Category Archives: Censorship

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration Tuesday to uncover public records showing that federal employees have been censored from using words or phrases related to climate change in formal agency communications.

Tuesday's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, seeks to require four federal agencies to release climate-censorship records, in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. The U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Department of State have failed to provide records requested by the Center for Biological Diversity or indicate when they might do so, violating deadlines established under the law.

"The Trump administration's refusal to release public information about its climate censorship continues a dangerous and illegal pattern of anti-science denial," said Taylor McKinnon at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Just as censorship won't change climate science, foot-dragging and cover-ups won't be tolerated under the public records law."

On March 30 the Center for Biological Diversity filed Freedom of Information Act requests for all directives or communications barring or removing climate-related words or phrases from any formal agency communications. The records requests followed news reports that federal agencies had removed climate information from government websites and instructed Department of Energy staff to avoid using the phrases "climate change," "emissions reductions" and "Paris agreement."

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed identical requests with the Council on Environmental Quality, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

On March 23 the Center for Biological Diversity joined conservation biologist Stuart Pimm and the Center for Media and Democracy in a separate Freedom of Information Act request to prevent the administration from removing hundreds of environmental data sets on government websites.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, when federal agencies receive requests for the same records three or more times, they must make the records freely available to the public on their websitesa rule known as "the Beetlejuice provision."

Records responsive to the Center for Biological Diversity's climate censorship requests will be made available to the public and the media.

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Trump Sued for Censorship of Climate Change Data - EcoWatch

Venezuela is increasingly censoring its internet and expanding online surveillance of citizens.

The country is currently in a state of emergency after two months of anti-government protests that have caused the deaths of over 50 people and led to violent confrontations with the police.

Citizens are furious with president Nicols Maduro, who has been using emergency powers since 2015 to pass laws without congressional approval. He claims to be using the powers to fight an "economic war" with unseen enemies, but taxes on alcohol and tobacco alongside a collapsing economy have turned people against him.

As that anger has translated into protests, the government has responded by trying to shut it down.

Although phone ownership has rocketed in Venezuela in the past few years, roughly a third of the population still does not have an internet connection or a smartphone and rely on television for their news. And so the government responded to footage of the protests by shutting down or censoring television stations that broadcast it, as well as harassing and arresting journalists.

When citizens started using SMS messages to share information and coordinate protests, president Maduro personally ordered an investigation into phone company Movistar, claiming that it was assisting opposition to the government.

When protestors then moved to online TV stations, the Venezuelan government responded by censoring them. Vivoplay.net, elcapitolio.tv and vpitv.com have all been blocked at the DNS level, sparking letters of protest to the national telco commission Conatel and demands for an investigation. Other websites have reported denial-of-service attacks.

It is unclear what the legal justification is for the blocks, and the situation led to the United Nations Human Rights Commission issuing a statement condemning "the censorship and blocking of information both in traditional media and on the internet."

The report noted that "a large part of televised media is under government control, while the private sector operates with restrictions due to expired licenses that public authorities have refused to renew in more than two years." It claimed the restrictions in place were "disproportionate and incompatible with international standards."

As a result, protestors have now moved en masse to social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp which have proved harder to censor.

In response, earlier this month Maduro issued a presidential decree that, among other things, authorized content filtering and online surveillance. The official justification is that the internet is being used to promote hate speech and is damaging the economy.

At the same time, the government is trying to flood social media services with positive images, leading to surreal juxtapositions of bloodied protestors next to smiling and waving citizens.

As the government ramps up its surveillance and censorship, the country is slowly slipping into anarchy.

Earlier this week, Maduro unveiled his plans to draw up a new constitution for the country something that critics say is no more than an effort to delay elections and stay in power.

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Venezuela increases internet censorship and surveillance in crisis - The Register

Climate Change Webpage Disappears from EPA, BeingUpdated

By Rowena Eng, Shelby Oliver, and Gokce Sencan

Last month, the EPA quietly removed all climate change-related information from its website under orders of new director Scott Pruitt. Though a snapshot links to the old webpage at an archive outside the Environmental Protection Agency, a statement also indicates the agency is updating language at EPA.gov. The decision to remove climate change information is not only scientifically unethical, its also censorship, a form of political coercion through the control of publicly available knowledge. Trump may think these actions are a show of power, but censorship instances like this one will discredit his administrations competence, if it hasnt already, in all fields ofgovernance.

Obstruction of science isnt new. Under President George W. Bush, federal agencies were advised against using the terms global warming or climate change in governmental reports. Even more restrictive practices happened in Canada until Justin Trudeau took office; under the previous prime minister Stephen Harper, governmental policies obfuscated communication between federal scientists and the media. With President Trump, it wouldnt be far-fetched to expect his fling with censorship to extend beyond climatechange.

EPA.gov

The current EPA climate changepage

In an economic order now dominated by aggressive industries, the government must maintain an impartial stance between business interests and science. Our government should be protecting us when businesses attempt to profit at the expense of public health. Tobacco is one example of a big industrys interests clashing with the publics. Climate change is no different, only this time we are faced with a government that openly sides with another big industry oil.

Trumps loyalty lies with his familys and allies businesses, so any science that compromises the bottom line of those industries is at risk. It may involve direct censorship, like the removal of climate change information from EPAs website. Or it may involve stealthier methods, such as the defunding of programs like PBS and NPR. This suppression of science will not only delay our nations response to the urgent threats of climate change, but it will also enable Trumps administration to stack the deck against any science that does not serve itsinterests.

Censoring science can cause a balloon effect: Oppression of one part of the balloon forces pressure to spill over into another area of less resistance. This phenomenon is exemplified by the US war on drugs in South America during the late 1980s; the crackdown on drugs in one South American country merely intensified production in another, rendering the drug war a futile effort. Similarly, Trump underestimating the value of scientific information could result in unforeseen and undesirable outcomes. Major businesses in the U.S., from auto industries to real estate companies, depend on information from the EPA. Even other countries rely on our governments scientific data to predict and plan for natural disasters and agricultural risks. Trumps suppression of scientific data could compromise the operations of both domestic and internationalentities.

EPA.gov

EPA kept a snapshot of the deleted page, stating, This is not the current EPA website. To navigate to the current EPA website, please go to http://www.epa.gov. This website is historical material reflecting the EPA website as it existed on January 19, 2017. This website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may notwork.

As for international relations, the U.S. government as the self-proclaimed leader of the free world has a moral responsibility to keep its science publicly available. Despite Trumps denial of climate change, the closest allies of the U.S.(e.g., Canada, Europe) have been tackling the issue for over a decade; their scientists rely on data provided by the EPA, NASA, and other U.S. scientific research bodies. Removal of EPAs climate change data not only undermines the credibility of Trumps administration in the public eye, it also obstructs scientific activities and weakens the U.S. as the pioneer of global scientificadvancement.

The federal government also has an obligation to objectively disclose scientific research to its tax-paying citizens. The science gives us transparency into how the government makes (or should make) informed policies. If the public cant see the science for themselves, they wont be able to trust the governments decision-making. With a plummeting approval rating of 39 percent in addition to the growing suspicion of Trumps collusion with Russia, this concealment of science only further weakens hiscredibility.

As long as Trumps scandals continue, our distrust in his administration will only intensify. His favoritism for certain businesses and cherry-picking of scientific information will not go unnoticed. And while the administration is busy denying climate change to benefit Trumps friends in the fossil fuel industry, these actions will bring irreparable damage to the hard-earned reputation of many institutions, such as the EPA, and damage the function of the U.S. government in the longrun.

Rowena Eng, Shelby Oliver, and Gokce Sencan are masters degree candidates at UC Santa Barbaras Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. Engs specialization at Bren is Corporate Environmental Management, Olivers is Coastal and Marine Resource Management, and Sencans Economics and Politics of the Environment. All three also pursue a focus in Strategic Environmental Communications andMedia.

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Trump's Censorship of Science - Santa Barbara Independent

From 2007-2009, I had the privilege of representing the State of Israel on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Israel as a shaliach (Israeli emissary) at one of the most notoriously anti-Israel campuses in the nation University of California at Irvine.

One of the premier methods of the anti-Israeli movements is to boycott Israel, prevent people from buying Israeli goods, using Israeli technology, and listening to Israeli speakers and artists.

At Irvine, the anti-Israel movement protested and tried to disrupt many of the events we organized. Sometimes they would attend and ask anti-Israel questions. Sometimes they would protest loudly to drown out the speakers voice.

In one notable instance, they were so disruptive, Michael Oren (who was the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. at the time) could not finish his remarks. As the adviser to the pro-Israeli activists, the pro-Israel students and I decided to take the high road.

We, the pro-Israel voice, never disrupted a speaker from the other side. We protested, we showed up with signs, but we never drowned out their speakers voices. Especially on a college campus, where a philosophy of critical thinking permeates the landscape, we believed we would be able to sway opinions and become a more inclusive and stronger pro-Israel network if we stood for freedom of speech and not against it.

Fast-forward to today, the boycott movement has arrived in the Jewish community of Metro Detroit. The Israeli artist Achinoam Nini (Noa) was invited to perform at my synagogue, Adat Shalom. But some local Detroit Jews, many of whom are themselves Israeli, decided that Achinoam Nini should not be allowed to perform at Adat Shalom because of her left-wing views and participation in coexistence and dialogue programs with Palestinians. After reviewing their efforts and tactics (racist Facebook postings, spamming Adat Shaloms website and rankings, threats to Noa personally and calls to disrupt the concert), it is clear what it is they are using tactics of the anti-Israel movement.

In Jewish communities, there is a Vaad Hakashrut, a community group whose mission is the maintenance of a kosher quality supervision. The anti-Noa movement created a Censorship Vaad. This Censorship Vaad has chosen not to join Adat Shalom, nor did they approach Adat Shalom in the spirit of dialogue. Rather, the Censorship Vaad decided they have the right to tell the rest of the Jewish community who is allowed to play and perform, and who is not.

Adat Shalom was forced to cancel the event after conversations with local police and security experts. The Censorship Vaad created an atmosphere so toxic that Adat Shalom could not guarantee the safety of the performer or audience. No matter that Adat Shalom has had a long history of supporting Israel. No matter that Adat Shalom just wanted to offer a fun evening of Israeli music and culture open to everyone.

Achinoam Nini is an artist and private citizen. Noa lives in Israel, is a veteran of the IDF, will be the parent of an IDF soldier in a few years. Noa has represented Israel in the Eurovision contests, and has performed internationally for decades, spreading joy, Israeli music and Israeli culture to thousands. She is a private citizen; she represents Israeli culture, not the Israeli government.

Now that the Censorship Vaad took the liberty to decide who is allowed to perform and who is not, I wonder what will be the process in the future to get an artist or speaker approved by the Censorship Vaad?

Lets say Israeli author David Grossman will be invited to speak in the West Bloomfield JCC at the Book Fair. Mr. Grossman is a vocal critic of the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria. Will the Vaad approve his event? Will the fact that he lost his son in the second Lebanon war give him the right to speak with a local audience? What if Ariel Sharon were still alive? He orchestrated the removal of settlements in the Gaza Strip (Gush Katif). Could he speak from a synagogue bimah?

Yes, we have the right to protest against different ideas, but the idea of a Censorship Vaad is nonsense. In America (like Israel), no one group has the right to decide for another American what he will read, listen to or say.

Tzvi Raviv lives in Farmington Hills.

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Censorship Vaad - The Jewish News

Photograph by Chris Ratcliffe Bloomberg/Getty Images

The more Facebook tries to move beyond its original role as a social network for sharing family photos and other ephemera, the more it finds itself in an ethical minefield, torn between its desire to improve the world and its need to curb certain kinds of speech.

The tension between these two forces has never been more obvious than it is now, thanks to two recent examples of when its impulses can go wrong, and the potential damage that can be caused as a result. The first involves a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose account was restricted, and the second relates to Facebook's leaked moderation guidelines.

In the first case, investigative reporter Matthew Caruana Galizia had his Facebook account suspended recently after he posted documents related to a story about a politician in Malta.

Caruana Galizia was part of a team that worked with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to break the story of the Panama Papers, a massive dump of documents that were leaked from an offshore law firm last year.

The politician, Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat, was implicated in a scandal as a result of those leaked documents, which referred to shell companies set up by him and two other senior politicians in his administration.

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Facebook not only suspended Caruana Galizia's account, it also removed a number of the documents that he had posted related to the story. It later restored his access to his account after The Guardian and a Maltese news outlet wrote about it, but some of the documents never reappeared.

The social network has rules that are designed to prevent people from posting personal information about other users, but it's not clear whether that's why the account was suspended.

Some of what Caruana Galizia posted contained screenshots of passports and other personal data, but many of these documents have remained available, while others have been removed. He is being sued by Muscat for libel, which has raised concerns about whether Facebook suspended the account because of pressure from officials in Malta.

A spokesman for Facebook told the Guardian that it was working with the reporter "so that he can publish what he needs to, without including unnecessary private details that could present safety risks. If we find that we have made errors, we will correct them."

Caruana Galizia said the incident was enlightening "because I realized how crippling and punitive this block is for a journalist." And they clearly reinforce the risks that journalists and media entities take when they decide to use the social network as a distribution outlet.

If nothing else, these and other similar incidents make it obvious that Facebook needs to do far more when it comes to being transparent about when and why it removes content, especially when that content is of a journalistic nature.

In an unrelated incident, the world got a glimpse into how the social network makes some of its content decisions thanks to a leaked collection of guidelines and manuals for the 4,500 or so moderators it employs, which was posted by the Guardian .

Outlined in the documents are rules about what kinds of statements are considered too offensive to allow, how much violence the site allows in videos including Facebook Live, which has been the subject of significant controversy recentlyand what to do with sexually suggestive imagery.

Much like Twitter, Facebook appears to be trying to find a line between getting rid of offensive behavior while still leaving room for freedom of expression.

In the process, however, it has raised questions about why the giant social network makes some of the choices it does. Statements within the guidelines about violence towards women, for examplesuch as "To snap a bitchs neck, make sure to apply all your pressure to the middle of her throat"are considered okay because they are not specific threats.

Facebook has already come under fire for some of its decisions around what to show on its live-streaming feature. There have been several cases in which people committed suicide and streamed it on Facebook Live, and in at least one case a man killed his child and then himself .

The guidelines say that while videos of violence and even death should be marked as disturbing, in many cases they do not have to be deleted because they can "help create awareness of issues such as mental illness," and because Facebook doesn't want to "censor or punish people in distress."

As a private corporation, Facebook is entitled to make whatever rules it wants about the type of speech that is permitted on its platform because the First Amendment only applies to the actions of governments. But when a single company plays such a huge role in the online behavior of more than a billion people, it's worth asking questions about the impact its rules have.

If Facebook censors certain kinds of speech, then for tens of millions of people it effectively ceases to exist, or becomes significantly less obvious.

The risks of this kind of private control over speech are obvious when it comes to things like filter bubbles or the role that "fake news" plays in political movements. But there's a deeper risk as well, which is that thanks to the inscrutability of Facebook's algorithm, many people won't know what they are missing when information is removed.

Facebook may not want to admit that it is a media entity, but the reality is that it plays a huge role in how billions of people see the world around them. And part of the responsibility that comes with that kind of role is being more transparent about why and how you make decisions about what information people shouldn't be able to see.

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Facebook Needs to Be More Transparent About Why It Censors Speech - Fortune

Alberto Pezzali/NurPhoto/Sipa US/NewscomIn America, civil libertarians frequently have to remind citizens that there's no "hate speech" exemption to the First Amendment. But our First Amendment doesn't fly in Europe, and now the European Union (EU) may be about to mandate censorship rules for social media.

EU ministers today approved a plan that will require social media platforms and online video hosts to block and remove videos that contain "hate speech, incitement to hatred and content justifying terrorism from their platforms," according to Reuters. For now at least, this just covers videos, not text, images, or livestreaming.

It's not entirely clear whether Facebook or YouTube will have to censor videos posted by platform users in the United States to remain in compliance with the law. We do know that EU countries like Germany are just itching to levy huge finestens of millions of euroson social media companies that haven't been quick to suppress hate speech. That kind of pressure would certainly encourage a very broad censorship regime on the part of the companies.

The new rule has been in the works for a whilepart of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, a set of commercial media regulations. In addition to ordering the censorship of content, the EU wants to dabble in cultural protectionism: The proposal approved today mandates that 30 percent of the content of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime be from member countries. The recommendation was originally 20 percent, but EU ministers jacked it up.

This will be the EU's first attempt to adopt this sort of platform censorship. If the European Parliament approves the regulations, don't be surprised to see more.

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The European Union Wants to Censor Hate Speech on Social Media - Reason (blog)

The documents detail what is and is not permitted on the platform, covering graphic violence, bullying, hate speech, sexual content, terrorism and self-harm. Photograph: Shailesh Andrade/Reuters

Facebook allows people to live-stream their suicide attempts as long as they are engaging with viewers but will remove footage once theres no longer an opportunity to help the person. Pledges to kill oneself through hashtags or emoticons or those that specify a fixed date more than five days in the future shouldnt be treated as a high priority.

These are tiny snippets from a cache of training materials that Facebook content moderators need to absorb, in just two weeks, before policing the worlds largest social network.

The guidelines also require moderators to learn the names and faces of more than 600 terrorist leaders, decide when a beheading video is newsworthy or celebratory, and allow Holocaust denial in all but four of the 16 countries where its illegal those where Facebook risks being sued or blocked for flouting local law.

The documents detail what is and is not permitted on the platform, covering graphic violence, bullying, hate speech, sexual content, terrorism and self-harm. For the first time the public has a glimpse of the thought process behind some of the companys editorial judgements that go beyond the vague wording of its community standards or statements made in the wake of a live-streamed murder.

This might be the most important editorial guide sheet the world has ever created. Its surprising its not even longer, said Carl Miller, research director at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at London-based thinktank Demos. Its come out of a mangle of thousands of different conversations, pressures and calls for change that Facebook gets from governments around the world.

It is clear that Facebook has an unprecedented challenge on its hands. The platform has inadvertently become the worlds largest media organization, with nearly 2bn readers and contributors encompassing the full spectrum of humanitys capacity to entertain, sadden, bore, horrify and disgust.

In order to provide simple instructions to moderators, the documents highlight specific visceral examples. And its not pretty.

Footage of animal abuse is allowed but must be marked as disturbing if there is, among other things, dismemberment or visible innards. Images of physical child abuse is acceptable unless shared with sadism and celebration. Comments such as Irish are stupid are removed while moderators are told to ignore Blonde women are stupid. A picture of a child who appears to have Down syndrome captioned I can count to potato does not have to be deleted.

The files explain that people use violent language to express frustration online without stopping to think about the consequences. This is because they feel indifferent towards their target because of the lack of empathy created by communications via devices as opposed to face to face a neat description of the so-called online disinhibition effect.

This appears to contradict much of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergs 5,700-word manifesto, published in February, that placed heavy emphasis on the social network fostering human connections. It is jarring to see so many examples of human cruelty and depravity laid bare, but they raise important questions over whether Facebooks users are comfortable with the lines the company has drawn.

Either way, Facebook cannot win.

On one hand, it is expected to clamp down on terrorist recruitment, glorified violence and live-streamed crime, while on the other it is accused of overzealous censorship and collaboration with oppressive regimes. This is a terrible bind, Miller said. They found themselves with all these responsibilities and power they never anticipated getting and would rather do without.

Private companies are doing what weve only really expected constituted officials of sovereign power to do.

Part of the challenge for Facebook is ensuring its rules are applied correctly across the world, taking into account linguistic and cultural nuance. They want to create a systematic check box exercise in order to universalize the operation, but thats not the way human language works, said Miller, who studies how terror networks use social media.

One solution being explored by Facebook is a global voting system to allow users to set their own levels of comfort with content, an idea floated by Zuckerberg in his manifesto.

Where is your line on nudity? On violence? On graphic content? On profanity? What you decide will be your personal settings, he wrote.

Although we will still block content based on standards and local laws, our hope is that this system of personal controls and democratic referenda should minimize restrictions on what we can share.

Moderators also need to take into account local laws, but not in every case.

We respect, but do not welcome, local law that stands as an obstacle to an open and connected world, said Facebook in the training documents. Given this we will not censor content unless a nation has demonstrated the political will to enforce its censorship laws.

Facebook has restricted content in Pakistan, Russia and Turkey in the past and has reportedly developed software to accommodate Chinas censorship demands.

The cherished principles of free speech on which the internet was founded go out the window when they dont align with business interests.

The companys commitment to these things appears to wax and wane depending on public sentiment

So many of these policies are at odds with each other, said Sarah T Roberts, a UCLA professor who studies large-scale moderation of online platforms. The companys commitment to these things appears to wax and wane depending on public sentiment.

Its no wonder the company errs so regularly, whether thats censoring Napalm Girl or live-streaming the murder of a grandfather in Cleveland. In response to the mounting slip-ups, CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged to add 3,000 more content reviewers to its community operations team.

Facebooks moderators, known as community operations analysts, are typically low-paid contractors. The Guardian found job listings offering an annual salary of between $23,000 (in Dublin) and $40,000 (at Facebooks headquarters in California), although many others will earn less in places such as the Philippines. The 4,500-strong community operations team reviews more than 100m pieces of content every month, which leaves around 10 seconds to make a judgement call about each one.

Facebook told the Guardian that it recognizes the work can often be difficult and offers every person reviewing content psychological support and wellness resources.

In order to make moderation more efficient, Facebook is developing artificial intelligence to identify offending content. It also uses algorithms to spot suicidal users and is exploring ways to use AI to distinguish between news stories about terrorism and actual terrorist propaganda.

As much as Facebook might want to replace human moderators with automated systems, doing so will not be easy.

Its impossible for algorithms alone to manage human experience, said Peter Friedman, CEO of LiveWorld, which provides moderation services to big brands.

This is highly complex work, Roberts said, and requires a mastery of many topics, current events, other cultures and languages, so its interesting that its so devalued.

Miller agrees: However clever Facebook is, so much of this is impressionistic and contextual and difficult to interpret.

He said he frequently struggles to judge suspected terrorist content because he doesnt understand the tropes, language or internal slang. The idea that anyone can learn that in addition to all the other bodies of content they need to make judgements about in two weeks is very surprising to me.

It must be one of the worst jobs on the internet, he said.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

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To censor or sanction extreme content? Either way, Facebook can't win - The Guardian

KJZZ

Ducey Vetoes Bill Aimed At Protecting High School Journalists From Censorship KJZZ The legislation was meant to allow students more freedom in reporting, and stop school administrators from censoring stories from publication. Advocates of the bill say it would have allowed students to write about more hot-button issues and give a ... and more »

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Ducey Vetoes Bill Aimed At Protecting High School Journalists From Censorship - KJZZ

New York Times

The Censors' Disappearing Vibrator New York Times I discovered later that the second half of this episode featured two segments with celebrity guests that did not survive the Singapore censors' scrutiny: Jane Fonda wielding a vibrator and Asia Kate Dillon discussing her nonbinary gender identity, both ...

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The Censors' Disappearing Vibrator - New York Times

Rachel Zuckerman, Guest Opinion 6:34 p.m. CT May 19, 2017

Guest Opinion(Photo: Press-Citizen)Buy Photo

Journalists have been distraught since the 2017 presidential campaign. We are struggling with how to deal with fake news, increased calls for censorship, and negotiating what freedom of the press looks like in the digital age.

These conflicts are all important topics that must be debated. As journalists, we should be introspective about our role moving forward. However, while we negotiate the appropriate level of censorship or the best way to report on President Donald Trumps latest tweet, we miss the bigger picture.

Where are the critical discussions happening around education and media literacy?

Only about 1 in 3 American adults had a bachelors degree or higher in 2015, according to census data. Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight identified education, not income or other demographic factors, as the largest gap between Trump and Hillary Clinton voters. Clinton overwhelmingly outperformed Trump in counties where most people had at least a four-year degree.

The Trump campaigns fear-mongering and emotional appeals likely resonated more among people with lower educational levels than Clintons policy-oriented message. Trumps appeal also contributed to his ability to sow distrust in the media among his less educated base.

Yet, journalists have still arrived at a place where we debate semantics do we call false statements lies or falsehoods? Concurrent debates about censorship emerge. Is it beneficial to the public to censor hate speech and fake news that could perpetuate violence? Some journalists may feel the need to self-censor to avoid the criticism of a politically charged president.

As journalists, we fail to address societal problems when we become too self-centered. While we focus on how journalists should do their jobs better, we miss reporting on the fact that many of these issues would be mitigated with increased education and informed news consumption.

The editor-in-chief of The Daily Iowan, Lily Abromeit, agrees.

The reason fake news is such a problem is because people believe it, she said. I'm kind of starting to think that people don't really understand how to read a news article and what to look for to understand if it is legitimate.

A 2016 study from Stanford confirms Abromeits analysis. The research found that students at almost all grade levels cannot recognize fake news online.

Therefore, rather than disputing the limits of censorship, our time would be better spent thinking about how to integrate media literacy training into the classroom in addition to making education more accessible to Americans. Increased rates of educational attainment would equip more of the U.S. population with the critical thinking skills necessary to navigate our complex modern media landscape.

In an era of fake news and alternative facts, journalists must be diligent. We should question how to do our jobs better, but we should also press the public to demand education for the millions of Americans who have not received sufficient opportunities.

I realize it actually isn't probably very easy. But still important enough to be worthwhile, Abromeit said.

Rachel Zuckerman is a recent journalism and political science graduate from the University of Iowa who also served as student body president.

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Fight 'fake news' with education, not censorship - Iowa City Press Citizen