Category Archives: Censorship

Comics involve wild cosmic beings and people who somehow get powers from radiation, rather than health problems. But comics get even weirder when you consider the characters who got their powers from actual religious figures. How do demonic bikers and spirits of divine vengeance coexist with Norse gods and Olympian warriors?

Comics history is full of simple events that made Marvel and DCs Heaven and Hell such a strangely convoluted place. A laissez-faire attitude towards using religious motifs ran headlong into a period of industry censorship, and writers and artists were left holding the pieces, with the job of fashioning them into the continuity we know today.

When the Golden Age of Comics started in 1938, using Heaven and Hell was totally fair game. The first character to use the name Black Widow was recruited by the actual devil after her murder, and assigned to return to Earth and take down sinners. When police officer Jim Corrigan died, his spirit encountered a brilliant light and a voice that told him he was to return to Earth as the vengeful Spectre. Elsewhere, a young boy died prematurely due to a clerical error by Mr. Keeper, who managed the passage of souls to Heaven. To rectify the error, St. Peter told Mr. Keeper to mentor the boy in his new career as a hero called Kid Eternity. Meanwhile, the wizard Shazam drew power from both the Jewish figure Solomon as well as deities from Pagan pantheons.

But the audiences taste for placing real beliefs alongside fantasy elements changed. After World War II, US society had an increasing belief that society was delicate and in danger of subversives, and that meant that narrative media was under deep scrutiny. In 1954, the Comics Code Authority was created to monitor comics before they were delivered to the public. There was nothing illegal about publishing a comic without the Codes seal, but most newsstands and many printers wouldnt risk getting involved, for fear of angry parents.

Under the Code, criminals werent to be sympathetic or glamorous, legitimate government authority was not to be put in a bad light, and deviant sexual behavior was prohibited. The Code also blocked the depiction of demon worship, witchcraft, and walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism. Still, who got to decide what wasnt acceptable sometimes depended on who was working at the Comics Code Authority office that day, and some creators realized that as long as you didnt offend the beliefs of the Code employees specifically, you could get your story through.

Amazing Fantasy #15, the same anthology comic that introduced Spider-Man in 1962, featured The Bell-Ringer, a short story by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in which a religious, elderly man was saved from painful death by a shaft of heavenly light. The next story, The Man in the Mummy Case, shows a mummy tricking a thief. The storys mummy couldve been an undead monster or simply a man, disguised. That ambiguity was key to getting past the Code.

That same year, Lee and Jack Kirby wrote the first Dr. Doom story, which shows the maniacal villain with two books: Demons and Science and Sorcery. Later, were told of his long fascination with black magic. But since Doom was clearly a bad guy, it was fine for him to be interested in such topics.

Kirby was fond of Arthur C. Clarkes idea that any sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic, and he enjoyed depicting gods as science fantasy rather than purely magic. Stan Lee agreed with this approach, preferring the Marvel Universe not validate any specific belief too strongly. In college lectures, Lee said he had no problem showing Thor encountering beings from Olympian and Egyptian mythology because the universe was large enough to hold many such entities and their respective pantheons. If some of those entities believed they had helped the creation of humanity, well, maybe they did and maybe they didnt.

And so Lee and his collaborators populated the Marvel universe with a wealth of Satanic stand-ins. Dr. Stranges early stories involved the beings Nightmare and Dormammu, who seemed to be demonic in nature, but inhabited other dimensions rather than the afterlife. And Lee and John Buscema created Marvels most famous devil in the pages of Silver Surfer in 1968. Mephisto was named after the demon dealmaker from Dr. Faustus, and his realm, where souls were tortured, was said to exist beyond the physical universe. Lee remarked that this helped to paint the Surfer as a science fiction version of a flawed Messiah resisting temptation. Mephisto was the New Testaments Satan in all but name.

Comic book superheroes had their devils, but also their angels, and even god. The Marvel universes cosmic entity, the Living Tribunal, was introduced in 1967. This three-faced being served as a judge over various dimensions and realities, possibly all, and would later refer to his creator and boss as the One Above All. The same year the Living Tribunal showed up in Marvel, DC brought forth a new ghostly hero simply called Deadman. Boston Brand was a murdered acrobat who was given a chance to return to Earth and fight evil. In his case, it wasnt a voice but a goddess called Rama Kushna (similar to the actual Hindu goddess Krishna). As Kushna was an original creation and her nature ambiguous, and since Boston was a ghost acting almost as an angel rather than a zombie or vampire, the Code had no problem with this. In later years, Boston said he believed Kushna was one of the many faces of God.

In 1971, the Comics Code finally relaxed their rule on certain demonic and undead characters with the following run-on sentence: vampires, ghouls and werewolves shall be permitted to be used when handled in the classic tradition such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other high calibre literary works written by Edgar Allan Poe, Saki, Conan Doyle and other respected authors whose works are read in schools around the world.

Along with allowing vampires and others to return, this opened the door for DC Comics to directly reference Judeo-Christian ideas again. The demon Etrigan, created in 1972, was not from a realm that resembled Hell, he simply came from Hell. But DC was more nervous about putting Jesus Christ in a comic. A major Swamp Thing story arc was meant to end with the titular character meeting the Nazarene carpenter, but editorial decided later the issue would be too controversial, so it wasnt printed.

The Marvel universe continued to sidestep the issue, however. Originally, Ghost Rider like Etrigan, created in 1972 was a man whod made a deal with Satan, but readers were later told it was Mephisto in disguise. Later still, Satan and Mephisto were said to be rivals in different realms, with possibly neither being the Devil of Christian lore. But the House of Ideas felt similarly to DC in one respect: When Tony Isabella wrote a Ghost Rider story featuring an appearance by Jesus, it was rewritten by editor Jim Shooter at the last minute to say it was only an illusion.

By the 1990s, things were changing yet again. The Comics Code Authority had lost most of its teeth, and its seal now only meant a story wasnt any more adult than a PG-13 movie. The Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover had rebooted much of DC Comics continuity, and creators were still debating what rules and canon still applied, which allowed for many new and contradictory ideas to emerge. Series such as Swamp Thing, Hellblazer and Sandman in which the dead were sent the different realms according to personal belief rather than universal law and all gods owed a portion of their existence to the series protagonist, the Lord of Dreams showed that readers could handle modern religious topics in stories without necessarily being offended. On the other end of the tonal spectrum, in 1991s The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special the titular bounty hunter was hired by the Easter Bunny to kill Santa Claus. In 1997, an angel joined the Justice League.

And one of comics oldest divinely-connected heroes was linked up to Christian religious figures more than ever. John Ostrander and Tom Mandrakes 1990s run on The Spectre delved deeply into morality and religious mythology. Their Spectre was the wrath of the god of the Old Testament, bonded to a human soul, and they implied that Jesus was Gods forgiveness given form. Angels like Michael would show up, and change their forms, names, and personalities when appearing to people of different beliefs.

Marvel still flirted with science fantasy to explain its demons, even having Mephisto claim his origin was due to the creator of the cosmic Infinite Gems. But as TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and later Supernatural consistently showed audiences were willing to accept fiction mixed with religious symbolism, Marvel finally followed suit. Spider-Man saved a Christmas Angel from Mephisto, who later made direct reference to the Anti-Christ in a Daredevil story. Angels, Hell, Satan, and God were directly referenced and presented at face value in various comics. In 2004, the Fantastic Four even journeyed to Heaven and met God he looked a lot like Jack Kirby.

But dont get it twisted: The Marvel and DC comics universes may include angels and demons, but if you ask who created those universes, the answer isnt the god of Abraham. Marvels setting is full of shaggy god stories, where technologically advanced aliens and cosmic beings indirectly inspire human mythology. Over in the DC Universe, we know that existence didnt begin with light on the first day but with a giant blue hand cradling a speck that would become the entire cosmos in part because an alien scientist made a machine that let him observe the very first moment of time.

The cosmology of superhero universes is a patchwork quilt made by the contributions of many people over many years. But ask a historian about how a major world religion came to be, and they might tell you exactly the same thing.

Read more:
Hell, Heaven, and Jesus exist in DC and Marvel comics in a strange way - Polygon

The Chinese authorities are tighteningpolitical censorship in video games. This is according to website Taiwan News.

Protest Art in Animal Crossing: funeral of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam funeral (in real life, shes alive, but hugely unpopular with Hong Kong residents)

The outlet says that the Chinese Communist Party is drafting a new piece of legislation that will expand the scope of online censorship in video games. The thinking behindit is, allegedly, than online game chats allow users to freely socialize with foreigners, which might undermine the partys official narrative.

If adopted, the law willblock Chinese online players from chatting with users outside of China.

Other provisions require all distribution platforms in Chinato use a real-name authentication system so that individuals can be identified when purchasing a title, whether single-player or online. Zombies, plagues and similar content will also be prohibited to avoid associations with the coronavirus pandemic. Map editing, customized skins should also be disabled so that users cannot modify content to generate political messages.

Finally, participation in guilds or any other in-game organizations will also be limited to prevent any form of trade union activity in games.

The new measures are reportedly being developed following the removal of Animal Crossing: New Horizons from sale in China. The gamedissapeared from online stores in the country aftersomeactivists used its pattern creation tool togenerate politically sensitive slogans like Free Hong Kong, revolution now, whichwere then postedon social media (its important to note that the game was never officially approved by the Chinese regulators in the first place).

Now, its difficult to assess how objective a Taiwanese outlet can be. The cited source (Liberty Times Net) certainly doesnt mind using the term Wohan pneumonia, which is widely considered offensive in mainland China. Anyway, while the scope of this latest censorship initiative might be exaggerated, the Chinese Communist Party has sertainly been active lately reshaping the video games industry in China to advance its political agenda.

See the original post:
Taiwan News: China to ban chats with foreigners in online games. Guilds, zombies and customization features also blocked - Game World Observer

Some fake information related to the coronavirus pandemic has been circulating through the media, including social media, at a time when the people need accurate information to calm their nerves.

This is why the government is concerned that such information could create more anxiety, panic and confusion among the people which is the last thing we want now.

Aliran appreciates that the government is taking measures to curb distorted information. But we are troubled by the way it proposes to overcome this problem, which can eventually lead to the undemocratic practice of censoring fair and critical comments.

We now learn that the official definition of fake news has been widened to even criminalise legitimate criticisms of the government and its policies.

We take issue especially with the governments attempt to punish those whose criticisms are deemed to have caused distrust in the ruling government.

When a government, more so one that is deemed by many as a backdoor government, makes a conflicting decision that causes confusion and unnecessary inconvenience, it stands the risk of earning the distrust of the rakyat.

The recent government ruling to allow barbers to operate is a case in point. Would critics and barbers associations, which are concerned with the physical proximity between barbers and clients, be hauled up by the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission?

Similarly, would concerned Malaysians be blamed if they called out ministers whose behaviour only invited brickbats, such as in the Doraemon, TikTok and warm water remedy cases?

In defining fake news, the government warns against news and comments that could lower the reputation of an individual, organisation and country. So what do we do with the ministers of Doraemon, TikTok and warm-water fame who have done a splendid job of lowering not only their professional reputations but also the governments and the nations. Think of how their antics have turned us into the laughing stock of the world.

The government could deal with any fake news or information by quickly coming out with clarifications that could be disseminated to news portals and over social media.

Resorting to censorship, especially in its extreme form, in a time of crisis reflects the insecurity of the government of the day.

Rather we should be upholding public scrutiny and the democratic checks and balances, including over the media, during this difficult period.

Aliran executive committee

12 April 2020

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Censorship under the guise of action against 'fake news' - Aliran

On Wednesdays broadcast of the Fox News Channels The Story, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) touted legislation to sanction officials in China who are actively censoring and silencing information on public health.

Cruz said, Weve now seen that its not just a human rights threat, but it is also a threat to national security and global health. When it comes to this Wuhan outbreak, the Chinese Communist government has direct responsibility, direct culpability, for silencing, for covering it up.

He added, I think there needs to be direct accountability. I introduced legislation today to sanction Chinese officials that are engaged in actively censoring and silencing public health information that endangers the lives of Americans and people across the globe.

Cruz further stated that there needs to be a careful accountability as to whether the Chinese government played an inadvertent part in the outbreak itself.

Follow IanHanchett on Twitter@IanHanchett

The rest is here:
Cruz: Sanction Chinese Officials Who Are Censoring Health Information - Breitbart

Patricia forgot her censorship as the spirit of the explorer rose in her.

No: she had heard too much of it; it made you almost wish for a Censorship of the Press.

The Duc wondered what a censorship would let pass if there were one.

The newsletters, of course, might be under the censorship of Rome and Naples.

The discovery of a new spot on the sun is evidently a case for the censorship.

I call the censorship chaotic because of the chaos in its administration.

He got the impression that she put off all censorship from either her feeling or her expression.

A few voices, however, were raised in favour of a censorship.

I wish to claim no censorship over the style and diction of your letters.

How absurd, how inadequate this all is we see from the existence of the Censorship on Drama.

More:
Censorship Synonyms, Censorship Antonyms | Thesaurus.com

Censorship In Schools And The Effects On Our Children Censorship in schools is a complicated situation because there are many variables involved that can impact the way children learn and the way schools serve to educate. Censorship in schools usually exists in the form of the removal or manipulation of materials or learning processes. These materials might range from that which officials and parents have generally decided is inappropriate for our children, such as nudity, to teaching subjects that some find objectionable, such as evolution versus creationism. For the most part, censorship in Americas schools tends to focus on social and religious issues, with many materials called into question as controversial. In other countries, politics would join religion in center stage for censorship, with criticism of the government censored as well. Instead of the government, however, our censorship often comes in the form of concerned parents who do not want their children exposed to a worldview other than their own. A particularly popular topic in schools today is book censorship.

Learning about Darwin might be construed as offensive because of the possible conflict with the religious beliefs of the parents. Sexual education is watered down until it is practically worthless because parents might be offended at sexual references in school, and classic books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are being banned in some areas because they have racial references that might offend some people.

The Effects of Censorship

While the attempt to keep children pure for as long as possible is admirable, it takes the form of leaving gaping holes in their education, if not academically, then about life.

Censorship in schools can also lead to a narrow worldview with holes in the cultural and international education of our children. If a child does not know from literary examples that African Americans were ever abused in our society, then how will those same children understand the implications of marches or rallies for black rights in modern society, or the struggles that people of color still go through to be treated as equals in all ways? Additionally, our children, if restricted to an education that supports their familys religion, will have no frame of reference to understand other religions, other cultures, and other beliefs.

While parents may be tempted to shelter their children from issues that they find unfavorable or offensive, they may be restricting their childs ability to grow and learn at the same time. These restrictive worldviews are the seeds of bigotry, with the implication being that anyone who believes differently from you must be foolish or misinformed.

Censorship in schools seems to come from a desire to ensure that our children grow up making the choices and following the beliefs that we desire for them by removing any other options. This may ensure that those children conform with our beliefs in the short run, but the risk is that they will react with hostility to those same ideas years later when they are exposed to other opinions.

Many would argue that a gay child who is not exposed to information about homosexuality may behave in a way that he is told is proper at first. Eventually, he will hear about homosexuality from someone and will be all the more upset at his former enforced ignorance of the subject, yet no less likely to act on his desires from then on. This is a matter of opinion and not of solid fact, but it is one that should be taken into account when we think about the potential effects of censorship in schools.

The Snowball Effect

Additionally, censorship in schools tends to snowball when warring factions of parents take the battle of wills to the classroom with book banning.

There are many cases throughout censorship history that involve the removal of one or two books or forms of teaching to appease one group of parents, only to have another set of censorship opportunities requested by another group. The old adage you can't please everyone certainly rings true in this case, as a veritable snowball effect is a common danger of censorship in schools.

Practical Considerations

Another difficulty in monitoring censorship is that it is against the nature of concerned parents to think that they are committing this act.

In Conclusion

Schools should be upheld asstandards of education and should be able to prepare students for life in an open world. If schools continue to succumb to the desires of special interest groups, they run the risk of closing minds and leaving children in the dark when it comes to various important social issues. The impact of censorship in schools is significant in light of the way of the world and in light of the ever-changing social climate.

How Would You React in a Crisis?

Read the original here:
Censorship In Schools And The Effects On Our Children

Artists removing work from an exhibition (or having it removed for them) is a pointed and often political gestureand part of a lineage covering many decades to the present. Last year, eight artists called for their work to be removed from the Whitney Biennial in protest of the chair of the museums board. Since then, Phil Collins and Ali Yass pulled out of a MoMA PS1 show about the Gulf Wars, and a group of artists removed their art from the Aichi Triennale in Japan over claims of censorship. Meanwhile, a video by Xandra Ibarra was removed from a show of Chicanx performance art in Texas earlier this year after local politicians deemed it obscene.

Removals such as these have historical precedents. Below is a guide to some of the most notable artworks that have been removedeither by force or by choiceover the past 50 or so years.

Takis pulls work from Museum of Modern Art(1969)The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age, Pontus Hultns 1968 group show at MoMA, has been considered a landmark exhibition for its interest in technology. But the show is also major for what happened around itthe removal of an artwork by the Greek artist Takis. Toward the end of the shows run, Takis picked up a sculpture of his that was on view in the exhibition, claiming that the museum had not consulted him before installing it, and moved it into MoMAs courtyard. He described the removal as a symbolic action intended to open up conversation between artists and upper-ranking museum staff. After discussion with MoMAs director, the work was officially taken out of the exhibition for good.

Robert Morris closes show at the Whitney Museum(1970)Robert Morris removed not just one artwork but an entire show as debate surrounding the Vietnam War raged in America. Many in the New York art scene tried to figure out what role artists could play in protest, and Morris became the leader of an antiwar movement that swept the citys art worldand even resulted in a widespread strike that saw museums and galleries close. As part of his efforts, Morris shuttered his solo exhibition at the Whitney in an gesture, he said at the time, meant to underscore the need I and others feel to shift priorities at this time from an making and viewing to unified action within the art community against the intensifying conditions of repression, war and racism in this country.

Daniel Buren sculpture taken down at the Guggenheim(1971)Many artists have dramatically transformed the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, but none has courted so much scandal as Daniel Buren. His artistic intervention in the spacea striped drape titled Around the Corner that hung from the ceiling and extended almost all the way downdidnt seem controversial. But some artists who were exhibiting in its midst (in a now-defunct recurring survey known as the Guggenheim International) felt differently. In an effort led by Dan Flavin and Donald Judd, five artists claimed that Burens art obstructed views of Frank Lloyd Wrights sloping architectureand their own work. They called for it to be deinstalled, and after they got what they wanted, feted art historian Douglas Crimp (then a curator at the museum) resigned because of the fracas.

Ulay moves Hitlers favorite painting(1976)Sometimes removal can be both a form of protest and an artwork in itself. For a protest action titled Irritation There is a Criminal Touch to Art,performance artist Ulay seized his attention on the 1837 Carl Spitzweg painting The Poor Poet: a quaint image of a writer counting out the meters of his verse in a cramped attic that was also Adolf Hitlers favorite artwork (he even owned a copy of it). Ulay chose not to let Germany forget that fact by marching into the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, taking the work of the wall, and bringing it to the home of a Turkish immigrant elsewhere in the city. Ulay returned the painting 30 hours later, and the temporary theft was documented by his partner Marina Abramovi.

Richard Serras Tilted Arc deinstalled (1989)From its initial installation in 1981, Richard Serras Tilted Arca 120-foot-long arc crafted with Corten steel in Lower Manhattans Foley Plazawas meant to lead to an intriguing reorientation of a viewers understanding of a picturesque location. Not everyone saw it that way, howeverand after howls from the public, a jury voted in favor of taking down the enormous mass of 73 tons of steel that were unceremoniously hauled away to a government-owned parking lot in Brooklyn.

Adrian Piper pulls out of Conceptualism survey in L.A. (1995)In 1995, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles staged 19651975: Reconsidering the Object of Art, a major survey focused loosely on the evolution of Conceptualism. But the proceedings were marred by controversy when one of the sponsors was revealed: Philip Morris, the cigarette company that owns Marlboro. The artists in the show claimed not to have been notified in advance, and Adrian Piper asked MOCA to pull her work from the show and replace it with Ashes to Ashes (1995), a piece focused on her parents struggles withand, ultimately, deaths fromcancer that may have been caused by smoking. When the museum declined, she withdrew from the show entirely.

Tania Bruguera installation shuttered at the Havana Biennial (2000)Tania Bruguera is no stranger to controversy, having regularly staged boundary-pushing performances that have raised the ire of officials in her home country of Cuba. Originally staged in a fortress used to house political prisoners in the 1950s, her installation Untitled (Havana, 2000) was a darkened space in which viewers could see barely visible nude performers who appeared to be slapping their bodies and video footage of Fidel Castro as they walked across a mat of sugarcane. Brugeruas consideration of the state of the body under oppressive regimes was closed by authorities hours after opening. Since then, it has been acquired by MoMA, which restaged it in 2018.

Adrian Piper yanks video from black performance art exhibition (2013)Eighteen years after her MOCA removal, Piper pulled work from Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, an exhibition spread across NYUs Grey Art Gallery and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Pipers work appeared in the NYU part, where she was presenting documentation of her past performances as the Mythic Beinga male alter ego she assumed to test gender and racial norms. Piper said she felt limited by the shows purview and suggested that curator Valerie Cassel Oliver organize multi-ethnic exhibitions that give American audiences the rare opportunity to measure directly the groundbreaking achievements of African American artists against those of their peers in the art world at large.

Yams Collective drops out of the Whitney Biennial (2014)Amid outrage over a work by the white male artist Joe Scanlan, who got black female performers to play a fictional character known as Donelle Woolford, the Yams Collective (also known by the name HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN?) pulled their work from the Whitney Biennial in 2014. We felt that the representation of an established academic white man posing as a privileged African-American woman is problematic, even if he tries to hide it in an avatars mystique, one of the collectives members told Hyperallergic at the time.

Shanghai officials strike Ai Weiwei from survey (2014)Ai Weiwei has frequently accused governments and museum figures of censorship in ways that have affected his standing in his home country of China. In 2014, days before the government-operated Power Station of Art in Shanghai was to stage an exhibition devoted to the winners of collector Uli Siggs Chinese Contemporary Art Award, officials in the city yanked Ais workincluding his famed Sunflower Seeds installationand dropped his name from the artist list. At the time, Sigg said, We dont understand but we must accept that his works will not be in there.

Animals pulled from Chinese art show in New York (2017)The Guggenheim Museum faced a widespread outcry when several historically important artworks featuring live animals went on view in a survey of Chinese art. The controversial pieces included Huang Yong Pings Theater of the World, featuring a see-through case in which insects and amphibians preyed upon one another; photo documentation of Xu Bings A Case Study of Transference, in which pigs were inked with Chinese characters; and a Sun Yuan and Peng Yu video that involved dogs on treadmills. Animal-rights groups widely decried the works, and after an online petition garnered tens of thousands of signatures, the museum pulled themleading some to wonder whether the protesters properly understood the cultural context for the art on view.

Olu Oguibe obelisk taken down in Germany(2018)A giant obelisk dedicated to immigrants by Nigerian-born Olu Oguibe was one of the most celebrated offerings at the 2017 edition of Documentait even won the artist the exhibitions top prize. But after the city of Kassel formalized plans to install the work, the work, titled Monument to Strangers and Refugees, was targeted by right-wing politicians who raised doubts about its pro-refugee message and the price of its installation. The monument was removedbut then, just two weeks later, reinstated.

10 artists pull out of the Aichi Triennale in Japan (2019)Almost from its beginning, the Aichi Triennale began generating controversy when officials made the decision to remove a show-within-a-show titled After Freedom of Expression? That exhibition featured a sculpture by Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung that referred to the history of ianfuAsian women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army. And when it was taken off view, 10 artistsincluding Pedro Reyes, Tania Bruguera, Minouk Lim, and Claudia Martnez Garaypulled their own works from the triennial, claiming that the removal of the ianfu piece was a violation of its makers freedom of expression. Ultimately, officials relentedand the ianfu work was reinstated along with all the other works that been taken away.

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13 Notable Removals of ArtworkThrough Censorship, Protest, and More - ARTnews

The progressive media organization Free Press thinks President Donald Trump is spreading dangerous misinformation during his televised press briefings on the government's coronavirus response. So it petitioned federal regulators to make broadcasters either stop airing them or "put those lies in context with disclaimers noting that they may be untrue and are unverified."

It was an odd demand. If Free Press think the president is abusing his authority, the group probably shouldn't be asking his administration to police how people cover the president's pronouncements. Seems like the sort of request that could backfire.

Thankfully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rejected the petition on Monday, sending a stern rebuke to anyone who thinks censorship is a valid response to problematic speech.

"The federal government will notand never shouldinvestigate broadcasters for their editorial judgments simply because a special interest group is angry at the views being expressed on the air as well as those expressing them," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a statement. "In short, we will not censor the news."

Free Press based its argument for FCC intervention on public health, reasoning that Trumpas well as certain right-wing media personalities, like Rush Limbaughhad given false information that could lead people to make unsound medical decisions. The petition specifically cited the president's praise for the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which is unproven as a remedy for COVID-19.

It's true that the FCC has some power to prevent the dissemination of false information. But federal law wisely places important limits on the agency, and for obvious reasons. No one should want regulators to have broad discretionary power to suppress speech that they subjectively believe is contrary to the public interest. This would inevitably lead to politically motivated censorship of speech that criticizes government actors.

In rejecting the petition, FCC General Counsel Thomas Johnson Jr. cogently explained that the FCC can take action against broadcasters only if they knew the information being broadcast was false, if they knew it would cause substantial harm, andif the information actually did cause substantial harm. Johnson pointed out that Free Press's demand for censorship fails on all three counts:

At this moment, broadcasters face the challenge of covering a rapidly-evolving, national, and international health crisis, in which new informationmuch of it medical or technical in nature and therefore difficult to corroborate or refute in real timeis continually revealed, vetted, and verified or dismissed. In addition, we note that the President and members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, including public-health professionals, have held daily press conferences in which they exhaustively answer critical questions from the press. Under such circumstances, it is implausible, if not absurd, to suggest that broadcasters knowingly deceived the public by airing these press conferences or other statements by the President about COVID-19. Moreover, there is a strong argument that broadcasters are serving the public interest when they air live coverage of important news events, such as briefings by the President, the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and state governors, during this national emergency.

The impulse to punish broadcasters for letting people hear what their government officials have to say for themselves is bizarre, and it's a relief to see the FCC take the obvious position that the First Amendment prohibits such censorship. Media outlets can choose whether they want to air Trump's remarks on COVID-19or anyone else's. The government doesn't get to make this decision for them.

Continue reading here:
A Progressive Media Group Demanded Censorship of Trump's Coronavirus Press Briefings. The FCC Said No. - Reason

People waiting to be tested for coronavirus outside a hospital in Sarajevo, Photo: EPA/Fehim Demir

The rights organisation Transparency International, TI, in Bosnia and Herzegovina has called on Zeljka Cvijanovic, President of the Serb-led entity, Republika Srpska, to withdraw a decree banning the spread of panic and disorder during a state of emergency, saying that the Bosnias constitution does not allow the entities to suspend the right to freedom of expression and opinion.

In Republika Srpska, a decree with the force of law prohibiting the spread of panic and disorder during a state of emergency came into force on Tuesday.

The decree, which follows the introduction of the state of emergency in the entity, stipulates fines of 500 to 4,500 euros for individuals and companies that spread panic and fake news through the media and social networks. Opposition parties in the RS describe the regulation as controversial.

The Board of Directors of the Association of Bosnian Journalists has meanwhile called on both Bosnian entities to ensure unhindered access to information and decisions regarding the COVID-19 epidemic in a safe and free manner, without imposing any restrictions, censorship or restrictions on journalists.

Such an approach calls for the urgent withdrawal of decisions and regulations with legal force concerning the restriction of freedom of expression and opinion in the media and on social networks, as well as the abolition of the power of individuals, police and other security agencies to censor the media and citizens, with rapid investigations or the imposition of very high fines, as in Republika Srpska, the Association said in a press release.

The current RS decree is almost identical to the earlier ruling banning panic and fake news that the RS government adopted on March 19.

One of the first individuals fined for violating the decree is a medical doctor, Maja Stojic Dragojevic, who is also a member of the Presidency of the largest opposition party in the RS, the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS. She was fined for writing on Facebook that there were not enough ventilators, beds, or intensive care services in the RS, and for claiming that the RS was unprepared for what is to come.

The Association of Bosnian Journalists has also warned that the government of Bosnias other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, through its Ministry of the Interior and cyber-crime units, had begun monitoring information on social networks, and that five criminal proceedings had since been instituted for allegedly spreading false information and panic.

Regardless of the emergency, it is against all democratic values to impose institutional censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression and information and to give broad authority to individuals engaged in crisis staffs or police and security agencies to interpret and regulate journalistic rights and media freedoms according to their standards, the association said.

The Journalists Association has said it will invite international organisations and European institutions for the protection of freedom of expression to respond to the censorship of information about COVID-19 in Bosnia.

The Council of Europes Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, recently said measures to combat misinformation should not be abused to hinder media freedom. She warned that freedom of the media was being suppressed in several countries under the pretext of combating misinformation about the coronavirus.

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Bosnia Trying to Censor Information About Pandemic, Journalists Say - Balkan Insight

People wearing masks, attend a vigil for Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, in Hong Kong, February7, 2020.

For authoritarian-minded leaders, the coronavirus crisis is offering a convenient pretext to silence critics and consolidate power. Censorship in China and elsewhere has fed the pandemic, helping to turn a potentially containable threat into a global calamity. The health crisis will inevitably subside, but autocratic governments dangerous expansion of power may be one of the pandemics most enduring legacies.

In times of crisis, peoples health depends at minimum on free access to timely, accurate information. The Chinese government illustrated the disastrous consequence of ignoring that reality. When doctors in Wuhan tried to sound the alarm in December about the new coronavirus, authorities silenced and reprimanded them. The failure to heed their warnings gave COVID-19 a devastating three-week head start. As millions of travelers left or passed through Wuhan, the virus spread across China and around the world.

Even now, the Chinese government is placing its political goals above public health. It claims that the coronavirus has been tamed but wont allow independent verification. It is expelling journalists from several leading US publications, including those that have produced incisive reporting, and has detained independent Chinese reporters who venture to Wuhan. Meanwhile, Beijing is pushing wild conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus, hoping to deflect attention from the tragic results of its early cover-up.

Others are following Chinas example. In Thailand, Cambodia, Venezuela, Bangladesh, and Turkey, governments are detaining journalists, opposition activists, healthcare workers, and anyone else who dares to criticize the official response to the coronavirus. Needless to say, ignorance-is-bliss is not an effective public health strategy.

When independent media is silenced, governments are able to promote self-serving propaganda rather than facts. Egypts President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, for example, downplayed the coronavirus threat for weeks, apparently wanting to avoid harming Egypts tourist industry. His government expelled a Guardian correspondent and warned a New York Times journalist after their articles questioned government figures on the number of coronavirus cases.

The government of Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan implausibly denies that there are any COVID-19 cases in its prisons, and a prosecutor is investigating a member of parliamenthimself a doctorwho says that a seventy-year-old inmate and a member of the prison staff have tested positive. Thailands Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-ocha warned journalists to report on government press conferences only and not to interview medical personnel in the field.

Of course, a free media is not a certain antidote. Responsible government is also needed. US President Donald Trump initially called the coronavirus a hoax. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called the virus a fantasy and preventive measures hysterical. Before belatedly telling people to stay home, Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador ostentatiously held rallies, and hugged, kissed, and shook hands with supporters. But at least a free media can highlight such irresponsibility; a silenced media allows it to proceed unchallenged.

Recognizing that the public is more willing to accept government power grabs in times of crisis, some leaders see the coronavirus as an opportunity not only to censor criticism but also to undermine checks and balances on their power. Much as the war on terrorism was used to justify certain long-lasting restrictions on civil liberties, so the fight against the coronavirus threatens longer-term damage to democratic rule.

Although Hungary has reported Covid-19 infections only in the hundreds to date, Prime Minister Viktor Orbn used his partys parliamentary majority to secure an indefinite state of emergency that enables him to rule by decree and imprison for up to five years any journalist who disseminates news that is deemed false. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has also awarded himself emergency powers to silence fake news.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces corruption charges, his justice minister cited the coronavirus to suspend courts for most cases, as did a close parliamentary ally as he attempted to prevent the oppositions new majority from ousting him as Knesset speakera move that the Israeli Supreme Court said undermin[ed] the foundations of the democratic process. The Trump administration has cited the coronavirus to discourage requests under the Freedom of Information Act, suddenly insisting they be made by only traditional mail, in spite of the greater public health safety of electronic communication.

Some governments are breathing a sigh of relief that the coronavirus has provided a convenient reason to limit political demonstrations. The Algerian government has halted regular protests seeking genuine democratic reform that have been under way for more than a year. The Russian government has stopped even single-person protests against Vladimir Putins plans to rip up term limits on his presidency. The Indian governments recently announced three-week lockdown conveniently ends the running protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modis anti-Muslim citizenship policies. It remains to be seen whether such restrictions outlive the coronavirus threat.

Other governments are using the coronavirus to intensify digital surveillance. China has deepened and extended the surveillance state that is most developed in Xinjiang, where it was used to identify some of the one million Uighur and other Turkic Muslims for detention and forced indoctrination. South Korea has broadcast detailed and highly revealing information about peoples movements to anyone who might have had contact with them. Israels government has cited the coronavirus to authorize its Shin Bet internal security agency to use vast amounts of location-tracking data from the cellphones of ordinary Israelis. In Moscow, Russia is installing one of the worlds largest surveillance camera systems equipped with facial recognition technology. As occurred after September 11, 2001, it may be difficult to put the surveillance genie back in the bottle after the crisis fades.

There is no question these are extraordinary times. International human rights law permits restrictions on liberty in times of national emergency that are necessary and proportionate. But we should be very wary of leaders who exploit this crisis to serve their political ends. They are jeopardizing both democracy and our health.

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How Authoritarians Are Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis to Grab Power - Human Rights Watch