Category Archives: Transhuman News

What is censorship?

According to Websters Dictionary, to censor means to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable. The word censor originated in ancient Rome, where the government appointed officials to take the census and to supervise public morals. Censorship happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their political or moral values on others by suppressing words, images, or ideas that they find offensive.

A censor, traditionally, is an official whose job it is to examine literature, movies, or other forms of creative expression and to remove or ban anything she considers unsuitable. In this definition, censorship is something the government does. But censorship can also be accomplished very effectively by private groups.

Not all forms of censorship are illegal. When private individuals agitate to eliminate TV programs they dislike, or threaten to boycott the companies that support those programs with advertising dollars, they are certainly trying to censor artistic expression and interfere with the free speech of others. But their actions are perfectly legal; in fact, their protests are protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Not even all government censorship is unlawful. For example, we still have laws against obscenity in art and entertainment. These laws allow the government to punish people for producing or disseminating material about sex, if a judge or jury thinks the material is sufficiently offensive and lacks any serious value.

What is the basis for free expression in the United States?The First Amendment (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances) protects against government restrictions on or interference with the content of speech. The First Amendment applies to Government at the national, state, and local level.

Why should I care about censorship?Understanding of First Amendment freedoms is fragile and imperiled by increasingly effective and sophisticated attacks. In numerous communities, people are determined to impose their own narrow views on everyone else, and censor what they do not approve.The First Amendment exists to protect speech and activities that are unpopularif only those ideas which were popular were protected, it wouldnt be needed. Limiting free speech is unAmericanwithout it, all our rights and liberties quickly disintegrate.Censorship is an assault on the rights of all of us. We must continue to fight for the freedom to read, to see, to know, and to think for ourselves.

How can I fight back against censors in my community?Heres what you can do to organize locally.

Where can I get further information on censorship?For more information about censorship, here is a list of NCACs resources, or drop us an e-mail here.

Original post:
What is Censorship? - National Coalition Against Censorship

by: Wes Wilson, Faith Castle, John Engel

AUSTIN (KXAN) Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is leaning into a rallying cry of conservatives: something must be done to stop social media companies from censoring political views.

Abbott held a news conferenceFriday regardinghis legislative proposal to ban social media platforms from censoring Texans. Abbott says too many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech.

Abbott joined Sen. Bryan Hughes in Tyler, Texas to discussSenate Bill 12.

Conservative speech will not be cancelled in the state of Texas, Abbott said. (This bill) would allow any Texan who has been cancelled, censored or de-platformed to file a lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook or any of these other companies.

In his bill, Hughes said social media platforms are akin to common carriers like cell phone or cable companies. and have enjoyed governmental support in the United States. He says the bill will protect Texans and allow them to get back online quickly should a social media company punish them for expressing a viewpoint based on their religious beliefs or political leanings.

Just like AT&T cant cut off my cell service becausethey dont like a conversation were having, these folks should not be given that power, Sen. Hughes said. We cant let them abuse it like they have been.

Abbott tweeted that doing so is un-American, Un-Texan, & soon to be illegal.

I am joining @SenBryanHughes to announce a bill prohibiting social media companies from censoring viewpoints.

Too many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech.

It's un-American, Un-Texan, & soon to be illegal.https://t.co/zSdirRa1pj

Conservatives have grown increasingly frustrated with social media companies in the wake of the presidential election.

In light of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol in January, many social media companies including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have banned people who have tried to cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election.

That includes former President Donald Trump who has tried to falsely claim that he won the election and was only denied due to widespread voter fraud. Numerous courts with judges that President Trump appointed failed to find any widespread voter fraud that could have changed the election.

Joshua Tucker, co-director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University, said its impossible to know whether one side of the political spectrum is being censored more than the other by social media companies because those companies dont provide access to outside researchers.

The data that we need to answer this and many other pressing public policy questions is being produced by Facebook and Google, he said.

A Pew Research poll conducted in 2020 found that three-quarters of American adults, including 90% of Republicans, believe that it is very or somewhat likely that social media companies censor political viewpoints.

Read this article:
Gov. Abbott holds news conference on bill to prohibit social media censorship - KXAN.com

Watch the newCBSN Originalsdocumentary, "Speaking Frankly | Censorship," in the video player above.

Musician Joy Villa's red carpet dresses at the past three years' Grammy Awards were embellished with pro-Trump messages that cemented her as an outspoken darling of the conservative movement. With over 500,000 followers across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, Villa refers to her social media community as her "Joy Tribe," and a few years ago she enlisted them to help wage a public battle against what she claimed was YouTube's attempt to censor her.

"I had released my 'Make America Great Again" music video on YouTube, and within a few hours it got taken down by YouTube," Villa told CBSN Originals. "I took it to the rest of my social media. I told my fans: 'Hey listen, YouTube is censoring me. This is unfair censorship.'"

Villa saw it as part of a pattern of social media companies trying to shut down conservative voices an accusation that many other like-minded users, including President Trump himself, have leveled against Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter in recent years.

But those who study the tech industry's practices say that deciding what content stays up, and what comes down, has nothing to do with "censorship.""There is this problem in the United States that when we talk about free speech, we often misunderstand it," said Henry Fernandez, co-chair of Change the Terms, a coalition of organizations that work to reduce hate online.

"The First Amendment is very specific: It protects all of us as Americans from the government limiting our speech," he explained. "And so when people talk about, 'Well, if I get kicked off of Facebook, that's an attack on my free speech or on my First Amendment right' that's just not true. The companies have the ability to decide what speech they will allow. They're not the government."

A YouTube spokesperson said Villa's video wasn't flagged over something she said, but due to a privacy complaint. Villa disputed that, but once she blurred out the face of someone who didn't want to be seen in the video, YouTube put it back online, and her video remains visible on the platform today.

"At YouTube, we've always had policies that lay out what can and can't be posted. Our policies have no notion of political affiliation or party, and we enforce them consistently regardless of who the uploader is," said YouTube spokesperson Alex Joseph.

While Villa and others on the right have been vocal about their complaints, activists on the opposite side of the political spectrum say their online speech frequently ends up being quashed for reasons that have gotten far less attention.

Carolyn Wysinger, an activist who provided Facebook feedback and guidance about minority users' experience on the platform, told CBSN Originals that implicit bias is a problem that permeates content moderation decisions at most social media platforms.

"In the community standards, white men are a protected class, the same as a black trans woman is. The community standards does not take into account the homophobia, and the violence, and how all those things intersect. It takes all of them as individual things that need to be protected," said Wysinger.

The artificial intelligence tools that automate the process of moderating and enforcing community standards on the sites don't recognize the intent or background of those doing the posting.

For instance, Wysinger said, "I have been flagged for using imagery of lynching. ... I have been flagged for violent content when showing images about racism and about transphobia."

According to the platforms' recent transparency reports, from April to June 2020, nearly 95% of comments flagged as hate speech on Facebook were detected by AI; and on YouTube 99.2% of comments removed for violating Community Standards were flagged by AI.

"That means you're putting these community standards in place and you have these bots who are just looking for certain specific things. It's automated. It doesn't have the ability for nuanced decision-making in regards to this," said Wysinger.

Biases can be built into the algorithms by the programmers who designed them, even if it's unintentional.

"Unfortunately tech is made up of a homogenous group, mostly White and Asian males, and so what happens is the opinions, the experiences that go into this decision-making are reflective of a majority group. And so people from different backgrounds Black, Latino, different religions, conservative, liberal don't have the accurate representation that they would if these companies were more diverse," said Mark Luckie, a digital strategist who previously worked at Twitter, Reddit and Facebook.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he believes the platform "should enable as much expression as possible," and that social media companies "shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online."

Nonetheless, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults believe social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints. In the last two years, two congressional hearings have focused on the question of tech censorship.

"We hear that there is an anti-conservative bias on the part of Facebook or other platforms because conservatives keep saying that," said Susan Benesch, executive director of the Dangerous Speech Project, an organization based in Washington D.C. that has advised Facebook, Twitter, Google and other internet companies on how to diminish harmful content online while protecting freedom of speech.

But she adds, "I would be surprised if that were the case in part because on most days the most popular, most visited groups on Facebook and pages on Facebook are very conservative ones."

She said she also finds it interesting that "many conservatives or ultra-conservatives complain that the platforms have a bias against them at the same time as Black Lives Matter activists feel that the platforms are disproportionately taking down their content."

A 2019review of over 400 political pages on Facebook, conducted by the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters, found conservative pages performed about equally as well as liberal ones.

But reliable data on the subject is scarce, and social media platforms are largely secretive about how they make decisions on content moderation.

Amid ongoing criticism, Facebook commissioned an independent review, headed by former Republican Senator Jon Kyl, to investigate accusations of anti-conservative bias. Kyl's 2019report detailed recommendations to improve transparency, and Facebook agreed to create an oversight board for content removal decisions. Facebook said it "would continue to examine, and where necessary adjust, our own policies and practices in the future."

According to Fernandez, the focus should be on requiring tech companies to publicly reveal their moderation rules and tactics.

Benesch points out, "We have virtually zero oversight regarding take-down, so in truth content moderation is more complicated than just take it down or leave it up," referring to the fact that, to date, there has been little publicly available data provided by tech companies to allow an evaluation of the process.

"Protecting free expression while keeping people safe is a challenge that requires constant refinement and improvement. We work with external experts and affected communities around the world to develop our policies and have a global team dedicated to enforcing them," Facebook said in a statement.

And a statement from Twitter said, "Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules. In fact, from a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized to keep all voices on the service."

Meanwhile users like Wysinger struggle with mixed feelings about social media sites that promise connection but sometimes leave them out in the cold.

"Whether we like it or not, we are all on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter all day long, and when they take us off the banned list, I don't know anyone who doesn't post a status on Facebook right away, after the ban is lifted: 'I'm back y'all!'," said Wysinger.

"It's like an abusive relationship, you can't even leave the abusive relationship because you become so used to and dependent on it."

Link:
Censorship on social media? It's not what you think - CBS News

Austin, TX, 20 hours ago With the support of Governor Greg Abbott, some lawmakers in the Texas legislature want to challenge the ability of big tech companies to censor individuals for posts expressing their beliefs or opinions.

Senate Bill (SB) 12, filed by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), aims to open the door for censored or deplatformed users to sue social media platforms to be allowed to express their viewpoints.

Hughes says that the legislation threads a needle to work around Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act of 1996, which shields online platforms from liability for censoring user content, especially of an obscene nature.

These sites need to moderate content like violent or overtly sexual posts. However, they cannot deny you participation based on your viewpoint, including your political preferences or religion, said Hughes in the bills analysis.

Instead of broadly banning all censorship, SB 12 specifically prohibits the censorship of a user, a users expression, or a users ability to receive the expression of another person based on [. . .] the viewpoint of the user or another person.

The prohibition also applies to censorship based on the viewpoint of a post or on a users geographic location in any part of Texas.

Though a user can sue to be allowed back on the platform and cover the cost of attorneys fees, the bill stops short of allowing courts to fine companies for the censorship because of the liability shield in Section 230.

The bill was heard in the Senate State Affairs Committee, chaired by Hughes, on Monday.

At that time, a committee substitute was accepted that defines social media platform, and creates a new section that would require platforms to have a clearly established process of investigating complaints of censorship violations within 24 hours of a users complaint.

Remarkably, these tech giants will reflexively bend the knee to woke-ism and even the Chinese Communist Party, yet they cannot muster the courage to tolerate online speech that questions their narrow and misguided world view, said Hughes in a press release. Big Tech is about to learn that Texans are a free and independent people, and we are not accustomed to yielding to bullies.

Texas is not the first state with lawmakers aiming to push back against social media companies for censorship that culminated in January with the mass deplatforming of then-President Donald Trump near the end of his term.

At the beginning of February, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis alongside his states top lawmakers announced support for similar legislation that aims to stop censorship.

At a press conference in Tyler last week, Abbott touted the legislation.

With SB 12, Senator Hughes is taking a stand against Big Techs political censorship and protecting Texans right to freedom of expression. I look forward to working with Senator Hughes to sign this bill into law and protect free speech in Texas, said the governor.

Both Abbott and Hughes have likened social media platforms to a modern public square, different from other private businesses.

But opponents of the legislation contend that it is precisely because social media platforms are private businesses that Hughes legislation is doomed to failure in the courts.

Steve DelBianco, the president and CEO of tech lobbying firm NetChoice, appeared at the hearing on Monday to testify against the legislation.

NetChoice members include a wide range of big-name tech companies, such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and TikTok.

DelBianco disputed the town square argument and contended that tech companies greater defense against increased regulatory checks on censorship was not with Section 230, but with the First Amendment.

He pointed to a recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in a lawsuit from the conservative non-profit media organization Prager University against YouTube, which concluded that despite YouTubes ubiquity and its role as a public facing platform, it remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First Amendment.

[W]hile almost all speech is protected from governmental censorship, private digital spaces that host public speech present a novel challenge, said Hughes in the bills analysis. Although these sites are privately owned, the nearly universal adoption of a few sites has created a need for protection from speech selection by social media companies.

In addition to Hughes, the bill has seven other joint authors: Sens. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels), Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham), Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound), Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown), and Drew Springer (R-Muenster).

A companion bill has not yet been filed in the Texas House of Representatives.

See the original post here:
Texas Governor, Lawmakers Push for Big Tech Censorship Regulations - The Texan