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I am rarely in favor of content censorship of any kind, but, like so many parents, I am deeply disturbed by the impact that a rudderless social media is having on our kids, specifically on their health. 

I was reminded about it yet again this week with the sudden run on TikTok of an ancient Chinese herb, berberine, which is found in a barberry, golden seal or even a rhododendron plant. Teens are calling it “nature’s Ozempic,” and promoting it on social media for weight loss, despite that its effect on losing weight is quite small. Don’t get me wrong, berberine does have powerful metabolic effects in terms of lowering blood sugar and cholesterol, but it also impacts the gut and can cause bloating, gas and constipation with unknown long-term effects, which is exactly why a physician should be involved, not self-appointed teen experts on TikTok.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is right to put out an advisory warning that social media has become a huge risk to the health of our youth, increasing during the social isolation brought on by the pandemic, but present even before. Murthy spoke to me on SiriusXM’s Doctor Radio Reports recently and talked about the negative impact of social media on the self-esteem of children and teens. 

Murthy said viewing thousands of images on social media causes teens to make dangerous comparisons to their own lives and images. He said this content is “driving social comparison at a time of adolescence when young people are going through a critical time of brain development, where they’re more susceptible to peer suggestion, per comparison and peer influence.” 

The idea of vulnerable groups turning to social media for “connectivity” makes sense. Unfortunately, it is a trap, often leading to further stigmatization and cyberbullying. 

A doctor like me can try to help by starting a conversation with parents and kids about social media and emphasizing the need for more personal interaction and media-free zones but it is unclear how much of an impact that will really make. The pull on our youth is strong. The social media culture is highly seductive and growing. Murthy noted that technology companies are “not transparent with the data they have about the health impact of their platforms on our kids,” meaning “we don’t even fully understand how bad some of these harms may be or which kids are most at risk.” 

The surgeon general believes that technology companies can design their platforms in ways that support the health and well-being of our kids. I think this goal is laudable but naïve. Social media sites will find a way to pay lip service to the idea without instituting fundamental change, even in the face of increasing regulations which Murthy is right to suggest. 

TikTok, for example, already has a health and wellness hub, but parading under that banner are many videos that mislead and misinform. I believe they will always find ways to infiltrate the brains of our youth, a backdoor that bypasses critical thinking, as Columbia psychiatrist Dr. Ryan Sultan said to me on Doctor Radio.

Don’t get me wrong, Murthy is absolutely right to compare the need for safety regulation for social media to what we already have in place for car seats or automobiles themselves. As a physician, I don’t think twice about the Food and Drug Administration demanding safety protocols for drug manufacturing and distribution, so why should social media be any different?  

As Murthy said to me, policymakers have “a critical role” to play. They must create standards to protect young people from being exposed to “violence and sexual content,” “harassment and bullying” and “the features on social media that seek to manipulate them into spending more and more and more time” on platforms. 

Again, a laudable goal. There is no doubt that the addictive impact of social media may rob our children of some of life’s key moments. And, for once, I have no problem with the idea of trying to restrict content much as the movie rating system kept me from seeing an X-rated movie when I was a kid. 

But the problem is that these kinds of regulations are no longer effective, as social media sites (and teens) will easily find ways around them. Still, every parent with a developing child in this country shares the surgeon general’s concern and we must force action, even if we know that action will have limited impact.

Marc Siegel, MD, is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health. He is a Fox News medical correspondent and author of the new book, “COVID; the Politics of Fear and the Power of Science.”

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Should the government censor social media for kids? - The Hill

Fatima Mohammeds commencement speech drew ire from powerful politicians (Screenshot via @SAFECUNY/Twitter)

On May 12, City University of New York (CUNY) Law student Fatima Mohammed boldly spoke out against Israeli crimes against Palestinians. At first, a video of her speech received little notoriety but shortly went viral after news outlets and pro-Israel politicians took notice. The New York Post published a front-page story on the speech with the headline Stark Raving Grad. Since then, she has been subject to backlash from figures as powerful as mayor of New York City Eric Adams, Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

Following the backlash, Mohammeds alma mater removed her speech from Youtube and condemned her words as hate speech.

Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinian homes and businesses, Mohammed said in her speech. During the holy month of Ramadan, Israeli occupation forces had indeed attacked worshippers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Last year they attacked the funeral procession of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whos killing has been established as intentional by the Israeli state.

Supporters of Palestine are continually persecuted for exercising their free speech rights in the United States, especially in academia. Professors, such as Steven Salaita, have lost their jobs for speaking out against Israel. The infamous website Canary Mission exists to surveil and defame students that are organizing in support of Palestinian liberation. The US has several laws on the books that explicitly ban boycotts against Israel.

Mohammed also criticized CUNY for collaborating with what she called the fascist New York City Police Department, leading to former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly slandering her on FOX News.

At this same commencement, students booed and turned their guests on surprise guest speaker Eric Adams, who was once an NYPD officer himself. The mayor has come under fire for several policy choices that will negatively affect poor New Yorkers, such as homeless encampment sweeps and cutting funds for schools. In a shocking lack of transparency, the student body was not informed about Adams presence prior to his arrival, and he was rightfully met with resounding boos as he attempted to deliver a self-aggrandizing apologia for police violence disguised as a speech, read a statement authored by Within Our Lifetime, a NYC-based Palestinian liberation organization.

The Palestinian Youth Movement, a transnational organization of Palestinian and Arab youth in the diaspora, declared that they stand with Fatima and all those facing repression for speaking up & organizing against the Zionist entity. This backlash continues to prove the fragile position of Zionism in this country.

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Law Student in NYC faces backlash and censorship after speaking ... - Peoples Dispatch

Bold exhibitions, middling sales and enduring tensions over censorship marked the eighth edition of Gallery Weekend Beijing (GWBJ), which closed on Sunday (4 June). This was its first iteration since China lifted most of its Covid restrictions and re-opened fully to international visitors.

Featuring 21 Beijing galleries, five institutions and 13 visiting galleries, GWBJ fell between two of the citys main art fairs, Beijing Contemporary Art Expo (28 April to 1 May), better known by its Mandarin name Beijing Dangdai, and JingArt (1 to 4 June), which this year partnered with the gallery weekend. The confluence of events this past six weeks has provided a marquee season for the Beijing art scene, which has been battered by three years of zero Covid measures and simmering political tensions. The economy is bad, the mood is worse, said one gallerist, asking to remain anonymous: A pall has set over the city following the high-profile censorship of comedian Li Haoshi last month. His management company was fined $2m after he made a joke referencing the Chinese military.

Nonetheless, many saw the gallery weekend as a much-needed chance to forge and re-establish connections after years of isolation. "After three years we are meeting friends from all over the world," says GWBJ director Amber Yifei Wang. She surmises that the pandemic has changed peoples priorities and that the exhibitions taking place around the gallery weekend must be exciting enough to draw in crowds. That poses a big challenge, she says, requiring GWBJ to be "more proactive".

Wang says the opening attracted over 50 collectors from outside the city, from cities like Nanjing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Qingdao, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore. Low flight availability kept institutional visitors mostly Asia-based as well, except for a few key foreigners, such as Nora Lawrence, the chief curator of New Yorks Storm King Art Center.

Installation view of Qin Yifeng at Magician Space, Beijing

Courtesy of Magician Space, Beijing

Standout exhibitions include a solo show by Ma Quisha at Beijing Commune, which is showing a single, not-for-sale work, No. 52LiulichangEastStreet. Referencing the capitals iconic, now defunct antiques market, the artist has packed treasures and ephemera referencing her family history and Chinese cultural exports into a replica shop window. Other standouts include Qin Yifeng series of negatives, at Magician Space, which invert the process of photography, and Chris Zhongtian Yuans videos, installations and sketches that muse upon mortality at the Macalline Art Centre.

In the longtime artists' village Songzhuang, the new Sound Art Museum has opened with impressive facilities. The inaugural exhibitions include a permanent audio history of Old Beijing and early Chinese sound installations. According to the museum's director and co-founder, the curator and artist Colin Chinnery, for Beijing after the initial relief of restrictions ending, the realisation of a new economic reality is dawning on people". This mood is of "cautious optimism, with an emphasis on cautious, he adds. Of GWBJ, he says: It was nice to see artists and projects from around the world again, with artists actually being present. It feels like we're reconnecting to the world again. That's absolutely essential for the art world here to be nursed back to health.

This post-Covid economic reality is not only felt, but seen: Beijing, like the rest of China, remains pockmarked by boarded-up storefronts. This is the case in the Caochangdi neighbourhood, from where several galleries departed during the worst of Covid. Those that remain include White Space, ShanghArt and Ink Studio, all of which are back in action. Meanwhile, the emptied spaces are filling up again as studios. In the airport-adjacent Shunyi District, the free-trade zone Blanc Art now houses several galleries like Lisson and White Space, plus additional storage and short-term spaces. During the GWBJ opening week, Blanc Art hosted a pop-up exhibition cooperating with Hong Kong institution Tai Kwun Contemporary to show artists from Mythmakersa recent show of Asian LGBTQ art.

GWBJ is run by Beijing 798 Culture Technology, which oversees the 798 Art Zone and is owned by the state-owned electronics conglomerate SevenStar Group. Last year the group removed Wang Yanling, 798s popular director since 2011, due to allegations of misconduct, and replaced him with Teng Yanbin.

But it is broader politics, rather than management changes, that appear to be responsible for the heightened censorship concerns during GWBJs opening. Following Li Haoshi's $2m fine, criticism of Yue Minjuns longstanding series of paintings of soliders resurfaced online, with pro-government commenters claiming the artist was mocking the military. This resulted in reports of Beijing galleries subsequently censoring or self-censoring all military imagery.

The censors were all over GWBJ, said another gallerist, speaking anonymously. After the Li Haoshi incident, they fear civilian digital vigilantes almost as much as official censors. The government operates on perception as much as reality. Right now, in areas of culture and entertainment, it is actively creating an environment in which everyone assumes the government is paying attention, whether this is literally true or not, said the gallerist. My expectation is that contemporary art would be part of this shift. The reality is that overt censorship is probably the old school way. There are probably newer methods involving decentralised crowd-sourced monitoring and reporting being used today. Even supportive visitors may post images that then are picked up by wumao [nationalistic reposters] who are incentivised to report events of interest.

Censorship was about the same as always, countered GWBJ director Wang. Censorship and the security guards have always been here, and the guards are here more for security and crowd management than oversight.

We did a self-censorship in preparing [Yangs] exhibition, exploring how netizens rerouted around social media censorship during last years harsh Shanghai lockdown, say a spokesperson for White Space gallery. Before the opening, some worrying events did occur in the arts and cultural sector, but we still managed to realise the exhibition with a positive and flexible attitude.

For the first time, GWBJ split foreign galleries and those from China into separate venues. A number of gallerists reported somewhat conservative sales figures throughout the weekend. This incarnation's most explicit difference was the lack of people, says Mathieu Borysevicz, the founder of Shanghai gallery Bank, which has taken part in GWBJ since 2021. "Last year it was buzzing even with Covid controls; this year is just noticeably more quiet." He says there is now a conspicuous lack of foot traffic in China in general. It just feels a lower energy these days post-Covid.

Bank brought conceptual photography from Patty Chang, who had a solo show at 798 nonprofit Macalline Art Centre last year, and sculptures by Zhang Yibei. Changs works were from a planned 2022 Shanghai show scuttled by censors. Sales proved brisk, if mostly to familiar collectors. Everything was priced around 80,000 Chinese yuan and below, so that's maybe one of the reasons we did so well. I think people these days are really conservative about spending money and maybe we came in under or within their budgets." Bank also joined Beijing Dangdai, selling well with works priced under 60,000 RMB.

Overseas galleries that took part included Timothy Taylor, David Kordansky and Chantal Crousel. We did great for Gallery Weekend, says Chantal Crousel's director of China, Wang Wan. The Paris gallery showed works by the artist Mimosa Echard, and is also holding a pop-up show of Wade Guyton in Blanc until late June, following a group show there in October 2021 when the project first opened. We don't really do too many fairs in China and never in Beijing, and since we don't have any spaces in China, we need more opportunity to present exhibitions [longer] than just few days fairs to the local audiences," Wan says. "We do have a lot of Asian/Chinese clients as we started working on the market quite a long time ago, and Beijing is still one of the most important cities playing an irreplaceable role in the art ecosystem currently, in the past, and in the future.

"Beijing is certainly somewhere you have to appear," says Borysevicz. There are more serious collectors in Beijing than anywhere else in China, but there are also artists, the other galleries and the media industry". Beijing and Shanghai are "like apples and oranges, they both serve different purposes".

Link:
'The economy is bad, the mood is worse': Gallery Weekend Beijing ... - Art Newspaper

The Association of American Publishers and associates are in court, they say, to protect freedoms foundational to our democracy.

Image Getty iStockphoto: Chuang Tzu Dreaming

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Today (June 2), the Association of American Publishers (AAP) has become one entity in a coalition of publishers, booksellers, librarians and readers filing a lawsuit to defend Arkansas citizens right to read.

And also today, the AAP has made common cause with some of the worlds largest publishing companies to file an amicus brief in a case in Llano County, Texas.

These responses reflect what AAP president and CEO Maria A. Pallante told the main-stage audience at London Book Fair in April: some of the most severe assaults on freedom of expression and the freedom to publish in the American market appear to be starting in the provinces, as it might be said in Europe. Actions often hostile to the publics right to read what it chooses are surfacing first in state, municipal, and/or county jurisdictions far from the nations Washington-based federal center.

Signed by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas and a former press secretary for the Donald Trump White House, Act 372 was signed on March 30 and is scheduled to go into effect on August 1.

As described for an April 19 report by Jacqueline Froelich for KUAF, a National Public Radio affiliate, Arkansas Act 372 which takes effect in a few months criminalizes librarians and library staff for knowingly furnishing print and digital literature to minors ruled to be harmful or obscene. The measure was brought by Right-wing Republican lawmakers who seek to erase juvenile library materials about racial equity and inclusion, queer culture, black history, and sex education.

In the Arkansas case, the newly filed lawsuit challenges a bill that the plaintiffs say would restrict access to books in state bookstores and public libraries. The coalition speaking collectively to the news media in this case includes:

In their media messaging, the group says:

Mary Rasenberger

In a separate statement provided to Publishing Perspectives, Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, says, The argument that certain books need to be removed from schools to protect children is now being used to limit access for adults, as well, which infringes on everyones rights. Efforts to remove these books not only diminish the richness of our cultural tapestry but also send a message that the experiences of LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities are unworthy of representation.

Its our shared responsibility to safeguard the literary freedom that forms the bedrock of a democratic society. By supporting the availability and accessibility of diverse books, we can foster dialogue, promote understanding, and counter the marginalization of these communities.

In this case today, the AAP has been joined by Penguin Random House, Candlewick Press, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Scholastic, and Simon & Schuster in filing an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs, patrons of the Llano County Library System in Llano County, Texas, in the case of Little v. Llano County.

At The New York Times in April, David Montgomery and Alexandra Alter, writing about the controversy, said, Several of the books in question in Llano County have LGBTQ themes or characters, or addressed racial inequality, but they also include goofy childrens titles, such as a series of picture books about flatulence.

So contentious has the situation become, in which a reported 17 books were removed from the Llano County library system, that the county considered shutting down its libraries rather than restore the books to the shelves, as a court ordered. What this suit challenges are actions taken by members of the Llano County Commissioners Court; members of the Llano County Library Board; and the Llano County Library System Director.

The underlying lawsuit, Little v. Llano County, was filed on April 25, 2022, by seven Llano County residents, claiming that, among other things, public officials had violated their constitutional rights under the First Amendment by banning books based on content and viewpoint. In March 2023, a federal court granted plaintiffs a preliminary injunction, which ordered that return of the books to the library system and catalog. The defendants are now appealing that decision.

Matthew Stratton

In a separate statement from Matthew Stratton, deputy general counsel for the AAP, we read, On behalf of our many members, we are pleased to file this amicus brief in support of the critically important suit brought by public library patrons

As our brief states,the instinct to ban books is not unique to any particular political ideology, but regardless of when or where it happens, the removal of books from the shelves of a public library is fundamentally inconsistent with the tenets of American democracy.

Accordingly, time and again courts have upheld core First Amendment freedoms by rejecting attempts to impose viewpoint and content-based discrimination in libraries.

And in part of the amicus brief, its pointed out, The countys removals targeted some of the most celebrated and consequential works of recent years, as well as popular and classic childrens books.

The titles include:

More from Publishing Perspectives on issues of censorship is here, more on book bannings is here, more on the Association of American Publishers is here, and more on the Authors Guild is here.

Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.

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Battling Literary Censorship: New Court Action in the United States - Publishing Perspectives

The trial ended in a few minutes: Four lashes would fall on the body of Khawar Naeem Hashmi, accused of defacing the mausoleum of Mohammad Ali Jinnah on Pakistans independence day in 1977. He was, arguably, lucky the other journalists who had joined him in a public protest against military dictatorship were sentenced to five lashes each. Lines were drawn on their backs to ensure the whip would fall with precision; army officers, Hashmi later recalled, would amuse their families by bringing them along to watch.

Lashings seemed to have become popular amusements in General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haqs time. A hundred thousand people gathered in a Karachi park to watch the punishment of Mohammed Kaleem, convicted of raping a child.

Earlier this week, newspaperowners and editors were called into meetings with Pakistans military brass and ordered to cease covering establishment darling-turned-insurrectionary Imran Khan. During his own term as Prime Minister, Imran and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorateused enforced disappearances, torture, and false criminal cases to terrorise journalists,evendriving some dissidents into exile.

Absar Alam was shot outside his house,expert Lynn ODonnell records. Asad Ali Toor was bound, gagged, and beaten inside his own home. Exiled critics even found themselves targeted for assassinationoverseas by hit squads alleged to have been hired by the ISI.

This time around, Imran has been made to wear the muzzle and chain he gleefully used on his opponentsand thats bad news for Pakistan.

Also read: Imran Khan supporters will call it a revolution. But Pakistan in ashes is the

Like much of the Indian media, the news industry of Pakistan was born in the ideological crucible of the freedom movement.Dawn, founded by Pakistan movement patriarch Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was converted from a weekly to a daily newspaper. Mir Khalil-ur-Rehmans Jang, Hamid NizamisNawa-i-Waqt,and Mian IftikharuddinsPakistan Times would drive the emergence of a new generation of post-independence media conglomerates.

Even though an organised media flowered,historians Saima Parveen and Muhammad Nawaz Bhattiremind us, it was not free to defend the democratic values; instead they were working to praise government policies. National interests, the glory of Islam, and the Ideology of Pakistanwerecatchphrases used to extend support from the press for the government.

General Ayub Khans military regime institutionalised this informal censorship. The Left-leaningPakistan Times,Imroz,andLail-o-Nahar were nationalised. The three mass-circulation newspapers run by former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhuttos family Musawat,Hilal-i-Pakistan, andNusrat also ended up in the hands of the State-owned National Press Trust.

ThePress and Publication Ordinance introduced by General Ayub and which, among other things, penalised the publication of crimes of violence or sex in a manner likely to excite unhealthy curiosity as well as information calculated to cause public alarm, frustration or despondencyprovided a powerful tool where gentler persuasion failed.

Future historians might debate just how significant censorship was as a tool of regime survival. The law, notably, could not stop Dhaka newspapers from publishing special supplements on 23 March 1971,theanniversary of the Muslim Leagues Pakistan resolution as Emancipation of Bangladesh Day.

Also read: Pakistan Army wont bounce back easily this time. Imran Khan shattering its illusion of

Following his installation as President after the 1971Bangladesh war,media expert JM Williams noted, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto started using more subtle kinds of coercion. The supply of newsprint was a State monopoly, and major advertisers like Pakistan International Airlines were also public-sector entities. The new President had promised to dissolve the National Press Trust earlier but rapidly concluded that the tyrants tool could serve its ends too.

The government moved to cancel the newsprint quotas ofJang,stopped advertising for Dawn, and bannedThe Sun.

General Zia, who seized power in 1977, tightened State control over the media. Even journalists were jailed. Four more Masudullah Khan, Iqbal Jafri, Khawar Naeem Hashmi, and Nisar Zaidi were flogged for organising apro-democracy hunger strike. As during Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhis Emergency, pre-censorship of content was introduced in Pakistan.

Even though Zias regime modelled itself on the revolutionary Islamism of Iranian mullahs and the monarchical concentration of power of Saudi Arabia, those regimes managed to use their resources to address at least some of their economic and social problems. The same cannot be said of the Islamism of Zia,Ibrahim Karawan has noted.

FormerPrime Minister Benazir Bhutto did initiate an opening-up of media freedoms in the democratic revival that followed,buteditor Imran Aslamrecorded that her government routinely sought to buy off critical journalists. The military, for its part, maintained its own list of client writers as it battled the Prime Minister for control.

The Nawaz Sharifgovernmentrestored the use of blunt tools. The owner ofThe News, Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, famously released taped conversations of two prominent government officials seeking to blackmail him into sacking critical journalists by threatening tax prosecutions.

Former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf cast himself as a defender of the free press and enabled the rise of private television news broadcasting. Even under Musharraf, though, journalists who crossed the establishment faced severe consequences. The journalist Syed Saleem Shahzadwas murdered, allegedlyby military agents.

Also read:The soured love affair between Imran Khan and Pakistan Army is a ticking time

Lessons for India

To Indians familiar withtheir ownmedia history, much of this story will be depressingly familiar. Like in Pakistan, a powerful illiberal impulse ran through Indian democratic institutionsafter Independence. Enraged by what he claimed was a partisan and communal media, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru cracked down on press freedoms. Terrible, something terrible, he said of Indian journalism to the visitingscholar Michael Brecher. We put an end to it.

In 1950, the Supreme Court shot down the Government of Madras ban on the Left-wing weeklyCrossroads. Then, the court stopped the Delhi government from pre-censoring the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs (RSS) magazineOrganiser. The government responded by resurrecting colonial-eraanti-free speech laws.

The Indian State also created a system of pelf and patronage to ensure it controlled the media. Even though the media sometimes fought back, it has rarely enjoyed genuine independence from the government.

Even though few of Imrans opponents have reason to shed tears for his fate, liberals fear whats passed for a democratic transition is coming to closely resemble military tyranny. Thecommentator Omar Warraich, among others, has thoughtfully noted that the real lesson is that the Generals need to be evicted from Pakistani politics. The chokehold of the military on ideas and debate has created a republic of fear.

For Indians, the crisis in Pakistan ought to be a reminder of just how fragile democratic freedoms areand how difficult they can be to resurrect when they have been allowed to crumble.

The author is National Security Editor, ThePrint. He tweets @praveenswami. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)

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Pakistani Generals have a history of censoring media. Imran Khan is ... - ThePrint