Category Archives: Censorship

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.

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

(Photo: the International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Exceptionalism and Responsibility conference)

It was originally scheduled in 2014 for the Britains Southampton University and was canceled after Zionists pressured university officials. It was briefly rescheduled once more in Southampton in response to outrage over the censorship only to be canceled once again. However, lead organizers, Oren Ben-Dor, James Bowen and George Bisharat did not give up. In the intervening months questions about the legitimacy of Israeli government actions only increased, and the original conference organizers were joined by more scholars and international legal experts determined to carry out a serious discussion about Palestine and international law.

For many of the attendees, the timing this spring couldnt have been better. The ascendancy of the right wing in Europe and the United States and the recent vociferous reactions to the UN report by Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley made the discussions all the more timely and necessary. The warm Irish welcome was such that the first two days were actually held in the atrium auditorium of Corks City Hall. The sessions were packed at both City Hall and the Sunday session at the University of Cork. Although there was security hired by conference organizers, there were no violent incidents, nor even any sustained complaints from the audience. The only sustained reactions were the enthusiastic applause outbursts whenever the courage and persistence of the conference organizers was mentioned.

Eitan Bronstein from the Israeli human rights group Zochrot speaks at the International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Exceptionalism and Responsibility conference. (Photo: Facebook)

Richard Falk, co-author of the recent UN report:Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, commissioned and published by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA),was the first keynote speaker with amagisterial overview of the legal history of the state formation of Israel. Ugo Mattai from the University of Turin and Hastings College of Law was the keynote for the second day and gave an eloquent perspective on the functional limits of international law. Other presenters included Ghada Karmi, University of Exeter; Vasuki Nesiah, NYU; Anthony Lowstedt, Webster University in Vienna; anti-house demolition Activist Jeff Halper; London barrister Salma Karmi-Ayyoub; Jaffa journalist Ofra Yeshua-Lyth; Joel Kovel, NY writer and activist and many others.

The sessions, listed with titles such as Legitimacy, Self Determination and Political Zionism and Settler Colonialism: Exceptional or Typical, could have veered off into repetitive rhetoric and bitter denouncements, but the skillful panel arrangements and choice of speakers by the organizers made for thoughtful, though sometimes intense discussion and reflection.

Joel Kovel, speaking at Cork conference

Several key Jewish academics and the presentation by Buckingham Professor Geoffrey Alderman insured that pro-Israel voices were also presented. The only tense moment came when someone in the audience questioned a panelists contention that Israeli children are being taught to hate. That discussion was quickly defused by expanding to include statements about diverse cultures and the need to empathize with the other.

One of the sessions on the last day was enhanced with a variety of maps. Instead of the usual depressing images of encroaching wall construction and escalating settlement development, in this discussion the maps were shown as possible guides for potential future reconciliation and repatriation. Dr. Salman Abu-Sitta from the Land Society of Palestine showed slides of map points locating carefully researched sites of former Palestinian homes and villages placed over a map of current Israeli population centers. When viewed via his overlapping graphics, one could see that there was room on the land for ensuring space for the right to return. As an experienced civil engineer, Abu-Sitta outlined some of the planning and construction that could be created for a truly authentic peace process. His plan, he assured the audience, would cost a lot less than even one year of U.S. aid to Israel, and, as he pointed out, would only be a one-time cost, not an annual expenditure. One should be cautious about any technological solution to human problems, but Abu-Sittas positive and good humored look at what has been such an insoluble issue was refreshing and persuasive.

Eitan Bronstein Aparicio also used cartography in a positive presentation. He passed out copies of a large fold-out map which shows the many historic settlements that were destroyedbut not just Palestinian ones. His map includes Jewish and Syrian destructions also from way before 1948 until 2016. This is part of the extensive work Bronstein Aparicio has done to increase understanding of the history of land and population centers for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Throughout the conference, there were occasional Thoughts for the Day by Philip Franses, a representative from the Schumacher College. These short presentations must have been scheduled by the organizers to circumvent what was the anticipated dissension. Like the bored security personnel, these hedges against rancor were completely unnecessary at this overwhelmingly positive and hopeful conference. The expected dissension was non-existent and these programmed new age moments seemed forced and patronizing. The mantra of were all equal humans and we are the world moments seemed rather insulting.

The final panel included a presentation by Cheryl Harris, Professor ofConstitutional Law at UCLA, who began with a review of events in Ferguson, Missouri, and a short history of the Black Lives Matter movement. According to Harris, this movement has become aware of the need to connect with international struggles against racism and the global struggle for justice. Both Harris and Richard Falk adroitly, with diplomatic grace, responded to the feel good, everyones equal proscription by reminding the audience that Franses confident rhetoric did not take power into account. Yes, all lives do matter, but a togetherness chant is not going to remedy unjust situationsin Missouri or Palestine.

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It happened! Cork conference overcomes academic censorship ... - Mondoweiss

Opposition supporters take part in an unauthorized anti-corruption rally in central Moscow on March 26.

Alexander Utkin/AFP/Getty Images

When you hear the words Russia and internet, you probably think of Kremlin-backed hacking. But the internet is also a powerful tool for Putins opposition. Last month, the internet helped spark Russias largest anti-government protests in five years. Russia respondedby blocking access to webpagesthat 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 President Vladimir 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 tech 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 Aleksei 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 officerecently requested the blockingof a YouTubevideo 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 wouldn't 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.

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.

This article is adapted from the forthcoming Attacks on the Press: The New Face of Censorship, a book from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Future Tense is a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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Russia Is Trying to Copy China's Approach to Internet Censorship - Slate Magazine

What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them.Toni Morrison

Never trust anyone who says they do not see color. This means to them, you are invisible.Nayhyirah Waheed

Not Steven. Not Stephen. Certainly not Steveareno.

Its a preference. My preference. My choice. And if people want to be in my good graces, theyll comply with my wishes.

Theres nothing strange or unreasonable about this. We do it all the time usually when were being introduced to someone.

Nice to meet you, Steve. Im Elisha.

Elisha? What a beautiful name!

Please. Call me Steve.

Is there anything wrong with that? Does that stifle conversation? Does it stop people from talking freely to each other?

No. Certainly some names are hard to pronounce or in my case remember. But overcoming those hurdles is just common decency. Its not too much to ask especially if youre going to be dealing with this person for an extended length of time.

The idea that allowing people to define themselves somehow shuts down conversation is rather strange. But its the essence of opposition to political correctness.

Political correctness is tyranny with manners, said conservative icon Charlton Heston.

I wonder if he would have felt the same if wed called him Charlie Hessywessytone.

A more fleshed out criticism comes from President George H. W. Bush who said, The notion of political correctness declares certain topics, certain expressions, even certain gestures off-limits. What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship.

Is that true? Is political correctness really censorship? Thats the conflation made by many conservatives and even some liberals. After all, popular Left-wing comedian Bill Maher sarcastically calls his HBO show Politically Incorrect, and he often rails against the practice.

Theres a kernel of truth to it. We are asked to change the way we speak. Were asked to self-censor, but we already do this frequently without wailing against a loss of free speech.

Human beings are subject to various impulses, but as adults, we learn which ones we can act on and which we shouldnt. I may think it would be hilarious to run into a crowded movie theater and yell, FIRE! However, I know that doing so while possibly funny to a certain kind of person would result in injuries and trauma as moviegoers stampede out of the theater. So I dont do it. Is that censorship? Maybe. But its censorship with a small c.

The Hestons, Bushes and Mahers of the world seem to think political correctness is more like Capital C Censorship. But this is demonstrably false.

That kind of Censorship is the act of officials, possibly agents of the government, a corporation or some other formal bureaucracy. But political correctness has nothing to do with officials. There are no censors. There are only people who ask to be named a certain way.

A censor looks at a news report of military operations in Iraq and deletes material that would give away the armys location. Political correctness is nothing like that. It involves someone asking others to refer to themselves THIS WAY and not THAT WAY.

The penalties for violating Censorship are official. Ask Chelsea Manning who until being pardoned by President Barack Obama - was serving a 35-year prison sentence for doing just that. The penalties for violating political correctness are social. You may be criticized, condemned or disliked.

If you criticize Manning for releasing classified documents to Wikileaks, youre not violating political correctness. Thats your opinion, and youre entitled to it. However, Manning is a trans woman who is going through hormone replacement therapy. If you refer to her as him you are violating political correctness. Youre naming her in a way that violates her wishes. The penalty is not a prison sentence. Its a sour look.

So political correctness is not Censorship. In some ways, the confusion comes from the term political correctness, itself.

Though its origins are hard to pin down, it appears to have been coined by the Soviets to mean judging the degree of compatibility of ones ideas or political analysis with the official party line in Moscow. At least thats what the International Encyclopedia of Social Studies says.

The term came to prominence in the United States in conservative writer Dinesh DSouzas book Illiberal Education. He disparaged affirmative action as a kind of political correctness that gave preference to (what he saw as) unqualified minority students over whites in college admissions.

So the first mention of the term in the USA was simply to disparage liberal political policies. It was a ham-handed way of comparing the Left with the Soviets. Yet somehow this term has become the handle by which we know simple civility. Its kind of hard to feel positively about a concept that begins with a mountain of unearned negative connotations.

Conservatives know the power of getting to name something. Its their go-to propaganda tactic and lets them control much of the debate. For instance, thats why the Right loves to call Social Security an entitlement. Theres truth to it because youre entitled to getting back the money you pay in, but its full of unearned negative connotations as if these people were somehow demanding things they dont deserve.

In essence, political correctness shouldnt be political at all. Its just kindness. Its just being a decent human being. Dont purposefully call someone by a name they wouldnt appreciate. Respect a persons ownership of their own identity.

And for some people thats hard to do. Their conceptions of things like gender, sexuality, race and religion are extremely rigid. The only way to be a man is THIS WAY. The only way to be spiritual is THAT WAY. But if they give voice to these ideas in the public square especially in the presence of people who think differently they will be frowned upon.

But is this really so dissimilar to the crowded movie theater? Refusing to acknowledge someone elses identity is harmful to that person. It tramples the soul,similarly to the way their body would be trampled in a stampeded exit. So you shouldnt do it.

The result is an apparently much more tolerant society. Its no longer okay to use racial, cultural, gender and sexual stereotypes in public. Youre forced to give other people consideration or else face the consequences of being disliked. And on the surface, thats a much more inviting world to live in.

However, there is a glaring problem. In some ways, this has made public discourse more antiseptic. People dont always say what they mean in the public square. Its not that theyve changed the way they think about the world. Theyve just learned to keep it to themselves until theyre around like-minded individuals. They reserve their racist, classist, sexist language for use behind closed doors.

This is why when Im at a party peopled exclusively by white folks, some partygoers may let racial epithets slip out. And we all laugh nervously to be polite. Or maybe its more than politeness. Maybe for some its to relieve the tension of such refreshing candor like taking off a girdle. Fwew! Here, at least, I can say what I really think without having to worry about people looking down on me for it!

Since such reactions occur mostly in homogeneous groups, it makes the world look much more enlightened than it really is. Pundits and policymakers look around and cheer the end of these social ills when they havent ended at all. Theyve merely gone underground.

And so we have an epidemic of colorblind white people who cant see racism because of the gains of political correctness. Somehow they forget those unguarded moments. Somehow they havent the courage to examine their own souls. Or perhaps they dont care.

And so we have the conundrum: which is better to live in a world where all individuals have the right to name themselves or to live in a world where our most basic prejudices are on display for all to see?

Personally, I pick political correctness, and heres why.

Words are important. We think in words. We use them to put together our thoughts. If we continue to respect individuals names in word, eventually well begin to do so in thought and deed.

This isnt mind control. Its habit. Its recognizing an ideal and working toward it. As Aristotle taught, the way to become a good person is to act like one. Eventually, your preferences will catch up with your habits.

I think thats whats happening today. Look at the children. Theyre so much less prejudiced and racist than we, adults. This is because theyve learned political correctness first. They didnt have to unlearn some archaic white-cisgender-centrism. This is normal to them, and I think thats a good thing.

Obviously some people will balk at this idea. They will look at this ideal as reprehensible. They want to return to a world where women were little more than property, a world where black people knew their place, where sexual identity was as simple as A or B.

But I think most of us recognize that this is not a world where wed want to live. Modern society can be scary and confusing but trying to respect everyone as a person isnt a bad thing. Its consideration, concern, warmth.

Perhaps the best way to love your fellow humans is to call them by their proper names.

A similar version of this article originally was published on my Website.

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Political Correctness Isn't About Censorship It's About Decency - Huffington Post

President Trump has no time for political correctness. What about you?

Beginning with the very inception of the country, conservative censorship has dominated the United States of America as a way to moderate public opinion. Beginning in the twenty-first century, however, a new kind of censorship dominated the headlines, schoolrooms, and workplaces of America: liberal political correctness. With the rise of right-wing ideals and isolationism, will we witness

This new liberal PC mentality seemingly accentuated a widespread shift from a traditional, religion-based outlook to the more contemporary inclusive, modern toleration-based outlook.

Political correctness has been criticized recently. From comedians to politicians, the doctrine is criticized for limiting free speech, overacting to even slightly offensive comments, and overall, acting as the thought police. The most obvious, essentially unmissable advocate against political correctness is, of course, President Donald Trump. At the first GOP debate, he stated that he has no time for political correctness, after replying to questions demanding why he has called women pigs and dogs in the past.

This societal censorship did not have liberal origins, however. Many forget that conservative-based censorship was ubiquitous in the twentieth-century. In 1918, for instance, the Sedition Act was enacted, effectively making it impossible to speak out against the United States government. The act barred any type of anti-government criticism that was profane, scurrilous, or abusive language. The penalty for such an offense? $10,000 and/or twenty years in prison. Eugene V. Debs, a prominent American socialist, was imprisoned for making an anti-war speech in 1918 under a similar law.

Even in 2013, almost one hundred years later, right-wing censorship is prevalent. Neil Gaimans book, Neverwhere, was banned in a New Mexico school after a parent complained of a sex scene and The F-word.

The Harry Potter series has come under attack for promoting witchcraft. One of the most thought-provoking and moving works of literature in recent memory, Brave New World, was also criticized for its anti-religion and anti-family values.

Literature has not been the only thing censored. The Pentagon Papers, published in part by The New York Times in 1971 were released after the government threatened to punish the company under the same law the aforementioned Eugene V. Debs was put up against. The Times later stated the papers were a great example of the widespread lying and censorship enacted by the Johnson administration.

The public-school superintendent in Georgia, Kathy Cox, was proposing banning the word evolution so as to not offend more conservative parents. The absurdity of this proposal is simply astounding.

However, with the growing backlash against liberal PC, we may see a retreat to conservative-based censorship. The pendulum of political influence may very well swing back to these kinds of restrictions. This development is doubtlessly influenced by the retreat of globalization and the possibility of the end of democracy as we know it.

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Choose Wisely: Political Correctness Or A Retreat To Conservative Censorship? - The Pavlovic Today

Professors are also getting it in the neck. Mike Jensen, an adjunct professor at the University of Northern Colorado, was hauled before campus authorities last year after one of his students filed a complaint with the campus BRT. Jensens crime? Encouraging students to debate controversial issues such as transgenderism.

According to a recording of the meeting, which Jensen gave to Heat Street, he had asked his class to read Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoffs seminal Atlantic article The Coddling of the American Mind. This would be hilariously ironic if it wasnt kind of sad, Jensen told the BRT official. He was threatened with an investigation, and for reasons undisclosed was not invited back to teach the next semester.

Though BRTs are described as support mechanisms, aimed at resolving unpleasant incidents and fostering campus diversity, Jensens experience reveals the more sinister reality. The FIRE report notes that most of the BRTs surveyed only purported to provide education to the offender, rather than punishment. But this, in itself, is deeply coercive. Not least because 42 per cent of investigations surveyed involved campus law enforcement. This is modern campus censorship at its most militarised.

Another irony here is that, as two professors pointed out in an article for the New Republic, BRTs are hitting the very subjects devoted to discussing issues of racial and sexual discrimination. Even a discussion about racism could be lodged as a bias incident. Fighting discrimination (no matter how illusory) has become the defining obsession of campus politics, and yet students are being encouraged to avoid learning about it or discussing it frankly.

Censorship is always, on some level, anti-intellectual. It presupposes that certain truths are best unchallenged, that certain opinions are better left unsaid, and that people are either too easily led or too easily shaken to participate in public life fully. BRTs make this plain. Whats more, they show that PC censorship has become a thoroughly neocolonial endeavour, devoted to looking after those black, brown, gay or trans folk deemed too wretched for the cut and thrust of academic debate.

The rise of BRTs remind us just how hollowed-out intellectual life on campus has become. As colleges have become bureaucratised, as services have swelled while academic staff have been squeezed, theyve drifted further away from their intellectual mission. Diversity is now the defining value, an article of faith. Tragically, this preoccupation has if anything made campus life more tense and fractured. Encouraging students to snitch every time they spy a racist tequila party is hardly going to make students from different backgrounds feel more chilled out around one another.

But this is not an internal coup by diversity-crazed bureaucrats - academia itself has a lot to answer for. For decades, victim feminism, critical race theory and Frankfurt school blather about the harm in speech, the power structures created by images, the idea that words act upon women and minorities, has laid the groundwork for the BRT craze. These ideas, which have so long gone unchallenged, have lent campus bureaucracies a moral mission, a justification for their bloat and meddling.

Its unclear whether BRTs are run by card-carrying ideologues or mere jobsworths, desperate to keep offended students happy and racist professor headlines out of the press. But whats clear is that campus authoritarianism isnt just a figment of civil libertarians imagination. Colleges have created vast byzantine bureaucracies which encourage students to snitch on their peers, which haul professors before committees for making off-the-cuff remarks, all in the name of protecting students from themed parties, sexist signage and, worst of all, debate. And they call us hysterical.

Tom Slater is deputy editor at spiked. Tom Slater is deputy editor at spiked. Unsafe Space: The Crisis of Free Speech on Campus, edited by Tom, is published by Palgrave Macmillan. Follow him on Twitter: @Tom_Slater_

Later this year, spiked is launching Unsafe Space, our US programme aimed at remaking the case for free speech on campus, with a tour of college campuses. Are you a US student? Want to find out more? Email the team today.

For permission to republish spiked articles, please contact Viv Regan.

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Bias Response Teams: campus censorship at its most sinister - Spiked

Instagram is approaching updated censorship guidelines for all accounts. The update will blur out content that could be considered objectionable, letting the user choose if they would like to view the content.

In the past, Instagram has been accused of deleting sensitive content, which many users deemed unreasonable. The censorship update will allow users to decide what kind of content they wish to see.

The update is an approach to foster a safer, kinder community for the 500 million active users of the social outlet. Instagram will soon be censoring content such as animal testing, famine, humanitarian crises and nudity.

The blurring of certain content may affect a variety of users including brands, bloggers, photojournalists and photographers. Much of what popularly followed users share could be censored if found offensive by others.

Soon you may notice a screen over sensitive photos and videos when you scroll through your feed or visit a profile. While these posts dont violate our guidelines, someone in the community has reported them and our review team has confirmed they are sensitive. This change means you are less likely to have surprising or unwanted experiences in the app, Kevin Systrom, co-founder and CEO of Instagram, wrote in a company blog post.

Instagram will also be adding a new security feature, enabling a two-factor authentication that will require a code every time a user logs in.

Anchorage-based photographer Jovell Rennie does not doubt that the new guidelines will cause backlash, but thinks that many users wont necessarily be affected. Rennie is best known for a variety of local camera work, sharing Alaska and boudoir photography.

I cant imagine many photographers liking the fact that their images are blurred. I think it comes down to your motivations for using the platform. If you use it primarily for commercial exposure, reaching out to prospective clients, etc., then you might be pretty peeved about the blurring. If you use it for artistic expression, you might not feel as bothered, Rennie said.

Shayne Nuesca, UAA student and photojournalist, feels that Instagrams guidelines will result in feeds that are too curated.

I dont like the idea that I could be censored if I do decide to make a photograph about a more sensitive issue. When I see a photo thats blurred, I automatically think that the photo might be distasteful. But most of the time, it isnt and it actually adds a story to a larger narrative. I would hate to see organizations and photojournalists be labeled as distasteful because their photos are censored. Its really not fair, Nuesca said.

To Nuesca, expressing yourself safely is more suppressive than expressive.

Whether Instagrams new approach is successful or hurts a fraction of their users, letting consumers have the authority to choose what kind of content they wish to see could be a reasonable solution.

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Instagram to alter censorship guidelines - UAA Northern Light

The news that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has cancelled her speaking tour of Australia due to security concerns should concernanyone who believes in freedom. It is a dark day when a woman who fled to the West to escape the Islamist suffocations of Somalia, and precisely so that she might think and speak freely, feels she cannot say certain things in certain places. That even a Western, liberal, democratic nation like Australia cannot guarantee Hirsi Ali the freedom to speak her mind without suffering censorship or harm is deeply worrying. It points to the mainstreaming of intolerance, to the adoption by certain people in the West of the illiberalism that makes up the very Islamist outlook that Hirsi Ali and others have sought to escape.

Hirsi Alis Oz tour, Hero of Heresy, had been due to kick off this Thursday. She would have visited Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, hosted by Think Inc., an organisation devoted to the promotion of intellectual discourse. But today, citing, among other things, security concerns, Think Inc. announced the tour was off.

This isnt the first time Hirsi Ali has effectively been hounded out of even tolerant nations, made to feel unwelcome in the West because of her strong, critical take on Islam and its treatment of women. She had to leave her adopted home of Holland after receiving death threats for her involvement in the 2004 Islam-critical film Submission (the films director, Theo van Gogh, was stabbed to death by an Islamist). She still has heavy security whenever she speaks in public. Certain campuses in the US have made it clear she isnt welcome, because shes Islamophobic. That is, she criticises Islam, which today is treated as a species of mental illness. How perverse that even a woman who has suffered under extreme forms of Islam can be treated as dangerous for daring to ridicule that religion.

Hirsi Alis troubles in Australia are striking because they point to a really worrying interplay between the polite intolerance of Islamophobia and the more violent urge in certain sections of society to punish and maybe even kill critics of Islam.

So before this mornings reports of a security threat to Hirsi Ali, there had been a respectable campaign to keep her out of Oz. Four hundred Muslim women and other concerned citizens, including academics, a museum director and, hilariously, human-rights activists, signed a petition saying Hirsi Alis rhetoric poses a threat to social peace and the safety of Muslims Down Under. Against a backdrop of increasing global Islamophobia, Hirsi Alis divisive rhetoric simply serves to increase hostility and hatred towards women, the petition says. In short, her words are inflammatory, violent even, and they directly harm Muslims. So shut them down, shut her up, keep her out. Australia deserves better than this, the petition said.

In a video watched and shared tens of thousands of times by both Islamic and so-called liberal activists, Muslim women are shown denouncing Hirsi Ali, accusing her of repeat[ing] the language of our oppressors. The video says Hirsi Ali uses the same Islam-critical rhetoric that has been used in recent years to justify wars, invasion and genocide. So her words are warlike, evil, destructive. It also says she uses the language of patriarchy. This is perverse. Its patriarchal to criticise the Islamist repression of women? And, by extension, is it anti-patriarchal to defend the Islamist ideology from a womans divisive criticism?

Then came some kind of security threat, some promise of violence that caused her to cancel her tour. Its time we realised that these things are intimately related; that respectable societys creeping intolerance of critical thought fuels other, more extreme peoples conviction that such thought must be punished harshly, if necessary.

The more people depict certain ideas as unfit for public life, the more they send out a signal that the people who hold those ideas are dangerous and wicked, and possibly fair game for violence. They branded Hirsi Ali an enemy of public order and decency, no doubt making it easier for others to fantasise about punishing her. They said she would harm Australia and its Muslims, no doubt giving others the idea that she should therefore be kept out of Australia by any means necessary.

Where somewant to crush the likes of Hirsi Ali or Charlie Hebdo with laws and bans, others want to crush them with violence. Different means, yes; but these two sections of society, the chin-strokers and the gun-strokers, share the same aim: to silence people whose ideas they dislike. The bookish censor lends moral authority to the violent censor. From thefailure to stand up for Salman Rushdie to the No Platforming of the likes of Hirsi Ali today, too many thinkers in the supposedly tolerant West unwittingly give a nod of approval to efforts to shut down dangerous people.The signal we should be sending to society is not that some ideas are too dangerous for public life, but that no ideas, even ridicule of Islam, will ever be silenced or punished; that it is unacceptable ever to harm someone simply for what they think and say.

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The short path from censorship to violence - Spectator.co.uk (blog)

When documentary filmmaker Kacey Cox heard that Anastasia Lin, an actress hed previously worked with, had won Miss World Canada based on a platform for human rightsand would have to enter China to compete in the finalshe knew he had to film her journey.

You couldnt have written a better story, Cox said.

Miss World is a U.K.-based pageant with the motto beauty with a purpose, and Lin brought a message of religious freedom to the stage. She was outspoken about human rights atrocities in China, like the persecution of practitioners of various faiths, and the Chinese regimes harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not known for taking criticismthere have been many cases of foreign citizens being arrested in the country for speaking out about issues like Lin has. She was admittedly nervous when she first got the newsof where the finals would be held.

Cox and Lin met briefly soon after Lin won Miss World Canada, and Lin mentioned the finals venue had been moved from Australia to China. At first, the implications didnt register with Cox. He congratulated her, and they parted ways.

Then as he was walking away, it clickedLin was going to be walking into the lions mouth. He chased after her, all the way down to the parking lot, and told her they had to make a film about it.

The result was the documentary Anastasia Lin: The Crown, currently screening at film festivals internationally and soon to be shown at the Manhattan Film Festival, on April 25.

The film reveals a side of China that is still little known, one governed by a covert body that effectively silences dissent.

As every major media reported in the aftermath of the 2015 Miss World pageant, Lin was barred from entry by Chinese officials and received little assistance from the Miss World pageant organizers. In making the film, Cox followed Lin as she made multiple attempts to get answers and gain entry to the country. The film also succinctly illustrates her personal story.

At one point, Lin sheds light on why she became such a passionate advocate for human rights. She confesses that as a young child in China, she was considered a good student because she was the class organizer who made sure all the other students studied the CCPs propaganda and viewed the Partys enemies as their enemies. It wasnt until she left the country that she realized how misled people inside China still are. The realization led her to dig into the lies the Party asked others to repeat.

As Lin continued speaking out about human rights abuses while in the international spotlight as a beauty queen, she started getting pushback.

Inside China, articles about Lin were either blocked or completely altered to the point where they seemed to be written about another person entirely. Her name and her photo were changed to show another Chinese woman.

Then Lins father, who lives in China, started receiving threats. He called to advise her to back down, admonishing her for criticizing the Party. Then, as Cox documented while traveling with her, Lin started receiving threatening phone calls herself.

Cox filmed Lin as she took a flight from Canada to Hong Kong with plans to enter Sanya City, a resort town in China that has unique rules that dont require entrants to have visas until after they arrive.

The trip was an incredibly tense. It was the shortest 16-hour flight Ive ever been on, Cox said.

Chinadeclared Lin persona non grataan unwelcome person, or someone not allowed into the countryand when she landed, she was crowded by media. Interviews and media appearances continued on for the next eight days; Cox observed as Lin stayed up until 3 a.m. to give interviews to overseas media outlets. Her opportunity to competewas over, but her human rights platform and calls to hold China accountable were more relevant than ever.

I felt that a documentary could amplify her message, which is one of ending the persecution of groups like [the spiritual practice] Falun Gong in China, and religious freedom for people around the world, Cox said. Human rights and religious freedom are issues Cox has always also felt strongly about, and he felt personally invested in the story from the beginning.

While following Lin on this journey, he felt he was really seeing beauty with a purpose in action. On a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, where Lin spoke at a U.N. forum about human rights, young fans approached her and told her about how shed changed their perception of beauty queens.

Its a persons purpose that makes them beautiful, Cox said. The film doesnt talk much about pageant perceptions, but this message colored his making of the documentary. He made a film that he hoped would clearly explain Lins cause and purpose, and hopefully inspire others to act with similar conviction.

Anastasia Lin: The Crown will screen in New York at the Manhattan Film Festival on April 25 at 5 p.m.

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Documentary Follows Beauty Queen Who Fought Censorship - The Epoch Times

UNH Women's Studies Program Faculty and Staff April 3, 2017 Filed under Opinions

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The Womens Studies Program strongly condemns the universitys recent censorship of the anti-sexual harassment exhibit posted in the MUB.

We stand in support of the students who worked with the Sexual Harassment and Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP) to stage this creative and brave response to sexual violence on university campuses. The students solicited actual epithets that have been hurled at members of our campus community, and replicated these on the wall outside the MUBs main offices. Within only hours of the exhibits appearance on March 17, the university took it down.

The administration justifies its decision by citing the MUB policy manual (section 8.03): Any poster with hate speech as defined in the Students Rights, Rules and Responsibilities will not be posted. Any poster/flyer containing profane/vulgar language is prohibited. But this was not a poster, it was an exhibit. And the language it contained is, indeed, much more than profane and vulgar: it is real, and it is violent.

By invoking, interpreting and enforcing the MUB policy manual in this way, the university has shut this conversation down, and has done great damage to student and staff attempts to address campus sexual harassment and violence. The university has invested a great deal of resources on public relations campaigns to present itself as taking action on this problem. It would do well to let the people who understand the issue bestSHARPP, and the students who live with and experience the harassment and violenceto have a voice.

The Faculty and Staff of the UNH Womens Studies Program

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Women's Studies program condemns censorship - The New Hampshire