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In May 2021, the world watched in horror as Israeli police evicted the Palestinian residents of Jerusalems Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood against their fervid resistance. Meanwhile, another fight was raging: that of narrative power. As journalists, citizen activists, and human rights organizations attempted to document Israels brutal crackdown, many found their communications subject to overzealous content moderation. Key social media posts were removed from influential platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, precisely when those posts were most crucial. The effect of this censorship, many contended, was to dramatically stifle the already marginalized voices of Palestinians, who hoped to show a global audience their lived reality under a violent occupation. This censorship followed a familiar pattern; digital rights organizations such as Access Now and 7amleh have, for years, produced reports meticulously documenting suppression of Palestinian content by social media companies. This pattern of targeted censorship mainly traces its roots to the U.S. response to the attacks on 9/11, and the ensuing buildup of the national security state designed to track and flag any potentially dangerous terrorist activity. One outcome of this intensive buildup was to systematize the kind of discrimination that paved the way for todays content moderation dragnet, in which Palestinians often find themselves caught.

With the advent of the War on Terror, the U.S. Treasury Department created the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list to track global terrorists. Created via executive order by former President George W. Bush, the list was compiled to impede funding for individuals and organizations designated as terrorists by blocking their assets. In 18 U.S Code 2339A - Providing Material Support to Terrorists, material support or services is defined as any property that is tangible or intangible. Since these laws were written before the spread of social media, it is unclear if postings can reasonably be censored for providing intangible material support to terrorists. The vagueness of the material support for terrorism clause and the expansiveness of the SDN list have led Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and even Zoom to adopt an overly broad definition of terrorist content that censors and discriminates against Palestinians as well as Muslims and Arabic speakers in general.

In October 2021, the Intercept revealed Facebooks list of Dangerous Individuals and Organizations'' (DIO). This list informs Facebooks Community Standards and aims to prevent real world harm by deplatforming organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence. According to the Intercept, the list is a clear embodiment of American anxieties, political concerns, and foreign policy values since 9/11. Additionally, Human Rights Watch reports that Facebook relies on the list of organizations that the U.S. has designated as foreign terrorist organizations to inform its DIO list. That list includes political movements that have armed wings, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hamas. Facebooks policy, however, seems to call for removing praise or support for all major Palestinian political movements, even when those postings do not explicitly advocate violence. This is evidenced by its removal of posts advocating for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The fear of legal liability results in Facebook broadly suppressing Palestinian expression and content, even when it cannot clearly be tied to organizations on the DIO list or violence more generally. In one instance, Facebook removed references to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem because it associated Al-Aqsa with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is on Facebooks DIO list. In a similar incident, a post sharing a news article about a recently issued threat by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades was removed due to the organizations inclusion on the DIO list.

Often, Facebook removes content on the basis of incitement rather than the DIO list. Incitement laws in Israel are vague and often leveled at Palestinian political speech. As of 2015, 470 Palestinians had been arrested for incitement due to their Facebook posts, including poet Dareen Tatour for a poem posted on the platform. While these incitement laws do not exist in the United States, American social media companies comply with 90% of the hundreds of thousands of content removal requests made by the Israeli Cyber Unit. Companies comply for the same reason they are hypervigilant about content that has the faintest connection to the SDN list: They fear legal liability. In 2015, Facebook was hit with a $1 billion lawsuit that claimed the platform facilitated and encouraged violence against Israelis. While the case was dropped in 2017, Facebook has since intensified its relationship with the Israeli government and pledged to tackle Palestinian incitement. Such concerns are not limited to Facebook either: In 2020, Zoom canceled an event hosted by San Francisco State University that featured Palestinian militant Leila Khaled for similar fears of legal liability. The company released the following statement: Zoom is committed to supporting the open exchange of ideas and conversations, subject to certain limitations contained in our Terms of Service, including those related to user compliance with applicable U.S. export control, sanctions, and anti-terrorism laws.

Social media content of Palestinian Americans is also subject to scrutiny by law enforcement on the basis of antiterrorism laws. In 2018, the Intercept reported on how Palestinian Americans were receiving home visitsfrom the FBI because of their social media posts. In one instance, a law student was interviewed by the New Jersey Joint Terrorism Task Force about his pro-Palestinian posts. These posts had been included in a profile about him created by a right wing pro-Israel website, Canary Mission, which has been revealed to be a source for the FBI and other American law enforcement agencies engaged in counter-terrorism. Canary Mission is also utilized by Israel, especially by Israeli border agents, when running checks on Palestinian Americans attempting to visit the occupied territories. These cases only further reveal how Palestinian content is constantly surveilled; if the content is not removed by social media companies, it is documented by far-right organizations and law enforcement and cited as evidence of potential national security risks.

It is clear that a major obstacle to a democratized social media space is the War on Terror framework, which continues to define the Palestinian struggle to engage in free speech online. As long as the SDN list and threat of legal repercussions for vague claims of material support for terrorism continue to exist, tech companies have no incentive to change their moderation policies and make room for Palestinians. Dismantling digital barriers requires critically considering the disastrous legacy of the War on Terror and its legal relics. Yesterday's national security imperatives cannot be the basis for legislating the unpredictable online world of 2022 and beyond; stakeholders should watch carefully to see how governments and other actors grapple with this reality.

Nooran Alhamdan is a graduate research fellow for MEIs Cyber Program for the 2021-22 academic year. She previously served as a graduate research fellow for MEIs Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs.She is currently pursuing her Masters in Arab Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The views expressed in this piece are her own.

Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images

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How the War on Terror paved the way for online censorship of Palestinians - Middle East Institute

Will Cain, co-host of "Fox & Friends Weekend," praised Dwayne The Rock Johnson for expressing support for Spotify podcaster Joe Rogan on Twitter. On "Fox & Friends First" Wednesday, Cain said it's rare to see people advocate for free speech in the midst of mainstream culture that seems to be accepting censorship.

JOE ROGAN'S RESPONSE TO CRITICS LEAVES MANY LIBERAL PUNDITS UNSATISFIED

WILL CAIN: It's the pop culture, acceptable thing right now to call for misinformation. I was driving around in Dallas the other day listening to what used to be one of my favorite sports radio stations a host who could have been canceled any of a thousand times over the last 20 years openly say, 'Well, you have a responsibility when you're talking about public health' and call for censorship. I was appalled, but I think that ultimately those sports radio hosts were sheep because mainstream, acceptable culture right now seems to be accepting censorship.

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So here's Dwayne The Rock Johnson swimming the other way, swimming upstream and saying he supports Joe Rogan. I find that very encouraging. Most notably because I think it is rare. Unfortunately, I think it's pretty rare today to be, as you described me, so gratuitously and accurately I might say, as a free speech proponent. Who in the United States of America now truly stands for free speech?

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Will Cain on Joe Rogan controversy: Mainstream culture is accepting censorship - Fox News

Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Most of us dont know what we think, really. Throughout our lives we encounter so many influential entities from our family, our culture, our schools, by advertising, by the media that we rarely have thoughts that are totally original. Most are variations of what we already know or have been conditioned to think and feel.

How might we learn which thoughts really belong to us, and which are thoughts planted by others? Which shared thoughts are helpful for social cohesion? Do we have curiosity to explore new thoughts, together?

Exploring the concept of thinking is called critical thinking. It may be our path out of the division and turbulence within the United States and lead us to a new social contract. Critical thinking, however, is no easy task. It requires exposure and openness to new ideas, followed by healthily dealing with the discomfort of our new thoughts.

As a result, we often hear calls for censorship because new ideas are considered dangerous. Unknowingly. the thought police are here; and it is us.

Our freedom of speech is paradoxically a tool for authoritarian mindsets to demand censorship. Broadly speaking, there are several main arenas where censorship and freedom of speech are currently debated. As you read the following, what are your thoughts? Do you find yourself celebrating one area of censorship while decrying it in another?

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This last point about how we tell the story of our shared history has especially captured my attention because I have two friends who hold opposing views, which naturally challenges my own thinking.

One is a friend who saw a tweet claiming that "ethnic studies" was a cover or code for teaching CRT in California schools. She feels national pride is necessary for social cohesion and that CRT will cause students to be ashamed of our nation. In previous conversations, she shared with me her school and home experiences growing up in post-war Germany. When she would ask her mother about World War II, mother wouldnt talk about it, presumably feeling ashamed. National pride was lost and my friend emigrated to Canada and then the United States, where she became a naturalized citizen.

My other friend is concerned about history being erased, and young minds being assimilated into the dominant culture, which would cut off people from their ancestral roots. He drew a similarity to the Babylonians, who attempted to erase the history of the Israelites, as chronicled in the book of Daniel. This friend is a Baptist minister, and discovering his ancestry has taken extra effort, due to our nations history of enslavement. His identity was not connected or represented in American history. His family was not included in the dominant culture, but have shared their stories within their communities that other Americans either dont know or cannot resonate with.

This is the tension that leads to censorship in schools. A fear of shame about our past and/or anger at being left out of the story. An accurate representation of history gives us the opportunity to learn from the past mistakes of others. It helps us understand why people behaved as they did and why they may behave the way they do now, and which in turn helps future generations to become better citizens. This is why the full teaching of history will shape our future. Its one element to build social cohesion.

Its why we fight over censorship, too. Some people like to surround themselves with like-minded people and avoid challenges to their thinking. This is known more scientifically as confirmation bias. They short-hand and denigrate group-think in others with labels like snowflakes and cult members, recognizing tendencies in others but not themselves.

As we hear increasing calls for censorship, how might we engage to think more critically instead? And how might we come to understand that some of those uncomfortable thoughts can help us learn and grow? We need outliers.

Outliers were defined by Malcolm Gladwell when he chronicled people whose achievements fall outside normal experience, and are a fascinating and provocative blueprint for making the most of human potential. Outliers challenge our assumptions and point them out. Outliers can prevent group-think. Outliers are often mistaken as conflict entrepreneurs (or provocateurs) because of the discomfort they create while challenging the status quo as insufficient.

Whereas conflict entrepreneurs exploit our divisions as a way to profit, while claiming outlier status. How might we distinguish between them?

When exposed to an outlier, I will think or feel:

When exposed to a conflict entrepreneur, I will think or feel:

Youll notice that outliers invite curiosity, engaging in a way that allows us to find our own way to agree or dream with them. The exploration is the point. The conflict entrepreneurs speak with certainty and offer answers, so we can bypass the analysis of points of view, the judging based on evidence, and the forming of opinions based on deductive reasoning. This is the essence of critical thinking needed to build social cohesion.

I crave more critical thinking. More connection. More exploration. I dont crave more censorship. What do you think?

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Critical thinking on censorship - The Fulcrum

If the great campaigners for free speech of the past, such as Baruch Spinoza or Mary Wollstonecraft or Frederick Douglass, were alive today, they would surely declare the 21st century an unprecedented golden age. So suggests Jacob Mchangama in his new history of free speech.

Its a claim that might raise a few eyebrows. This, after all, is an age in which, from China to Saudi Arabia, dictatorial rulers imprison and kill political opponents with impunity. An age in which governments in formally democratic nations such as India use the judicial system to try to silence critics. An age in which more than 1,400 journalists have been murdered in 30 years. An age in which governments across the globe desperately seek ways of curbing speech on social media they consider dangerous. And in which, in the west, there is a constant debate about cancel culture and the erosion of academic freedom.

Mchangama, a leading campaigner for free speech, is not trying to dismiss the reality of contemporary censorship. He is suggesting, rather, that in historical terms, we have never been more free to speak our minds. But this leads to a paradox. The very fact that, certainly in the west, we live in far more open societies has led many to be sanguine and dismissive of the threat that restrictions on speech can impose upon us. The very success of historical struggles can obscure the lessons of those struggles.

Historically, the demand for free speech was at the heart of the fight for social justice. From the challenge posed by freethinkers in 10th-century Islam to the abolitionist struggle in 19th-century America, from the suffragette movement to campaigns for liberation from colonial rule, there has long been a recognition that democracy, social justice and free speech go hand in hand and that censorship was a weapon wielded by the powerful to stymie social change.

Today, though, the issues seem more confusing. Much censorship, particularly in liberal democracies, is imposed in the name of protecting not the powerful but the powerless or the vulnerable: laws against hate speech, for instance, or restricting the scope of racists or bigots. And where once the left was clearly opposed to censorship, many now support restrictions in the name of the progressive good. As the left has vacated the ground of free speech, the right and the far right have become encamped upon it. This has further distorted the debate, the cause of free speech coming to be seen as the property of the right, making many on the left even more wary of the idea.

One of the ironies, though, is that many arguments used today to defend speech restrictions as protections for the powerless are often the same as those once used by the powerful to protect their interests from challenge. When the US abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in 1837 by a pro-slavery mob in Illinois, a southern newspaper blamed him for his own death, as he had utterly disregarded the sentiments of a large majority of the people of that place. A century and a half later, we heard the same arguments in calls for the banning of The Satanic Verses or in claims that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were responsible for their own deaths, because they, too, had disregarded the sentiments of many Muslims.

Or take hate speech. In the 1950s, there was a major debate about the wording of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, one of the seminal documents of human rights, adopted by the UN in 1966. The draft proposal sought to prohibit any advocacy of national, racial or religious hostility that constitutes an incitement to violence. The Soviet Union wanted to delete the reference to violence and make any form of hatred illegal. Such a move, warned Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the drafting committee, would be extremely dangerous as any criticism of public or religious authorities might all too easily be described as incitement to hatred and consequently prohibited. Half a century on, Roosevelts warning seems highly prescient.

Instances in which the expansion of speech has facilitated the spread of obnoxious or dangerous ideas are well-documented: from the newly invented printing press giving fuel to witch-hunts in early modern Europe; to newspapers playing a major role in whipping up the racist frenzy that led to lynchings in 19th-century America; to the medias role in the 20th century in fomenting hatred against Jews in Germany and Tutsis in Rwanda.

Yet we can also see from the historical record that while it is necessary to legally curtail incitement to violence, trying to combat hatred more broadly through censorship can be both ineffective and dangerous. One of the deepest-held beliefs about the dangers of free speech is the Weimar myth: the belief that unrestrained freedom of speech allowed the Nazis to spread their poisonous ideas in 1920s Germany and that restrictions on speech and the suppression of antisemitic propaganda would have stalled the rise of Hitler. In fact, the Weimar republic, while constitutionally supportive of free speech, possessed what we would now call hate speech laws and powers to shut down newspapers. Hundreds of Nazis were prosecuted under these laws. Between 1923 and 1933, the viciously antisemitic newspaper Der Strmer was either confiscated or tried in court on 36 occasions and its editor, Julius Streicher, twice jailed.

Many scholars argue that despite such laws Weimar courts were unduly lenient towards hate-mongers and that judges sympathised with Nazi aims. Other studies suggest that such leniency was the exception, not the rule. Wherever the truth lies in this debate, the primary failure in preventing the rise of Nazism was not legal but political. And this is true of hatred and bigotry today.

We often forget, too, that the victims of censorship are more often than not minorities and those fighting for social change. From Indian climate change activists being charged with promoting enmity between communities to British police charging feminists with hate crimes, censorship in the name of preventing hatred is widely used to target social activists.

We are the inheritors of centuries of struggle against restrictions on what we are able to say. If we forget the lessons of those struggles, we are in danger also of letting the gains of those struggles slip away.

Kenan Malik is an Observer columist

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Freedom of speech was too hard won to be cavalier now about censorship - The Guardian

In the last six months, the American Library Association has seen a spike in book challenges and bans in both school and public libraries, mostly targeting books that center on race and LGBT identity. At the end of 2021, Wake County experienced its own high-profile censorship controversy.

Gender Queer, a graphic memoir about author Maia Kobabe's journey towards identifying as transgender, was removed from Wake County Public Library in December after complaints that it was pornographic. The removal was met with outrage from some in the Wake County community, including an open letter from librarians in protest. In response, WCPL announced on January 10 that they would return Gender Queer to the shelves and work on revising their removal policy.

In October of last year, a video surfaced of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson's remarks calling books about LGBT identity filth. When many North Carolinians expressed outrage, Robinson defended his comments and targeted three books specifically for removal: Gender Queer, Lawn Boy, and George, which he described as pornographic and inappropriate for schools and libraries.

Last fall, Wake County residents complained about these same books. Jessica Lewis spoke on behalf of a group of parents at a December Wake County school board public meeting.

Why do our kids have access to this obscenity in our libraries? Who is going to be held accountable for this?" Lewis asked as she quoted segments of the books. "No matter what gender you are, these books have no business being in our libraries.

Nine mothers filed a criminal complaint against Wake County Public School System in December. Among them was Julie Page, who called the books R-rated, if not X-rated, and said that having them available in the public school system was a violation of state and federal statutes protecting minors from obscenity.

Wake County librarian Megan Roberts, who is also a member of the American Library Association, says that its difficult to accept the argument that these complaints arent about race and LGBT identity when they most often target books with those themes.

Although book challenges and bans have a long history, a representative of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom said they saw an "unprecedented" number of book challenges in the fall of 2021. From September 1 to December 1, the ALA received 330 book challenge reports, more than twice the number of reports for the entire year of 2020.

Six of the top ten most challenged books in 2020 were about racism, books which not coincidentally were also on many of the antiracist reading lists being passed around that year. The complaints described these books as "divisive" or "containing an anti-police message."

Last Thursday, Maus, the acclaimed graphic novel about the Holocaust, was banned by a Tennessee school district. In North Carolina, in just the last week, Dear Martin, about a Black student in a white school who writes letters to Martin Luther King, Jr, was pulled from assigned reading at a high school in Waynesville after a complaint. George, a children's novel with a transgender protagonist, was unsuccessfully challenged in Moore County.

Richard Price, associate professor of Political Science at Weber State University in Utah, is an expert in censorship, particularly through book challenges, and runs a blog called Adventures in Censorship. They agree with oft-banned childrens author Judy Blume, who has often said that book challenges were driven by fear.

When it comes to representations of people of color and civil rights concerns, or queer inclusion in literature, the attack is contextually about something else, said Price. They dress it up and claim it's about swearing, or the book has sex in it. But in reality, most of this is driven by parents who don't like seeing their world change.

Price sees this recent uproar as a confluence of three things: the nationwide moral panic about the myth that Critical Race Theory was being taught in schools, which picked up around 2019 with the release of the 1619 Project; then, the pandemic causing more tension between parents and schools with shutdowns, online schooling, vaccine and mask requirements; and in 2021, a return to in-person school in most districts.

Megan Roberts, Wake County librarian

The ALA has said that restricting access to books is a violation of minors First Amendment rights, but Price said that its not always simple. In the 1982 Supreme Court case Board of Education v. Pico, a plurality of judges ruled that a politically motivated removal of books violates free speech rights, but that removal based on grounds of pervasive vulgarity or educational suitability would be constitutional and that leaves room for interpretation.

Still, Price feels that schools and libraries have a responsibility to accurately represent the truth. There's no such thing as neutrality between inclusion and exclusion, said Price. So if you're telling me that I have to be politically neutral in a classroom, and that means I can never talk about LGBTQ people or issues, that's not neutral, that is exclusionary.

Megan Roberts, the Wake County librarian, doesnt believe that its the job of librarians to protect readers, no matter their age.

There's definitely something in every library that will offend any reader, any person. But that's one of the reasons I think it's so important to have books on a diverse array of viewpoints, said Roberts. Representation is really important. And it's a way to understand yourself and those around you. And I think that matters, and everyone should be able to see themselves in a book at the public library.

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How a national debate over book censorship is playing out in North Carolina - WUNC