build on their coalition, and that will have to include more rural white voters from across the country. Democrats are never going to win a majority of these voters. Thats the reality. But the difference between getting beat 80 to 20 and 72 to 28 is all the difference in the world.

The last sentence is the key. Hes not suggesting Democrats try to dominate rural America. But he recognizes that, as a matter of national political survival, Democrats must claw back part of their old coalition.

His advice for doing it:

I concur on all three, but Id like to revise and extend the third item. Because Democrats dont just need to do a better job branding the benefits of the Biden agenda.

They need to make the working class Republican party pay for opposing them.

From my vantage point Republicans are giving the left a massive opportunity to wedge them.

Consider:

Following the 2020 defeat the Republicans plan for moving forward is to

Wink.

In sum, the Republican plan is to stick with the Trump coalition, hope to attract some working-class minorities, and make it harder for Democratic groups to vote.

You might not like that plan, but its viable. Theres a path to victory for Republicans thereespecially in the midterm but absolutely in 2024, too. Theres only one weakness in it. Are you ready?

Republican politicians tried to stop Bidens (popular) programs which help working-class voters.

Sure, they have gone hard-populist on cultural issuesas God is their witness, theyll never cave on trans athletes (well, almost never). They will rant and rave about Dr. Seusss self-cancelation. But what are they gonna do? Tell voters, Vote for me and Ill pass a law forcing the Seuss estate to publish everything, forever. Promise to hold a hearing about drag-queen story hour?

On the real parts of populismthe parts where legislators vote on bills that change the tax code or give working parents a benefit to help pay for the cost of raising kidsRepublicans are in large part still stuck in the Tea Party / Chamber of Commerce days.

If anything, Republicans are sitting in the sour spot of populist economics. You get Marco Rubio tweeting that he wants to use the government to punish woke corporations if they dont support his conception of the common goodbut then hes going to oppose Bidens attempt to raise the corporate tax rate in order to fund a bigger social support network for workers.

If Democrats cant make a guy like Rubio pay for those conflicting positions, then theyre going to lose at least the House. And theyll deserve to.

Because Republicans are going to be in the position of being anti-corporate when it comes to popular companies endorsing popular issues and pro-corporate when it comes to companies keeping the former guys tax breaks.

At least Josh Hawley is putting some meat on his kayfabe, proposing a $1,000 cash bonus for families with kids under 13 (alongside his lonely vote against legislation aiming to address anti-Asian hate crimes). But thats not going anywhere. And the main body of the GOP will never get behind itespecially not when it would be Joe Biden signing the deal in the Oval Office.

This disconnect between the Republicans new coalition and what they are willing to actually support hands the ice pick to the Democrats and begs them to use it.

Politics is about expanding your coalition while creating wedges in the other side.

A Navigator poll in February showed that half of Republicans making less than $50,000 a year were worried that the government would not do enough to help regular people suffering from COVID-19 fallout.

And then every Republican voted against Bidens American Rescue package.

How do Democrats take advantage?

(1) It starts with Carvilles suggestion about branding the Biden agenda. Yes there were the $1,400 checks. But what else was in the COVID package? What are the three items in either the rescue package or the infrastructure bill that workers can grasp and know are improving their lives? Can non-political obsessives answer that question right now? I dont think so. Democrats need to change that ASAP. Biden will have a first crack at that in tonights big speech.

(2) Dare the Republicans to live up to their rhetoric. Cant get a $15 minimum wage through Manchin and Sinema? Then cut a deal that gets them on board for a smaller number. Call Cottons bluff on his $10 minimum wage proposal by offering a $12 or $11 compromise and watch him buckle. Do the same with Ernst, Lee, and Rubio on Paid Family Leave.

(3) Find the most tangible, popular items with working-class voters. Not bullshit pablum about economic securitywere talking about actual benefits. Get them into legislation, get them voted onand then relentlessly crush any Republicans who opposes them. In the case of the popular stuff that was already in the American Rescue Plan, every single R is already on the hook.

(4) Figure out how to tell this story inside the R information bubble. Yes, that means adsbut if you wanna get really crazy, go on Fox and talk about it. If the host badgers you about fiscal responsibility and pay fors then youre doing the wedge thing right.

Put in a more Twitter friendly format:

Push economic agenda items that are popular with working-class voters. Watch Republicans vote against them. Beat them over the head with these votes. Ignore all the faculty lounge/Latinx bullshit.

Every single day Democrats should wake up and ask themselves, What am I doing to make sure working-class voters know exactly how we helped themand how Republicans tried to stop us?

As a former Republican, is this my dream politics? Not really, no.

Do I wish we could create a big, beautiful technocratic centrist party that was restrained in its view of what government could do effectively? That paired new programs with cutting wasteful ones? Sure thing.

But at the moment, thats just a fantasy, no more realistic than the progressive dream of killing the filibuster and moving 150,000 liberals to Cheyenne.

Make the GOP own the insurrection and the bigoted, conspiratorial crazy in the suburbs. And make them own blocking economic help in working-class communities. Be relentless about it. Thats the whole ballgame.

Because heres the thing: Republicans are betting that working-class whites only care about the culture-war populism and dont actually give a crap about populists economics.

Now maybe thats right and maybe Republicans will be able to ride online cancel culture to victory while also fighting to make sure that Mark Zuckerberg never pays a dime more in taxes.

And if they are right, then youre probably screwed.

But if Democrats are going to have any hope of growing their coalition further, the best move on the board is to try to bring the R-margins among working-class white voters down a few points. Shift the GOP margins with these folks from Saddam Hussein-level blowouts to normal levels of dominance. Move from 80-20 to 72-28.

If it works, that shift, combined with maintaining the existing Democratic majority would be enough to net a few Senate seats in 2022 and go into 2024 with a winning coalition that Joe Biden is better suited to hold together than basically any other living politician.

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Financial Censorship Is a Thing. Bitcoin Fixes It – CoinDesk – CoinDesk

Posted: at 8:27 pm

The next time someone smugly tells you there is no legitimate use case for cryptocurrency, or asserts that it has no redeeming social value, shove this story in his or her face:

Meduza, a Russian news outlet, is soliciting donations in cryptocurrency (along with traditional payment methods) after the government labeled it a foreign agent, CoinDesks on-the-ground correspondent, Anna Baydakova, reported Thursday.

This article is excerpted fromThe Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the most pivotal stories on cryptocurrency and the future of money. You can subscribe to get the fullnewsletter here.

Meduza is now required by law to post a notice of its foreign agent status in a typeface bigger than the text of its articles. As a result of this scarlet letter, Meduza lost many of its advertisers and is running out of money, the team behind the publication said. Apparently, it hasnt been deplatformed by traditional financial institutions because it is also taking donations by bank card and PayPal. But the reasons Meduza gave for including the crypto option were telling.

If people are afraid to send us money from their bank accounts, and they might well be, they can send us crypto, said Meduzas editor-in-chief, Ivan Kolpakov.

A skeptic might note that donors who send bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), or BNB to Meduza would leave a permanent record of their actions on the blockchains, or public ledgers, of these assets. But such a record would show only the address, a random-seeming string of numbers and letters, that sent the money, not the person behind it. An address may or may not be tied to donors real-world identity, depending on how they acquired the crypto and what steps they took to protect their privacy, whereas their bank and PayPal accounts definitely are.

The age of weaponized banking

Further, if recent history teaches us anything, it is that financial intermediaries cannot be relied upon to stand with dissident or unpopular voices.

We saw this more than a decade ago with the blockade of WikiLeaks by PayPal and other large financial institutions that caved to extra-legal pressure from U.S. politicians.

We see it today whenpayment processorsandcrowdfunding sitesbootcontent creators,fundraisersorpariah-friendlyinternet platforms, not because they are breaking any laws but because their speech offends activists. I, too, find the content in many of these cases unsavory. But I dont mind that it exists, and I dont want to prevent those who want to read, watch or hear it from doing so. Thats a basic small-l liberal principle. Orwas.

To quote a locked Twitter account, whom I will not name out of respect for the persons privacy: If I cover my ears because I dont want to hear from you, its not censorship. If I cover your mouth or someone elses ears because people want to hear you, its censorship.

I can already hear the bien pensants say, Its only censorship when the government does it. But even if you accept only that narrow legal definition of the word, it surely describes what the Russian government the very regime whose influence in the U.S. many of those same bien pensants spent the last four years hyperventilating about is trying to do to Meduza.

Crypto might thwart that attempt, or at least hinder it, by enabling individuals to transfer money to a publisher without permission from third parties that can be strong-armed or politicized.

Downsides

By all means, lets talk about the copious amounts of electricity required to secure Bitcoin and other proof-of-stake networks although describing this intensive computation as wasteful is a subjective value judgment. (TikTok and hair dryers are wasteful in my book. Should those things be banned?)

By all means, lets acknowledge that cryptocurrencys openness to all comers makes it attractive to criminals although the blockchains trail of crumbs also helps law enforcement catch the crooks who use these systems.

See also: Daniel Kuhn Bitcoin, Warts and All

By all means, lets pay attention to how terrorists, foreign or now, were told, domestic, might take advantage of this technology. But if were going to blame anyone or anything other than the terrorists for their actions, remember it was not Satoshi Nakamoto who destabilized the Middle East or hollowed out Middle America.

When tallying the social costs of censorship-resistant money, do not ignore the benefits for the Meduzas of the world.

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Is Josh Hawley Serious About Taking On Big Tech? – The New Republic

Posted: at 8:27 pm

Where Hawley is most far afield is in talking about content moderation. This is a broad, thorny issue that essentially concerns what kinds of posts a social network should allow and what kind it shouldnt. Big companies like Facebook employ thousands of third-party content moderators who help keep social networks free of the flood of gore, animal abuse, child porn, and other ghastly material that is being constantly uploaded to these platforms. At a scale of millions or billions of users, content moderation decisions carry a huge potential impact. For that and other reasons, these systems are far from perfectand reflect corporate policies that are often political in nature, privileging some types of speech over othersbut without them, most popular websites and platforms would be almost impossible to use. Its a flawed system crying out for reform, public education, and debate; its also all we have right now.

Conservative commentators like Hawley have no understanding of these complexities. To them, content moderation is censorshipfull stop. Its an inhibitor of free speech and a way of coercing users into behaviors and modes of thought that Silicon Valley prefers. Its another manifestation of Big Techs progressive social agendapro-LGBT, pro-abortion, proBlack Lives Matter. Instead of quoting academics, content moderators, or anyone else with a hand in this misunderstood industry, Hawley turns to a pseudonymous Facebook whistleblower, from whom we learn, in muddled terms, about some internal Facebook tools that the company uses to manage content moderation and sometimes coordinate decisions with other companies. In Hawleys view, this is only further evidence of the perfidy of content moderation, which he depicts as a concerted censorship regime designed to promote liberal policies. (To that end, Hawley approvingly cites a widely discredited study by a man named Robert Epstein, who claimed that Google search suggestions shifted millions of votes to Hillary Clinton in 2016.)

Hawley may be smarter than this, but put-on ignorance is a feature of a Republican leadership that would rather deny its elite credentials. (At one point, Hawley disparagingly refers to the founders of Google as Silicon Valley PhD students without acknowledging that they attended Stanford at the same time that he was an undergraduate there.) Fusing the false populism of Trumpism with a Republican establishment that has never seen a tax cut it doesnt like, Hawleys proposed solutions to our Big Tech problem are lacking. He says nothing about strengthening unions or raising corporate tax rates. He says little about actually breaking up companies or using the power of the Department of Justice and regulatory agencies to check tech behavior. He seems to want it both ways, aspiring to a more activist, trust-busting government while never actually promising substantive interventions, since he must maintain his congenital opposition to big government.

Some of Hawleys ideas, like his proposed Do Not Track legislation to give users more ability to opt out of online surveillance, bear consideration, or at least are founded in worthwhile principles. He seems aghast at the scope of digital surveillance, though he overlooks the U.S. governments own complicity in this state of affairs. He wants a new Glass-Steagall Act for the tech sector [that] would halt techs march into every industry in America and circumscribe its dominance over American life, but he says nothing about other forms of corporate consolidation and influence. Other suggestions seem insignificant or misguided: Hawley would like to ban the infinite scrolling of the Facebook news feed and YouTubes autoplay feature, saying they enmesh users in addictive habits. Hed also like to raise the legal age to open a social media account from 13 to 16 and require that users submit an ID. Perhaps most significantly, he would like to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Acta brief but profoundly influential law that essentially immunizes internet companies from legal liability for the content posted on their services. Hawley seems to have little idea of how to replace it (or what the consequences of not doing so might be).

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