Category Archives: Censorship

In late June, the San Francisco Board of Education gathered to resolve a problem that had recently been brought its attention. An 83-year-old, Depression-era mural on the walls of one San Francisco high school had started to bother some people. Painted by left-leaning artist Victor Arnautoff, the 13-panel artwork in George Washington High School had been created through a New Deal art program. Arnautoff had the task of painting Life of Washington, which spanned a whopping 1,600 square feet.

So as not to lionize the first president excessively, Arnautoff painted Washington standing near the body of a dead Native American man, and he also depicts enslaved African Americans. Today, after almost a century, the mural is not as liberal as it once was in the eyes of the public.

Its always an issue when anyone wants to remove or cover or displace art, Board Vice President Mark Sanchez said. But there are countervailing issues we had to look at as well. We believe students shouldnt be exposed to violent imagery that its degrading.

The school board voted unanimously to destroy the mural, though not everyone agreed with its post-woke interpretation. When one teacher asked her freshman English class to write either in favor of or against the mural, 45 out of 49 students supported it. The fresco shows us exactly how brutal colonization and genocide really were and are," one student wrote. "The fresco is a warning and reminder of the fallibility of our hallowed leaders.

Two months later, the opposing sides reached a compromise: The mural would be covered up but not painted over. Still, it will no longer be seen.

But why stop there? Art censors of the world, why not also hide Francisco Goya's The Third of May 1808 or Picasso's Guernica, both startling images of conflict? In fact, a reproduction of Guernica was briefly covered up at the United Nations more than 15 years ago during a speech about the war in Iraq. It used to be that if you censored art, you had something to hide. Now, it means you're not ready to face reality.

After decades of railing against censorship in the arts, some liberals have now fully embraced it. Statues of Southern generals and Christopher Columbus are already pass. Theres a disturbing new development in art criticism among the elites, and it has nothing to do with whether Renoir was sexist in his personal life. Now, its not enough to critique unethical artists or their "problematic" subjects. You must also stand against depictions of bad things because we are supposedly unprepared to see them.

Comedian and actress Sarah Silverman learned this earlier this year. She appeared in blackface during a comedy sketch in 2007 to make fun of overly woke liberals. This year, Silverman said it came back to bite her.

I recently was going to do a movie, two days on a movie, a really sweet part, she said on a podcast this summer. Then, at 11 p.m. the night before, they fired me because they saw a picture of me in blackface from that episode.

It didn't matter that her whole act was meant to make fun of people who might use blackface. Her means were simply too transgressive.

This fashionable frontier in art censorship is also plaguing academia, and not just high schools. At Marylands Washington College, an antiracist play was recently canceled because it depicted some characters dressed in KKK robes. Because the bad guys were Ku Klux Klan members, The Foreigner, a pro-immigrant comedy, was canceled an hour before its last dress rehearsal. Heaven forbid a work of art depict anything actually evil.

Author Joyce Carol Oates recently regretted that Flannery O'Connor's antiracist short story The Artificial N----- was excluded from an anthology because publishers refused it on the grounds of an offensive title. Oates explained that it was futile to explain that O'Connor was excoriating racism, not promoting it.

Art censors may argue, as Sanchez did about the Washington mural, that viewing violent or disturbing imagery is "degrading." But there's another problem that art viewers face, one that is possibly the most degrading of all: ignorance. When you're so afraid of offending people, you lose your ability to make art, and when you refuse to address evil, you lose your ability to stop it.

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The year art censorship came back in style - Washington Examiner

A government-appointed review board has harshly criticized the organizers of the 2019 Aichi Triennale, which made headlines around the world for temporarily closing an exhibition that was itself themed around the issue of censorship. The closure came after an outcry regarding a sculpture in the show by Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung that spotlighted the history of comfort women in Japan during WWII.

A six-person review panel, led by Toshio Yamanashi, director of the National Museum of Art, in Osaka, found that while the removal of the sculpture was the right way to deal with threats over the artwork, there were numerous faults with the way the exhibition was organized, reports the Japan Times. The exhibition was ultimately reopened after a legal challenge and a pledge by some artists to remove or alter their works in protest. The Triennale took place August 1 to October 14 in Nagoya and nearby cities.

The authors of the report have called for a thorough examination and revision of procedures for organizing the Triennale. Aichis governor, Hideaki Omura, who headed the Triennales steering committee, said, as quoted in the Japan Times, that we will sincerely accept the proposals, and work toward the next triennale by gaining local residents understanding. The panel also found fault in the curation of the censorship-themed exhibition, pointing out that while the concept initially was to show works that had been censored in public museums, it also included new works that had never fallen victim to suppression.

Artistic director and journalist Daisuke Tsuda, says the report, was given considerable power, but, the authors maintain, there was no system of checks and balances in place. The report also saw insufficient communication between Tsuda and the curators and other administrators.

The report did not, on the other hand, find fault with the handling of the highly controversial artwork.

Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sungs Statue of Peace (2011), a life-size sculpture of a seated woman, depicts the so-called comfort women, who were in fact forced into sexual slavery to the occupying Japanese military before and during World War II. The curators said in a statement at the time that the works removal would constitute the worst censorship incident in Japans postwar period.

The sculpture was included in the show After Freedom of Expression? which was part of the Triennale and took place at the Aichi Prefecture Museum of Art in the city of Nagoya. The exhibition was closed in the wake of menacing messages, including one that promised to burn the museum down. The review panel deemed the closure of the show unavoidable. In the panels view, this did not comprise an unwarranted restriction on freedom of expression.

Artnet reached out to Toshio Yamanashi and Daisuke Tsuda but did not receive an immediate reply.

The issue of sexual slavery has been a flash point for years. The government has in the past issued apologies, but in 2007, prime minister Shinzo Abe denied that there was any evidence that the Japanese had enslaved women, only to later say he would not reconsider previous apologies by previous officials. Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura has objected to the presence of the artwork in the Triennale, since it constitutes an ackowledgement that Japan had indeed forced the women into sexual slavery.

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The Aichi Triennale Had a Lot of Problems. A New Government Report Reflects on What Went Wrong - artnet News

SportFootballPremier LeagueEvasion of questions about alleged rights abuses in Qatar was weirdly off-colour from the usually erudite and right-on Liverpool manager

Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 2:59 pm

Sometimes, no matter how vexing or obtuse a problem first seems, a working solution can be distilled simply by dent of the time, resources and willing that are available to be poured into solving it.

Ever since the oppressive Gulf state was revealed as the host for the 2022 World Cup, football leaders and officials in the liberal West have known they will have questions to answer on behalf of their clubs and national associations regarding the ethics of participation.

i's fantasy football tipsnewsletter: get ahead

In Liverpool's case, these games in Qatar have been in the diary since they lifted the Champions League trophy in June. They were not dropped on them suddenly, nor did the public discussion surrounding alleged abuses of rights by the regime in Doha crystallise overnight. On the question of time and brain-power, the club had sufficient whack with which to prepare a considered response to the predictable questions that greeted Jurgen Klopp when the team arrived in Qatar.

Yet facing the press on Tuesday the manager, who has previously shared so freely and carefully his views on matters relating to social justice, spoke like he had been deprogrammed, the evasive twaddle of one who is disengaged from the question and is herding the conversation back onto company-approved ground.

"I have an opinion on football, but this is a real serious thing to talk about, I think, and the answers should come from people who know more about it," Klopp said. "Organisers have to think about these things, not the athletes. I like that you ask the question, but I think I am the wrong person."

The club's position had, in part, already been made formal in the content of a letter sent by Anfield chief executive Peter Moore earlier in December to the London-based human rights group Fair/Square who campaign on behalf of the families of migrant workers killed during construction projects for the 2022 showpiece. In it, Moore wrote that the club had sought background detail assurances from the supreme committee of the World Cup organisers regarding progress on workers' rights, and backed the group's assertion that "all unexplained deaths should be investigated thoroughly".

The letter stopped short of proffering a condemnation of Doha's record on safeguarding workers' rights, what the group that called for it had euphemistically termed "a public statement of concern", a reminder that football has installed itself behind a kind of flood barrier to protect against the need for taking a meaningful position on the wider implications of the game's continued global growth. You expect it from the suits at the very top echelons. But from the erudite and usually shoot-from-the-hip Klopp, the dreary on-the-fence neutrality felt weirdly off-colour.

It's telling that this has come in the same week as Mesut Ozil's public criticism of the rights of Muslim minorities in China, and the various responses - or lack of - that his words have drawn from different quarters. His employers Arsenal broke their silence only to confirm that they intended to remain silently "apolitical" on the matter, whilst the ex-Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure condemned Ozil's temerity in speaking out. Footballers have to stay with football and politicians to politics," said Toure. "Because you cannot be involved with this kind of thing, because it's going to attract a lot of problems." It's more sensible not to upset the apple cart when the apple cart is doling out your wage slips. Maybe the price of a conscience has simply become too high.

It isn't necessarily about placing income directly in jeopardy - though the fallout in China from NBA executive Daryl Morey's support for public protesters against the Chinese government in Hong Kong suggests that broadcasters, merchandisers and publicists will be prepared to pull their support for a sporting product over politics (several Chinese companies and brands have suspended or cut ties with the NBA following Morey's remarks in October.) China's state broadcaster was also quick to shelve plans to broadcast Arsenal's game against Man City on Sunday in the wake of Ozil's remarks.

This is really more a matter of culture, of the football establishment - of which Arsenal, Liverpool and Toure are intrinsically a part - showing public respect for those newest stakeholders in the global game who are paying astronomical sums for their seat at the table. They expect to be treated with the respect that their investments warrant. After all, what is the point in ploughing billions into campaigns to align rotten regimes with the world's most popular sport if organically likeable actors like Klopp are going to spit on you?

It's worth noting that the issues raised by Ozil and by Fair/Square don't come from conspiracy theories peddled by outliers and cranks. The causes of workers and LGBT rights in Qatar and of the situation of Muslim minorities in northern China are the concern of the United Nations and international NGO Human Rights Watch. There has been no moving of the moral goalposts, only a re-positioning of where football sits between them.

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Football is sliding into a bubble of self-censorship and even Jurgen Klopp has gone quiet - inews

A new study shows that artists across the world are facing greater threats to their free speechand safety. Photo: PA Images

Scottish playwright Jo Clifford is no stranger to controversy. Her play,The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven, casts Jesus as a trans woman, andfirst aired at Glasgows Tron in 2009 to a reception of applauseand protest.But there is controversy, and then there is outright danger. The same play was on tour in Brazil until recently, when asmoke bombwas thrown into the performance space and armed police invaded the theatre. Brazil hasbecome a country where it is dangerous to perform, especially if your show does not tick the boxes set out by the new right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who haspushedfor local art to focus on Brazilian heroes.

The incident warns of a new threat sweeping the world right now: the censorship of the arts. Aspecial reportin the latestIndex on Censorshipmagazine published this week shows a rising hostile climate towards the arts, even in robust democracies. Artists from around the world, including Germany, Poland, Brazil, and the UK spoke of the increasing threats to their artistic freedom as a result of an emboldened right. Perhaps most startling was the frequencyof attacks in the field.Indexwent out expecting to find just a few examples. Instead, the list was endless.

A threat from the right

While the spotlightin recent years has been on censorship from the student left, with concerns about the rise of safe spaces, trigger warnings and no-platforming, real and increasing threats are coming from the right. They are taking away our libertiesand liberal arts.

We are on the front line of a culture war that will only deepen and strengthen as the ecological and financial crisis worsens and the right feel more fearfully they are losing their grip on power, saidThe Gospel According to Jesus playwright Clifford.She added that even in Scotland, her play can ruffle feathers.Last Christmas there was a run at Edinburghs Traverse Theatre. An online petition demanding the play be banned, she tells me, attracted a whopping 24,674 signatures.

Germany is particularly feeling the heat.The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has gone from newcomer on the political scene in 2013 to being the largest opposition party in the Bundestag today. They are eyeing up seats in parliamentand in the theatre. Marc Jongen, commonly regarded tobe

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There's a new free speech crisis gripping the worldand governments aren't helping - Prospect

WASHINGTON A freshman congressman, troubled by allegations of climate censorship by the President Trump administration, is attempting to make it harder for political appointees to scrub scientific information from government reports.

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) introduced legislation this month dubbed the Stop Climate Censorship Act. If enacted, it would require political appointees at federal agencies to provide data to back up any decisions to remove climate change content from scientific studies or press releases.

Theres any number of examples of controversies surrounding climate censorship under the Trump administration, Neguse said. He pointed to one of the highest-profile examples in his own congressional district.

Maria Caffrey, a former University of Colorado research assistant and a paid partner of the National Park Service, said her research on how climate change would impact national parks was sidelined by Trump administration officials.

Shetestifiedat a hearing before the U.S. House earlier this year that National Park Service officials made explicit attempts to get me to remove references to anthropogenic or human-caused climate change from my report.

Flint, PFAS raised in D.C. hearing on Trump admin.s scientific research clampdown

Agency management gradually cut off her access to research funding, Caffrey testified: I had become an outcast for standing up.

In July, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Rochester Hills) led a hearing of the U.S. House Science Subcommittee on Research & Technology looking into scientistic research being stifled by the Trump administration. The Flint water crisis, PFAS contamination and climate change were key issues raised.

This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, Stevens said during the hearing. Its not about one administration or another. It is about ensuring public trust in the conduct dissemination and use of scientific research in the federal government.

The hearing featured several experts, including Joel Clement, Arctic Initiative senior fellow for the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Clement was a top U.S. Interior Department adviser who said he was reassigned by then-Director Ryan Zinke in a purge after raising climate change concerns. He became a whistleblower against the Trump administrations anti-science and pro-fossil fuels agenda.

Another controversy surrounding scientific censorship occurred earlier this year when officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationreportedlybacked President Donald Trump over the agencys own researchers.

After Trump asserted without evidence that Alabama would most likely be hit much harder than anticipated by the approaching Hurricane Dorian, National Weather Service staff was told to only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arose about Trumps assertions and to refrain from providing any opinions, the Washington Post reported.

Trump famouslyuseda black Sharpie marker to add an extra loop onto a map of Dorians predicted path to encompass Alabama.

In light of recent attempts by this administration to censor science, includingthreatsin September to fire NOAA officials who failed to back President Trumps inaccurate statements on Hurricane Dorian, legislation to prevent the political interference of federal science is critically needed, Neguse said in a statement.

A January 2018 reportby the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, which analyzed websites across the federal government, found substantial shifts under the Trump administration in whether and how the topic of climate change and efforts to mitigate and adapt to its consequences are discussed across a range of federal agencies websites.

U.S. House passes climate bill in a rebuke to Trump

The report also found a significant loss of public access to information about climate change.

Taking action to curb the impacts of climate change is critical for Colorado, Neguse said.

Afact sheet published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the former President Obama administration in August 2016 and archived online outlines some of the ways that climate change caused by humans will impact Colorado.

The expected consequences include more common heat waves, decreased water availability and agricultural yields, and increased risk of wildfires.

Neguse introduced the bill with two of his Democratic colleagues, U.S. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon and Sean Casten of Illinois.

The congressman said hes optimistic that itll get a vote in the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee, where Bonamici is a senior member. Neguse is also hoping to include the legislation in a package of bills that will be considered by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Neguse, a member of that committee, has made climate change one of his key focuses. He was a strong and early supporter of the Green New Deal.

Pelosi contradicts Trump at U.N. climate conference: Were still in the Paris agreement

Along with U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn), he traveled to Spain this month for the U.N. Climate Change Summit as part of a delegation led by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

He said hes optimistic that companion legislation will be introduced in the Senate, but recognizes that the bill is unlikely to see movement in that chamber.

Neguse acknowledged the realities of the Senate under its current GOP leadership and the fact that many bills continue to languish under U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

That scenario makes the road much more difficult in the upper chamber, but were going to continue to push, Neguse said.

To become law, the legislation would also need to win Trumps signature or win enough votes to override a White House veto both of those scenarios are highly unlikely.

Dingell, Democrats roll out ambitious climate bill

Max Boykoff, director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, welcomed Neguses legislation.

Irrespective of anyones political party affiliation, this is important legislation for those seeking improved accountability among political appointees and ongoing access to important information about climate change for decision-making, Boykoff said in a statement.

In order to implement bold policies to tackle climate change, Bonamici said, those policies must be informed by the best available science. At a time when the Trump Administration regularly dismisses and denies climate science, it is our responsibility to protect the work of federal science agencies and to make sure that scientists are heard and supported rather than censored.

Advance Editor Susan J. Demas contributed to this story.

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Dems have a plan to fight Trump on climate censorship - Michigan Advance

Today is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, an annual observation supported by and dedicated to those that participate in the sex trade. Its also nearly the end of 2019the first full calendar year since Congress passed the Internet censorship law SESTA/FOSTA. EFF fought the bill in Congress, concerned that its vague, ambiguous language and stiff criminal and civil penalties would drive constitutionally protected content off the Internet. And we represent organizations and individuals that are challenging the law in federal court. Activists and organizers from within the sex working community made it clear from the beginning as well: though this bill was intended to curb violence that occurs in the sex trade, its result would be just the opposite because it deprived a community of many of the online tools they used to stay safe and to organize. 2019 has brought us the unfortunate statistics to prove that they were right.

In a recent study of sex workers completed by the grassroots sex worker advocacy organization Hacking//Hustling, in collaboration with Whose Corner Is It Anyway, 40% of participants reported experiencing increased violence after FOSTA became law. Additionally, an overwhelming 99% of participants said they do not feel safer because of FOSTA. The details of this study were recently reviewed at a conference hosted by Harvards Berkman Klein Law Center, and the full results will soon be available. But these grim statistics arent an outlier: last year the San Francisco Police Department reported that human trafficking and street-based sex work offenses had spiked 170% since FOSTAs passage.

These numbers affirm what those who participate in the sex industry warned would happen. FOSTA has ensnared a wide array of platforms and online marketplaces whose operators, fearing that comments, posts, or ads that are sexual in nature will result in new liability, have censored users speech or shut down entirely. The absence of these sites have prevented sex workers from organizing and utilizing tools that have kept them safe. Taking away client-screening capabilities, bad date lists, and other intra-community safety tips leads to putting more workers on the street, which leads to increased violence and trafficking. The consequences of this censorship are most devastating for trans women of color, who are disproportionately affected by this violence. In NYC, the unfair targeting of trans women by local ordinances are so prevalent, loitering laws are colloquially known as "Walking While Trans" laws.

After SESTA/FOSTAs passage, plaintiffs Woodhull Freedom Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Alex Andrews, the Internet Archive, and Eric Koszyk filed suit to invalidate the law. EFF is part of the legal team representing the plaintiffs, who are asking a court to declare the law unconstitutional and prevent it from being enforced. On this International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, it's clear that the first step to actually ending such violence is to repeal SESTA/FOSTA, and to listen more closely to the communities affected by such laws. Destigmatization and full decriminalization is the battle cry of many sex work advocacy groups;but under FOSTA, this advocacy may be illegal. Its time for us to start taking these risks, and the real-world implications of FOSTA's censorship, seriously.

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On International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, We Must Look Closely at the Results of FOSTA - EFF

Observers have been waiting to see how Singapores Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (known more commonly as POFMA) would be applied since it was passed in Parliament in May this year, coming into effect on 2 October. But it was only in the past week that the first directive was issued under the law quickly followed by the second and third.

On 25 November, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat directed the newly established POFMA Office to issue an order to opposition politician Brad Bowyer over a Facebook post. Bowyer was thus required to edit his post, adding a notice indicating that it contained false statements of fact, with a link to a government website containing the correct facts.

Three days later, Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam issued a directive to the States Times Review a website known for its political stance against the ruling Peoples Action Party demanding that they publish a similar correction notice on a Facebook post. While the sites publisher, Singaporean-turned-Australian Alex Tan, refused to comply, the minister then issued a directive to Facebook instead.

This isnt just Singapores problem. A law that offers so much additional power over its peoples flow of communications and information is a tempting one to adopt for all sorts of governments.

Unsurprisingly, the tech giant complied. The cost-benefit analysis was clear: failure to do so could have led to a fine of up to S$1 million ($1,072,500), with an additional S$100,000 per day of noncompliance after conviction. Then theres the unwritten but presumptive cost of damaging a relationship with the government of a country in which Facebook has a significant presence an estimated 3.5 million Singaporeans, well over half the population, actively use Facebook.

The least they could do was make it clear that it wasnt a voluntary move. Facebook is legally required to tell you that the Singapore government says that this post has false information, said a terse notification alongside a button pointing people to the government page. The company also told the media it hoped that the Singapore governments assurances that it will not impact free expression will lead to a measured and transparent approach to implementation.

This hope, of course, is highly optimistic, dependent on the whims and preferences of the Peoples Action Party and the ministers in its government (all of whom have power to issue directives under POFMA). When it comes to legislation that allows the government to decide what is or isnt a false statement of fact, there are few restraints on power.

The question of whether its easy to really distinguish fact from opinion is still an unanswered one; looking at the correct facts issued on Bowyers Facebook post, we see that the authorities are taking offence at what they say is implied as well as clear factual statements. Beyond that, it isnt even clear why a blunt yet powerful tool like POFMA was required in these instanceswas there any real risk of harm to society or incitement of hatred or violence? Why would normal press statements and clarifications measures that the government has resorted to for years to respond to articles and criticism not have sufficed?

Few of the concerns raised before the passage of the bill have been adequately addressed, and weve yet to see how some of the reassurances given such as expedited and less cost-prohibitive court processes will play out in practical terms. While time might perhaps offer a little bit more clarity on some details, the problem with POFMA is not just a matter of execution or implementation, but issues of checks and balances, due process, fairness, and respect for democratic rights.

The fact is that, in Singapores current (and long-standing) political landscape, the only political party that has direct access to POFMAs powers is the ruling Peoples Action Party. Using this law, the party is free to take aim at political opponents or anti-PAP platformsas they have done. No other political party or civil society group is able to wield such power, even though falsehoods and misleading claims are also circulated about opposition politicians and activists online, including from pro-PAP pages.

What POFMA does, then, is give the PAP government more control over discourse in Singapore, allowing it to take aim at what it says are false facts or implied false facts while asserting its own set of correct facts. To further cement this imbalance in power, Section 61 of law also allows ministers to exempt any person or class of persons from any provision of this Act, thus allowing the PAP government to grant immunity from this law to anyone they choose.

This isnt just Singapores problem. A law that offers so much additional power over its peoples flow of communications and information is a tempting one to adopt for all sorts of governments. The Nigerian government, for example, has mooted an almost identical bill a suggestion that has been met with protests from Nigerians. An Anti-False Content bill, also bearing remarkable similarity to POFMA, has been introduced in the Philippines Senate, triggering criticism of suppressing freedom of expression, and likely in contravention of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Anxieties about disinformation and misinformation are going global, but so is the practice of capitalising on these anxieties to consolidate power. The use of a law like POFMA and the compliance of the big tech companies whose platforms so often perform the role of a virtual public square for citizens might only be taking place in Singapore today, but its apparent success provides legitimacy and political cover for it to be used elsewhere tomorrow.

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As Facebook caves to Singapore censorship, the writing is on the wall - The Interpreter

Chinese American users of the messaging app WeChat are finding their messages containing political criticism of China particularly those aimed at the protests in Hong Kong are being censored, The Verge reports.

In one instance an American information security analyst named Bin Xie had his account taken down after writing "The pro-China candidates totally lost," referring to Hong Kong's recent election in which pro-democracy candidates gained huge ground against pro-China candidates.

"If you have censorship in China, fine," he told The Verge. "But in this country? I'm a Republican, but on WeChat I suffer the same as Democrats we are all censored."

Xie then joined a WhatsApp group full of Chinese Americans who had similarly been kicked off WeChat for expressing political views.

For Chinese Americans with family in China, being kicked off WeChat is a major problem. The WeChat app is more or less ubiquitous in China, where it covers a broad range of uses. It acts as a messaging app, a dominant payment platform, a social network, and a platform for accomplishing everyday tasks like paying utility bills and booking doctor's appointments. WeChat and its rival Alipay's payment systems have become so everyday that even street vendors and buskers use QR codes rather than accept cash.

Losing access to the app is a major hindrance to anyone wishing to contact Chinese relatives as popular Western messaging apps like Facebook and WhatsApp are blocked in China and for anyone who wants to visit the country.

The Verge notes that while generally WeChat applies different censorship rules to Chinese nationals and foreigners, Chinese Americans may fall through the net if they once possessed a Chinese phone number.

In a statement to Business Insider, WeChat's parent company Tencent noted that WeChat is a separate app to Weixin, which operates inside China. Tencent said WeChat and Weixin are are interoperable, describing them as "sister apps." People signing up with Chinese phone numbers would be using Weixin, while people with international numbers would use WeChat.

"Tencent operates in a complex regulatory environment, both in China and elsewhere. Like any global company, a core tenant is that we comply with local laws and regulations in the markets where we operate," a spokeswoman said.

"Weixin and WeChat use different servers, with data stored in different locations. WeChat's servers are outside of China and not subject to Chinese law, while Weixin's servers are in China and subject to Chinese law," she noted.

She added that the interoperablity between WeChat and Weixin messages could lead to "misunderstandings."

"For example, if a WeChat user sends a message to a friend using Weixin, China law applies to the Weixin user and certain content may be blocked. The same content shared between two WeChat users however, would not be blocked," she said.

The extension of Chinese censorship laws beyond its borders has become more pertinent to American citizens in recent months through three high-profile news stories.

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WeChat users in the US say the app is censoring their messages about Hong Kong - Business Insider

Even convicted felons have more rights than university allowed its students

Do you think Ohio taxpayers are tired of subsidizing the lawless, aloof administrators who run their public universities?

Ohio University has evidently learned nothing from its unconstitutional suppression of the First Amendment rights of students who did absolutely nothing wrong, by its own admission.

Practically daring students to file a lawsuit, administrators suspended the organizational activities of all 15 fraternities in its Interfraternity Council earlier this fall, based on hazing allegations against nine of them, according to The Athens News.

What do these activities include? Not only hosting gatherings but communication with and amongthe group via any social media platform or application, according to an administrators letter to fraternities obtained by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Taylor Tackett, assistant dean of students and director of community standards and student responsibility (left), literally told fraternities that any communications among members had to be pre-approved by me.

Following FIREs legal warning letter Nov. 12 and pressure campaign against the taxpayer-funded university, interim General Counsel Barbara Nalazek sent back a condescending one-page letter.

She complimented FIREs Zachary Greenberg, a Syracuse Law graduate who previously defended indigent Syracuse residents on misdemeanor charges, for the obvious effort put into the Nov. 12 letter. Nalazek did not respond to the voluminous case law against Ohio University that Greenberg cited.

MORE: Want to see fascism in action? Look what Syracuse did to fraternity members

Instead, she justified the unconstitutional restrictions on students rights by citing the unprecedented number of hazing allegations allegations! the university received this fall. They were only temporary so that the situation could be assessed. A few weeks later, restrictions for most punished organizations had been lifted or significantly modified.

It also removed a frequently asked questions document elaborating on the restrictions, which FIRE had faulted, and clarified with all the organizations that the restrictions on communications had been lifted. Nalazek claimed these restrictions on all social media communications among members were limited.

Showing her amazing skills in half-assing a legal response, the interim general counsel said OU disagrees that the original directives were constitutionally infirm. She failed to explain why, in any level of detail.

Its worth reading Greenbergs Nov. 12 letter in full to see just how much case law Nalazek had to ignore to portray the universitys draconian response to hazing allegations against some fraternities as perfectly acceptable. Willful ignorance of the law may be whats required to become the permanent general counsel.

Out of compliance with its own federal appeals court

It is not a close call that OU has exceeded the lawful scope of its authority under the First Amendment, as Greenberg wrote.

The FAQ document, which purported to clarify the restrictions on associational and speech rights, limited fraternity members to 1:1 conversations between friends on personal topics. It refused to define what the university considers a prohibited chapter event, telling students there was no magic number [if] people could associate it with your organization, fraternities should avoid it.

In other words, OU will arbitrarily decide how many people talking are too many people talking, Greenberg wrote in a Nov. 13 blog post. Its unclear whether they were even allowed to discuss their organizations punishment.

MORE: Syracuse fires prof for disagreeing with punishment of frat members

The justification by Nalazek (right) for the draconian punishments hazing allegations have no bearing on the legal analysis, Greenberg told the university in his Nov. 12 letter. OU effectively bans any communication whatsoever among Group members and thereby threatens their existence as viable student organizations, he wrote: Courts have correctly viewed less onerous restrictions as impermissibly burdening associational freedoms.

The public university is out of compliance with its own federal appeals court, the 6th Circuit, which struck down a Cincinnati ordinance excluding convicted drug dealers from drug-exclusion zones.

If thats an impermissible restriction on associational freedoms, as Greenberg notes, what chance does OU have in court if the fraternities decided to sue for restricting communications that have nothing to do with hazing?

It is difficult to imagine how prohibiting all unofficial meetingsregardless of how brief, innocuous, or unrelated to pledging or university affairsis at all tailored, much less narrowly tailored, to address the universitys cognizable interests. Such wide-ranging restrictions cover a virtually unlimited array of student activity bearing no reasonable relationship to maintaining a safe educational community.

Willfully violating Supreme Court precedent

The university and its interim legal counsel also appear to be contemptuous of Supreme Court precedent.

Greenberg cites the high courts 2016 rejection of a North Carolina law that bans registered sex offenders not just drug dealers! from using websites that allow children to become members orto create or maintain personal Web pages, such as social media.

Such a restriction still violates the First Amendment because social media are integral to the fabric of modern society and culture, the rulings summary says:

Even convicted criminalsand in some instances especially convicted criminalsmight receive legitimate benefits from these means [social media] for access to the world of ideas, particularly if they seek to reform and to pursue lawful and rewarding lives.

Greenberg elaborates on this ruling, known as Packingham, in a footnote:

Considering that OUs blanket ban on social media platforms to communicate is arguably more restrictive than the law in Packingham, and the universitys interests in policing student expression is markedly diminished in contrast to the important interests in warding against convicted sex offenders use of the internet to contact children, OUs restrictions stand on significantly weaker constitutional footing than the law struck down by the Packingham Court.

MORE: Syracuse admits it doesnt protect free speech to get out of lawsuit

The idiotic prior-approval requirement laid down by Tackett, the assistant dean of students, is also plainly unconstitutional. Not only does it encourage self-censorship but fails to set forth any objective criteria for approval, Greenberg wrote leading to a situation where students need permission from the university to criticize the university.

Greenberg portrayed the universitys alleged end to unconstitutional restrictions as a victory for students, even though OU has suffered no consequences for actions it never bothered to defend and will likely repeat.

FIRE and these students sent OU a clear message: administrators cant muzzle student speech and get away with it, he said in a blog post last week. (Except administrators did get away with it.) FIREs reputation and history of successful action no doubt got Ohio Universitys attention and helped restore constitutional rights, said a lawyer for the students, Timothy Burke. (How long will they remain restored?)

FIREs action may have gotten this pitiful, one-page response from the university. But its clear that nothing short of litigation and ruinous damages against individual administrators will ever stop them from willfully and repeatedly violating students rights.

MORE: Frat pledges sue UT for punishing them after flimsy investigation

IMAGES: jorgen mcleman/Shutterstock, Ohio University

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Ohio University refuses to apologize for unconstitutional censorship of innocent students - The College Fix

A recent Reddit post details the danger of using a popular built-in tool in the iOS image editing menu. The tool, commonly referred to as the highlighter (its actually a chisel-shaped marker, dont @ me) is often used to cover sensitive information in screenshots or photographs such as credit card numbers or the address on a drivers license.

The problem is in the default opacity of the tool. Its meant to be used as a highlighter, not a tool to censor sensitive details, and as such its set with an opacity value under 100. That is to say, its semi-transparent. The lower the opacity value, the more see-through the markings become.

But even with an opacity near 100, a few quick photo editing tricks will reveal the information underneath.

Redditor u/M1ghty_boy, the threads original poster, first colored over the text using the highlight tool from the default toolset a pen, pencil, and marker/highlighter. After a few passes, it appears that the text is properly censored and unreadable. The user then opens the image in the default iOS photo editor and adjust settings like exposure, highlights, shadows, and contrast until the image again comes into view.

Here is why you shouldnt censor sensitive info with the black highlighter on iOS, this video shows just how easy it is to reveal sensitive info censored with the black highlighter from r/ios

If youre looking for a better way to censor information, weve got you covered. The easiest way would be just to use the same highlighter tool, but to turn the opacity to 100, meaning its fully opaque and no longer see-through.

Or, if you want a more foolproof method (in case you forget to adjust the opacity before covering the information), use a color-filled shape the rectangle tool, for example (found in the + menu) instead.

Read next: Study: Our universe may be part of a giant quantum computer

The rest is here:
This is why you shouldn't use Apple's highlighter tool to censor sensitive info - The Next Web