Category Archives: Transhuman News

New York Times

In Trump Era, Censorship May Start in the Newsroom New York Times Rick Casey, the host of a weekly public affairs program on a small television station in Texas, recently fashioned a stinging commentary on remarks by Representative Lamar Smith that was pulled shortly before it was to air. The station later reversed ...

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In Trump Era, Censorship May Start in the Newsroom - New York Times

Last month, a fire tore through an iconic Tehran high-rise building, killing more than 20 firefighters and injuring another 70 people as it collapsed.

The fire made international headlines, but it was a particularly important story for BBC Persian, the British broadcasters Persian-language service that targets Farsi speakers in Iran and neighboring countries.

Covering the story, however, presented a challenge: The Iranian government doesnt permit BBC Persian reporters in the country, and official news agencies are often not reliable.

So BBC Persian turned to a different source: Telegram, the most popular messaging app in Iran. (Its estimated that more than a quarter of all Iranians are on Telegram.) BBC Persian has more than 713,000 followers on its channel, but it also has a profile where users can get in touch with BBC Persian. After news of the fire broke, it asked its followers to share photos and videos of the fire.

Thats the main source of newsgathering at the moment for us, BBC Persian multimedia editor Leyla Khodabakhshi told me from London. The only way we could basically understand what is going on inside the country and get access to pictures was to put a call to action on different platforms and then receiving the UGC via our Telegram, she said, adding that lots of news agencies inside Iran have close ties to different political groups in the country, so you cant rely on what youre getting from the news agencies that are operating inside the country. We have to always crosscheck what we are receiving. Thats by putting different agencies together, but also to compare them to what were receiving from user-generated content as well.

The Iranian Internet is heavily censored. Facebook, Twitter, and most major social platforms are blocked. BBC Persians website is blocked (and its TV broadcasts are routinely censored as well). Even though Iranians regularly use VPNs to circumvent government censorship, BBC Persian has turned to platforms such as Telegram that are permissible in the country in order to conduct reporting and promote its coverage to a wide audience of Iranians.

This is a social circumvention strategy rather than a social media strategy, Khodabakhshi said.

BBC Persians other main platform in Iran is on Instagram, which is the rare social network that is permitted in the country.

BBC Persian has significant followings on Facebook and Twitter, but it recently surpassed 1 million followers on Instagram, where its audience tends to skew female, Khodabakhshi said.

Our strategy on Instagram is partly based on community building. Its where we try to engage women to debate news on our page, she said. Its not very straightforward, because its not a platform that is built for this type of debating or conversation, but it works for BBC Persian.

There are, of course, limitations built into Instagram, though (its difficult to share links, for instance), and thats why the Iranian government has decided at least for now not to block it, said Emad Khazraee, a professor at Kent State University who has studied social media and news consumption in Iran.

I believe the Iranian government consciously left Instagram open because the affordances of Instagram are very limited, Khazraee said. You had a hard time to use it for social activism. They then herd them to one platform by letting it be accessible while blocking the other ones. Within Facebook, you have features, like organizing groups and having private groups, that you can manage to organize protests.

BBC Persian puts most of its major stories on Instagram, Khodabakhshi said. And the account covers a wide range of stories from Playboys decision this week to bring back nude images to Austrias ban on full-face veils. It also uses Instagram to repurpose and promote BBC Persian television programs.

But because of the restrictions of the Telegram and Instagram platforms along with Iranian censorship driving users back to the BBCs own platform isnt necessarily a priority. Instead, Khodabakhshi said BBC Persians goal was to make as much information readily available as possible.

After President Donald Trump last month issued his executive order banning citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries including Iran BBC Persian went to work explaining the ban and its implications on each of its main platforms.

We had to put the news in bullet points and push them on Telegram so people knew what is the latest and how Iranians are affected by this executive order, Khodabakhshi said. BBC Persian also visualized it and post it on Instagram without necessarily thinking that we need to have a referral back to our website, even though we have a detailed explainer on our website. Thats how it works in BBC Persian. We have to serve the audience.

Messaging apps are popular among Iranians because they offer more privacy than more traditional social networks, Khazraee said. (But Telegram and other apps are still vulnerable.)

The beauty of messaging apps is that there is no API that you can go get user information from the system, he said. The max you might be able to do is to crawl all messages that are sent through a channel that is public, but you cant get much information about who is using these channels. This is hard for us as researchers because its extremely hard to study this environment, but its extremely effective in terms of preserving users privacy.

BBC Persian approaches Telegram slightly differently than Instagram and other social platforms. Though it shares video and other features on Telegram, the apps chat interface helps BBC Persian view Telegram primarily as a breaking news tool, Khodabakhshi said. It sends about 20 messages per day.

When stories break, itll post news on Telegram and then also solicit comments and user-generated content as well, taking advantage of the less-public nature of the apps.

We have received hundreds of messages on Telegram about people who have been trapped somewhere, Iranians who have been traveling, those who were really concerned about the impact of the executive order on their lives. It has helped us give a more human personal flavor to our coverage. Not only for BBC Persian, but for the wider BBC as well.

Ultimately, Khodabakhshi said BBC Persian is committed to publishing online to reach audiences in Iran, and it will continue to adapt as platforms and access changes in the country.

We have always had to have contingency plans, Plan Bs, she said. If they shut down this platform, if they filter this platform if they block Telegram, for example, all together, what would be our Plan B? Were basically all the time on our toes.

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How BBC Persian is using Instagram and Telegram to get around Iranian censorship - Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard

We have patiently explained why the current academic freedom bill in South Dakota, SB 55, cannot possibly be construed in any reasonable manner as seeking to inject teaching intelligent design into public schools. As noted yesterday, that didn't stop a prominent lobbying group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, from working the phrase, "intelligent design," six times into a statement directed against the bill.

One of those instances was in a photo caption of an instructor in front of his class, "Teachers should not be given leeway to introduce intelligent design in science classes."

But with evolution proponents, such distortions are absolutely routine. It's bizarre. It's farcical. But this tops it. In a surreal move, a group called the National Coalition Against Censorship has plunged into the South Dakota situation to demand continued restraints on teachers and their academic freedom -- in other words, censorship.

They complain that SB 55 would "remov[e] accountability in science education." "Accountability" there would seem to mean instructors being vulnerable to career retaliation for teaching critical thinking skills to science students. These "anti-censorship" proponents advocate retaining the option of punishing biology teachers for going off message on Darwinism.

They go on: "Essentially, [the bill] removes the restraints on teachers that prevents them from straying from professionally-developed science standards adopted by state educators." The National Coalition Against Censorship favors keeping "restraints" on teachers firmly in place.

The bill, they say, "may encourage teachers who object to the scientific consensus on evolution and climate change to bring their opinions into the classroom," instead of sticking slavishly to a uniform Darwin-only script. The teachers should stick to their script.

Then there's this. Look again at the language of the bill. It's very brief:

No teacher may be prohibited from helping students understand, analyze, critique, or review in an objective scientific manner the strengths and weaknesses of scientific information presented in courses being taught which are aligned with the content standards established pursuant to 13-3-48.

That is another way of saying no teacher may be censored for challenging students with balanced information from objective science sources. Notice that the language concludes by saying that the "strengths and weaknesses" approach may be extended only to "scientific information presented in courses being taught which are aligned with the content standards" already established.

Because intelligent design isn't part of those content standards, the law extends no protection for teaching about ID. Because the content standards are already defined, instruction that's not "aligned" with them, in other words that "stray[s] from professionally-developed science standards adopted by state educators," would also not be protected.

But interestingly, if you read the statement from the "anti-censorship" group, their quotation from the bill cuts off before getting to the part about how instruction must be "aligned with the content standards." The whole proposed law is just a sentence long, but they truncate it a little more than half way through, perhaps to keep the reader from realizing that their dire prediction of teachers "straying" is undercut by the clear language of SB 55 itself. The anti-censorship activists are engaging in censorship right there in the middle of their own statement.

They conclude by comparing exploring mainstream debate about evolutionary theory with, yes, denying the Holocaust. And that is where they transition from absurdity to obscenity.

Good gravy. These complaints, whether from Americans United or from the horrifically misnamed National Coalition Against Censorship, are totally detached from a straightforward reading of the law they wish to attack. They are mere scaremongering, and frankly, contemptible.

In this, though, they're not much worse than supposedly objective news outlets like the Washington Post or ProPublica. When it comes to defending evolutionary orthodoxy, journalism and propaganda merge seamlessly.

Image: South Dakota State Capitol, dustin77a -- stock.adobe.com.

I'm on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.

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South Dakota Science Education Controversy Gets Surreal as Anti-Censorship Group Demands Censorship - Discovery Institute

The ACLU of Maryland contends Gov. Larry Hogan's deletion of Facebook comments is tantamount to censorship.

The civil rights organization sent the Republican governor a letter Friday outlining its legal argument that Hogan violated the First Amendment rights of his constituents when he deleted their comments from his official Facebook page and banned some people from posting.

The letter said Hogan's actions also violate the state's social media policy, and it asked the governor to reinstate seven ACLU clients who have been banned.

"If he does not, we'll take him to court," said Deborah Jeon, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Hogan's staff said in a statement they reinstated six out of the seven people, but could not find a Facebook profile for the seventh.

"We appreciate them identifying a handful of individuals out of the over 1 million weekly viewers of the page that may have been inadvertently denied access," Hogan spokeswoman Amelia Chasse said in a statement. "We have already reinstated these individuals, however we will be monitoring them closely for any profane, violent, racist, or inappropriate posts including political spamming attacks."

Chasse also said "the ACLU should be focusing on much more important activities than monitoring the governor's Facebook page."

Since he took office two years ago, Hogan has banned 450 people from leaving comments on his social media page, aides estimated. Scores were recently banned after Hogan's page was bombarded with requests to take a position on Republican President Donald J. Trump's controversial travel ban that barred immigrants from seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the United States.

Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer has said that the press staff considers such efforts "spam" and that they have a responsibility to curate the conversation online.

"We've had to remove and prevent coordinated political spam attacks from infiltrating and hijacking the page," Mayer said when the controversy surfaced two weeks ago. "We have an obligation to the 146,000 people who likes the governor's page to keep the conversation fresh, appropriate, and on topic."

Hogan has not taken a position on the travel ban, and bristled at requests for him to make comments about the Trump administration. The governor did not support Trump as a candidate.

In their letter, the ACLU contend Hogan appeared to have blocked their clients "seemingly because you did not wish to address their questions on various issues or respond to their concerns about your silence in the face of violations of civil rights and liberties by President Donald Trump and his administration."

Several other local politicians also ban posters on their Facebook page, according to The Washington Post, but do not exclude as many as the Hogan administration.

The Maryland Democratic Party and the government accountability group Common Cause have also criticized the governor for silencing constituents on Facebook.

ecox@baltsun.com

twitter.com/ErinatTheSun

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ACLU calls Hogan Facebook policy 'censorship' - Baltimore Sun

Iqra Khalid is a Pakistan-born Muslim MP for the Liberals, and former campus activist.

Khalid also introduced M-103, the motion condemning Islamophobia, and calling on the government to prepare a report to eliminate it, using the full power of the state, which means everything from the CBC, to the RCMP, to the Canada Revenue Agency, to our foreign policy.

But theres something else.

Last September, Trudeau announced that the government of Canada had officially teamed up with George Soros, not only to bring Muslim migrants to the west, but to propagandize, to mobilize citizens in support of them.

And just before Christmas, the government of Canada had a big conference to start implementing this agreement:

"They also committed to working together to make sure that the global narrative on refugees is a positive one.

So its not just about actually helping refugees.

Its about making sure people only say positive things about them.

I wonder if Trudeau has ever flown on Soross private planes, or vacationed at his private getaways. I wonder if Soros has funded any of Trudeaus NGOs, like Canada 2020.

But really, we dont have to wonder, because the government of Canada put out that press release about it.

No need for a conspiracy theory, my friends.

Its a conspiracy fact.

Tonight, Faith Goldy brings us the latest developments on the M-103 story, and Brad Trost and I discuss the possible privatization of the CBC.

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Meet the foreign billionaire pushing for Canadian censorship of Islamophobia - The Rebel

A Cambridge University academic has accused the institutions alumni magazine of censorship, after a contribution she was asked to make on the future of India was edited to remove a reference to Kashmir.

Priyamvada Gopal, a Reader on Anglophone and Post-Colonial Literature at the university, was asked to contribute her thoughts, along with other academics and alumni, on my wish for the next 50 years of independence, for publication in an upcoming edition of the alumni magazine, CAM.

Her answer included a reference to her wish to see the democratic aspirations of the people of Kashmir honoured as well as for India to not deploy economic systems, political institutions, and repressive tactics inherited from the British empire. However, in an edited version subsequently sent to Ms. Gopal for her approval, the two phrases were removed, alongside other edits to the piece. After she expressed concern with the editing and omission, her passage was no longer included in the magazine set for publication. The university says it was because she withdrew the piece, though she says she made it clear that she would have allowed publication of her comments without those two parts of her passage removed.

The University of Cambridge, which considers itself the bastion of academic freedom, will not, in its own media, allow the word Kashmir to be mentioned even in the most anodyne of way, for fear of upsetting the Indian State and rich Indian donors, she concluded in her blog published earlier this week.

I am appalled particularly because it was the same office the communications and external affairs division of the university which has routinely asked me to speak about freedom of speech and academic freedom, she told The Hindu on Friday.

There is a very large silencing on the issue of Kashmir that is taking place and the university has chosen to participate in the smallest of ways, she added. The university will bend over backwards to placate the current regime in India and rich Indians. They have been targeting funding and donations from India and they are reluctant to even potentially upset anyone with money and power in the Indian context.

A spokesperson, however, said the University of Cambridge rejects the claim that it engages in censorship.

Dr. Gopal was invited to submit an opinion piece for our alumni magazine, which was then subjected to our normal editorial process. When edits were suggested as a part of that process, and long before any final agreement had been reached on the final text for the magazine, Dr. Gopal chose to withdraw her contribution. The editors of the magazine accepted her withdrawal with regret, but respect her decision. The University of Cambridge is fully committed to the principle and promotion of academic freedom, and we respect the right of all our members to express their views.

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Censorship row hits Cambridge - The Hindu