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If outfits like the Aspen Institutes Commission on Information Disorder, along with Big Techs faceless fact-checkers, ever get a total monopoly on dictating reality, the result will be a 24/7 mix of falsehoods with the occasional limited hangout to cover up their lies.

The icing on this fake cake is the use of conferences about disinformation, such as the recent stunt at the University of Chicago that served as cover for justifying political censorship. There former President Obama presented the perfect picture of psychological projection: a panel of propagandists accusing others of wrongthink.

The Atlantics Anne Applebaum, for example, sought to censor the reality of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal by announcing she didnt find it interesting. See how that works? Truth depends upon how our elites personally feel about what should be true.

But it gets much worse, because political censorship creates deep dysfunction in society. In fact, the surest way to kill a democracy is to practice political censorship under the guise of protecting society from disinformation.

Censorship causes disinformation. Its the grandaddy of disinformation, not a solution to it. The sooner everyone recognizes this obvious fact, the better off well be.

Whenever a self-anointed elite sets up a Ministry of Truth, the link between censorship and disinformation becomes clear. Before long, they invent reality and punish anyone who expresses a different viewpoint.

So, its no small irony that those who claim to be protecting democracy from disinformation are the biggest promoters of disinformation and greatest destroyers of real democracy. Their dependence on censorship obstructs the circulation of facts. It prevents any worthwhile exchange of ideas.

Consider what happens if a society is only permitted one propagandistic narrative while all other ideas and information are silenced. People start self-censoring to avoid social rejection. The result is a form of imposed mental isolation. Severely isolated people tend to lose touch with reality. The resulting conformity also perpetuates the censorship.

This is unnatural and dangerous because human beings depend on others to verify whats real. People werent able to verify reality in Nazi Germany, during Joseph Stalins Reign of Terror, or during Mao Zedongs brutal Cultural Revolution. All were societies in the grip of mass hysteria because of ruthless censorship to protect a narrative.

As psychiatrist Joost Meerloo noted in his book The Rape of the Mind, no matter how well-meaning political censorship might be, it creates dangerous conformity of thought: the presence of minority ideas, acceptable or not, is one of the ways in which we protect ourselves against the creeping growth of conformist majority thinking.

The only way we can strengthen ourselves against such contagion is through real freedom of speech that allows fully open discussion and debate. However, if were confined by Big Tech to a relentless echo chamber and punished for expressing different thoughts, well just keep getting more and more disinformation.

In fact, we are now drowning in the distortions produced by fact-checkers. Take, for example, narratives that promote the gender confusion and sexualization of children. Public school teachers routinely post TikTok videos of themselves spewing forth their gender confusion. And if someone calls out Disney for its open grooming of children, Twitter suspends them.

If we never push back against such absurdities, we ultimately end up in a state of mass delusion, each of us a cell in a deluded hive mind, obedient to commands about what to say, how to act, and what to think. To get an idea of what that looks like in a population, check out this clip from North Korea:

One of the most telling incidents of censorship over the past year was YouTube and Twitters take-down of virologist and vaccine inventor Dr. Robert Malone, claiming he was spreading misinformationi.e., spreading a second opinionabout Covid vaccines and treatments.

But big tech saw an even bigger threat in Malones discussion of Mattias Desmets study of Mass Formation Psychosis (MFP) on Joe Rogans popular podcast. This is a big reason Spotify was under pressure to de-platform Rogan entirely. Open discussion of such things would erode the illusions big media and big tech so doggedly prop up.

Malone explained how a propaganda-saturated population can end up in a state of mass hypnosis that renders people incapable of seeing reality. He described Desmets theory about how social isolation, a high level of discontent, and a strong sense of free-floating anxiety are keys to the development of this psychosis.

The anxiety is so painful that it causes people to cling, trancelike, to any narrative that seems to offer stability. Once all other views are censored, people become so invested in the narrative that they cannot consider any alternative views. They will even mob anyone who endangers the narrative. This phenomenon was prevalent in the German population under Nazism. Their obedience to the propaganda rendered them incapable of understanding any opposing narrative.

Mass psychosis should not sound farfetched. Theres nothing new about it. Hundreds of instances of mass hysteria are documented. In the 19th century, Scottish journalist Charles MacKay wrote up a whole catalog of them. In 2015 medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew co-authored a compendium of popular delusions or mass sociogenic illness.

Most past incidents of mass hysteria have been confined to geographic regions, such as the witch trials in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts. But with the internet accessible and addictive in the 2020s, the possibility of mass delusion on a global scale is upon us. Censorshipin the name of protecting democracy from disinformationis the key to creating it.

By definition, propaganda aims to psychologically affect people and change their attitudes. So our social survival depends upon becoming aware of such phenomena. Building self-awareness about our vulnerability to crowd psychology would serve as a sort of psychological vaccine.

Of course elites do not want us even entertaining the possibility that we can be manipulated or vulnerable to social and psychological pressures. Propagandists are illusionists by nature. If their illusion falls apart, then the game is over for them. This is why they depend so heavily on the slur conspiracy theorist to distract us from the truth and from their use of censorship to cut us off from other ideas.

The late Nobel laureate Doris Lessing spoke against the dangers of social conformity and censorship in 1986. She noted there was a great body of knowledge that was continuing to be built about the laws of crowd psychology and social contagion. It was odd that we werent applying this knowledge to improve our lives.

Lessing concluded that no government in the world would willingly help its citizens resist group pressures and learn to think independently. We have to do it ourselves. Fast forward to the twenty-first century, and it sure looks like the keepers of this secret knowledge use it as a means of social control.

No sane person would want to live inside the boxes that the censors who claim to be fighting disinformation are building around us. If we want to escape this Twilight Zone existence, we must destroy that canard and insist on real freedom of speech everywhere.

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The Only Way To Fight Disinformation Is To Fight Political Censorship - The Federalist

In February 2022 the Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table (GNCRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) launched a new committee focused on preparing for and addressing bans, challenges, and other forms of censorship of comics in libraries. This committees focus on comics complements ALAs broader work on challenges in the Office of Intellectual Freedom and the new Unite Against Book Bans initiative.

Challenges to comics are not new. In fact, comics are quite often at the top of ALAs Most Challenged Books lists, says GNCRT President Matthew Noe. What is alarming, is how widespread and targeted challenges have been over the last year. ALAs Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) received an unprecedented 729 reports of challenges in 2021, representing more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. And while the justification for challenges varies widely, it is quite clear that books by or about queer identities and those by or about Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color are being specifically targeted. A comic Maia Kobabes memoir, Gender Queer was the most targeted book in 2021. What weve heard from our members is the need for our profession to be prepared with practical, actionable ways to address these mounting concerns.

Comics are also amongst the most popular, most lauded, and most loved items on our shelves. We can do better to support each other and our readers. As one of the newly formed Committees first actions, the GNCRT is launching a survey and we want to hear from you.

Whether or not you have experienced a challenge to comics in your present or past library, the GNCRT would like to learn more about:

This survey is open to ALL educators, library workers, administrators, library students, public libraries, academic libraries, and K-12 school libraries. All of the survey information will be kept and shared anonymously unless we have the explicit permission of the respondent.

Survey Link: https://bit.ly/GNCRTchallenge-survey

Our goal is to release resources and to report on the first round of survey responses starting in June 2022 during ALA Annual. To ensure your feedback is captured in our first round of reports, please fill out the survey by May 31, 2022.

This survey is NOT a way to report a challenge occuring in real time; if you are dealing with a current challenge or ban, please contact our colleagues at the American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) for immediate support in real-life and to log that challenge:

Working with OIF and other library colleagues like the ALA Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT), our goal with this survey and with the resources to come is to better understand the specific contexts around challenges to comics and graphic novels, and to better support comics librarianship in all its forms. This survey will be one of the first large-scale information-collection endeavors to tackle the question of comic challenges in libraries, hearing directly from a range and spectrum of library workers.

To read more about our new committee and a (short) history of comic challenges in libraries and how you can respond with pro-active collection development and advocacy, please check out our recent article in Booklist Feb 1, 2022: http://bit.ly/TradeSecretsWright

The GNCRT Preparing For & Addressing Comic Books Bans, Censorship, and Challenges in Libraries Committee is:

About the Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table

The Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table (GNCRT) of the American Library Association is dedicated to supporting library staff in all aspects of engaging with graphic novels and comics, including collection development, programming, and advocacy. For more information connect with GNCRT on Facebook: ALA Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table; Twitter: @libcomix; Instagram: @libcomix; or the GNCRT ALA Connect page.

About ALA

Established in 1876, the American Library Association (ALA) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization created to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.

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GNCRT seeks information about censorship of comics in schools and libraries - ala.org

As extremist politicians like Florida Gov. Rick DeSantis seek to reignite a culture war, targeting LGBTQ+ youth by attempting to silence, erase, and isolate them through curriculum censorship, book bans, and other divisive tactics, people across the country are taking notice and pushing back. Poll after poll indicates that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to these efforts to punish and target LGBTQ+ youth. While extremist politicians are seeking to advance an agenda of discrimination, theyre triggering a larger backlash against their actions in states across the country. Below is a brief snapshot of the issue including updated, previously unreleased data from HRC, and important context to better understand the current state of play, the impact of the policy, and the publics response.

STATE OF PLAY

WHAT THESE BILLS DO

These bills effectively aim to prevent the discussion LGBTQ+ issues or people in education settings.

This means teachers would be prevented from providing a safe, inclusive classroom for all students.

The Florida law blocks teachers from talking about LGBTQ+ issues or people, further stigmatizing LGBTQ+ people and isolating LGBTQ+ kids. It also undermines existing protections for LGBTQ+ students.

The Alabama law bans any acknowledgement of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms from kindergarten through fifth grade.

South Dakotas law prohibits state education officials from compelling either students or teachers to agree with "divisive concepts" meaning, acknowledgment of privileges and inequities in our society.

Youth living in states with enumerated antibullying laws that include sexual orientation and gender identity report less homophobic victimization and harassment than do students who attend schools in states without these protections.

LGBTQ+ students in schools with LGBTQ+ supporting clubs and sexual orientation & gender identity resources often report feeling safer and are less likely to report depressive symptom, substance use, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in comparison with students in schools lacking such resources.

86% of LGBTQ+ youth report they have been targets of bullying, harassment, or assault at school.

Studies have shown that bullying and harassment of LGBTQ+ youth contribute to high rates of absenteeism, dropout, adverse health consequences, and academic underachievement.

A recent Trevor Project survey showed that a startling 85% of transgender or gender non-binary youth say their mental health has been negatively affected by the current wave of legislative attacks.

AMERICANS OVERWHELMINGLY OPPOSE CENSORSHIP AND BOOK BANS

87% of Americans do not think books should be banned for discussing race or slavery. 85% do not think books should be banned for political ideas you disagree with. 83% do not think books should be banned for criticizing US history. [CBS poll, 2/15-18]

Seventy-one percent of likely voters including 66 percent of Independents and 64 percent of Republicans believe that local school boards should not have the authority to ban books from school curriculums. [Data for Progress poll, 2/11-13]

By a 60-point margin, Americans oppose banning books in public schools. When described as a growing push to remove certain books from schools across the country, including the graphic novel Maus about the Holocaust, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, and 1984, more than three in four Americans oppose the banning of books in public schools (16 percent support 76 percent oppose). Opposition is strong across partisanship, with opposition from almost four in five Republicans (78 percent) and about three in four Democrats and Independents (74 and 76 percent, respectively). [Navigator poll, 2/17-22]

74% support adding more books in English classes by authors who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color. [PIE Network poll, 11/21]

Based on National Parents Unions national polling and meetings with parents all over the country, Keri Rodrigues, co-founder and president of the organization, says restricting how teachers can talk about race or gender "is really at the bottom of the list" of parental priorities. [National Parents Union]

STUDENTS, TEACHERS, PARENTS & LIBRARIANS ARE STANDING UP AND SPEAKING OUT

This bill is condemning the LGBTQ+ community to death. If you're telling a child that is gay or whatever sexuality, that they're going to hell, or that they need to be quiet and not share with the class, that's just going to cause so much inner trauma and conflict and if they don't have a support system to turn to ... what do you think is going to happen with this child? They're either going to pretend to be someone that they're not or they're going to go through depression and anxiety and even possible self-harm and suicide attempts. CJ Walden, a high school senior in Boca Raton, Florida [CNN, Apr. 1, 2022]

I ignored [my sexuality] for a really long time. And I think that as a young girl, if a book showed me that this is a life that could be lived, I could have had a lot more peace and coming to terms with bisexuality, high school senior Gabrielle Izu, at James E. Taylor High School in the Katy Independent School District, Texas [LA Times, Nov. 8, 2021]

When I first decided, like, oh, I dont really feel like a girl at all, or I dont always feel like a girl. I felt sort of like I didn't know how to feel about that. But when I realized that that was completely normal, having media that showed that was really helpful. Saffy Cousins, 6th grader in the Orange County Public School system, Florida [First Coast News, Dec. 7, 2021]

I really feel like, by them banning this book, its just spreading the message that its not OK to be gay, especially in school. For me, its not necessarily about the book. Its more about the message that banning the book spread. I just feel like they need to stop spreading the message that everybody has to be the same and being gay isnt OK. ... If I picked one thing to come out of this, its to have more of an accepting school. Alek Burgess, eighth grade student at Bayfield Middle School, Colorado [Durango Herald, Oct. 8, 2021]

I think that [placing an age restriction] creates a harmful environment in the school surrounding LGBTQ+ issues. It makes it seem as though gender expression and sexuality are issues reserved for adults, while there are many students at the school who identify with the LGBTQ+ community. Junior Kate Johnson, Lake Forest High School, Illinois [The Forest Scout, Feb. 25, 2022]

I'm straight. I've never gone through what my LGBTQ+ students have, but I know that they're at a higher risk of bullying, they are higher risk for suicide, and I can never imagine what they're going through. The only thing that I can do is just try to be someone on this campus who they know that I'm going to support them and be in their corner. Meghan Mayer, a middle school reading teacher in Sarasota, Florida [CNN, Apr. 1, 2022]

Jeanne Nettles, who teaches 7th and 8th grade in St. Johns County, Florida, said the bill could make some of her students such as those with two moms or two dads feel like they need to hide parts of themselves at school. Are they not allowed to talk about their home life? What are you trying to tell them by saying you cant talk about it? she said in an interview after the school day had ended. [The 19th, Feb. 9, 2022]

Austin Johnson, who teaches sociology at Kenyon College and studies LGBTQ+ health, said that, if he had been able to learn about what being transgender meant in high school especially from a teacher that would have alleviated the despair that enveloped him; despair that he couldnt understand or find words for on his own. I think it would have totally changed my life, he said. I think that I would have made different choices in terms of self care. I didnt know myself, so it was hard to care for myself. [The 19th, Feb. 9, 2022]

For Clinton McCracken, who has taught art for 21 years at Howard Middle School Academy of Arts in Orlando, this law feels like a hateful, personal attack. McCracken points to a 2021 survey from the Trevor Project, a nonprofit suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ youth, which found that 42% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. "I can tell you as someone who grew up as a gay boy, how real that statistic is," he says, "and how dangerous it is that these Republican legislators are playing with the safety of our vulnerable youth. This is a created culture war from [Gov. DeSantis] so that he can achieve his political ambitions. That's all this is. So yeah, I'm not teaching kids how to be gay in my classroom, but I'll tell you what I am doing. I am trying with all my power to teach kids to be OK with who they are." [NPR, Mar. 30, 2022]

They are creating policies restricting the freedoms for students to be themselves biding with families that insist their heterosexual or cisgender children should feel comfortable in the school environment, essentially by never interacting with beliefs or people who are at odds with their own. We do not debate the existence of groups of people or their right to exist because they exist whether we believe they do," she added. "We should not be prioritizing one student's comfort over another student's very existence. Mae Christiansen, sociology teacher at H.G. Hill Middle School in Tennessee [The Tennessean, April 14, 2021]

I think that the LGBTQ community has consistently tried to make the life of LGBTQ people who come after them better. What I hope will continue to happen now that this bill has become a law, is that people will rise up, people will speak up, families like mine will step further into the light. We know what it's like to have to fight for this. And this family that we have, we're incredibly proud of it and nobody is going to silence us. Nobody is going to make us hide." Janelle Perez, a wife and mother living in Miami, Florida [ABC News, Mar. 30, 2022].

It is suicide prevention, in my view. You know, a lot of LGBTQ+ kids arent comfortable coming out to their parents, theyre scared. And so having a book like this in the school library is giving them a lifeline. Jen Cousins, mother of nonbinary 6th grader in Orange County Public School system, Florida [First Coast News, Dec. 7, 2021]

It is our job as parents to make sure these books do not disappear, Stephana Ferrell, Orange County, Florida, mother [First Coast News, Dec. 7, 2021]

We havent seen or heard of challenges like these probably in the last 40 years. Its definitely become politicized. Shirley Robinson, executive director of the 5,000-member Texas Library Association [LA Times, Nov. 8, 2021]

Banning a book is, in my opinion, never justified. If a library or district has a strong collection development policy and a certified professional librarian in charge of that, banning should never be necessary." San Antonio, Texas, middle school librarian Carrie Damon [LA Times, Nov. 8, 2021]

Freedom to read is a right that must be protected in our schools and public libraries, and we must not give in to the vocal few that want to speak for the many, Austin, Texas, Public Library Director Roosevelt Weeks [LA Times, Nov. 8, 2021]

That one family may choose not to read something does not determine whether or not it's appropriate for another family. Jaime Prothro, Wichita, Kansas, director of libraries [The Kansas City Beacon, Nov. 30, 2021]

Not only do librarians face the challenge of ensuring that all students are able to see a reflection of themselves in the books they read, but they are also charged with the responsibility of helping explore worlds outside of their own and develop empathy for others. Davina Sauthoff, the Executive Director of the Utah Education Library Media Association [Fox13 Salt Lake City, Dec. 14, 2021]

The Human Rights Campaign is Americas largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ+ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

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Education Censorship, Book Bans, and Attacking Free Speech: Setting the Record Straight as Extremist Politicians in Florida, Alabama and Other States...

In 2016, I visited Moscow, and I remember being driven to a destination somewhere in what seemed like the suburbs, albeit the funky, bohemian suburbs, to meet journalists from, and be interviewed by, TV Rain, the only independent television news operation in Russia. I did not, that day, meet editor in chief Tikhon Dzyadko, but I was told about him. TV Rain started in 2010 as mostly a culture and lifestyle channel. Slowly, it moved more toward hard news, reporting critically on Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. It was allowed to stay open, Dzyadko told me on Friday, because at the time Russia pretended to be some sort of democracy. But in 2014, TV Rain was cut off by the government from major satellite and cable networks. The Kremlin thought we would die, Dzyadko said. TV Rain changed its business model to a subscriber service, and subscriptions flooded in.

In early March, not long after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Duma passed a draconian censorship law, and Dzyadko and his colleagues knew that TV Rain couldnt go on. We had a choice, he told me. Become part of the Ministry of Defense or face 15 years in jail. In this Tomaskycast episode, Dzyadko recalls a grimly hilarious phone call he received from an oh-so-polite state censor just hours after the invasion started. Future calls, he knew, likely wouldnt be so diplomatic.

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War with NATO Is What Hes Dreaming Of: Tikhon Dzyadko on Putin, Ukraine, and Censorship in Russia - The New Republic

The free flow of information about Russia's war on Ukraine was a focus of this year's TED - Technology, Environment and Design - conference in Vancouver, Canada. It was the first such gathering of esteemed speakers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and architect Alison Killing was among the eclectic group of speakers opening the conference. She won the journalism award for using satellite imagery and open-source information to help uncover detention and forced labor camps in China's Xinjiang region.

Killing spoke days after reports emerged of satellite imagery showing possible war crimes being committed by Russia in Ukraine. She told VOA one of the best ways to keep information flowing into Ukraine and Russia is for private citizens in both countries to use virtual private networks, or VPNs, on the internet.

"I think that open-source data and investigations have a really important role to play in helping to provide good information and in providing that information in a way that anyone can go and check it," she said.

But Killing added that information, as always, must be fact-checked.

Bektour Iskender, who runs Kloop a blogging website he started in 2007 to counter state-controlled media in Kyrgyzstan said if governments are going to block websites, the more the better, because that encourages people to start using VPNs and other methods to seek independent sources of information.

"The worst situation, I think, is when a few media outlets are blocked, but like 95% is available, and then people just don't care about the ones which are blocked, because they still have most of information available," Iskender said. "But when you have like 50% of media, content blocked, then people start caring."

Katherine Mangu-Ward, the editor-in-chief of Reason magazine, said that while social media sites can play an important role in disseminating unfiltered information from sources on the ground, it's important not to lose focus on who is doing the censoring and why.

"I think people can really get caught up in debates about misinformation on Facebook and, you know, who's gatekeeping Twitter," she said. "They can forget that there is a much, much more serious threat, which is authoritarian states, just bottlenecking true information about really, really important issues like Russia's role in Ukraine right now."

Billionaire Elon Musk appeared at the conference hours after announcing a $43 billion takeover bid for Twitter. The co-founder of electric car manufacturer Tesla said he would change the social media platform, including allowing users to edit tweets after posting them and making Twitter's algorithms open source.

Philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates launched his upcoming book, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic. He urged developed countries collectively to spend $1 billion a year to prevent future pandemics by creating a team he called Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization, or GERM. The team would be made up of 3,000 doctors, diplomats, and policy and communication experts who would work with the World Health Organization to contain any future pandemic contagions within 100 days.

In an unusual move for the conference, TED head curator Chris Anderson started by asking the assembled crowd and those watching online to donate to five organizations helping with humanitarian relief in Ukraine. A total of $2.15 million was pledged by attendees to help relief efforts in Ukraine.

Editor's note: This report has been updated to correct the credit of the first inline photo.

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Defeating Censorship About War in Ukraine a Focus of TED Conference - Voice of America - VOA News