Daily Archives: August 20, 2021

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. Photo: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The world has changed since the Taliban last controlled Afghanistan 20 years ago. One major difference: the rise of social media. The extremist group now has a major, public-facing presence on the internet, presenting companies like Google and Facebook with a dilemma about how to regulate or not regulate their output. On the latest Pivot podcast, Kara Swisher and guest co-host Casey Newton discuss how the tech giants are thinking about this problem.

Kara Swisher: The Talibans rise to power in Afghanistan could have implications for big tech, as companies and users scramble to protect their data and services. The Taliban is likely in possession of biometric databases compiled by the previous Afghan government that might include fingerprints, facial recognition, and scans, according to Human Rights First. There are concerns that the Taliban could use the data to track down previous government employees, international workers, womens-rights activists, and educators. They also are trying very hard to stay on these platforms. Facebook has kept the Taliban off of Facebook. Twitter has let them stay on as long as they dont break the rules. YouTube has kept them off of it based on U.S. government sanctions laws. Youve written quite a bit about this. So what do you think about whats happening here? Again, its these social-media companies smack in the middle of an international crisis as always.

Twice weekly, Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher host Pivot, a New York Magazine podcast about business, technology, and politics.

Casey Newton:Yeah. I mean, the first thing to say is what an absolutely heartbreaking situation. Its hard not to see the stories over the past few days and not just feel constantly in pain over all the human suffering that were watching unfold. For the platforms, this is such a no-win question, because up until now, most of them have said, based on our interpretation of U.S. law, were not going to keep the Taliban and their posts up.

Swisher: Not Twitter.

Newton: Well, so Twitter is a weird one and I have reported that out a little bit. And basically, I think the reason that the Taliban has not been off Twitter is that they are not on this list that the State Department maintains called the Foreign Terrorist Organizations List. Twitter says, for whatever reason, were going to allow them to be on.

But I actually think that six months from now, most platforms positions will look a lot more like Twitter. Then its going to be the other platforms that are going to have to backtrack, because I mean, even in the recent Biden interview you sort of get the impression that the Taliban is going to get some kind of recognition from the international community, at which point they probably are going to have a Facebook page and a Twitter account and all of that. But yeah, I mean, this goes right to the question of, well, is this a town square, where no matter who is the mayor, you got to have an account? Or do the platforms say, you have committed war crimes and atrocities and human-rights abuses, and youre not welcome on the platform.

Swisher: I think one of the things thats interesting is it begs the question of what happens if President Trump returns to office. What does Twitter do?

Newton: Well, I will go into hiding. Im going to catch the next Jeff Bezos rocket to space, I think, if that happens. And then humans will be on their own.

Swisher: Okay, Casey, but in any case, what is Twitter going to do? Thats the thing.

Newton: Facebook suspended him for two years. If Trump becomes president again, I do believe that Facebook would reinstate him.

Swisher: Unless he misbehaved, right?

Newton: Yeah. If he broke the rules again, they would get rid of him. And the thing is he would break the rules again hes incapable of not breaking the rules. I actually think if they had to make the decision today if one of these demented QAnon fantasies came true and Trump became president tomorrow Twitter would still keep him off the platform. Everyone Ive talked to at Twitter has said that he is permanently suspended, like there is no avenue for appeal.

Swisher: Theres no avenue for appeal. Thats right. It still will be an interesting question if he rises back to power. But getting back to the Taliban, one of the most ironic things is that one of the spokesmen for the Taliban was sort of calling out Mark Zuckerberg. Its like, He believes in free speech and yet he censors us? He sounded very much like the Trump administration and Republicans or Ted Cruz.

Newton: Yeah. I mean, it got a lot of pick up, but I thought it was kind of a dumb deflection, because the question that he got asked was, like, Are you going to permit free speech in Afghanistan? Which is a very good and important question. He was like, Free speech? Why dont you go ask Facebook about free speech? Which is a very Don Trump Jr.level burn.

Swisher: Yes it was. It was strange.

Newton: And Donald Trump Jr. did approvingly quote-tweet it, by the way.

Swisher: Of course he did. But in any case, the more serious issue is that theyre getting all this data because the U.S. government pushed for and funded programs to capture Afghans biometric data during the occupation. What is going to happen here with their ability to use all this data?

Newton: I dont know exactly what data is on which devices. My understanding is that they have collected a lot of biometric data about citizens. There are stories that, in the past, the Taliban has gotten access to similar data and used it in essentially terror campaigns against Afghani citizens. So we do have to assume that that is going to happen again. I hope it doesnt happen. I also hope that people who make this kind of hardware and these kinds of services take this as a lesson that they need to build in fail-safes for when their products fall into the wrong hands, because they will fall into the wrong hands. Theres this company, Clearview AI theyre scraping every face they can find on the internet and putting it in a database and selling it to governments.

It is not hard to figure out that this is all going to be used against us. To your point, what happens when a Trump-like figure comes back into power? Well, I think theyre going to use a database like that to harass us all and to punish dissidents and journalists, and God knows what else.

Swisher: Well, they did do that with immigrants.

Newton: Yeah, absolutely. If youre coming into this country as an immigrant, all of a sudden you have to show your social-media handles, right? Its a climate-change-like problem, because the creep is slow and no one thing makes it feel like a crisis. And then you turn around five or ten years later, and you realize that your freedoms have been dramatically reduced. So I do hope people pay attention to this one.

Pivot is produced by Lara Naaman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.

Link:
Will Twitter Boot the Taliban? - New York Magazine

In part one publishedlast week, I was very clear that by now our society ought to have gone past making issues of the above freedoms, which have been provided for in our Constitution; we should be rather focused on new matters that are of major national concern. Unfortunately, we have kept at them because of inadequate knowledge among the leadership class about what should be priority matters in country making. The second explanation for this would be self and group interest, followed by absence of a standard vision for pursuing our national development

The crux of democratic order is citizens mass participation in the electoral process, followed by active collaboration in civil governance, and next in importance is their freedom. Sovereignty belongs to the people, and one way of giving expression and vent to it, is citizens rights. When the people give away their sovereignty on short time basis, elections and retention of critical natural rights like the right to free speech and to demand accountability, provide them some measure of safety against very possible tyranny. That is the exact reason those who know give all to protect civil rights.

We ought not to be begging for freedom of expression or freedom of the press. Besides the fact that they belong to the category of natural rights, they are factors without which any society will be something else, and definitely not a setting fit for human habitation. Freedom is right of humans to express themselves without let. When you kill or abridge this right all one has left will be ghosts masquerading as humans. One can guess no one will want this, not even those rural folks we pass for ignorant. Some of us have heard many them challenge us at community meetings by saying, Anyone who will stop me from talking, let him or her not only grow dumb, but give birth to dumb children as well. This is indicative that they know about freedom of expression and the power it has in making the human and then his society. No serious, sane people, and in particular leadership, will fail to take in this and its lessons. This is why many are appalled at recent events surrounding press freedom and freedom of expression in our society.

Many wish our leaders knew and appreciated a few more things about the right to talk. Perhaps if they knew, what they do now would not be, for the simple reason that it is not necessary at all. It is difficult to know what ought to be in a setting where square pegs are forced into round holes. For instance, appointing a lawyer to man information management at the highest level is the apex of aberrations, the situation has not been helped one bit by professional information managers who are lily-livered when they should step out to be counted in moments when the only desire of those who want power by all means is to hurt the people and the society for personal aggrandisement. If professionals in power stood to be counted things would definitely turn out differently and far better. The way things are going they must stand to be counted in the few days ahead and where they fail, their colleagues have a cardinal responsibility to ask to make where they stand public. It is not enough to tell us after office that they gave advice but nobody listened to them. We have seen this pattern long enough, and given where we are this style should be done away with right way if it has not given way long before now.

The freedoms in question are vital to be left to be tampered with by men and women in power, who want to hide under public good to commit blue murder. A leader in America had this to say about these freedoms: They are not just part of democracy, they are democracy themselves. Thomas Jefferson (who told the world that if he had to make a choice between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, he wont hesitate a minute to opt for the latter) let us know that freedom of speech and free press are interwoven with the right to liberty. He made it clear that government cannot abridge any of them without the loss of right to liberty of the citizens. Harold Lasswell could not have put it better when he said: Open interplay of the people and their government is the distinguishing mark of popular rule.

These positions are unassailable; they come into dispute only when farcists are in power and are rearing to circumvent checks against reckless use of state power. Freedom of speech is inherent right, freedom of the press is an outlet and not about profit making. It is an organ that enhances the peoples participation in daily governance routines and empowers them with opportunities to hold those in their service accountable. If truth be told the Core North has dominated power and they have not handled it too well. Poor governance, especially deep abuse of our diversity, is provoking sounds they would like to see buried, and that desire is driving the current efforts to gag the people.

Current heightened efforts to make media laws draconian can be rightly situated within this circle of wish, and exact reason no highly recognized leader from that part of the country has condemned this overreach. The Buhari administration is finding in this regressive desire a source for legitimacy, but this is at the unfortunate expense of building a virile country capable of holding her own in the comity of nations. Other motivations include the urge by leaders to keep their activities secret, forgetting that openness is also a key principle in a democracy. We must not fail to remind the government that the peoples right to know is sacrosanct. The media has a responsibility to report developments to the extent that is limited by social responsibility as professionally dictated, not as prescribed by those in power.

What is more, the Giant of Africa, as we claim, should be a beacon of great examples for others, but we are not. Instead, countries like Ghana, Kenya and others are teaching us things we should teach them. If truly our leaders mean well and are committed to building a great nation where life will be abundant for all, then it should be very clear to them that stifling of voices would always end up provoking a fiasco of unimaginable dimension, and one that would do no one any good. When people ventilate their grievances, the tendency is to relax in the consolation that they have at least voiced out their anger. They hope to have been heard and expect solutions to follow. It is in the solution or lack of it we have peace or conflicts.

We have had conflicts and conflagrations more of the time because those in whose power it is to assuage grievances refuse to ask questions, to listen, take serious the complaints and fail to provide answers or suitable solutions. That is the root cause of tensions and underdevelopment, not what the people say or write. Destruction and killings have always come from raw ambitions of the political class and reckless, blood-filled actions to achieve same, not from what the people say even against each other or as published or aired by the media. Rwanda didnt boil over because of hate speech; it boiled over when someone shot down the plane of the president.

No one is afraid of regulation, what should happen should be the existence of a consensus that no new law from either the parliament or government agencies should seek to take away what the constitution has rightly given. In the event of amendment or new policies, collaboration with stakeholders must precede enactment. When a regulation seeks to suggest what media guest should say or not say, this is not only an attempt to gag, it is a disingenuous undertaking to turn human beings into animals, entities without intelligence. No right thinking guest to media sessions will go right out to inflate passion except he is on a mission. The media should know who they invite but if genuinely along the line slips occur, trained minds who moderate, ought to know what to do to mellow negative eruptions and wipe off any damage done; it is not a task that can be handled mechanically through one for all legislation.

There are concerns about media engaging in activism. There is nothing wrong with that; without media activism our fight for independence would have lasted far longer and at a point turned very bloody. A famous writer, Samuel Gompers, captures what should be when he said: Freedom of speech and and freedom of the press are not granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are based upon accepted thought, but the right to say the things which displease, right to convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, right to say things even if they amount to wrong.

This is it. Here we say dont discuss security or self determination because it looks strange and harmful, or restructuring because it could lead to dissolution of the country,yet in Britain it is not only discussed, people are encouraged to hold rallies, print banners and other things to express their preferences and heaven wont fall, rather government looks at the issues and tries to find answers which it quickly applies. Here we wont discuss, we rather would wish time and fatigue would wear the people out and wipe the concerns away. Things dont work that way!

Today, absence of sound professional advice has left us with phrases like too much details, glamourising negative news, divisive rhetorics and making something sacred out of security challenges. What amounts to much details in accurately reporting an event ? What is glamourising a bad issue for which state actors seem totally helpness? So citizens should be killed and none should speak or report on matters that ordinarily throw governments out of power elsewhere? On security, which is more harmful: to know the causes and pretend not to know? Could it be the news or security agents announcing intention to storm an area long before they go to do a show of their presence before embarking on actual combating of menace ? Which one?

If we love this country then we owe it responsibility to act in ways that will make it possible for all hands to be on deck for her development. Our objectives must not only be noble our actions must correspond with our heartbeat. We must cease from turning minor issues into major. The judiciary must watch out for those who want to abridge our liberty. Perhaps many dont know it was the judiciary that helped America maintain sense of balance around those issues. Same can be done here. As we conclude we bring forth this immutable remark from Justice Felix Frankfurter taken from one of his adjudications on press freedom: Without a free press there can be no society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of press are to be viewed and applied in that light. One cant add more. This is erudition, the kind that produces modern nations. The people and the press must be left alone. Lets focus on real matters. We know them or dont we?

Concluded.

Originally posted here:
Press freedom and free speech (2) The Sun Nigeria - Daily Sun

Paul F. deLespinasse| The Daily Telegram

As a long-time observer of American radio, TVand newspapers, I am appalled by claims some people are placing on Facebook that we no longer have a free press. These claims, freely transmitted over the internet, would seem to contradict themselves.

One wonders if these people have any understanding of what life was like in a country that really did not have a free press: the Soviet Union prior to Mikhail Gorbachevs glasnost (free speech).

The Soviet censorship agency, Glavlit, employed 80,000 people. Nothing could be published even a message on a book of matches without its permission. The government devoted tons of money, and a lot of electricity, to broadcast jamming signals so Soviet citizens could not listen to shortwave radio stations like the Voice of America and the BBC.

A license from the police was required to own a typewriter, which was considered a dangerous weapon. Copy machines were tightly controlled.

Boris Pasternak defied these controls in 1956 by smuggling the manuscript for his novel, "Dr. Zhivago," out of the country after Soviet authorities refused to allow publication. Pasternak was under tremendous pressure not to do this. After it was published abroad his situation became so intolerable that he briefly considered killing himself.

At the Writers Union, dozens of his friends and colleagues were forced to denounce him in the most vicious terms. He was expelled from the Writers Union by a vote which the leader of the meeting deemed unanimous even though one dissenter shouted Not true! Not unanimously! I voted against!" (Ironically, the dissenter was the sister-in-law of the late dictator, Josef Stalin!)

Earlier, Pasternak had gotten in trouble for refusing to sign petitions demanding execution of enemies of the state. Dont yell at me, he told some fellow writers at a public meeting. But if you must yell, at least dont do it in unison.

Then the controlled press got into the act. Letters denouncing Pasternak were published, along with articles reviewing "Dr. Zhivago" in the most negative possible way. Naturally no rebuttals were allowed. Some reviewers admitted that they had not read the book. Probably none of them had read it, since it hadnt come out in Russian yet and copies in other languages could not be brought into the country.

Of course, the Soviet editors who allowed these reviews to be published were under the thumb of the authorities and knew they would be fired (or worse) if they defied their orders. But their predicament reminds me of one of my students at Adrian College, Tiffany B., one of the editors of the College World newspaper.

A very controversial bookhad recently been published. One of our students asked Tiffany if he could write a criticism of it for the College World. She replied, as any good editor would have,Sure, but you have to read it first."

I thought this was a good idea.

The two leading newspapers in the Soviet Union were Pravda ("truth") and Izvestia ("news"). They both trumpeted the party line. There was a cynical joke that "in Pravda there is no news, and in Izvestia there is no truth." (It sounded better when told in Russian.)

Thank goodness that Americans are not limited to hearing only about facts and ideas that are approved by some central authority. We should appreciate the fact that we still have a press which is free to express a variety of perspectives on the issues of our day.

And we should all take advantage of this variety by not relying on only one source for our news.

We see the world in three dimensions because the separation between our two eyes gives us different perspectives. By analogy, evaluating conflicting reports and interpretations of the news can give us a more accurate idea of what is going on.

Paul F. deLespinasse is professor emeritus of political science and computer science at Adrian College. He can be reached atpdeles@proaxis.com.

Original post:
At least we still have free speech and press - Monroe Evening News

The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), a United States foreign policy institution, has said that Nigerian press freedom is in danger under President Muhammadu Buhari.

CFR in an article published on Thursday, said that the endorsement of Koo shortly after banning Twitter proved the Nigerian governments ongoing attempt to suppress free expression.

In recent months, Koo, Twitters Indian rival, has begun advertising to Nigerians with the support of a powerful brand ambassador: President Muhammadu Buhari. The endorsement comes more than two months after Buhari banned Twitter from Nigeria, in response to the social media company deleting a controversial tweet from Buhari threatening violence against supporters of a secessionist movement in the South East.

Endorsing a specific media company is just the latest development in the governments ongoing attempt to suppress free expression. Last month, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Nigerias media regulatory body, issued a letter to broadcast stations in Nigeria requiring them to downplay the worsening security situation in Nigeria, particularly, the threats of Boko Haram and banditry.

NBC justified their position by arguing that reporting these issues has a tendency to ignite more violence. This explanation might have merit if the government had not been progressively rolling back rights to free speech. For example, last October, after the #EndSARS protests against police brutality, NBC fined media organizations for reporting on the protests.

Nigeria is ranked 120 on the World Press Freedom Index, a drop of five spots from its ranking in 2020. Reporters Without Borders describes Nigeria as one of West Africas most dangerous and difficult countries for journalists, and the situation seems to be getting worse.

Following the Twitter ban, NBC directed all social media platforms and online broadcasting service providers operating in Nigeria to apply for a broadcast license. This was followed by a controversial amendment to the NBC Act which sought to stifle media organizations. These actions have prompted huge protests from all the major media houses in Nigeria, with each outlet publishing a front-page advertisement campaigning against undue media regulation in the country.

In a political environment where the government has shown its proclivity for dictatorial action, restrictions on free speech pose significant challenges for civil society. The failure to report news freely could lead to a situation where the government controls what is regarded as fact or fiction. This portends grave consequences, especially for a country that is facing its most significant security challenges since the 1967 Civil War, the article reads in part.

CFR added that the suppression of the Nigerian media seems to be a desperate attempt to keep Nigerians in the dark about how little the government has been able to deliver on its promises to curb insecurity.

Many of the governments supporters have argued that improper reporting of conflict newsboth on social or mainstream mediacould exacerbate deep divisions in the country, then leading people to take laws into their hands. While this is a potential risk, it should be stated that the country already has laws in place to address this risk and punish offenders. For example, the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act (2015) [PDF] addresses threats to cyberspaces, including internet usage and safety with regard to preventing and combating cybercrimes. The Defamatory and Offensive Publications Act (1966) also exists to criminalize defamation. The governments focus should be to implement these laws rather than continuously chipping away at freedom of the press.

In his 2015 inauguration speech, President Buhari stated that democracy is the chosen route to national development and pledged to consciously work the democratic system. Safeguarding free speech and guaranteeing fundamental freedoms are responsibilities of a democratic government. It is important that the government strives to fulfill these responsibilities.

There has been a clampdown on journalists by the Buhari-led government in recent times.

In August 2019, Nigerias secret police with a history of repression arrested human rights activist and Publisher of SaharaReporters, Omoyele Sowore in Lagos.

Sowore was moved to the agency's headquarters in Abuja where he was illegally detained for 144 days despite different court orders issued for his release.

The Department of State Services (DSS) accused the activist of baseless crimes like money laundering and that he was plotting to overthrow President Muhammadu Buhari even though it failed to produce any evidence to substantiate its claim.

In March 2018, the DSS arrested Daily Independent Abuja Bureau Chief Tony Ezimakor. Later in the year, the secret police arrested Jones Abiri and detained him for two years for allegedly having links with rebels.

He was re-arrested in March 2019.

In August 2019, former Editor at Daily Trust Ibrahim Dan-Halilu was arrested for a Facebook post expressing support for the RevolutionNow campaign.

In December 2019, TVCs journalist Bukola Samuel-Wemimo was detained by the secret police at its Magodo office in Lagos.

In 2020, former Premium Times investigative reporter Samuel Ogundipe was hounded by the DSS because he reported on the rift between the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno and President Muhammadu Buharis late Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.

Continued here:
Buhari Government's Endorsement Of Indian App, Koo After Twitter Ban Was To Suppress Free ExpressionUS Think Tank - SaharaReporters.com