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By Jeremy Powell

Never let a good crisis go to waste. The once-overheard quote uttered by one of Barack Obamas advisors now represents the unjustifiable expansion and abuse of government powers of the Joe Biden era. With the pandemic arrived a litany of experiments that proved disastrous, from distance learning and expansion of the money supply to lockdowns. After all the damage and witnessing the lengths Biden and his fellows are willing to go to, anything seems to be permissible.

Whether the alternative leads us to a better or worse future is reserved for another day. Nonetheless, with real incomedecliningbecause of recklessmonetary policy, its no surprise that Biden is on the firing line. When totally reliable polls and fair, balanced outlets like NBC are suggesting that Donald Trump might be overtaking Biden, democracy is in crisis, again. At this stage, anything that doesnt align with a Far Left domestic agenda and a hawkish foreign policy is antidemocratic and xenophobic, per the usual arguments.

But at a certain point, gaslighting simply stops working. It no longer sells as false dichotomies are no more than mere justifications for continuing more failed progressive experiments. At some point, they simply cant tolerate counternarratives. You must not go down the rabbit hole,warnedtheNew York Times(the same paper that didnt return its Pulitzer Prize after lying about the Holodomor). Theyre afraid that their narrative is losing traction. In 2016, it was told that social media and disinformation caused Hillary Clinton to lose. During the 2020 general election, the Federal Bureau of Investigation pressuredTwitterandFacebookover the Hunter Biden story that many now acknowledge as authentic.

Despite being caught weaponizing federal government agencies and utilizing third-partyorganizationsfunded with taxpayer money to monitor,censor, and implement a double standard, Bidens team simply carried on. Once again, per theWashington Post,Bidenhas been working with TikTok creators to tell positive stories about the Bideneconomyhardly an unknowntactic.

But social media is hardly the only place where Biden and the Left seek to control the narrative. By thispoint, people haveseenmore than enough expert talkingpointsaboutartificial intelligence(AI). The narrative often goes like this: tomorrow AI will be the force that destroys democracy unless its regulated properly. Just a few weeks ago, Biden signed anexecutive orderregulating the development and utilization of AI to ensure trustworthiness and prevent discriminatory algorithms. The executive order washeraldedas a step forward by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an umbrellanetworkof left-wing advocacyorganizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

The executive order delegates the power of implementing regulations to the National Institute of Standards and Technology and enforcement to the Department of Homeland Security. In its own words, The National Institute of Standards and Technology will set the rigorous standards for extensive red-team testing to ensure safety before public release. The Department of Homeland Security will apply those standards to critical infrastructure sectors and establish the AI Safety and Security Board.

It follows awhite paperpublished by the Biden administration roughly a month earlier. While the executive order was explicit about preventing discrimination by automated algorithms in housing and policing, it is eerily vague about the internet and online communications. The delegation of regulatory and enforcement powers is for applying them to critical infrastructure sectors. Therefore, AI models are regulated by which critical infrastructure sector they belong to. There aresectionsof the Department of Homeland Security dedicated to handling matters about the internet.

However, the white paper isnt a dead end as far as clues for how a potential regulatory regime would look like. Thepaper, titled A Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, doesnt limit itself to AI usage in healthcare, housing, finances, and criminal justice, even though most examples featured in the white paper and proposed regulations talk about AI in those specific areas. The talking points utilized for stringent regulation of AI utilization in the five aforementioned areas can translate beyond those areas, whether chatbots or social media algorithms, as the paper (and executive order) is part of the plan to tackle inequity.

In particular, two principles enshrined in the document can be interchangeably applied to AI usage in any sector. The first, as argued by Biden, You should be protected from unsafe or ineffective systems and consultation with stakeholders (i.e., diverse communities and experts). Designs should proactively protect you from harms ... unintended, yet foreseeable, uses or impacts of automated systems and inappropriate or irrelevant data use in the system. Among the examples cited by unintended, yet foreseeable harm of automated systems is the allegation that counter quotes, criticism of racist quotes, and journalism by black people are unfairly throttled or moderated.

Remember, this occurs under the mantra of fighting inequity. Among the many expectations set by the white paper, data fed into a system should be relevant, of high quality. But which data is high quality depends entirely on how Biden and company define it. Also acknowledged in the white paper was the National Science Foundation funds extensive research to help foster the development of automated systems that adhere to and advance their safety, security and effectiveness.

The second point Biden advances is the prevention of algorithmic discrimination through proactive equity assessments as part of the system design. Biden alleges that automated systems can produce inequitable outcomes and amplify existing inequity, and data that fails to account for systemic biases in American society can result in a range of consequences. An example cited was the automated contextualization of social media comments where statements like Im a Christian are more than likely to be shared, while Im gay might be blocked.

If one is on the Right, one almost is certainly ready to laugh at ChatGPTs (and others) left-wing, pro-Democratic biases. At best, right-wingers would only utilize Xs GrokAI here and there. But as shown above, its not merely chatbots that were talking about. It isnt difficult to conclude that an enforced equitable algorithm where progressive narratives (or nonprivileged, for that matter) are pushed, as with the aforementioned Im Christian and Im gay example Biden and company cited, means a framework for quelling counternarratives to the progressive orthodoxy on social media. X (formerly Twitter) might have broken away from progressive Big Tech, but soon X might forcibly rejoin the progressive digital ecosystem.

Even if the proposals only affect chatbots, doing nothing against a deliberately vague executive order and such a controlling regulatory regime isnt the correct answer. As nonleftists complain about the lack of youth in their ranks, especially when their attention span is declining, chatbots are a gateway for quick information (or echo chambers) to turn them into progressives. Now multiply it with controlled algorithms on social media and search engines and see where it will take us.

Originally posted here:
Biden's 'AI Bill Of Rights' May Just Be Another Censorship Plan OpEd - Eurasia Review

Pouring rain could not stop the loud and passionate protest of around 200 students and workers at Ruhr-Universitt Bochum (RUB) Tuesday afternoon against the genocide in Gaza. The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) had called for a rally against the genocide in Gaza and the censorship of war opponents at RUB.

The university management had previously banned the IYSSE, the youth and student organisation of the Fourth International, from holding an event at RUB against the mass killings in Palestine. The universitys management has explicitly backed Israel and its actions in Gaza.

The police imposed a whole series of conditions on the rally, which took place directly at the entrance to the university campus. In addition to the organisational requirements and the ban on certain slogans relating to Palestine, they had also provocatively banned right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic slogans and demanded that these be read out at the beginning. The assembly leader Dietmar Gaisenkersting refused to recite these hate slogans, which are familiar from right-wing extremist chats such as those of officers from Frankfurt police headquarters.

Rather, he made it clear: This rally is not directed against the Jewish people, against Jews. We are not anti-Semites. This rally is against Israels genocide against the Palestinians. The 200 participants expressed their broad support with enthusiastic shouts and applause.

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In addition, the police had expressly forbidden shouting Free Palestine or Freedom for Palestine. These statements, they claimed, would at least give rise to an initial suspicion of rewarding and approving criminal offences in accordance with Section 140 of the German Criminal Code. As this was not listed in the conditions, but in attached legal notices, it was not possible to take urgent action against this.

However, the assembled participants did not refrain from calling for a free Palestine. A young Palestinian student from RUB, who helped establish a combative and courageous atmosphere at the microphone, demonstrated his creativity and chanted loud protest slogans: Free Gaza, Stop the murder, stop the war, Long live international solidarity and Viva Viva Palestina.

In his speech, Gaisenkersting made clear what the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) and the IYSSE stand for: The interests of Arab and Jewish workers can only be secured by a secular state with full democratic and social rights for Jews and Arabs as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East.

Whenever Gaisenkersting emphasised the international perspective, referring to the unification of the working class internationally and in the Middle East, participants supported this with loud applause and shouts.

His call for the prosecution of war criminals was also enthusiastically supported: The perpetrators are not only in Tel Aviv. In addition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden, Chancellor Scholz and Foreign Minister Baerbock also belong in the dock of the International Criminal Court!

There was an equally strong response to the speech by IYSSE spokesperson Gregor Link, who talked about the scandalous behaviour of the university management and emphasised that their refusal to allow an IYSSE event on the genocide in Gaza was tantamount to a general attack on fundamental democratic rights.

He reported on the IYSSEs fight against right-wing professors at Berlins Humboldt University: The same forces that would teach us about anti-Semitism are themselves working very closely with real anti-Semites and neo-Nazisand are constantly relativising and trivialising the Holocaust! We ourselves have been fighting for years at Humboldt University against the trivialisation of Nazi crimes and the rehabilitation of German militarism.

He emphasised once again that the danger of anti-Semitism did not come from those who protest against Israels genocide, such as the 200 or so people present and the many hundreds of millions worldwide. His exclamation, The real anti-Semites, the worst and most dangerous, sit in the Chancellery, in the Alternative for Germany (AfD), in the Foreign Ministry and in the executive floors of the big media corporations! was supported just as enthusiastically as his call to mobilise the working class against genocide, fascism and war.

After the rally, many stayed and discussed the SGP, the IYSSE and its international socialist perspective. But many also simply came to say thank you for organising this protest: No other party does this. Many left their contact details to plan further protests and joint actions, and to discuss further. Others registered with the IYSSE on the spot in order to help set up a group at RUB and at universities in neighbouring cities. There are plans to organise a follow-up meeting next week.

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Militant protest against genocide in Gaza and censorship of war opponents at Ruhr-Universitt Bochum - WSWS

With the beginning of the college academic year, those of us teaching this fall are drafting various course syllabi seeing what might be worth revisiting, such as new readings that might be added.

But all too often, the upfront syllabus boilerplate sections are overlooked since they are cut and pasted from previous versions of the same course or similar ones. Unfortunately, a section dealing with free expression in the classroom is missing in many.

This is a more focused area than campus speech, which continues to attract national headlines as outside speakers from the right and left are disinvited or shouted down. The issue here is less about censorship which may be referenced in a syllabus by linking to an established campuswide free-expression policy or the University of Chicago Principles adopted by dozens of universities and more about self-censorship.

The latter concern often is more difficult to identify since it involves an unwillingness to speak freely in light of actual or perceived consequences for doing so. Data and personal experience suggest this needs to be addressed head-on.

For example, the Heterodox Academys 2023Campus Expression Surveyasked more than 1,500 full-time college students from universities across the country about how reluctant they are to share their views on various topics in class and what variables are associated with students reluctance.

Just over 58 percent of the respondents said they were reluctant to share their views on politics, race, sexual orientation, gender or religion in the classroom.

I concur with the observation of Nicole Barbaro, the organizations director of communications and marketing.This is a real problem that should concern all educators, especially across the social sciences, biological sciences and humanities where these topics are most likely to be central to academic research and discussions. If students arenot comfortable talkingabout these topics in class a space intended for exploring ideas, discussing research and critically thinking about problems then our universities are, in part, failing at their intended purpose.

Classroom self-censorship is a two-sided phenomenon. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) surveyed almost 1,500 college faculty members nationwide to dig deeper into the issue. Its data show that a third of faculty (34 percent) reported they self-censor on campus fairly or very often.

According to FIRE, faculty members are more likely to self-censor today than during the Joseph McCarthy era of the 1950s.

Based on its survey, this observation again rings true to me and probably to countless other faculty members. It is hard to comprehend the fact that the very group of people charged to showcase how viewpoint diversity and healthy debate functions are themselves limiting their expression at rates higher than the students they are supposed to teach.

Ten years ago, I served as the inaugural professor of communication in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar. Unlike the United States, there was no First Amendment there to reference. My students were brought up in a culture where free speech was not encouraged and, in fact, could be punished severely as a matter of law.

By discussing self-censorship in class with my students at the outset, I was gratified how an explicit conversation at the beginning of the semester supported and reinforced with each class session produced a high level of viewpoint diversity and dissenting voices. I saw how the students felt free to engage with me in covering the course material, not just learning about free expression as an ideal but also experiencing it in practice.

Given the wave of classroom self-censorship that has hit U.S. college classrooms in the intervening years, I intend not just to discuss this when I provide a course overview but also explicitly remove classroom self-censorship guardrails that may exist, even if they are not acknowledged.

The course syllabus is the ideal place to convey this, especially since it will be referenced by the students continuously throughout the semester.

Stuart N. Brotman is an endowed professor of journalism and media law, enterprise and leadership at the University of Tennessee. He wrote this forInsideSources.com.

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Its time to address college self-censorship - Maryland Daily Record

By Pete McGinnis Real Clear Wire

Welcome to the Censorship Industrial Complex. Its rather like the old military industrial complex, which was shorthand for the military, private companies, and academia working together to achieve U.S. battlefield dominance, with the R&D funded by the government that buys the final product.

But the censorship industrial complex builds algorithms, not bombers. The players arent Raytheon and Boeing, but social media companies, tech startups, and universities and their institutes. The foes to be dominated are American citizens whose opinions diverge from government narratives on issues ranging from COVID-19 responses to electoral fraud to transgenderism.

When first exposed a few months ago, many of the actors and their media defenders perversely claimed that they, as private entities, were acting out of concern for democracy and exercising their own First Amendment rights.

However, the records and correspondence of an advisory committee to an obscure government agency tell a different story. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) has obtained through a public records request documents of the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The committee was composed of academics and tech company officials working with government personnel in a much closer relationship than either they or the media want to admit. Several advisory committee members who appear throughout the documents as quasi-federal actors are among those loudly protesting that they were private actors when censoring lawful American speech (e.g., Kate Starbird, Vijaya Gadde, Alex Stamos).

But the advisory committee members met often and worked so closely with their government handlers that the federal liaison to the committee regularly offered members his personal cell phone and even reminded them to use the committees Slack channel. Your average concerned citizen doesnt have a Homeland Security bureaucrat on speed dial.

What were they working on? CISAs Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-information (MDM) subcommittee discussed Orwellian social listening and monitoring, and considered the governments best censorship success metrics. Who was to be censored? CISA was formed in response to misinformation campaigns from foreign actors, but it evolved toward domestic threats. Meeting notes record that Suzanne Spaulding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said they shouldnt solely focus on addressing foreign threats [but] to emphasize that domestic threats remain and while attribution is sometimes unclear, CISA should be sensitive to domestic distinctions, but cannot focus too heavily on such limitations. So CISA should combat high-volume disinformation purveyors before the purveyor is attributed to a domestic or foreign threat and not worry so much about First Amendment niceties.

More telling is the groups attitude toward what it called mal-information typically information that is true, but contrary to the preferred narratives of the censor. Dr. Starbird wrote in an email, Unfortunately current public discourse (in part a result of information operations) seems to accept malinformation as speech and within democratic norms Therein lies a dilemma for the censors, as Starbird wrote: So, do we bend into a pretzel to counter bad faith efforts to undermine CISAs mission? Or do we put down roots and own the ground that says this tactic is part of the suite of techniques used to undermine democracy?

It is chilling that there is no consideration of whether the information is true or of the publics right to know it. Democracy in this formulation is whatever maintains the governments narrative.

Accordingly, the group discussed recommendations for countering dangerously inaccurate health advice. It contemplated the roles of the FBI and Homeland Security in addressing domestic threats, and a CISA staffer felt the need to remind the subcommittee of CISA's limitations in countering politically charged narratives.

CISA couldnt censor all the people the advisors wanted. And it could face the same outrage that greeted President Bidens Disinformation Governance Board, led by singing censor Nina Jankowicz. Americans didnt want that body deciding what they could say, and Biden shut it down within three weeks. CISAs advisers were acutely aware their work could be conflated with that of the DGB, and even considered changing the name of the MDM subcommittee. Dr. Starbird noted in an email that shed removed monitoring from just about every place where it appeared and made other defensive word changes/deletions. Similarly, Twitters Vijaya Gadde cautioned the group against pursuing any social listening recommendations for the time being.

The group also sought cover from outside and inside the government. They spent an inordinate amount of time talking about socializing the committee and its work something DGB apparently hadnt done. And like a partisan campaign, they looked for natural allies. Meeting notes record that they sought to identify a point of contact from a progressive civil rights and civil liberties angle to recruit as a [subject matter expert].

A government committee that seeks partisan allies, obfuscates its purpose, and cant even be honest about the nature of its members participation is going to sort out online truth for Americans? Welcome to the Censorship Industrial Complex.

Pete McGinnis is director of communications at the Functional Government Initiative.

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Docs offer glimpse inside Censorship Industrial Complex - The Highland County Press

Attacks on gender and sexuality in the American school system need not be direct. According to a new report from PEN America, they are often insidious and harmful all the same.James Tager

The report illustrates the frequency and volume with which legislative action goes beyond just overt content bans, instead creating chilled climates that deter the teaching of such content in schools.

These educational intimidation bills (EIBs) function not through blatant censorship but through fear, supervision, pressure, and the supporting of opposition, all of which lead to self-censorship, the authors of the report wrote.

Put simply, these educational intimidation provisions, as we dub them, empower the use of intimidation tactics to cast a broad chilling effect over K12 classrooms by mandating new and intrusive forms of inspection or monitoring of schools, as well as new ways for members of the publicincluding, in some cases, citizens with no direct connection to the schoolsto object to whatever they see that they do not like, the authors wrote.

The report together with the organizations Index of EIBs lists the state-level educational intimidation bills in the past three years. 392 were introduced between January 2021 and June 2023, and 39 have been passed into law since. And while these policies have a less than 10% pass rate, they can be reintroduced or recycled for future legislative sessions, the report authors wrote.

At least 19 U.S. states have educational intimidation tactics in place, and many local districts are also experimenting with similar sentiments, according to the report.

All but 15 of the 392 bills introduced since January 2021 were sponsored exclusively by Republicans, and both Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump have touted these educational policies on the presidential campaign trail, the reports authors wrote.

EIBs come in various forms and many share similar strategies. The report categorizes 12 common provisions, including burdensome content inspection requirements; broad and vague opt-out policies;expansions of what counts as 'harmful to minors';and monitoring and surveillance access.

What these EIBs do is set the stage for systems where people whether it be teachers, librarians, supervisors, or school leaders are incentivized to err on the side of caution so as not to include potentially controversial topics or content, said James Tager, research director for PEN America.

We have to think about the fact that it's not just the individual teachers who are sort of the targets of these bills. Because an individual teacher or librarian may feel brave enough to put, at times, their job on the line, Tager said. But often it can be the higher-ups who feel incentivized to follow the notes of caution that these laws impose on an entire school.

It incentivizes school districts and schools at large to basically streamline the process so that anything remotely controversial, anything that can be objected to, anything that an ideologically driven member of the community or individual parent may object to, they just kind of remove that from the curriculum or library."

And gauging just how pervasively EIBs are silencing educators can be difficult, given that many of these instances will be invisible and never reported on, Tager said.

Floridas Dont Say Gay Act

One prominent example of an EIB is DeSantiss 2022 Parental Rights in Education Act commonly called the Dont Say Gay law which espouses parental rights but has privacy and safety risks for LGBTQ+ students.

PEN Americas report explains how the bill legally obligates teachers to notify parents of their childs well-being and health. Though seemingly well-meaning and innocuous, the bill requires educators to let parents know if there is asuspicionthat their children might be LGBTQ+, even if the student may not want to disclose that information, the authors wrote.

Its also just simpler to play it safe, as demonstrated by how the governor-turned-presidential candidates bill has led at least one school district to remove Safe Space stickers for LGBTQ+ friendly campus locations. Pasco County did so, not because of opposition to safe spaces, but because of the ambiguity that comes with discerning why a student would be there in the first place, according to the report.

A student being there could possibly warrant a parental notification. So instead, the stickers were removed to avoid misinterpretation and a potential violation of the law, according to the report.

For the states passing these bills, the fear is the point, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in an email statement. Teachers are walking on eggshells because their freedom to teach, and kids freedom to learn, is under siege.

Amid the current political environment across the nation, there must be more done to prepare and support future teachers and administrators, said Dr. Robert Teranishi, professor of social science and comparative education at UCLA.

We also need to express support for teachers and principals when they communicate their commitment to create a safe and inclusive learning environment, he said in an email statement.

Parental rights

Using arguments hinged on parents rights, make it an uphill battle for opponents of EIBs, said Dr. Nicholas D. Hartlep, the Robert Charles Billings Endowed Chair in Education at Berea College.

"They utilize parents' rights and concerns as cover for policies and laws that ultimately harm democracy and children, a lot of times, said Hartlep, a father of three. Parents love their children. And no matter what party you are,it's hard to dismiss parents.

Society loves parents. And so, these policies and strategy are effective because they're using parents as a form of censorship. You see that with anti-trans bills and rhetoric."

Local policies and decades-old federal laws including the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the 1978 Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment already exist to ensure parental input and curriculum transparency, the report stated.

EIBs instead extend the reach of some parents to govern more than just their own children, Tager said.

No one here is saying that parents don't have a major role to play in their child's education, Tager said. But what we're seeing is the idea that some parents' rights get to trump the rights of other parents, that the more ideological a parent is, that these laws basically impose the preferences of a few parents over the preferences of the majority of parents, students, and teachers."

Such legislation and resulting censorship ultimately lead to watered-down education and poor preparation for todays students, Tager stressed.

"We basically incentivize school districts, teachers, and librarians to present this sort of sanitized, inoffensive, milquetoast version of American history, of access to literature and specific books, Tager said. This ill-prepares kids to operate in the modern world. It ill-prepares them to interact with people from other backgrounds. It ill-prepares them to engage in robust civic debate.

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Report: 'Educational Intimidation Bills' Result in Fear and Educator ... - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education