Archive for the ‘Censorship’ Category

The anatomy of an act of censorship: St. Louis arts center shuts down pro-Palestinian exhibition – WSWS

As part of a global process, the Craft Alliance, an arts center in St. Louis, Missouri, has censored two pro-Palestinian artists who dared to make a statement against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.

On June 24, officials of the Craft Alliance shut down an exhibition by local artists Dani Collette and Allora McCullough, accusing the pair of using antisemitic slogan[s] and imagery that called for violence and the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.

This smear is based on what?

Collette and McCullough were selected last year to be artists-in-residence at the Craft Alliance. The 11-month program involves choosing two artists to share a private studio, receive a stipend and tuition waivers for workshops, and compose a group exhibition thats presented for a month at the end of the program. (St. Louis Public Radio)

McCullough received her MFA in Ceramics from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 2015 and her BBA in Economics and Finance from McKendree University in 2010. Collette is a glass artist, who graduated with a BFA in Sculpture and Glass from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 2013.

Their exhibition at the Craft Alliance, with its pro-Palestinian themes, was entitledPlanting Seeds, Sprouting Hope.

The Craft Alliances censors removed two of Collettes pieces before the exhibitions opening June 21. The artists were not aware of the removal until they arrived at the event. One of the works taken out of the show, according to St. Louis Public Radio, was a bowl with a keffiyeh print, titled Symbol of Solidarity, and the other was several watermelon seed-shaped pieces with the phrase Land Back carved into them.

A few title cards for Collettes pieces were also removed, including for the artworks Indigenous to Palestine and From the River to the Sea. Not only was the exhibition entirely closed down several days later by the Craft Alliance, but McCullough was also fired from her job giving classes at the arts center. I think that the reaction of removing my livelihood and removing Danis work, specifically her Indigenous work, are violent actions, she told St. Louis Public Radio.

The show, fortunately, has been moved to the Fifteen Windows Gallery, which will hold an opening reception forPlanting Seeds, Sprouting Hope: Reduxon July 13. Numerous artists have been added to the exhibition.

The WSWS spoke to McCullough Wednesday afternoon, and she provided this account of the events. We consider it worthwhile to include the full details:

In July 2023, Dani Collette and I were selected to be artists-in-residence at the Craft Alliance. In August we met for the first time, at a Craft Alliance orientation. In September, we moved into our studios. Then, of course, in October the most recent escalation of the conflict in Gaza occurred. It was prominent in the news.

As artists sharing a studio space, we would talk every day about what was going on in the world. The events around Palestine just continued to get worse and worse. We both felt a growing sense of responsibility to do something, but we didnt know what it was. We continued to make our art works in line with what we had been doing as artists. Im an animal sculptor predominantly, and Dani makes kinetic glass works that play with light and refraction.

At the end of April, early May, we were experiencing two things. On the one hand, we were witnessing the student protests across campuses. Im a former educatorthe previous three years, I had been a full-time professor in the arts, and before that, for seven years I had taught in an adjunct capacity.

When I saw the student protests, I felt compelled to participate, but I didnt feel it was appropriate for me to join at a local campus in a community of which I wasnt a part.

I said to Dani, I really want to do something because I know if I were back at school, Id be with my students in those tents.

Simultaneously, our program director at the Craft Alliance had missed three or four meetings with us. It was not a good time, and the communication was not good. We were both frustrated.

It was the first week of May, these meetings had been missed, the protests were continuing, and I said to her, I really feel a moral obligation to do something, to help, and also to be on the right side of history. We are just two young artists in the Midwest of America, what can we do?

We realized we had an exhibition coming up. We had a chance to present our thoughts and feelings. We started to look for opportunities where we could contribute. We found an organization called Operation Olive Branch, a grassroots organization that has been working with people in Palestine to verify families requesting funds either to fulfill their evacuation needs, to pay for border crossing fees or to have funds to potentially rebuild their homes.

We were really excited about the idea of helping, but we wanted to make a larger impact. With Operation Olive Branch, they have this organization called the Perinatal Project. That was specifically for doctors, nurses, therapists, midwives, lactation consultants and people providing formula and diapers to pregnant and nursing mothers, and children under the age of two.

We thought, we want to say something about whats going on, nobody in their right mind could be against helping innocent mothers and children. We had a meeting in the middle of May with the Development & Communications Director at Craft Alliance, and she was very much on board. She and the Marketing & Communications Manager were both very excited about the opportunity to bring in healthcare workers to support the notion of helping mothers and children. They were helping us figure out how we could fund-raise through our exhibition, while still protecting the 501(c)3 non-profit status of the Craft Alliance.

They asked, Has your proposal for this exhibition been approved yet? We said, No, because our past three or four meetings have been cancelled by the program director. So they said, Were going to keep working on this, but we cant really move forward until its approved.

We had a meeting with the program director May 17 and told him of our intentions. He said, Wow, this is a big shift from the work you have been making, I want to see some examples. Dani showed him some plans for a large stained-glass window. I had already been making some watermelons, so I showed him physical examples of the work. We explained we wanted it to be a very peaceful environment, very supportive of protecting children, a beautiful garden space to nurture this discourse.

He said he would take it to the executive director and that we would hear back later that afternoon. We received a text messageat 1:40 p.m. that daythat it had been approved and that we could move forward with it, but that we could not use the Craft Alliance platform for the fund-raising component, we would strictly have to use our personal platforms. We agreed.

Full steam ahead from that time all the way through June 20. We were working until midnight every night, with some all-nighters. We had to produce all the art work, it was just the two of us filling the gallery space. Also, for weeks we were posting videos and clips of the process, and talking about the fund-raising aspect on both Instagram and Facebook. We were very public about it.

June 21, the day of opening, was when everything blew up. We worked all the way through the 19th and the 20th, and we turned in our titles, which later became controversial, on that Thursday [the 20th]. Craft Alliance officials received the titles, printed everything out, mounted them.

Like many artists, we often dont title our works until theyre finished. Its just part of the process. That Thursday night I texted the program director, Hey, these titles dont look right in the gallery space. There are too many of them, theyre too large, theyre distracting from the art work. Wed appreciate revisiting them. They replied curtly that they werent going to make any changes. I pointed out there were some typos. I showed up to the gallery space, and he said, OK, I should reorganize this so it looks better in the gallery space. They reprinted the titles and mounted them that same day. For them to say they didnt have all the information ahead of time is blatantly false.

This is the day of the opening. After the titles were sorted out, Dani and I left to have lunch, to relax a little bit before the opening. When we returned to the gallery at 5:00 p.m., we walked in and some of her artwork had been removed, and the program director was actively in the process of removing the title cards and replacing them with cards that simply had her name, the materials and the date.

Dani was obviously very shocked, and upset. They had our phone numbers, they could have called, or texted. They had all afternoon, no one said anything to us. We walked in to find this going on behind our backs, without any effort at communication.

The executive director, Bryan Knicely, accused Dani of knowingly making a violent statement with the phrase From the river to the sea. He said that it was absolutely unacceptable because this was not a political space. He said, Art is not political. Youre not allowed to be political here. He argued with Dani about the meaning of Land Back, because she is of Indigenous descent and she was making a connection between her familys experience of genocide as a Native American and the plight of the Palestinians. They pulled anything that had the words Indigenous and Land Back from the gallery.

On that Friday night, nothing was said to me about any of my work being problematic. So, after Danis talk with the executive director, that seemed to be the end of it.

The next day, we got an email from Knicely saying Id like to have a meeting with you Monday morning. I said, Id like to know what the meetings about. I thought I was available, but Dani was not. No response whatsoever. Dani also insisted that she be able to record any meeting and that she wanted a statement in writing as to what the meeting was about.

He wrote back that it was imperative we have a meeting and that he appreciated our making the time. Even though Dani had said she wasnt available and she could meet Wednesday.

The exhibition was open for a few hours Saturday morning, and then they closed it early, at 11:00 a.m., and they put a note on the door saying the gallery was closed due to short staffing.

We walked in on Sunday morning to do some work with a videographer. The woman who works on Sundays opened the gallery as usual. She later wrote us that she had gotten into trouble with the director. He arrived and shouted at her for opening up.

I had forgotten that I had agreed to house-sit on Monday, so I wasnt available for a meeting then either. I explained I was available on Wednesday as well.

Monday morning, without talking to us, the Craft Alliance released its statement accusing us of antisemitism and violence. We found out through the Internet that we were being terminated from our positions as resident artists. Then we received an email from the executive director about the public statements and their decisions. This was horrific and shocking to both of us. All we ever wanted to do was help a family in Gaza.

You see, the fundraiser for the Perinatal Project turned out to be entirely funded, so they suggested we choose a family from the Operation Olive Branch spreadsheet. We chose a family. By the time of the opening, we were very connected to this family, we had already spoken to them through Instagram. The mother needs a C-section, she has two children, theyre living in a tent in Gaza without running water. We want to raise the money and hope she can get to a hospital in Egypt as soon as possible.

After the Craft Alliances Monday press release, I had a phone conversation with the executive director and the chair of the board of directors. I was still trying to come to a peaceful agreement, a compromise, perhaps involving changing some labels, but keeping the work up. They doubled down and released another statement to the students and Craft Alliance community members that again accused us of antisemitism and violence.

We then realized there was no peaceful discourse possible. They were continuing to slander us and make claims that simply werent true. Thats when we started talking to the news media and looking for legal representation.

I never thought I would find myself in this situation.

What do I think actually happened? In all of the public statements of the executive director, he keeps referring to a volunteer who objected to the art work. Thats a little misleading. Because the volunteer is the chair of the board of directors, she is a volunteer board member. She is the one who registered the complaint about our work. In order to protect the Craft Alliances donors, they moved forward this way. It comes down to money and, yes, cowardice in the face of money.

We have heard from artists and many supporters. Lots of people have reached out to help us. We are installing our show at a different gallery in St. Louis. Weve expanded the exhibition, weve got some 15 to 20 artists who will be contributing work to help fund-raise as well, which is fantastic.

We spoke to several previous artists-in-residence who said all their exhibitions had been political. For the past seven years the shows have been on contemporary political issues, gun rights, trans rights, immigration, cultural identity, you name it. The notion that somehow ours was out of line is again just blatantly false.

Weve spoken to artists who have had shows shut down before they opened, on the Palestinian issue. Weve seen and heard a lot, so we know were not alone in this. We stand by our actions, and we stand by our commitment to create a peaceful space to have discourse around difficult issues and focus on how we could help, literally, save the lives of a family. Thats all we wanted to do.

The idea that we could be inciting violence is antithetical to our purpose. The accusation of antisemitism has been personally painful because my grandfather is Jewish, and my fianc is Jewish. The way that Craft Alliance officials are conflating being pro-Palestinian with being anti-Jewish, and conflating the Jewish people with the state of Israel is quite dangerous. Were facing a lot of that.

We felt blindsided because in the weeks leading up to the opening we had several meetings with the arts centers leadership teamthey approved it, they supported it, they wanted to host a night dedicated to healthcare workers to get more fund-raising support for us. To go from that to what they eventually did, kicking us out and making us leave immediately, was like whiplash. Also, they terminated my teaching position, so Im unemployed. In the upcoming fall semester, I was scheduled to be teaching four to five classes a week. They havent explained the termination, I havent received anything in writing, any explanation. They simply decided to kick me out.

The administration of Craft Alliance does not represent the community. I have had many faculty members, students and others express support. The faculty makes up the base, the core of the center. The administration is something else entirely separate.

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The anatomy of an act of censorship: St. Louis arts center shuts down pro-Palestinian exhibition - WSWS

Jim Jordan demands answers over censorship from Stanford’s ‘disinformation’ center – Campus Reform

Congressman Jim Jordan has demanded that Stanford Universitys Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) clarify its role and activities related to election-related speech monitoring ahead of the 2024 election, citing concerns about potential First Amendment violations and censorship.

The Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are conducting oversight of how and to what extent the Executive Branch has coerced or colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor lawful speech, Representative Jordan wrote in a June 24 letter, which was obtained by National Review.

As part of the investigation, the committee subpoenaed documents about work relating to content moderation.

[RELATED: Stanford wont continue employment of instructor who allegedly put Jews in a corner during class exercise: Report]

Given the SIOs role in the censorship of Americans in the lead-up to the 2020 election, and your clients repeated false and/or misleading statements to the Committee and the Select Subcommittee, we remain concerned about what actions the SIO or its remnants will take in the lead-up to the 2024 election that are antithetical to the First Amendment and Americans right to free expression, Representative Jordan stated.

Jordans letter concludes his letter by asking whether or not SIO will support any monitoring, analysis, or research of Americans election-related speech in the lead-up to the 2024 election and whether it intends to work with any part of the Executive Branch.

The congressman asked for responses to his queries by July 1.

The purpose of SIO, which is a part of Stanfords Cyber Policy Center, is to investigate disinformation, especially on social media. It has pledged that it will, by monitoring speech online, defend democracy.

However, skeptics say that SIO, more than anything else, results in undue censorship, especially if it acts in coordination with the federal government, as noted by The Stanford Review.

Some commentators say the research center is in decline, with its founding director, Alex Stamos, having resigned from his position in November 2023.

[RELATED: Stanford agrees to four demands after negotiations with students aligned with Hamas]

An article from Platformer on June 13 reported that Stanfords administration is quietly dismantling SIO in response to criticism because the university seems to have calculated that the lab had become more trouble than it is worth. Representative Jordan responded to the Platformer article by posting to X on June 14, Free speech wins again!

However, the universityclarified in a June 17 update that Stanford has not shut down or dismantled SIO as a result of outside pressure. SIO does, however, face funding challenges as its founding grants will soon be exhausted.

Campus Reform has contacted Stanford University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

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Jim Jordan demands answers over censorship from Stanford's 'disinformation' center - Campus Reform

Opponents of new Idaho library law say it creates censorship – KXLY Spokane

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Opponents of new Idaho library law say it creates censorship - KXLY Spokane

Apple agrees to Russian censorship – Fudzilla

Helping Putin to round up dissidents

Fruit-themed cargo cult Apple, has, in its infinite wisdom, decided to remove several apps offering virtual private network (VPN) services from the Russian AppStore, following a polite request from Roskomnadzor, Russias ever-vigilant media regulator.

Apple has graciously removed VPN services such as ProtonVPN, Red Shield VPN, NordVPN, and Le VPN, making it easier for Tsar Putin to chase dissidents and track messages to foreign countries.

Those fortunate enough to reside in Russia will no longer be able to download these services. However, users who already have them on their phones can continue using them, albeit without the luxury of updates.

Red Shield VPN posted a notice from Apple on X stating that their app would be removed following a request from Roskomnadzor because it includes content that is illegal in Russia.

Since the delightful commencement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has introduced the most charmingly strict online censorship and has blocked numerous independent media outlets and popular social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and X.

VPN services have become progressively more elusive in Russia since the recent ban on advertising and popularising VPNs came into effect, which includes the prohibition of web pages with instructions on how to set VPNs up.

Despite gallantly suspending all sales of its products in Russia in March 2022, Jobs Mob has dutifully complied with Russian government regulations. Since 2023, it has removed at least 19 apps from the Russian AppStore.

At Roskomnadzors behest, in March, Apple removed an app developed by the late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalnys team that was designed to help Russians choose who to vote for to maximise the impact of the anti-Putin vote, in a move that echoed the removal of another Navalny-designed app in 2021.

While the Tame Apple Press has been claiming that the move is not about money and Jobs Mob has to obey the rules of the country in which it does business, it is worth pointing out that Mozilla told Roskomnadzor where to shove it.

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Apple agrees to Russian censorship - Fudzilla

Far-Right Seeks to Censor Science and Criminalize Researchers Studying Disinformation in Brazil | TechPolicy.Press – Tech Policy Press

Roberto Medronho is a Rector at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. This op-ed was published in Portuguese in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo. It has been lightly edited for publication at Tech Policy Press.

Last week we were surprised by a request for a public hearing in the Public Security and Organized Crime Committee in the Brazilian Congress, which aims to question the results of research conducted by Netlab, our renowned laboratory at the School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). The request calls professors to the Public Security and Organized Crime Committee, hoping to censor science in Brazil by criminalizing their research. Therefore, this is not just an attack on the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro but on the entire Brazilian academic community.

The laboratory is being targeted over its research agenda, which addresses the problem of disinformation. Netlab's research, which has a special focus on socio-environmental issues and internet scams, has gained prominence in the main Brazilian media outlets in the last month due to the climate tragedy that occurred in Rio Grande do Sul (a large state in the south of Brazil), which left 160 dead and 629,000 people without homes due to flooding. The disaster was heavily affected by a fake news firehose campaign to manipulate public opinion and also by hundreds of thousands of scams requesting false donations, diverting help from the victims of the climate tragedy to fill the pockets of fraudsters. Furthermore, Netlab has distinguished itself over the years for producing numerous research studies of incalculable value to society. A source of great pride for UFRJ, the lab provides evidence using scientific methodology that supports public policies and assists managers and authorities in decision-making roles.

The request seeks to call into question the fact that the laboratory is funded by public and philanthropic foundation resources for its research. Indeed, most research generated in Brazil depends on public resources, and this should continue to be the case. However, public resources for research are scarce in light of the immense demands and challenges posed to cutting-edge scientific and technological development, especially for those requiring large-scale data processing and high investments. In this regard, we applaud all researchers, laboratories, and institutions that manage to supplement their budgets by presenting projects to public funds and highly competitive private national and international philanthropic foundations, as Netlab of UFRJ does.

This strategy follows a familiar playbook used in other countries by far-right agents aiming to censor science through parliamentary or congressional action. In this case, the goal is to inhibit studies on disinformation and pressure researchers to abandon their research topics during an election year, as will take place in Brazil in 2024. And it is precisely because we are familiar with this playbook, which recalls the darkest times of dictatorship in our country's history, that we reaffirm our commitment to independent research. We declare that we will not be intimidated by manipulations and threats to our universitys autonomy, academic independence, and freedom of research, which are the pillars of the Public University and a conquest of the democratic rule of law.

We will not tolerate censorship of scientific research, nor will we allow the criminalization of professors, researchers, and the academic community when research results are displeasing to anyone. We at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro will continue our social mission to contribute to solving the problems of our society. Thus, we call on the Brazilian population to remain vigilant in defense of free science, without censorship and with the necessary resources, which is fundamental for the economic, social, and political development of our country and to guarantee national sovereignty.

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Far-Right Seeks to Censor Science and Criminalize Researchers Studying Disinformation in Brazil | TechPolicy.Press - Tech Policy Press