Category Archives: Censorship

Amanda Jones found a death threat in her email on a Sunday morning, almost a month after she had spoken at a public library against censorship.

In July, Jones, who heads the board of the Louisiana Association for School Librarians, spoke up against censorship and book bans, specifically books about LGBTQ people and people of color, at her local public library in Livingston Parish, La. She endured dozens of Facebook posts and comments suggesting she was a pedophile, a groomer, and accusing her of pushing pornography on children.

But none of those messages from the local groups scared her as much as the death threat from a man in Texas, about four hours away from where she lived in Louisiana.

It was pretty explicit in the ways that he was going to kill me, Jones said. I was actually petrified.

The next day, Jones drove to the school where she works as a school librarian and as she was going to get out of her car, saw a man she didnt recognize walking around in the parking lot. She sat in her car for 10 minutes, afraid to leave. Eventually, she called her principal and asked him to check if he recognized the man. She only left her car when she found out it was a maintenance worker.

Now, Jones is pushing back, bringing suit against some of the Facebook groups where the harassment against her occurred. This week, a judge dismissed her case, but Jones vowed to appeal.

The librarians nightmare started on July 19, when Jones went to the meeting at the public library where she has been a member since 1983 to make her case against censorship of books dealing with LGBTQ themes and topics and books about people of color and racism, which have been common targets of book ban calls across the country.

A PEN America study about school book bans in the 2021-22 academic year said 41 percent of all bans are about books dealing with LGBTQ topics. Forty percent of the books banned have main or secondary characters of color, and 21 percent directly address race and racism.

Censoring and relocating books and displays is harmful to our community, but will be extremely harmful to our most vulnerableour children, she said at the meeting.

In her speech, Jones did not mention any specific titles but talked generally about censorship and book banning. She was among 20 or so people that spoke against book bans.

On July 21, a Facebook group called Citizens For a New Louisiana operated by defendant Michael Lunsford posted a picture of Jones with the caption Why is she fighting so hard to keep sexually erotic and pornographic materials in the kids section?

Lunsford said he was also at the meeting and made a public comment.

On the same day, another group called Bayou State of Mind, run by defendant Ryan Thames, posted a meme with Jones picture which said, After advocating teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds, I had to change my name on Facebook. Through the post, Thames revealed the full name Jones used on Facebook (which was not her legal name) and her school district.

After weeks of Facebook posts by the local groups against her, Jones said she is now harassed by people on Twitter and Facebook that dont even live in Louisiana. Her complaints to the sheriffs office against the Facebook groups amounted to nothing, but she said the police are working on extraditing the Texas man who sent her the death threat. The Livingston Parish Sheriffs office did not respond to requests for comment.

In a rare pushback against online defamation that some teachers and librarians have been subjected to since book ban efforts escalated, Jones filed a lawsuit against the Facebook groups Citizens For a New Louisiana and Bayou State of Mind, as well as Lunsford and Thames. She alleged that the groups have been defaming her for weeks online, saying they damaged her personal and professional reputation. Because of the groups, she said, shes received threats of violence and even the death threat. She sought damages, a restraining order against the defendants, and an injunction prohibiting them from posting about her online.

Its not just happening to me, its happened to tons of educators across the United States, she said. I do really encourage people when this happens to make sure they build their support system and weigh the pros and cons of speaking out. Sometimes in your communities and where you live, you have to do whats safest for you.

After the preliminary injunction hearing was rescheduled twice, the judge dismissed the lawsuit per the defendants request on Wednesday, saying that Jones was a limited public official because of her position with the librarians group and that the comments made against Jones were not defamatory and were just opinions. Jones said the verdict was disappointing, but she is planning to appeal.

The defendants said their argument was about the content of the books in the library and Jones had opened herself up to criticism because she decided to speak at the meeting.

Miss Jones decided she wanted to interject herself into this library board controversy, and shes trying to persuade everybody that her opinion is right, Thames attorney, Joseph Long, said. Well, when you do that, of course, youre going to get criticism and youre going to get support. And if you cant handle the criticism without having to file a lawsuit, you probably shouldnt get in the middle of the fray.

Jones also alleged in the lawsuit that she was called a groomer online, which means an adult who fosters a relationship with a minor, often with the intention of sexual abuse. The term has been coopted by the right to insult people advocating for LGBTQ issues. Long said Jones was called a groomer because she was advocating facts for young children.

And whether she was or whether she was not [a groomer]I mean, I dont think she wasbut one would argue if you advocate teaching sex to young children, that is a technique that groomers use to sexually abuse children, added Long, who said he did not make that allegation himself.

Long and Lunsford also said that the case was not about books containing references to LGBTQ characters or dealing with topics of sexuality.

It was just sexual content, whether its heterosexual or homosexual, it is not appropriate for 11- or 12-year-olds, Long said. That was a red herring early on, but that never came up in the hearing at all.

For his part, Lunsford said he never called Jones a pedophile or a groomer, or accused her of pushing sexually explicit content.

We simply asked questions of why is this material in the library? Why are these people fighting so hard to keep it in? he said.

He said he had also received threats to his life for speaking against Jones.

People on the fringe of both sides get a little carried away, he said. Its not appropriate, people shouldnt do it. Engage on the issue, whether this is appropriate for children or isnt it.

Citizens for a New Louisiana hasnt issued any book challenges relating to books about that lifestyle, Lunsford said, referring to the LGBTQ people. He said his organizations issue is focused on books such as the graphic novel, Lets Talk about It: The Teens Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human.

The explicit images in the graphic novel are inappropriate for children and thats what his organization objects to, he said.

But the stress of weeks of online harassment has caught up with Jones. The defendants have contacted her family members through social media, she said, and people have complained about her to both the Louisiana School Library Association, of which she is president, and to her school district.

She hasnt been able to focus at work and is suffering physical effects. Jones said starting in January, shes going to take a sabbatical from work for the spring semester. But Jones said even knowing what happened, she still would choose to speak up against censorship the way she did at that public meeting in July.

Why not me? Because somebodys got to do it, she said, Because these people, they dont stop. And Im just really sick of it.

Jones friend Kim Howell, who was the former president of the state school librarians association, said if this had happened to her, she wouldve left her job. She said she admired Jones for standing up to the defendants and fighting against censorship.

Howell and her colleagues at the association have been a major support system for Jones throughout this experience, Jones said, from financially contributing to the GoFundMe that allowed her to hire the attorney to offering emotional support.

It was just devastating to watch my friend be attacked personally and these lies told about her, Howell said. Amandas got moxie. Shes making a difference and Im 100 percent behind her.

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A School Librarian Pushes Back on Censorship and Gets Death Threats and Online Harassment - Education Week

MOGADISHU, Somalia 28 September 2022 On the International Day for Universal Access to Information, Somali journalists have little to celebrate about. The often precarious and volatile environment is coupled with restrictions on access to information, duress and insecurity.

Journalists in Mogadishu, Hirshabelle, Galmudug, South West and Jubbaland told SJS that they were blocked from major events and to the scenes of incidents, including sites of Al-Shabaab attacks and denied access to information on public interests. Journalists have particularly narrated acts of censorship and intimidation aimed at stopping them from uncovering serious human rights violations. Police commanders, judges, government officials, clan leaders and members of al-Shabaab were described as the key perpetrators of these violations. Journalists in Puntland told SJS that they were denied access to cover news reports revealing police wrongdoings and sexual violence against women and girls.

"In our recent human rights journalism training supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, journalists shared their plight by narrating first hand experiences. Lack of access to information creates a chilling climate of self-censorship and co-optation by a majority of the media houses and journalists nationwide, said SJS Secretary-General, Abdalle Ahmed Mumin.

Authorities in Somaliland have used severe restrictions on access to information including internet outage, detention of journalists, suspension of media houses as well as threats intended to silence critical coverage by the local journalists.

Journalists, particularly those covering human rights, have spoken about economic hardships as a direct consequence of their work to document and investigate human rights violations. The hostile attitude towards journalists covering human rights abuses and the lack of awareness for the general public also remain as part of the challenge.

Universal access to information means that everyone has the right to seek, receive and impart information. The media plays a vital role, particularly when it aims to inform the public of critical information and monitors government actions. The right to universal access to information is also bound up with the right to freedom of the press. Unfortunately, the Federal Government of Somalia and its member states are yet to introduce the Access to Information Bill which is a constitutional requirement under Article 32 of the Provisional Federal Constitution.

"The growing pressure against Somali journalists and lack of access to information call for concern. When journalists are blocked, threatened and their access to information denied, it will entrench a culture of impunity. Providing and presenting information to the general public, particularly on human rights violations promotes redress for the victims or to seek justice regarding perpetrators through legal action, Mumin said. "We call for an end to the restriction to access to information by state and non-state actors in Somalia.

On the occasion of the International Day for Universal Access to Information, SJS makes the following call to the Somali Federal Government, Federal Member States, international partners and the donor community:

Somali federal government and its FMS should:

The international partners should:

The donor community should:

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Somalia: Restrictions on access to information entrenching self-censorship among the media - Horn Observer

Dr Emma Briant, one of the key researchers who uncovered the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018

The vortex of misinformation, conspiracy theories, hatred and lies that we know as the unacceptable face of the internet has been well documented in recent years. Less well documented are the players behind these campaigns. But a small and growing group of journalists and researchers are working on shining a light on their activities. Dr Emma Briant is one of them. The professor, who is currently an associate at the Center for Financial Reporting and Accountability, University of Cambridge, is an internationally recognised expert who has researched information warfare and propaganda for nearly two decades. Her approach is that she doesnt just research one party in the information war. Instead Briant considers each opponent, even those in democratic states, a breadth and detail that is important. As she tells me you miss half the story if you concentrate on single examples.

This is a world in which there is an information war going on all sides and you cant understand it without looking at all sides. There isnt a binary of evil and pure. In order to understand how we can move forward in more ethical ways we need to understand the challenge that we are facing in our world of other actors who are trying to mislead us, Briant says.

There are powerful profit-making industries that are reshaping our world. We need to better research and understand that, to not simply expose some in isolated campaigns like they are just bad apples, she adds.

Briant is perhaps best known for her work on Cambridge Analytica. She was central in exposing the data scandal related to the firm and Facebook at the time of the USAs 2016 election. So what drove her to this area of research?

My PhD looked at the war on terror and how the British and Americans were coordinating and developing their propaganda apparatus and strategies in response to changing media forms and changing warfare. Now that led me to meet Cambridge Analytica or rather its predecessor, the firm SCL group. Cambridge Analytica were using the kind of propaganda that had been used in the military, but in this case in elections, in democratic countries.

The groundwork for this research was laid much earlier, when Briant lived as a child in Saudi Arabia around the time of the Gulf War. She was shocked to find lines and lines of Western newspapers censored with black pen, to the point you couldnt read them, and pro-US and anti-Iraq propaganda everywhere.

I was amazed by the efforts at social control, she said.

Then, during her first degree, she studied international relations and politics when 9/11 happened and, as she says, the world changed.

I was really very concerned about what we were being fed, about the spin of the Iraq war, says Briant.

Like many she was inspired by a teacher, in her case Caroline Page.

[Page] wrote a bookon Vietnam and propaganda, and she had interviewed people in the American government and I was amazed that a woman could just go over to America and interview people in politics and in government and get really amazing interviews with high level officials. This really inspired me.

Briant was motivated by both Pages example and her specific work.

She wanted to really find out what was going on and understand the actors behind the propaganda. And that is what really fascinates me most. Whos behind the lies and the distortions? Thats why Ive taken the approach that I have, both in looking at power in organisations like governments and how thats deployed, and looking at how we can govern that power in democracies better.

Because of Briants all-sided approach, she says she can attract the ire of people across the spectrum. People who focus only on Russia, for instance, might dislike that Briant critiques the British government. Conversely, people who are critics of the UK and US government call into question whether she should challenge Russian or Chinese propaganda. But, as she reiterates, its really important to have researchers who are willing to take on that difficult issue of not only understanding a particular actor but understanding the conflict, protecting ordinary people and enabling them to have media they can trust and information online which is not deceptive.

Criticism of her work has at times taken on a sinister edge. Briant is, sadly, no stranger to threats, trolling and other forms of online harassment.

Its very difficult to even just exist online if youre doing powerful work, without getting trolled, Briant says.

The type of work that I do, which isnt just analysing public media posts and how they spread, but is also looking at specific groups responsibilities and basically researching with a journalistic role in my research, that kind of thing tends to attract more harassment than just looking at online observable disinformation spread. Academics doing such work require support.

Briant cites the case of Carole Cadwalladr, a journalist at the Guardian, as an example of how online campaigns are used to silence people. Like Briant, Cadwalladr pointed the looking glass at those behind the misinformation that spread in the lead-up to the EU referendum. Cadwalladr experienced extreme online harassment, as well as a lengthy and very expensive legal battle. Taken by Arron Banks, the case had all the hallmarks of being a SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit against public participation, namely, a lawsuit that has little to no legal merit. Its purpose is instead to silence the accused through draining them of emotional, physical and financial resources.

Briant has not been the subject of a SLAPP herself but has experienced other attempts to threaten, intimidate and silence her. Meanwhile, the threat of lawfare lingers in the background and has affected her work.

Legal harassment has a real impact on what you feel like you are able to say. At one point after the Cambridge Analytica scandal it felt like I couldnt work on highly sensitive work with a degree of privacy without the threat of being hacked or legal threats to obtain data or efforts to silence me. You cannot develop research on powerful actors and corrupt or deceptive activities as a journalist or a researcher without knowing your work is secure, Briant says.

The ecosystem might be changing. New legislation has been proposed that will make using SLAPPs harder in the UK, where they are most common (the US, by comparison, has laws in place to limit them). But, as Briant highlights, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

I dont think people really understand the silencing effect of threat, not necessarily even receiving a letter but the potential of people to open up your private world. The exposure of journalism activities before an investigation is complete enables people to use partial information to misrepresent the activities, it can even put sources at risk, she says.

While Briant believes these harassment campaigns can affect anyone doing the sort of work that she and Cadwalladr do, she says we cant ignore the gender dynamic.

Trolling and harassment affects a lot of different women and women are much more likely to experience this than men who are doing powerful work challenging people. This is just true. Its been shown by Julie Posetti and her team, and its also the case if you look at other minorities or vulnerable communities.

Of course if Briant was just a bit player people might not care as much. Instead, Briant has given testimony to the European Parliament and had her work discussed in US Congress. Shes written one book, co-authored another and has contributed to two major documentary films (one being the Oscar-shortlisted Netflix film The Great Hack). In todays world, the attacks she has received have become part of the price people are paying for successful work. Still its an unacceptable price, one that we need to speak about more.

Briant is doing that, as well as more broadly carrying on with her research. Shes also writing her next two books, one of which revisits Cambridge Analytica. In Briant fashion, it places the company in a wider context.

Im looking at different organisations and discussing the transformation of the influence industry. This is really a very new phenomenon. Digital influence mercenaries are being deployed in our elections and are shaping our world.

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The woman exposing the propaganda puppet masters - Index on Censorship

Press release content from Globe Newswire. The AP news staff was not involved in its creation.

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Washington, D.C., Sept. 01, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Attorney General of Missouri, and the Attorney General of Louisiana, have filed a lawsuit that blows the lid off a sprawling federal censorship regime that will shock the conscience of Americans. The joint statement on discovery disputes in the lawsuit, State of Missouri ex rel. Schmitt, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al., reveals scores of federal officials across at least eleven federal agencies have secretly communicated with social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech federal officials disfavor. This unlawful enterprise has been wildly successful.

Under the First Amendment, the federal government may not police private speech nor pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. But that is precisely what the government has doneand is still doingon a massive scale not previously divulged. Multiple agencies communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social media companiespressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed.

Discovery has unveiled an army of federal censorship bureaucrats, including officials arrayed at the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, the Office of the Surgeon General, the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Communications show these federal officials are fully aware that the pressure they exert is an effective and necessary way to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship. The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even griped about the need to overcome social-media companies hesitation to work with the government.

These actions have precipitated an unprecedented rise in censorship and suppression of free speechincluding core political speechon social-media platforms. Many viewpoints and speakers have been unlawfully and unconstitutionally silenced or suppressed in the modern public square. This unlawful government interference violates the fundamental right of free speech for all Americans, whether or not they are on social media. More discovery is needed to uncover the full extent of this regimei.e., the identities of other White House and agency officials involved and the nature and content of their communications with social-media companies.

The government has been uncooperative and has resisted complying with the discovery order every step of the wayespecially with regard to Anthony Faucis communications. Defendants claim, for example, that White House communications are privileged, even though such privilege does not apply to external communications. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana should overrule the government defendants objections and order them to supply this highly relevant, responsive, and probative information immediately.

NCLA released the following statements:

If there was ever any doubt the federal government was behind censorship of Americans who dared to dissent from official Covid messaging, that doubt has been erased. The shocking extent of the governments involvement in silencing Americans, through coercing social-media companies, has now been revealed. These bureaucrats continue to resist efforts to expose the degree of their unconstitutional actions every step of the way. Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel, NCLA

The incredible extent of government interference with the speech rights of Americans must be seen to be believed. Yet, even with all that this case has revealed, the government defendants are still resisting their obligation to disclose the names of all the public servants who were involved in this unlawful scheme. John J. Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

For more information visit the case page here.

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLAs public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans fundamental rights.

###

Judy Pino New Civil Liberties Alliance 202-869-5218 judy.pino@ncla.legal

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apnews.com

The World Economic Forum (WEF), notorious for its great reset agenda, featuring the now-infamous slogan you will own nothing and be happy, has published an article pushing for artificial intelligence-powered censorship to contain the problem of online abuse.

The article, published on the WEFs website, bundles together the real problems faced by online content moderators, such as detecting and removing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), with establishment preoccupations like containing misinformation and white supremacy increasingly flexible labels that tech elites use to censor the enemies of progressivism.

Joe Biden arrives on stage to address the assembly on the second day of the World Economic Forum, on January 18, 2017 in Davos. (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

Via the WEF:

Since the introduction of the internet, wars have been fought, recessions have come and gone and new viruses have wreaked havoc. While the internet played a vital role in how these events were perceived, other changes like the radicalization of extreme opinions, the spread of misinformation and the wide reach of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) have been enabled by it.

The article goes on to recommend the increased adoption of a technique already used by Silicon Valley leftists using feedback from content moderators (who are typically either leftist or following leftist guidelines from social media companies) to train AI censorship models.

To overcome the barriers of traditional detection methodologies, we propose a new framework: rather than relying on AI to detect at scale and humans to review edge cases, an intelligence-based approach is crucial.

By bringing human-curated, multi-language, off-platform intelligence into learning sets, AI will then be able to detect nuanced, novel online abuses at scale, before they reach mainstream platforms. Supplementing this smarter automated detection with human expertise to review edge cases and identify false positives and negatives and then feeding those findings back into training sets will allow us to create AI with human intelligence baked in. This more intelligent AI gets more sophisticated with each moderation decision, eventually allowing near-perfect detection, at scale.

Leftists in tech are increasingly fixated on owning and imprinting their biases on the field of artificial intelligence. The field of machine learning fairness, which blends critical race theory with computer science, is one such example of this. A devotee of the field, former Google employee Meredith Whittaker, is now a member of Joe Bidens FTC.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.He is the author of#DELETED: Big Techs Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.

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'Near-Perfect Detection:' World Economic Forum Pushes AI Censorship of ...

Last fall, the cartoonist Maia Kobabe had the unsettling experience of waking up to find emails waiting from The Washington Post, The Associated Press and elsewhere. Gender Queer, a coming-of-age memoir Kobabe had published years before, had suddenly become the subject of a firestorm at a school board meeting in Fairfax County, Va. A week later, Kobabe laterwrote in The Washington Post, I found out that Gender Queer had also been banned in a school district in Florida, and within a month, it had been challenged at schools in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, Washington and Texas.

Kobabe, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns e/eir/em, was stunned. Why are they mad about the book? Because I said nonbinary and trans people exist? Kobabe wondered. The book has been out for two and a half years. Why now?

In 2021, Gender Queer would prove to be the most banned, challenged and restricted book in the United States,according to the American Library Association. 2021 was a particularly bad year for censorship. The A.L.A.s Office of Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to public library, school and university material last year involving 1,597 books. Thats five times as many challenges as the year before, and almost six times as many books. It is by far the most challenges the A.L.A. has recorded over the last 20 years.

And 2022 seems likely to be even worse. In the spring, the Florida legislaturepassed a law giving parents more power in choosing what books are present in their school districts libraries.Six other states have similar laws, and five more are considering them. Recent years have also seen an upswing in harassment ofteachers andlocal community librarians.

The Catholic Church is no stranger to the attempt to control what books people are able to read. From 1559 until 1966, we literally wrote the book on condemned texts and authors, often out of the very same instinct to protect the vulnerable that parents and community members are currently expressing. And also much like today, we didnt hesitate to persecute those who opposed our way of thinking about certain literature. But in the end our practice only revealed the reasons why censorship is a terrible strategy for addressing social and moral concerns. Groups calling for censorship today would do well to consider the churchs experiences.

Censorship was already very much in the air when Pope Paul IV issued the Vaticans first Index of Prohibited Books in 1559. The printing press, which had been invented a century earlier, had become the internet of its day, enabling ideas to spread with an alacrity and reach that was previously unimaginable. Some governments, seeing the new capacity of writers to quickly foment opposition to state policies, had begun todemand licenses of publishers and to imprison or execute printers and writers over their work.

The church, too, had been intensely affected by the printing press. As the librarian Robert Sarwakpoints out: Without the printing press, for example, the 99 Theses [sic] of Martin Luther (1517) would have to have been copied out by hand. Simply put, neither Lutheranism nor Protestant Christianity in general may have ever spread without the printing press. By the time Pope Paul IV promulgated his Index, churches in some nations had already produced their own lists of forbidden books. The Inquisition was also active in many countries, prosecuting, jailing and sometimes executing anyone it found spoke or wrote heresy.

But Pope Pauls list would not only condemn individual works; it censored the entire bodies of work of an astonishing 550 authors and dozens of publishers. Even within the church, these moves were considered draconian, so much so that they were often ignored and then officially repealed at the Council of Trent, a few years after Paul died.

Pauls impulse to go too far is not an isolated incident, either for the church or secular society. Today, we see organizations not simply challenging certain books but demanding the banning of whole classes of material,such as L.G.B.T. stories, andengaging in extreme actions to achieve their goals.

Censorship is like lighting a fire. Once started, it tends to get completely out of control. There is no such thing as burning just one book.

Looking back on the history of censorship and persecution in the church, we frequently find today that the ideas and authors being suppressed or jailed werent actually challenging Catholic doctrine. Astronomer Galileo Galilei was condemned for saying the earth revolved around the sun. French Dominican theologian Yves Congar saw his 1950 book True and False Reform in the Church banned not because it took a heretical position on the divinity of Christ or the real presence, but for simply pointing out that the church as a human institution was capable of getting in the way of Gods grace and needed reform. The ecclesiastical apparatus might overshadow the action of the Spirit and of grace in peoples lives,he wrote.

Other forms of church action have functioned similarly. The witch hunts which saw tens of thousands of women persecuted and often murdered by Catholic and Protestant authorities in medieval Europe had nothing to do with the Apostles Creed and everything to do with mens anxiety about the power and sexuality of women. The systematic efforts of the church to annihilate Indigenous cultures in missionary territories were born not of legitimate doctrinal concerns but racism.

And the same problems are to be found in the books people want banned today. Six of the 10 most censored books of 2021 were written by or have as central characters people of color. Roughly half have female protagonists. Looking to prior years, the same patterns persist: The books challenged are often written by people of color, women or members of the L.G.B.T. community, or concern issues of race, gender and sexual orientation.

Those calling for Gender Queer to be banned often cite its graphic depictions of sexuality. But in its 240 pages there is nudity on just a handful of pages and sexual activity portrayed explicitly on only one. Rather than some kind of pornographic comic book, Gender Queer is a heartfelt and often funny story. Kobabes journey may not be the norm, but the book actually captures the quest to discover oneself in the universeand how best to lovethat every young person embarks on. Rather than a book to censor, its the kind of novel that parents could use with older children to help them to talk through their own nascent sense of identity.

Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, Kobabe writes on a page with a pretty drawing of mountains, forest and a beach, while others must make a journey to reach the climate where they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home.

Things that have gotten the church all hot and bothered at one time have often turned out later to be either no big deal or fundamental to the churchs self-understanding. So Congars book, which called for an ecumenical council, inspired Pope John XXIII to convene the Second Vatican Council. Likewise, science that the church once condemned, from cosmology to the theory of evolution, is now accepted as fact.

If the churchs history with censorship has highlighted anything, it is the need for hesitation and humility in the consideration of what constitutes heresy. The stones that the builder rejected have all too often become the cornerstone.

By banning books or arresting and executing thinkers deemed heretical, the church has sometimes succeeded in suppressing those points of viewbut only for a time, and at great cost. The fact that the church condemned Galileo did not mean that the idea that the earth revolves around the sun went away; nor did the suppression of the work of theologians like Congar or the Jesuits John Courtney Murray, Teilhard de Chardin and Karl Rahner end their influence. Indeed, at Vatican II their work became foundational to the way the church understands itself.

Today book banning is even more ineffective. People can find anything they want online, and in fact the banning of a book usually only feeds its sales. So in February, as AmericasJames T. Keane noted, the Holocaust memoir Maus: A Survivors Tale returned to best-seller lists again, 36 years after its publication, once the news got around that it was being placed on banned book lists.

Truly, banning books is like kids trying to build a dam in a big river. Their work might divert the waters course a little bit, but it cant stop it.

And in the meantime, the activity of those who would ban books often undermines their credibility. The censorship and imprisonment of notable figures like Galileo remains one of the Catholic Churchs greatest disgraces. Even today, such movescontinue to be cited as evidence that the church cannot be trusted, that when challenged it always eventually dismisses rational discourse in favor of naked aggression.

In the end, those demanding the removal of certain texts from schools or libraries may succeed for a time. But the history of the church shows that they will not be able to stop those stories from reaching people in their communities. In the end, you cant stop an idea through censorship. And usually the impulse to try comes out of fear of others, rather than love for ones own.

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The Catholic Church has been banning books for centuries. Here's what it can teach us about censorship today. - America Magazine

Fights about free speech can feel rhetorical until they are not. Heres what censorship looks like in practice: A student newspaper and journalism program in Nebraska shuttered for writing about pride month. The state of Oklahoma seeking to revoke the teaching certificate of an English teacher who shared a QR code that directed students to the Brooklyn Public Librarys online collection of banned books. A newly elected district attorney in Tennessee musing openly about jailing teachers and librarians.

In Florida today it may even be illegal for teachers to even talk about who they love or marry thanks to the states Dont Say Gay law. Of course, it goes far beyond sex: The sunshine states Republican commissioner of education rejected 28 different math textbooks this year for including verboten content.

Acts of censorship are often tacit admissions of weakness masquerading as strength. This weakness is on full display with the imposition of so-called educational gag orders, laws which restrict the discussions of race, gender, sexuality and American history in K-12 and higher education. A political project convinced of the superiority of its ideas doesnt need the power of the state to shield people from competing ideas. Censorship is the desperate rear-guard action of a movement that has already lost the fight for hearts and minds.

This year alone, 137 gag order bills like these have been introduced in 36 state legislatures. Thats a sharp increase from 2021 when 54 bills were introduced in 22 states, according to a report released last month by PEN America, a free speech organization. Only seven of those bills became law in 2022, but they are some of the strictest to date, and the sheer number of bills introduced reflects a growing enthusiasm on the right for censorship as a political weapon and instrument of social control.

These new measures are far more punitive than past efforts, with heavy fines or loss of state funding for institutions that dare to offer courses covering the forbidden content. Teachers can be fired and even face criminal charges. Lawsuits have already started to trickle through the courts asking for broad interpretations of the new statutes. For the first time, the PEN report noted, some bills have also targeted private schools and universities in addition to public schools.

It wasnt all that long ago that Republican lawmakers around the country were introducing laws designed to protect free speech on college campuses. Now, theyre using the coercive power of the state to restrict what people can talk about, learn about or discuss in public, and exposing them to lawsuits for doing so. Thats a clear threat to the ideals of a pluralistic political culture, in which challenging ideas are welcomed and discussed.

How and what to teach American students has been contested ground since the earliest days of public education. The content of that instruction is something about which Americans of good will can respectfully disagree.

The Supreme Court has also recognized limits on the censorship of school libraries, if not curriculums. Local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, a plurality of justices wrote in a 1982 decision.

Despite the moral panic over teaching about gender and race, American parents say they are overwhelmingly satisfied with the instruction their children receive. A poll from National Public Radio and Ipsos earlier this year found that just 18 percent of parents said their childs school taught about gender and sexuality in a way that clashed with their familys values, while 19 percent said the same about race and racism. Only 14 percent felt that way about American history.

And yet, some Republican candidates are using the threat of censorship as a show of strength, evidence of their power to muzzle political opponents. Last year in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin won the governorship of that state after a campaign in which he demagogued the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Beloved by the Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison. Other candidates are looking to make it a centerpiece of their pitch to voters in the midterm elections in races from Texas to New Jersey.

Some want to extend censorship far beyond the classroom. In Virginia, a Republican state representative tried to get a court to declare as obscene two young adult books frequently banned in schools, Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe and A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah Mass. The case was dismissed this month, but if it had been successful, it could have made it illegal for bookstores, libraries to carry the books or for private citizens to sell or share them everywhere in the state.

Right-wing lawmakers are also looking to restrict what Americans can say about abortion. Model legislation from the National Right to Life Committee, which is circulating in state legislatures, aims to ban Americans from giving instructions over the telephone, the internet, or any other medium of communication regarding self-administered abortions or means to obtain an illegal abortion. That prohibition extends to hosting websites that contain such information.

Even when such bills fail to censor they can easily cascade into vigilantism. Across the country, libraries in small towns are being closed and library staff are being harassed and intimidated. The Times reports that librarians have been labeled pedophiles on social media, called out by local politicians and reported to law enforcement officials. Some librarians have quit after being harassed online. Others have been fired for refusing to remove books from circulation. The American Library Association has documented more than 1,600 books in 700 different libraries or library systems that have faced attempted censorship.

Political factions on both the left and the right are insecure enough in their ideas that theyve tried to muzzle those with whom they disagree. But only right-wing legislators are currently writing censorship into law and enforcing it with the power of the state.

For a vocal minority to ban discussion of certain facts or topics because they make some people uncomfortable or simply to score political points is deeply undemocratic, particularly in a nation founded on a commitment to free speech and the open exchange of ideas. Free expression isnt just a feature of democracy; it is a necessary prerequisite.

Link:
Other voices: Government censorship? Weakness masquerading as strength - St. Paul Pioneer Press

During the COVID pandemic, scientists seemed to be in rare agreement about the source of the virus; its lethality; the need for universal lockdowns, masks, and social distancing; the inefficacy of certain treatment options; and the near-miraculous efficacy of the vaccine.

A few dissenting voices came through. Remember John Ioannidis, the Stanford scientist who warned in March 2020 that we didnt have enough data to know whether NPI measures were doing more harm than good? Remember Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, the two doctors from Bakersfield, California, who argued in an hour-long video, released in April 2020, that COVIDs fatality rate was similar to that of the flu? Five million people watched them before YouTube yanked the video. Remember Michael Yeadon, erstwhile VP at Pfizer, who claimed the PCR test overestimated the incidence of COVID by a factor of ten? Remember the Great Barrington Declaration, which rejected general lockdowns and argued for focused protection for the elderly and immuno-compromised who are especially vulnerable to COVID? Remember Gov. DeSantiss roundtable discussion with the three principal Great Barrington scientists? Remember Scott Atlas? Joe Rogan hosted Robert Malone and Peter McCullough, and the redoubtable Freddie Sayers of UnHerd released a steady stream of patient, challenging, informative interviews with the likes of Carl Heneghan, Swedens Anders Tegnell, and Bret Weinstein.

You could find all these eccentric sources during the pandemic, and, as the surfeit of hyperlinks in the previous paragraph indicates, theyre still available somewhere or other. But establishment scientific journals and scientists, including American public health officials at NIH, the CDC, and other agencies, ignored the contrarians or dismissed them as kooks, cranks, and conspiracy theorists (e.g., here and here), even though some of the kooks are specialists in immunology and epidemiology employed by Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard. You could find seams of dissent if you dug deep enough, but why bother? Science knew what it was doing and would tell us what to do. Problem is, Science earned its commanding capital letter only by demonizing dissenting scientists (lower-case).

Eager to do their public service, eager to suppress disinformation, eager not to kill grandma and not to help Trump, social media companies largely reinforced the manufactured scientific consensus by removing nonconforming videos, tweets, and podcasts. On Twitter, the most offensive offender was Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter who amassed hundreds of thousands of followers with derisive tweets mocking the official COVID narrative and public health officials. Twitter permanently banned Berenson in August 2021 after he tweeted that the COVID shot isnt a vaccine: Think of itat bestas a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.

Berenson sued Twitter and was restored to the platform in August 2022, the first time a social media company has lost such a suit. The rationale has always been: As private companies, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube can make whatever rules they want and are solely responsible for determining when the rules have been violated. Berensons victory doesnt undermine that argument. According to The Atlantic, the judge threw out Berensons First Amendment claim, and Twitter settled because one of its executives violated Twitter policy by communicating directly with Berenson about his account.

But the ball game is changing, bigly. The president and other officials have publicly remonstrated with media companies to do more to suppress misinformationmost dramatically in Bidens theyre killing people comment about Facebook in July 2021. Bidens statement was hastily withdrawn, but it was part of a pattern. Kate Bedingfield, White House communications director, hinted that social media companies should be held legally liable for distributing misinformation, and Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary, called on platforms to collaborate to silence harmful voices.

Since the beginning of the Biden administration, there have been rumblings that the White House and federal agencies have also privately pressured social media companies to squelch dissent. Now several lawsuits have begun to pull back the curtain. Berenson is suing Biden, alleging that members of the administration pressed Twitter to deplatform him. Lawyers representing plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden recently filed an amended complaint showing that eighty officials from nearly a dozen federal agencies were in contact with social media executives concerning climate change, Hunter Bidens laptop, election fraud, and COVID. If it turns out that government officials leaned on media companies to remove individual users, plaintiffs have a highly plausible First Amendment case. Censorship mediated through media is still censorship.

On COVID, there appear to be smoking guns, a small arsenal of them. We now know Mark Zuckerberg gave Anthony Fauci his personal phone number. In July 2021, a Meta executive reported to Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on the companys effort to address the disinfo dozen problem, a reference to the dozen figures considered the most dangerous sources of disinformation (quoted here). On his Substack, Berenson posted a screenshot of an internal Twitter Slack chat from April 2021, in which an employee refers to a really tough question from the White House about why Alex Berenson hasnt been kicked off the platform. In another message, a Twitter employee refers to Biden COVID adviser Andy Slavitts claim that Berenson was the epicenter of disinfo. More disclosures are coming. On September 6, a judge ordered Fauci to turn over any communications between his office and social media companies.

Jenin Younes of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, whose clients have joined the Missouri suit, points out that, whatever the outcome, the case will establish legal guidelines for social media companies. These cases will determine whether or not Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube morph into state media (or, more precisely, Democratic Party media). The suits will decide whether or not federal bureaucrats control the dissemination of scientific information, and so will affect the integrity of science and public confidence in scientific expertise. No matter how you look at it, the stakes are extremely high.

Peter J. Leithart is President ofTheopolis Institute.

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View original post here:
Consensus by Censorship | Peter J. Leithart - First Things

(Updated 9.15.22, 7:50 p.m. for typos.)

An East Coweta High School sophomore is pushing back against a year-long campaign to remove certain books from school libraries.

Ill be frank, I don't believe that censorship is the correct option, Natalie Zern told the Coweta County Board of Education Tuesday. Historically, when books get banned, it doesn't end up well for the people or for the leadership.

A nationwide crusade to eliminate a particular batch of objectionable books in public schools made its way into the Coweta boardroom last fall, resulting in near-monthly tirades and a few lewd read-alouds from local activists who say they want to protect students from exposure to inappropriate materials.

Its been a long, contentious back-and-forth, further complicated by a Georgia General Assembly-mandated policy clarification that effectively excludes those activists from the decision-making process for evaluating objectionable materials unless they are doing so at a school their children attend.

An important voice missing from those tense exchanges, Zern said, has been that of the Coweta County School System students themselves.

Weve had teachers, parents, guardians and concerned citizens with nothing to do with the school system share their opinions, Zern said. However, we've got to hear from someone whom this censorship will actually affect someone you as teachers, parents, citizens and school board members are supposed to be representing.

Zerns parents, both educators, helped her understand that literacy is not only the ability to read and write, she said, but also knowledge or competence in a specific area.

While some speakers may have been able to read, they do not have literacy skills in areas such as childhood education, juvenile and adolescent development or political ideology, Zern told board members.

She recited part of the Coweta County School Systems Mission, Vision and Beliefs statement (www.cowetaschools.com): We believe, as leaders of learners, we must empower students to be active and accountable participants in their learning.

Zern told board members that, as leaders of 23,000 students, you must give us the tools to empower and educate ourselves on matters we deem important to us.

We are not active if we do not get to choose the materials we wish to read in an already very rigid curriculum, she said. We are not accountable if we aren't taught the freedom of media and the freedom to choose. We are not participating if our curriculum is being left in the hands of representatives who are going to take away our books. We are not learning if all media we ingest is tailored to fit the specific wants and wishes of people in the county. And we are not empowered if you refuse to dignify us with the right to learn about different cultures, ideas and things we're interested in.

She said she recently studied censorship in an advanced placement history class taught by Jennifer Sandlin at ECHS, where she learned that banned books throughout history have included any version of the New Testament that was not written in Latin, the works of Galileo, Voltaire, Copernicus and Victor Hugo, and George Orwells anti-authoritarian 1984.

When leaders censor books, they aren't looking out for the good of the people they're looking to forward an agenda that they believe in, Zern said.

They often do so with weak evidence and claims, she said, citing the reading of an isolated passage from Sarah J. Maas Court of Mist and Fury last December. The speaker chose a sexually explicit excerpt to make the point that the book should not be available to students, Zern said, but missed its wider purpose.

Had the speaker exercised their literacy skills, they would have found out that the book is a social commentary with focus on mental health, the main characters severe depression and the abusive relationship the main character undergoes, she said, noting that several areas of the Bible also include sexually explicit or inappropriate content.

Im not trying to bring religion into issues for the sake of controversy, she said. Im simply trying to illustrate that the inclusion of these passages does not undermine the influence or message of the Bible.

Zern also emphasized the importance of reading for fun as well as for school, citing a Scholastic study conducted in 2013 that indicated the practice can increase students Lexile scores and comprehension skills.

Both forms of reading are necessary to fully develop literacy skills and are needed to completely develop a childs reading process, so children should have equal opportunities to read the books they want, she said.

The practice of removing so-called objectionable materials from classrooms robs students of important educational opportunities, Zern said.

A child who is not permitted to read a book in class a book that's being taught by an educator that has been reading and studying it for years is missing out on the lessons, analysis and literacy development that goes along with it, she said. It may seem like a few angry adults now, and one or two censored texts, but before long, it's sure to become a systemic problem.

Convincing students to hate certain books will teach them to hate reading, Zern said.

You're teaching them that the happiness and the lessons found in literature don't exist, she told board members. You're telling them that you value your own personal comfort over their development into a functioning, intelligent and well-read adult. You're telling them that you want them to be treated like a 5-year-old.

Zern was not the only student speaker at Tuesdays meeting.

Seventh grader Colby Wilson also took to the lectern to make the board aware of her objections to the outdated dress code at Arnall Middle School.

Wilson said she has been pulled for dress code violations several times once when she was wearing sweatpants and a sweater.

I would never wear anything inappropriate anywhere, she said.

Shorts have been a particular issue, Wilson said. She was pulled for a violation recently while walking to class, surrounded by her friends and peers.

Not only was this embarrassing, but the situation was handled horribly, Wilson said. The administrator should have pulled me aside to speak about whatever they thought was the problem.

Wilson said she is tall and has trouble finding clothes to fit the dress code.

The teachers and staff say that girls thighs and legs are inappropriate and distracting, she said. But if anyone is distracted, then that person should be punished, not the girls. It is not that you can see my thighs. When girls wear jeans with holes in the thigh area, putting tape over the hole (a fix accepted by many schools) only makes people stare at the area.

Wilson said she thinks its unfair that boys also are allowed to wear shorts but never seem to get violations.

Administrators should be focused on girls education, not our clothing, she said. We are 14 and younger. We should not have to worry about this. When girls get punished for others actions, it makes us feel like it's our fault, and it is not. I hope you take all this into consideration and update Arnalls dress code.

While all seven elected board members were present at the meeting, only six appeared to have been supportive of the students who came before them.

During Zerns comments, Board Chair Beth Barnett gaveled down an interruption from board member Buzz Glover, reminding the board that it was the publics time to speak. Glover explained his outburst later, during board comments.

Ive been on this board a year and nine months, and I heard the most disgusting thing that I have heard said in this room tonight. And no, it was not from the speaker it was from my colleague to the right, Glover said, referring to District 4 representative Linda Menk. I heard my colleague say, What a dimwit. I don't know if she intended for me to hear it or not, but I did.

Glover said hes known Zern for several years and is proud of her. He apologized for Menks alleged comment, which was not picked up on audio.

I hope you didnt hear that, Glover said to Zern.

He went on to issue an open invitation for other Coweta students to speak at future meetings.

I invite all 23,000 of you that are out there to come speak on whatever subject you like, and I never and I hope nobody on this board would think anything less of any student whether I agree with them or not. Or any other speaker, he said. Im looking forward to January 2023.

Menk, an embattled two-termer, was unseated by challenger Rob DuBose in June after he earned nearly 80 percent of the runoff election vote.

DuBose takes office in January 2023.

See the original post:
Student tells BOE censorship is not the 'correct option' - Newnan Times-Herald

Ethereums upgrade to proof-of-stake (PoS) may make it more vulnerable to government intervention and censorship, according to the lead investigator of Merkle Science.

Speaking to Cointelegraph following the Ethereum Merge, Coby Moran, a former FBI analyst and the lead investigator for crypto compliance and forensic firm Merkle Science, expressed his thoughts on some of the risks posed by Ethereums transition to PoS.

While centralization issues have been broadly discussed leading up to the Merge, Moran suggested the prohibitive cost of becoming a validator could result in the consolidation of validator nodes to the bigger crypto firms like Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.

In order to become a full validator for the Ethereum network, one is required to stake 32 Ether (ETH), which is worth around $47,000 at the time of writing.

A pre-Merge report from blockchain analytics platform from Nansen earlier this month revealed that 64% of staked ETH is controlled by just five entities.

Moran continued to say that these larger institutions will be subject to the whims of governments in the world, and when validator nodes identify sanctioned addresses they can be slashed rewards and then eventually kicked off the system, with businesses prevented from interacting with them:

Vitalik Buterin spoke about this risk in an Aug. 18 developer call, suggesting one of the forms censorship could take is validators choosing to exclude or filter sanctioned transactions.

Vitalik went on to say that as long as some validators do not comply with the sanctions, then these transactions would eventually be picked up in later blocks and the censorship would only be temporary.

On Aug. 8, crypto mixer Tornado Cash became the first smart contract sanctioned by a United States government body.

Related: Rep. Emmer demands an explanation of OFACs Tornado Cash sanction from Sec. Yellen

In reaction, various entities have complied with the sanctions and prevented the sanctioned addresses from accessing their products and services.

The development has had a large effect on the Ethereum community, with EthHub co-founder Anthony Sassano tweeting on Aug. 16 that he would consider Ethereum a failure and move on if permanent censorship occurs.

See the original post here:
Ethereum may now be more vulnerable to censorship Blockchain analyst - Cointelegraph