Category Archives: Censorship

The annual list from the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tends to include a broad range of titles with the potential to offend. Repeat "honorees" include Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" for depictions of rape and incest, transgender reality TV star Jazz Jenning's coming out story, "Fifty Shades of Grey" for obvious reasons, and the "Harry Potter" books because of witchcraft.

But the embattled comedian's "Little Bill" books are believed to the first time a title has been targeted solely for its author and not its content, ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom Director James LaRue said.

"I think it's our fascination with celebrity. If we love the person we love everything about him. If we hate the person we hate everything about him. We don't seem to be able to separate the message from the messenger."

The "Little Bill" books follow the adventures and life lessons of Bill Jr., a 5-year-old Philadelphia boy. The series became an Emmy Award-winning Saturday morning cartoon series that ran on and off from 1999 to 2006.

The ranking is based on 323 challenges reported to the office in 2016 by school librarians across the country, the ALA said. The ALA's list does not specify where any of the challenges occurred.

Challenges tend to come from parents or students who choose a book for some reason or another and bring it to the principal to try to remove it permanently.

But LaRue said successful challenges tend never to get reported and the real number is likely much higher.

Books featuring "diverse" characters, such as racial minorities or gay, lesbian and transgender people, have become targets of challenges with increasing frequency this year.

Five of the 10 books on this year's list included LGBT characters, including Jazz Jennings' picture book. All five books were successfully removed from library shelves, or, in other words, banned, according to the ALA.

"Critics of this list say no book is banned in America and I beg to differ," LaRue said. "If a book is removed it's been banned."

The complete list includes:

-- "This One Summer," by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

The ALA says this young adult graphic novel, winner of a Printz and a Caldecott Honor Award, was "restricted, relocated and banned" because it includes LGBT characters, drug use and profanity, and it was considered sexually explicit with mature themes.

-- "Drama," written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier

Parents, librarians and administrators banned this Stonewall Honor Award-winning graphic novel for young adults because it includes LGBT characters, was deemed sexually explicit and was considered to have an offensive political viewpoint, the ALA said.

--"George," by Alex Gino

Despite winning a Stonewall Award and a Lambda Literary Award, administrators removed this children's novel because it includes a transgender child and the "sexuality was not appropriate at elementary levels," according to the ALA.

-- "I Am Jazz," by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas

This children's picture book memoir was challenged and removed because it portrays a transgender child and because of language, sex education, and offensive viewpoints, the ALA said.

-- "Two Boys Kissing," by David Levithan

This young adult novel, a National Book Award longlist and Stonewall Honor Book, was challenged because its cover has an image of two boys kissing and it was considered to include sexually explicit LGBT content.

-- "Looking for Alaska," by John Green

This 2006 Printz Award winner is a young adult novel that was challenged and restricted for a sexually explicit scene that may lead a student to "sexual experimentation."

-- "Big Hard Sex Criminals," by Matt Fraction, illustrated by Chip Zdarsky

This compilation of adult comic books by two award-winning artists was challenged and banned for being considered sexually explicit by library staff and administrators.

-- "Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread," by Chuck Palahniuk

This collection of adult short stories was challenged for profanity, sexual explicitness, and being "disgusting and all around offensive," according to the ALA.

-- "Little Bill Books" series, by Bill Cosby, illustrated by Varnette P. Honeywood

This children's book series was challenged because of criminal sexual allegations against the author, the ALA said.

--' "Eleanor & Park," by Rainbow Rowell

A New York Times Notable Children's Books and a Printz Honor recipient, this young adult novel was challenged for offensive language, the ALA said.

See more here:
Bill Cosby's 'Little Bill' books targeted for censorship - CNN.com - CNN

Just a few years ago, Russians had a mostly free Internet, but now, authorities are trying to imitate Chinas model of government control.

By Emily Parker

When you hear the words Russia and Internet, you probably think of Kremlin-backed hacking. But the Internet is also a powerful tool for President Vladimir Putins opposition. Last month, the Internet helped spark Russias largest anti-government protests in five years. Russia responded by blocking access to websites that promoted demonstrations.

This is part of a larger story. Just a few years ago, Russians had a mostly free Internet. Now, Russian authorities would like to imitate Chinas model of Internet control. They are unlikely to succeed. The Kremlin will find that, once you give people Internet freedom, its not so easy to completely take it away.

I lived in Moscow in 2010 after spending years researching Internet activism in China. I quickly found that Russia and China had very different attitudes toward the Web. The Great Firewall of China blocked overseas sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. In Russia, by contrast, you could find almost any information online. This was largely because Russian authorities didnt view the Internet as a serious political threat. That changed in late 2011 and early 2012, when Moscow was the site of the largest anti-government protests since the end of the Soviet Union. Social media helped organize those demonstrations, and Putin took note. A law that took effect in late 2012, to give just one example, granted Russian authorities the power to block certain online content.

Moscow clearly admires Beijings approach. Last year, former Chinese Internet czar Lu Wei and Great Firewall architect Fang Binxing were invited to speak at a forum on Internet safety. The Russians were apparently hoping to learn Chinese techniques for controlling the Web. Russia has already taken a page or two from Chinas playbook. While Facebook and Twitter remain accessible in Russia, at least for now, a Russian court ruled to ban LinkedIn, apparently for breaking rules that require companies to store personal data about Russian citizens inside the country. This could be a warning to companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook, which risk being blocked in Russia if they refuse to follow such rules.

Both Russia and China have made clear that they wish to regulate the Internet as they see fit, without outside interference. Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of Internet sovereignty, which essentially means that individual countries should have the right to choose their own model of cyber governance. Putin has taken this idea one step further by calling the Internet a CIA project. By this logic, Russia needs to proactively protect its own interests in the information sphere whether by cracking down on online dissent or using the Internet to spread its own version of events.

Russia Internet expert Andrei Soldatov, author of the book The Red Web, says the Kremlin certainly looks for something close to the China approach these days, mostly because many other things failedfiltering is porous, global platforms defy local legislation, and are still available. Soldatov says that the government would like to have direct control of critical infrastructure such as the national system of domain distribution, Internet exchange points, and cables that cross borders. He adds that this approach, which may not even be successful, would be more of an emergency measure than a realistic attempt to regulate the Internet on a day-to-day basis.

Chinas method has worked because Beijing has long recognized the Internet as both an economic opportunity and a political threat. Chinas isolated Internet culture has given rise to formidable domestic companies. It was once easy to dismiss Chinas local technology players as mere copycatsSina Weibo imitating Twitter, Baidu imitating Google, and so on. But now, some of these companies, notably Tencents WeChat, have become so formidable that we may soon see Western companies imitating them. In the meantime, Chinese Internet users arent necessarily longing for their Western competitors.

In Russia, however, American sites like YouTube have become very powerful. The recent demonstrations were in part sparked by an online report by opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexey Navalny, who alleged that Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had amassed a fortune in yachts, mansions, and estates. Navalnys video on YouTube, viewed more than 16 million times, detailed this alleged corruption. Navalny called for protests after his demands for investigating official corruption was denied by the Russian parliament. According to Global Voices, the Russian prosecutors office recently requested the blocking of a YouTube video calling on young people to rally.

Russian blogger Elia Kabanov believes that YouTube is now too big to block. I doubt the Kremlin will go there, he said. They blocked LinkedIn mostly because it was a niche site in Russia and nobody cared. And of course the government propaganda machine is using YouTube a lot, so it wouldnt make any sense to block it. If they try to take down protest announcements on platforms on YouTube, Kabanov says, new ones will appear. I really cant see the way for the Kremlin to implement the Chinese model now: Everything is too connected, their own agencies are using all these services.

Russia does have its own domestic social networks, of course. VKontakte (VK), for example, is far more influential than Facebook. Soldatov notes that VK played an unusually big role in the recent protests. But Facebook still has a devoted Russian following, especially among political activists.

According to Soldatov:

No government can entirely control the flow of information. Even in China, those determined to find information can find a tool, say a virtual private network, to jump over the firewall. Russian censors will face a similar challenge. In recent years, there has been an ongoing increase in Russian use of Tor, a browser that can be used to circumvent censorship. As a 2015 Global Voices article noted, the increase in censorship closely mirrors the upward trend in interest towards Tor.

In the short term Russian street protests may fizzle out, especially as Moscow cracks down on dissent. But the story wont end there. The Internet on its own will not cause a revolution in Russia, but it can be an effective tool for organization. Beijing figured this out a long time ago, but the Kremlin is learning it too late.

Read the original post:
Russia Is Copying China's Approach to Internet Censorship Will It Work? - Pacific Standard

Indian censorship of film continues apace.

The Central Board of Film Certification in India under is commonly referred to as the Censor Board. A quick glance at some of its heavily debated recent decisions will elucidate why. While primary role of the CBFC is to provide certification for different categories of films, it is also entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that films do transgressone of the express restrictions of free speech in India. This has meant that from time to time, the CBFC has withheldpermission for the screening of films or requested specific cuts and changes to the story. More recently, this has become commonplace rather than the exception.

The biggest theme that the CBFC under Chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani appears to be at war against depictions of sexuality. Recently, the film The Danish Girl was denied the required certification to be aired on TV as its topic was declared as overly sensitive and accordingly requiredtoo many cuts. The film looks at sex reassignment and gender dysphoria. Ka Bodyscapeswas similarly denied certification as it apparently glorified homosexual relationships and contained vulgarity, depicted Hinduism in a derogatory manner, and also depicted a Muslim woman masturbating.

This war is not just against depictions of desire among sexual minorities, as evidenced by the CBFCs halt on the screening of Lipstick Under My Burkha. The stated reason for this ban was that the film was too lady-oriented and had abusive words, audio pornography, and was potentially sensitive to some sections (implying the Muslim community). These bans and others have been banded together as evidence that the CBFC is extremely skittishabout depictions of sexual desire. Adding to the fray, kissing scenes are routinely cut out of the television screenings of movies, and abusive words are muted even in films about verbal violence or abuse.

This trigger-happy censorship environment has a larger context in the specific demands of cultural groups and morality crusaders. While the CBFC seems happy to lead by example, political parties, cultural representatives, and religious groups add to this growing trend towards censorship. The film Parched for instance faced opposition for depictions of female nudity inUdta Punjab, which discussed drug abuse,faced opposition for its use of language and violence and its portrayal of the state of Punjab. Alleged distortion of history is another common theme cultural groups draw upon while calling for these bans as in the case of the trouble faced by the films Bajirao Mastani and Padmavati, both of which depicted Hindu-Muslim inter-religious romances in the lives of historical rulers or leaders.

In each of the above cases, specific criticism has been levied against the ban, but collectively they allude towards a dangerous trend where existing taboos are solidified and a certain narrative of history alone is tolerated. Sexuality in some forms is accepted typically when it adheres to the male gaze, fictional license is allowed for historical movies that merely attempt to create a larger than life narrative, which does not discomfit existing understandings of power and villainy.

Prominent directors and actors, both new and veteran, have spoken out against this trend both on mainstream media and social media, but the enemy they wish to take down is not singular. While much of the anger may be directed against the CBFC, and rightfully so, the source of the CBFCs mandate comes from the public. For as long as public sentiments continue to be inflammable in the face of art, and fragile narratives of masculinity, social order and historical narrative are threatened, the lurking demon of censorship cannot be defeated.

Read more here:
Sex and Sensibility: India's Censor Board and Overreach | The ... - The Diplomat

(Shutterstock)

(Shutterstock)

Hate speech has includedcritiquesof Merkels migration policies. To be in disagreement with the governments policies is now potentially criminal.

By: Judith Bergman, The Gatestone Institute

Germany has formally announced its draconian push towards censorship of social media. On March 14, Germanys Justice Minister Heiko Maas announced the plan to formalize into law the code of conduct, which Germany pressed upon Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in late 2015, and which included a pledge to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours.

This [draft law] sets out binding standards for the way operators of social networks deal with complaints and obliges them to delete criminal content, Justice Minister Heiko Maassaidin a statement announcing the planned legislation.

Criminal content? Statements that are deemed illegal under German law are now being conflated with statements that are merely deemed, subjectively and on the basis of entirely random complaints from social media users who are free to abuse the code of conduct to their hearts content to be hate speech.

Hate speech has includedcritiquesof Chancellor Angela Merkels migration policies. To be in disagreement with the governments policies is now potentially criminal. Social media companies, such as Facebook, are supposed to be the German governments informers and enforcers qualified by whom and in what way? working at the speed of light to comply with the 24-hour rule. Rule of law, clearly, as in North Korea, Iran, Russia or any banana-republic, has no place in this system.

Maas is not pleased with the efforts of the social media companies. They do not, supposedly, delete enough reported content, nor do they delete it fast enough, according to asurveyby the Justice Ministrys youth protection agency. It found that YouTube was able to remove around 90% of illegal postings within a week, while Facebook deleted or blocked 39% of content and Twitter only 1%. The German minister, it seems, wants more efficiency.

We need to increase the pressure on social networks There is just as little room for criminal propaganda and slander [on social media] as on the streets,saidMaas. For this we need legal regulations. He has now presented these legal regulations in the form of a draft bill, which provides for complaints, reporting and fines.

There also appears to be no differentiation made between primary-source hate speech, as in many religious tenets, and secondary-source hate speech, reporting on the former.

According to the draft, social media platforms with more than two million users would be obliged to delete or block any criminal offenses, such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint. The networks receive seven days for more complicated cases. Germany could fine a social media company up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law; it could fine a companys chief representative in Germany up to 5 million euros.

It does not stop there. Germany does not want these measures to be limited to its own jurisdiction. It wants to share them with the rest of Europe: In the end, we also need European solutions for European-wide companies,saidMaas. The European Union already has a similarcode of conductin place, so that should not be very hard to accomplish.

Facebook, for its part, hasannouncedthat by the end of 2017, the number of employees in complaints-management in Berlin will be increased to more than 700. A spokeswoman said that Facebook had clear rules against hate speech and works hard on removing criminal content.

If Facebook insists on operating under rules of censorship, it should at the very least aim to administer those rules in a fair manner. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness. Instead, Facebooks practice of its so-called Community Standards the standards to which Facebook refers when deleting or allowing content on its platform in response to user complaints shows evidence of entrenched bias. Posts critical of Merkels migrant policies, for example, can get categorized as Islamophobia, and are often found toviolateCommunity Standards, while incitement toactualviolence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebooks Community Standards.

Facebooks bias, in fact, became so pronounced that in October 2015, Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center filed an unprecedented lawsuit against Facebook on behalf of some 20,000 Israelis, to stop allowing Palestinian Arab terrorists to use the social network to incite violent attacks against Jews. The complaint sought an injunction against Facebook that required it to monitor incitement and to respond immediately to complaints about content that incites people to violence. Shurat Hadinwroteat the time:

Facebook is much more than a neutral internet platform or a mere publisher of speech because its algorithms connect the terrorists to the inciters. Facebook actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by offering friend, group and event suggestions Additionally, Facebook often refuses to take down the inciting pages, claiming that they do not violate its community standards. Calling on people to commit crimes is not constitutionally protected speech and endangers the lives of Jews and Israelis.

In 2016, Shurat Hadinfiled a separate $1 billion lawsuiton behalf of five victims of Hamas terrorism and their families. They are seeking damages against Facebook under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act, for Facebooks having provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook services, which Hamas then used to carry out their terrorist activities. The US has officially designated Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization which means that it is a criminal offense to provide material support to such an organization.

Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebooks bias is so strong that it recentlyrestoredPalestinian Arab terrorist group Fatahs Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of130 posts glorifying terror and the murder of Jews.

It is only a small step from imposing censorship on social media companies to asking the same of email providers, or ordering postal authorities to screen letters, magazines and brochures in the event that citizens spread supposed xenophobia and fake news. There is ample precedent for such a course of action on the continent: During the Cold War, people living behind the Iron Curtain had their private letters opened by the Communist authorities; those passages deemed to be out of line with the Communist orthodoxy, were simply blacked out.

Who would have thought that more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), Western Europe would be reinventing itself in the image of the Former Soviet Union?

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

anti-semitismFatahGermanyMerkelShurat HaDin

Read more:
Back to the USSR? Europe's out-of-control censorship - World Israel News

Advertisement

Hannah Hess, E&E News reporter

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) called for a fight against political censorship of climate scientists and their data today during a field hearing in West Palm Beach, Fla., on extreme weather and coastal flooding.

"If a doctor were barred from using the word 'cancer,' he or she can't do his job, and the same is true with scientists and the work they do to understand and educate the public about the Earth's own fever," said Nelson, ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Nelson hosted a panel of experts and local officials at a site less than 5 miles from Mar-a-Lago, the 124-room mansion that's been dubbed President Trump's "Winter White House," to talk about future risks and efforts to address the impacts of climate change which Trump has called a "hoax."

Like Trump, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has drawn repeated criticism from environmental groups for sidestepping questions about climate change and saying he does not believe climate change is caused by humans.

Scott, who served as chairman of a super political action committee supporting Trump during the campaign, also came under fire for reports that Florida environmental regulators had been ordered not to use the phrases "climate change" and "global warming," even as the phenomena continue to affect the state (Greenwire, March 9, 2015).

Nelson invited Ben Kirtman, a professor with the University of Miami's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, who has spoken to Scott about climate science and has offered to educate Trump on the issue (E&E News PM, Dec. 22, 2016).

"Today we sit at ground zero of the impacts of climate change in the U.S. And while there are still some who continue to deny climate change is real, South Florida offers proof that it is real and it's an issue we're going to be grappling with for decades to come," Nelson said.

Kirtman summarized evidence that sea-level rise along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States is accelerating because of a number of factors that could be due to changes in ocean circulation associated with global warming.

"Even if one is skeptical that human activities are the cause of these trends, there is a clear local need to protect lives and property and ensure economic opportunity in response to changes we see today," Kirtman said.

The panel also heard from Leonard Berry, a professor emeritus of geosciences at Florida Atlantic University who co-founded Coastal Risk Consulting LLC. The Florida-based company has estimated Mar-a-Lago will eventually be under at least 1 foot of water for 210 days a year due to tidal flooding (Greenwire, Oct. 5, 2016).

Berry testified that the work of climate scientists depends on "the continued information flow from the federal government."

Nelson used the forum to stress his concerns about Trump's preliminary budget proposal, which includes cuts to climate science funding and monitoring resources.

The Interior Department's internal watchdog today largely cleared one of the National Park Service's former top superintendents of allegations of harassment and hostility toward women.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The essential news for energy & environment professionals

1996-2017 Environment & Energy Publishing, LLCPrivacy PolicySite Map

Original post:
Senate hearing spotlights 'political censorship' of science - E&E News

6:38 p.m. MT April 8, 2017

Is all editing censorship?

The question came up during a recent Sunshine Week panel discussion at New Mexico State University when I expressed my frustrations with Facebook and online news outlets that make no effort to verify that what they are disseminating is true.

An audience member disagreed, arguing that if Facebook were to weed out the untrue stories, that would be censorship.

No, I responded, censorship is when the government prohibits something from being published. County Attorney Nelson Goodin, a fellow panelist, correctly pointed out that the word has more than one meaning. But I still couldnt grasp her argument.

She was claiming that any exercise of editorial discretion is, in fact, censorship. The Associated Press sends out several hundred stories every day. We only put a few of them in our newspaper. Thats censorship. The AP chooses its several hundred stories from the many thousands it could have reported on. That is also censorship. Any attempt to organize and prioritize the events of the day is censorship.

Is that what the new media has come to?

A few years ago, author Michael Lewis wrote a book called Moneyball, in which he explained how analytics had revolutionized baseball. Oakland As General Manager Billy Beane had snookered opposing teams with much larger payrolls by eschewing the common wisdom espoused by old-time scouts and instead listening to a bunch of computer nerds running probability ratios on runs and outs.

Now, you cant watch a ballgame without hearing somebody blather on about launch angle or exit velocity.

Analytics have taken over, and not just in baseball. We used to gauge the interest in our work based on subscriptions and reader feedback. Now we have internet and social media analytics on everything, supposedly to help guide the way.

On Tuesday, a rumor spread that actor Jim Carrey was driving through Las Cruces when his car broke down. A local resident helped him get his car fixed and took him to lunch. Carrey was so impressed that he said he was thinking about retiring here.

We checked it out and ran a brief story reporting that it wasnt true. And that, based on the analytics, was our top story of the day. On a day when there was important breaking news in the Tai Chan murder trial.

When I say we checked it out, that suggests a level of investigation greater than what was required. The website WBN10 News, which ran the story, has a disclaimer right on its home page telling readers it is a satirical and fantasy website. And yet enough people believed it that the rumor spread throughout town.

The writers in Russia and Macedonia offer no such disclaimers for the satirical and fantasy stories they inject into our daily news cycle, sometime just for fun and profit, but often to sway public opinion.

Which is where editors come in. We looked at the analytics, and decided that the Tai Chan murder trial story was still more important.

Facebook doesnt have editors. That would be censorship. It only has analytics. And, the guys in Macedonia have figured out how to climb to the lead of each days news feed.

There has been some great reporting on Russias attempts to influence our election, with more undoubtedly to come.

But the story being overlooked is how easily our information stream was poisoned and how willingly our citizens were duped. Russian propaganda is nothing new. Our susceptibility to it is.

Walter Rubel is editorial page editor of the Sun-News. He can be reached at wrubel@lcsun-news.com or follow @WalterRubel on Twitter.

Read or Share this story: http://lcsun.co/2oOejMO

Originally posted here:
Rubel: Analytics, censorship and our poisoned information stream - Las Cruces Sun-News

After the death Kim Jong-Nam, the official state-run North Korean news organization Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) issued a statement accusing South Korea of conspiring with Malaysia in the assassination. According to Chosun Media, a South Korean newspaper, the incentive for the alleged collaboration would be to sabotage the North.

The KCNAs accusation serves as another piece of evidence in a long stream of aggressive language targeted at South Korea. Many articles are written in this hostile manner in the national newspaper, Rodong Sinmun. Kim Jong-Un and his regime maintain tight media control partly due to the fact that there are no independent news outlets. North Korea has 12 newspapers, 20 periodicals, and over a dozen broadcasters, but all of their content comes from the KCNA, which is based in the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang. The main focus of the KCNA is casting the regime in a positive light by reporting on Kim Jong-Uns activities and statements.

When reading through several KCNA published articles, traitor Park Geun Hye and puppet authorities appear frequently. Other language includes evil labor policy and fascist dictatorial rule. These themes of treachery and puppet rule stem from North Koreas historic competition over legitimate rule of the Korean peninsula with South Korea.

Language merges into action through North Koreas extensive propaganda program.

Its externally oriented propaganda, said Celeste Arrington, assistant professor of of the George Washington University, in an interview with MediaFile. North Korea, despite its isolationist practices, attempts to influence the mentalities of South Korean civilians in its favor. According to Vice News, this includes raining down leaflets, blasting broadcasts, and posting video content.

The heart of North Koreas information manipulation focuses on its domestic media programs. According to the 2016 Freedom House Report on North Korea, the country is ranked as not free with a press freedom score of 97/100. North Korea is considered one of the most repressive media environments in the world through its state-run news outlet KCNA which produces propaganda-like content to ensure and maintain loyalty to the regime.

The Committee to Protect Journalists listed North Korea as the second most censored country in the world in 2015. Internet access is also highly restricted, which means no content from the outside world can be accessed unless the person using internet is a foreigner or a member of the political elite.

According to the New York Times, other restrictions include banning citizens from contacting family in South Korea through exchanging letters, emails or telephone calls.

As a result of Kim Jong-uns controlling media tactics, North Korean citizens are deprived of basic knowledge of the outside world which in turn reduces citizens opinions to blind loyalty to Kim Jong-Uns regime.

Arrington says such information restriction extends to basic accurate weather reports which affect farmers and those in trade. [Media] is a tool for changing citizens perceptions where they cant contemplate rising against the regime.

Human Rights Foundation communications specialist, Prachi Vidwans, echoed Arringtons comments. Kim Jong-Un has a formidable propaganda machine that is constantly telling North Koreans that their country is the best on eartheven as millions of them struggle for survival.

Vidwans goes on to describe the thorough censorship in the country where free speech, individual articles, blogs and social media are nonexistent.

The Human Rights Foundation has undertaken a combative project called Flash Drives for Freedom which sends North Korean citizens USB drives filled with preloaded Wikipedia pages, e-books and films from outside of the Hermit Kingdom.

North Korean citizens have also taken it upon themselves to gain forbidden knowledge through technology smuggled in from China and South Korea.

Kim Jong-un regime controls phone activity similarly to how it controls media; by providing only one source of communication. In the case of cell phones, North Korea owns its own mobile network company known as Koryolink. According to the New York Times, the three million subscribers under this network are prohibited from international calls and confined to domestic communication which is monitored by the government.

The only way to contact loved ones outside the country is by traveling to the Chinese border and using smuggled-in cell phones. Often times, family who have fled North Korea send those cell phones along with SIM cards and large sums of money. Other smuggled items include iPods, MP3 players and foreign films and TV series.

These illegal methods of contacting the outside world are slowly eroding North Koreans loyalties to the regime. In addition to connecting to family, citizens send messages and photos to reporters and activists.

As citizens within North Korea attempt to reclaim the information of which theyve been deprived, the regimes complete control over knowledge and media will gradually weaken.

Read this article:
North Korean Media: A Story of Language, Censorship, and Tech - MediaFile

LiveJournal, a blog community thats hosted a lot of science fiction authors and fans (including George RR Martin), has officially banned political solicitation which can mean anything that criticizes the Russian government, as well as pro-LGBTQ discussions. There are also concerns users can be subject to Russian spying.

The service grew in popularity as a social network in the early 2000s, especially among former members of SFF Net. LiveJournals popularity shrank with the rise of social networks like Facebook and Snapchat, and it was bought by a Russian company in 2007. However, since the servers were based in the United States, users werent subject to Russian censorship. Until now.

In December, the servers were relocated to Russia, and earlier this week the user agreements were changed to prohibit post[ing] advertising and/or political solicitation materials unless otherwise directly specified in a separate agreement between User and the Administration, or perform[ing] any other actions contradictory to the laws of the Russian Federation. In addition, any blogs that get over 3,000 visitors per days are now classified as media outlets, so they can no longer publish anonymously, use obscene language or share extremist materials. The new agreement is designed to put the site in compliance with Russias internet laws, which are subject to extreme censorship under the guise of protecting children.

The term political solicitation can be open to interpretation, as some have argued its not an exact term in Russian federal law. In the past, similar phrases have been used to condemn conversations about LGBTQ issues as gay propaganda, as well as prevent people from sharing the image of Putin as a clown in makeup. Specifically, in this case, the Washington Times mentioned how the Russian government censored five websites that were calling for a mass protest, including a LiveJournal posting. This happened two days before the updated rules were put in place.

Theres also a big concern about data and privacy. Critics have claimed the user agreement puts users at risk of having their data accessible to Russian intelligence, in accordance with anti-terrorism legislation. The agreement does say its not subject to federal laws requiring companies to store personal data on their users, but plenty of other information can be subject to observation and scrutiny... and thats not even going into Russian cyber espionage.

Its unclear whether users in Russia can face prosecution from the government for violating the terms of the agreement (although it looks like they can), but anyone outside of the country isnt subject to the Russian legal bindings. However, they can be kicked off LiveJournal at any time for not complying with the new agreement.

[Global Voices AdVox]

Read the original:
Russian-Owned LiveJournal Bans Political Talk, Adds Risk of Spying - Gizmodo

Local report

Independent media producers, students, local activists and community groups will be celebrated next week duringIndependent Media Week, organized around the theme A well-informed citizenry is a cornerstone of democracy. This will be the 13th year for the week spotlighting grassroots media and its creators.

The locally sourced event began in April 2005 when, at the request of citizen media activists who launched KSKQ, the local low-power FM radio station, and developed the Rogue Valley Independent Media Center, the city of Ashland proclaimed its first Independent Media Week to celebrate efforts to make public records more readily accessible and to broadcast our community meetings and civic events.

Every year since, a coalition of local independent media organizations has asked the city to proclaim one week in April as Independent Media Week. And, in 2015, a bill introduced by then-Rep. Peter Buckley passed the Oregon legislature and was signed into saw declaring the third week of April each year "as Independent Media Week to encourage all Oregonians to seek out and explore the rich diversity of independent media available to and within their communities."

This year's celebration runs Sunday through Saturday, April 9 to 15. It includes discussions, workshops and a presentation by Project Censored director Mickey Huff.

On Sunday, April 9, there will be an open house breakfast from 10 a.m. to noon at the KSKQ 89.5/94.1 FM community radio station studio at 330 East Hersey St., No. 2, in Ashland. The public can meet producers and staff, learn more about KSKQ and enjoy a light breakfast.

There will be a panel discussion on "Cultivating a Culture of Peace in an Era of Trump: What's the Media's Role?" from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, April 10, in the Arena downstairs at Stevenson Union on the campus of Southern Oregon University.

Local media representatives and the audience will discuss whether and how the media should play a role in advancing goals advocated by the Ashland Culture of Peace Commission (ACPC), including transforming attitudes, behaviors and institutions so they better foster harmonious relationships, particularly in time when the information landscape has been roiled by new national leadership with its own way of doing things.

Panel members are Jeff Golden, producer and host of Immense Possibilities on select PBS stations; Bert Etling, editor of the Ashland Daily Tidings; Jason Houk, publisher of the Rogue Valley Community Press and news director for KSKQ community radio; and Hannah Jones, editor of The Siskiyou, the Southern Oregon University student-run news website.

David Wick, executive director of the ACPC, will say a few words about the work of the commission. Also joining the conversation via a video link will be Dr. David Adams, the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network and former UNESCO director of the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly, who will provide an international perspective on the Culture of Peace and the vital role media plays in its evolution.

Critical Media Literacy Education: The Antidote to Fake' News, Media Filters, and Propaganda in a 'Post-Truth World" is the focus of a lecture by Mickey Huff, director of Project Censored, who will speak at 6 p.m. Friday, April 14, in the Arena at Stevenson Union.

Huff is director of Project Censored, founded in 1976, and president of the Media Freedom Foundation. He has edited or co-edited eight volumes of "Censored" and contributed numerous chapters to these works dating back to 2008. Huff sits on the advisory board for the Media Literacy and Digital Culture graduate program at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, and serves on the editorial board for the journal Secrecy and Society. He also represents Project Censored as one of the cosponsoring organizations for the National Whistleblowers Summit held annually in Washington, D.C.

Another highlight of Independent Media Week is presentation of the Hal Jamison Independent Media Award. Jamison was a long-time Ashland resident and supporter of independent, community media. This award is dedicated in his honor and showcases a community member who is dedicating their time and energy to support our independent media resources.

Independent Media Week sponsors include KSKQ 89.5/94.1 Community Radio, the Ashland Culture of Peace Commission, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice and the UN Club of SOU. For more information, call Jason Houk at 541-841-8341.

See the original post:
Peace, Trump, censorship and fake news up for discussion - Ashland Daily Tidings

Wallkill Senior High School just censored my lecture about censorship.

Several months ago, the school in an upstate New York community known for its prisons and apple orchards invited me to participate in its annual Authors Day event on April 4 and 5. Published writers gab to administrators, librarians and educators over a buffet dinner and then lecture to several classes of students the following day. Its a schlep from Manhattan, but writers receive a modest honorarium and I enjoy talking to kids about my passion.

The talk focused on my book, Killed Cartoons: Casualties From The War On Free Expression (W.W. Norton), a collection of editorial art that newspapers and magazines deemed too controversial to publish. The schools website graciously described me as a top journalist on the front lines of world news and politics who has written 2 critically acclaimed books on the censorship of political cartoons and news articles.

Now I had been warned that the school is located in a conservative district, and I understood that the underlying topic of my talk the embattled free press in the Trump era could prove controversial. But the school should have known what it was getting into. After all, I did not write a young adult novel about a talking purple whale, but hard-hitting nonfiction books on censorship. And my first audience primarily educators with a mission to opening minds for a living would, I assumed, be interested in my message even if it werent exactly theirs.

I assumed wrong.

Around dessert time, I walked to the lectern in the neighborhood Italian restaurant and joked that the audience would be getting a second helping of broccoli.

Unlike the other authors, creators of childrens books who spoke ad hoc about how they became writers, I prepared remarks, because I had something important to say: The leader of the free world has declared war on our free press, and his multi-pronged assault endangers our democracy.

On February 24, President Trump stood before an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., and smeared journalists by calling them enemy of the people.

That particular phrase, enemy of the people, holds a sinister place in the history of political rhetoric, as I told my fidgety audience. Among those who have launched such verbal missiles to demonize their opponents are Adolf Hitlers minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who labeled Jews enemies of the German people murderous Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, and Russian autocrat Joseph Stalin.

As the BBC recently recounted, during Stalins long, brutal reign, out-of-favour artists and politicians were designated enemies and many were sent to hard labour camps or killed. Others were stigmatised and denied access to education and employment.

People stared at their brownies and avoided my eyes, except some of the bulked-up guys, maybe gym teachers, who looked like they wanted to fire a dodge ball at my head.

I then noted that just last week, in a tweet that sailed mostly under the radar, Trump, who has sued journalists for writing unflattering stories about him in the past, proposed weakening the laws protecting a free press. The failing @nytimes has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years, he wrote, ominously adding, Change libel laws?

Eviscerating the laws protecting publishing (which is not unimaginable if Senate Republicans eliminate the filibuster for legislation, as some observers believe will happen) would make it much harder for journalists to do our jobs exposing public corruption and corporate malfeasance and much easier for the super-rich and big business to suppress the truth.

The Trump administrations assault on the media goes beyond attempts at intimidation. The presidents recent budget proposal would eliminate the relatively modest government support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, one of the most respected sources of news in the country.

I also pointed out that Trump doesnt hate all media. In fact, hes a fan of Alex Jones, a racist radio host who argued that 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by the U.S. government, and that the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, was a giant hoax.

Not long after Trump launched his presidential campaign, he appeared as a guest on Joness InfoWars show to flatter the host. Your reputation is amazing, gushed the president, a comment that I still find amazing.

Someone walked out about then. Not slinked out to the bathroom, but marched out in audible disgust. Now I know how comedians feel when they bomb.

Maybe some history will work, I thought to myself.

Our Founding Fathers understood that a vibrant, independent press and a well-informed citizenry stood in the way of tyranny and was essential to the success of their experiment, as they referred to democracy. Thats why they included freedom of the press in the First Amendment. Unfortunately, only 11% of Americans could identify freedom of the press as a constitutionally enshrined First Amendment right, according to the Newseum Institute.

Thomas Jefferson, who endured intense scrutiny from reporters during his presidency, nevertheless consistently defended the field of journalism. Were it left to me, he wrote in 1787, to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.

Donald Trumps war on the press has prompted protests from prominent members of his own party. Former president George W. Bush, hardly a liberal, pointed out that we need the media to hold people like me to account. I mean, power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive and its important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power.

Without a free press, Sen. John McCain worried that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time thats how dictators get started.

That approach didnt work either, so I wrapped up, explaining that the administrations palpable hostility prompts some media organizations to rededicate themselves to the mission of public interest journalism and others to cower in fear and engage in self-censorship. And, that editorial cartoonists are arguably the most vulnerable of journalisms foot soldiers, given the simple power of their expression. A vulnerability shown by the number of full-time cartoonists at newspapers dropping, from about 2000 in the year 1900, to around 90 when I published my book in 2007, and fewer than 30 today.

Reprinted with permission of Paul Combs.

Killed by the Tampa Tribune, 2005.

Youve been a terrific audience

Keepin it light, David, said one of my hosts, who later delivered the news by phone that my talk to the students the next day would be canceled due to a scheduling conflict. I am pretty sure that the other authors, who discussed less contentious topics, such as the teacher who first inspired them to read, spoke right on schedule.

The students arguably are the ones losing out. They would have benefited from a interacting with a professional journalist with experience on the front lines of world news and politics, and by civilly discussing polarizing issues with someone they might not necessarily agree with.

Still, I learned a few lessons from the experience: The divisions in this country are deeper than I expected; people seem less willing than ever to engage in debate, and the status of the press down to about 20% in 2016 from 51% in 1979, [according to Gallup], (http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx) is seriously damaged, hindering our ability to effectively communicate sometimes difficult-to-digest truths.

On the bright side, at least I didnt have to eat lunch in the cafeteria.

David Wallis is the Forwards opinion editor. Contact him at wallis@forward.com

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

Read more here:
Trigger Warning: A High School Censors A Speech About Censorship - Forward