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China's internet regulator has released a new set of draft rules that, if implemented, would impose stricter censorship of comments posted to social media platforms, MIT Technology Review reports.

Why it matters: Tighter restrictions could close off what few spaces remain for Chinese people to speak their minds online.

The big picture: The Chinese government has already created one of the toughest internet censorship regimes in the world, enforced in large part by content reviewers employed by social media companies to police posts.

Details: The Cyberspace Administration of China on Friday released draft guidelines that would require closer scrutiny of comments largely ignored by censors, such as replies to comments and messages featured on the screen during livestreaming.

What to watch: If the draft rule "about mandating pre-publish reviews is to be strictly enforced which would require reading billions of public messages posted by Chinese users every day it will force the platforms to dramatically increase the number of people they employ to carry out censorship," writes MIT Technology Review's Zeyi Yang.

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New draft rules portend more internet censorship in China - Axios

The increasing attacks on the freedom of speech and conscience of Christians in the West have been the subject of many discussions, columns and initiatives in recent years. But much less is being said about the attitude of Christians themselves, especially in the upper echelons of Western societies, towards these existential challenges to Christianity.

Are they fueling in any way by their silences or omissions the trend that has been going on for several decades, and which has progressively eliminated Christian influence from the spheres of decision?

The issue of self-censorship in the Christian world is the subject of a recent report produced by The International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF), the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Latin America (OLIRE) and the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe).

Presented during an online June 9 press conference, the report is entitled Perceptions on Self-Censorship: Confirming and Understanding the Chilling Effect. It is based in a field of study encompassing France, Germany, Colombia and Mexico considered textbook cases for understanding the dynamics of this phenomenon, stemming directly from secular intolerance. The interviewees, chosen among the authoring institutions networks, were of different ages, genders and educational backgrounds as well as geographic locations, and come mostly from the education, media, political and religious fields.

Along with establishing that self-censorship in the Christian world is not a mere hypothesis but an overwhelming reality, the report also warns that the significant number of successful court cases involving freedom of speech for Christians does not coincide with an appeasement of secular intolerance, nor with a liberation of the speech for Christians.

According to Madeleine Enzlberger, executive director of OIDAC Europe, while the law still defends freedom of speech overall in many Western jurisdictions, the social pressure tends to be much more deterring and oppressive than the legal framework.

Because of the social climate of intolerance around Christians, they dont feel allowed to speak freely. It is the basis of the chilling effect, she told the Register following the reports presentation, adding that the choice for a growing number of Christians to keep quiet on certain issues in public tends to make religion, and thus the Christian anthropology and values, more and more relegated to the private sphere.

The forms that self-censorship takes are multiple and often subtle, the report indicates. Most of the time, this mechanism is almost unconscious. Friederike Bllmann, author of the Germany study, noted in an interview with the Register that none of the interviewees would mention self-censorship to describe their deliberate omissions, and that they would rather describe their attitude as being professional, tactical, politically correct or simply cautious.

Many people, especially those employed by Christian churches, said they would make a distinction between the form and the content of their public statements, claiming for instance that while their stance on sexual and bioethics issues or on COVID measures hasnt changed, their wording has changed in order to be more inclusive and welcoming to a greater amount of people, but without losing their core beliefs, Bllmann said.

Another tendency emerging from the study, especially for Germany, is that of prioritizing the battles. In other words, a person who challenges the established order of secular intolerance on one issue will be unlikely to show the same determination on other important issues. And the chilling effect mentioned in the report is, according to its authors, necessarily amplified by the so-called cancel culture that has been spreading all across the West in the academic, artistic, political and media worlds.

With the shift of the right for people not to be offended, the risk for people in the media and politics to speak up is just too high, Bllmann continued.

While noting that unlike France, there is no laicit (a formal policy of separation of religious influence from government policy) in Germany, Bllmann said that being a very practicing and believing Christian is no longer accepted within society.

People are not discriminated [against] for belonging to a Church, it is seen as a simple cultural element but as soon as it is about real faith, if you argue as a believing person, it is identified as right-wing extremism, she said.

In France, which embodies the most pronounced form of post-modern secularism, a generational gap seems to have developed and continues to grow. According to the various interviewees, in the face of a Catholic Church hierarchy and an older generation particularly prone to self-censorship in order not to displease the dominant anticlerical mentality, a new generation of unabashed and more daring faithful is emerging in concert with a renewal of conservative thought in the country.

In Mexico and Argentina, one of the most noticeable aspects of the research is that practicing Catholics are more prone to self-censor than Christians from other denominations, especially Evangelical Christians, who tend to have a better biblical training. In general, a high level of religious education appears to play an important role in the ability to resist the chilling effect in these Latin American countries. Those with a solid grounding tend to speak more openly about topics related to life, marriage and family from a Christian perspective.

Education on the one hand, and awareness of self-censorship on the other, are the two main keys to overcoming the chilling effect of secular intolerance, according to the conclusions of the reports authors. In fact, for almost all respondents in all countries, the mere realization via their own answers to the researchers questions that self-censorship is occurring among Christians, especially in countries with advanced secularization, was enough to trigger in them the desire to reflect on its true impact on their lives and on the ways to combat it.

Dennis Petri, one of the leading authors of the report, said during the June 9 press conference that a Mexican bishop reached out to the team after answering their questionnaire, to thank them for prompting the interviewees to reflect about this serious issue. This in turn led the researchers to the conclusion that among the many things that can be done to address this, raising awareness among Church communities would be the most pressing and efficient step to take.

Weve heard more and more cases of self-censorship over the past years, its getting too much to be unnoticed, so we needed to document this and show the bigger picture, Enzlberger told the Register, warning that the consequences of such progressive disappearance of Christian voices in the public discourse is having a very damaging impact on societies as a whole. Many seemingly minor self-censorship phenomena lead to the silence of many, and if such a situation consolidates, we can no longer say we are living in liberal democracies anymore.

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Self-Censorship in the Christian World: An Underestimated Consequence of Secular Intolerance - National Catholic Register

Ah, remember 2012? When many of us were convinced that the end was nigh? Well, okay, not that many of us, but enough for Roland Emmerich to make boatloads of cash off of it? North Korea sure does. "2012" was a massive hit at the box office, but it didn't make its way to North Korea not legally, anyway.

In further proof that North Korea seems to be living in its own alternate universe, the nation's government declared that 2012 would be a very prosperous year for the country. According to The Guardian, not only was 2012 the 100th birthday of the nation's founder, Kim Il-sung, but it was the first year in the reign of its new Supreme Commander, Kim Jong-un. As such, the government promised the advent of a more powerful military, an end to the country's hunger crisis, and the evolution of North Korea as an "economic giant." It wasn't about to let a silly global apocalypse jinx everything!

Now, technically, all foreign media is banned in North Korea. However, according to a study done by InterMedia in 2017, media piracy is rampant in the country, and Kim Jong-un's rise to power came with a crackdown on international productions.

"2012" arrived at just the wrong time, directly challenging the country's success by portraying the mythology around the year 2012 as real, and implying that the government was killing whistleblowers. Perhaps that last part hit a bit too close to home. As reported by Japanese newspaper Asahi (by way of The Telegraph), "numerous" citizens found watching bootleg copies of the film were arrested, and faced up to five years in prison.

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Why These Sci-Fi Movies Are Banned Around The World - /Film

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When putting together the book censorship news this week, it felt like each story was trying to one up the next, ranging from the ridiculous to the truly chilling. Were seeing an increase in lawsuits and legal involvement, from residents suing officials for banning books, to parents suing teachers for reading LGBTQ books in class, to the ACLU planning legal action against a schools new book challenge policy.

This is why Kelly Jensen and I keep emphasizing that simply reading banned books or buying them isnt enough: this is a systemic issue, and it needs a systemic solution. We need to organize in order to fight back against this wave of censorship, and that includes paying attention to who is getting elected to school and library boards if you have the opportunity, running for these positions is one of the most effective ways that you as an individual can fight censorship.

In May, we announced the School Board Project, which is a database in progress that documents every school board and school board election in the country, state by state. Its a massive project, but weve been chipping away it, prioritizing the states that have school board elections coming up. Eventually, we hope to do the same thing for library boards.

As Kelly explained, this is meant to be a resource that you can build on for your own local activism:

The School Board Project allows anyone to download the spreadsheets and add any relevant information that helps them. For example: individuals or groups may find including the names and stances of those running for boards in the sheet to help guide voters and/or as a means of tracking the kind of topics that are producing the most discussion in those districts. It can be useful for those considering a run for school board to collect information about what they need to do to become eligible or how long they have to prepare for a run. The possibilities here are wide open.

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Today, Im happy to announce round two of the School Board Project. In addition to the states already included in round one Florida, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia we have also documented the upcoming school board elections, and how many seats are available, in Kentucky, Nebraska, and Wyoming.

Just open the document and save a copy, and then you can add any extra information or delete states that arent relevant to you.

Wed also like to get in contact with grassroots anti-censorship organizations that are helping people with these values run for school or library boards. If you know of any groups like this, especially on the state level or smaller, please let us know!

If you want to be involved in literary activism and the fight against censorship, one easy thing you can do is sign up for our Literary Activism newsletter. Well keep you updated about the latest relevant news as well as give you practical tips for how you can help in the first against censorship. Its also the best way to make sure you see this Censorship News Roundup every week!

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Once the Books Start Coming Off the Shelves, Well See You In Court.: Book Censorship N... - Book Riot

Parenting is hard. There is no other way to describe it. And parenting at a time of social and political turmoil is especially challenging. Old social norms are losing their authority. Social media intrude on the family, often supplanting parental authority. Predators are a concern. Video games are a concern. The music is a concern. The list goes on and on.

As parents, our first instinct is to do everything we can to shield our children from the world around us. And that is a good instinct. But at the same time, it comes with a cost. If we shield them too successfully, do we keep them from preparing to take on the world when they become adults? What are parents to do?

I have thoughts about these things, as you do. I have made my share of mistakes as a parent, and Im sure you would admit you have as well. And there is probably no one answer for every family. Having said this, I would suggest that most parents are trying too hard to protect their children from the world today. I certainly sympathize with this. When I look around, a lot of what I see scares me. But fear shouldnt be our motivation as parents.

We need to find a way to strike a balance between too much fear and too little fear. We must look for ways to keep the pendulum from swinging too far in either direction. Aristotle taught that virtue is a mean between an excess and a defect between too much or too little of something. And courage is a mean between too much fear and too little fear.

Let me ask a question: What do we see as our primary goal as parents? Obviously, we want to provide all the love and support we can for our children. But I suspect that many of us would say that our primary goal is to prepare our children for the future so that they can live successful, independent lives on their own. If that is our goal, then the most important thing is to teach them how to think for themselves. And that means that sheltering them too much is a mistake. They are going to need to know how to respond for themselves to all of the things that we hope wont hurt them.

In other words, our children need to learn how to think critically. That involves weighing and balancing competing arguments. It means developing an ability to confront the harshness and the evil of the world around them. It means our children need to learn their limits. And it means that we need to know our limits as well. We cant do this for them.

Of course, all of this needs to be done in an age-appropriate manner. No sensible person would want a kindergartner to be reading about abortion. But we should even look for age-appropriate ways to challenge kindergartners to think for themselves. If we set the bar too low for them at that age, they may never develop true independence. And by the time our children make it to high school, we shouldnt be trying to shelter them. Its time for them to deal with everything the world brings their way.

Censorship in schools is therefore the worst possible thing for our children. We do them a disservice if we try to keep them from feeling uncomfortable when their beliefs are challenged, even if those are our beliefs as well. And if we keep them from learning about the darkest moments in our nations history, they will not be able to understand todays world. They need to read novels that reveal the beauty in the world around us and the ugliness of which human beings are capable. They must confront racism, sexism, antisemitism and other forms of hatred and prejudice. They need to ask questions about gender.

So the nationwide push by parents and politicians for new forms of censorship in schools harms our children. We are not showing them the respect they deserve if we focus on trying to indoctrinate them rather than inviting them to think for themselves. Laws that prohibit specific topics, books and even discussions from the classroom limit the ability of our children to think. If we want to bless our children by giving them the strength and wisdom they need to be independent, then we have to restrain our desire to always be protecting them.

Solomon D. Stevens is the author of Religion, Politics, and the Law (co-authored with Peter Schotten) and Challenges to Peace in the Middle East. He wrote this for InsideSources.com

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National View: Parenting and censorship in the schools - Duluth News Tribune

As a boy in Sydney, I remembered Anzac reunions (as) emotional, excited days when old soldiers gathered together and drank far into the night. They lived in the past for one drunken day when they got together, the past was all they had in common.

Yeldham had originally pitched his play to the ABC, but it had been rejected.

So he revived it when the BBC came calling. Sadly, the BBCs recording has been erased.

It featured a wealth of Australian and New Zealand expatriate acting talent - including Ray Barrett, Ron Haddrick and Nyree Dawn Porter.

Betty Best, of the Australian Womens Weekly, described how one of the BBCs studios in fog-blanketed Manchester had been converted into a private bar in a Sydney hotel, a North Shore home with a sun patio, a fibro bungalow and a bachelor flat.

Reunion Day, 1962 BBC production, starring Ron Haddrick and Nyree Dawn Porter.

The BBCs recording was due to be shown in Australia on the eve of Anzac Day 1962 in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Then calamity struck. Australian censors, under the government of Australias longest-serving prime minister, Robert Menzies, insisted on drastic cuts to both the characters and the language.

Chief censor CJ Campbell ruled the language used may be all right for a soldiers reunion but it is all wrong for a suburban sitting room.

Frank Packer (father of Kerry, grandfather of James) agreed, according to Yeldhams autobiography: He refused to show it on his network because he decided it offended the RSL.

The original BBC cast of Reunion Day in 1962, including Nyree Dawn Porter, Ray Barrett and Ron Haddrick plus author Peter Yeldham.

An unnamed Packer executive told the TV Times: Reunion Day depicts Anzac Day as just another excuse for a debauch. The action takes place almost entirely in a pub. The language goes from bad to worse.

Every two or three minutes someone says, lets have a drink. The whole thing (is) blasphemous, obscene and thoroughly nasty.

If we had shown it we would have had the RSL marching on us, not without justice.

Haddrick, who had performed for five seasons at Britains Royal Shakespeare Theatre alongside the likes of Laurence Olivier before returning to Australia, was shocked and upset when Reunion Day was banned: There are only three bloodys in it!

Reunion Day might have remained forgotten, but in 2008, literary critic and former academic Susan Lever published a paper honouring the forgotten play as an important part of our cultural history.

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She will host a discussion about the plays relevance after the read-through. Writer and historian Stephen Vagg, prime mover behind this reading, saw Levers article and says: The ban was absurd, even at the time. Australian officials were simply oversensitive at the plays honest depiction of the issues faced by returned servicemen.

The read-through features Brandon Burke and Ruth Caro among a host of well-known faces and is directed by Denny Lawrence who says the issues faced by returned servicemen from Iraq and Afghanistan are not far removed from those of the returned servicemen in Reunion Day.

Reunion Day: A Reading. AFTRS, Entertainment Quarter, Sydney, June 26, 2pm, reunionday.eventbrite.com.au

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The revival of the Anzac play the censors wouldnt let us see 60 years ago - Sydney Morning Herald

After a video of four women being brutally attacked in a restaurant in Tangshan, China last week went viral and sparked public outrage online, the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) Cyberspace Administration issued a new regulations to increase control of comments about videos on social media threads. This measure has attracted wide criticism.

The security footage shows that on June 10, when a woman, who was dining with three female friends in a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan, rejected a male customers advances, he and several companions started beating the women first inside and then outside the restaurant. The incident resulted in all of the women being seriously injured and taken to the hospital, and triggered public outcry both within China and internationally.

Under public pressure, the regime arrested nine men involved in the attack, and the authorities announced that two of the women were in ICU while the other two, who suffered lesser injuries, had been discharged from hospital.

However, due to the level of brutality and violence that the women suffered in the graphic video and many questions about the incident remaining unanswered, the public has continued to use social media to express doubts about the official statements.

The Tangshan incident has remained one of the most talked about topics on Chinese platform Weibo, with netizens posting hundreds of thousands of comments asking for confirmation of the whereabouts of the four women, the extent of their injuries, and whether they are still alive. Many posts and comments also revealed and talked about the connection between the attacking gang and the local officials who appeared to cover up for them.

In order to quell the public outrage, Tangshan authorities launched an anti-gang campaign on June 12. However, since then at least three public security chiefs have been reported for collusion with the local gangs by citizens who used their real names.

Besides deleting a large number of posts about the incident every day, on June 17, the Cyberspace Administration of the regime issued the Management of Internet Thread Commenting Services (Revised Draft), which requires online commenting and posting service providers to authenticate the identity of registered users, and not allow users who have not authenticated their identities to comment under a post. It will also establish a user classification management system, and conduct credit assessment on users online comments. Those who are classified as seriously dishonest will be blacklisted and prohibited from re-registering accounts to post comments.

The regulation also requires service providers to set up real-time inspections, and implement inspection before posting to control the content of online comments and posts.

News of this change has drawn wide criticism. One netizen posted: Im against the inspection before posting, [because] the impact of online discussions will be greatly reduced.

Another post read, They are using the real-name requirement to control netizens across the country. Nobody will dare to mention things like the Tangshan incident in the future!

A netizen said in a post, Not only are the media the Partys mouthpiece, in the future, the internet and social media will become its mouthpiece as well!

Another one said, In the future, Chinas online environment will be the same as that of North Korea!

Regarding the regimes new control measure, current affairs commentator Wang He told The Epoch Times, In Chinas cyberspace where theres limited freedom, ordinary people could still occasionally put public pressure on the authorities regarding some major social incidents, such as the chained woman incident and the Tangshan attack. Now the regime wants to eliminate this last limited space as well.

Wang pointed out that under the CCPs control using violence and lies, ordinary people have no place to voice their grievances. The CCP ignores the truth, instead, it goes all out to suppress the people and to silence them. The final result of this can only be for the common people to stand up and collapse the CCPs rule, he said.

Li Yun contributed to the report.

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Alex Wu is a U.S.-based writer for The Epoch Times focusing on Chinese society, Chinese culture, human rights, and international relations.

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CCP Issues New Regulation to Censor Social Media Threads After Video of Attack on 4 Women Drew Outrage - The Epoch Times