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Moscow Times editor Derk Sauer says the newspaper will defy the Russian governments mandate to close down and will continue to publish news.

Russias prosecutor general has banned anyone from working for or being associated with the undesirable organization on Russian soil, threatening criminal prosecution for violating this policy.

Regardless, Mr. Sauer affirmed Wednesday on X that the Moscow Times is and will remain a training ground for many journalists and will not shut down.

The Russian Prosecutor Generals office said in a statement Wednesday that the work of the publication is aimed at discrediting the decisions of the leadership of the Russian Federation in both foreign and domestic policy.

Of course we will continue with our work: independent journalism. That is a crime in Putins Russia, Mr. Sauer said.

The newspaper, headquartered in Amsterdam, says that Russia and Ukraines conflict has resulted in subsequent passage of repressive wartime censorship laws, which have forced the newsroom into exile.

The news outlet has repeatedly said that it will not back down or submit to Russias demands.

We refuse to give in to the pressure. We refuse to be silenced, the Moscow Times said. We are counting on the support of all of you, our readers, to help us continue our work and defy the Kremlin.

The Russian Prosecutor Generals office has not responded to the Suns initial requests seeking comment.

The Moscow Times started in 1992 in Russia, during the aftermath of the Soviet Unions collapse, with a mission to deliver news in both Russian and English.

Penalties for associating with an undesirable organization once can add up to $168, but a second offense may result in criminal charges and a sentence of up to four years behind bars.

He added in an editors note that this act is the latest of many efforts to suppress our reporting on the truth in Russia and its war in Ukraine, including blocking our website and naming us a foreign agent.

The Prosecutor Generals office had previously requested that access to the organization be restricted on account of systematic misinformation concerning Russias efforts in the war against Ukraine.

The Moscow Times allegedly also associates on a regular basis with other organizations that the Russian government deems undesirable, the Prosecutor Generals office added.

Russian authorities have previously shut down over 140 other independent news outlets and international NGOs by slapping the undesirable label on them since 2015, such as the Insider and the Novaya Gazeta Europe.

Before 2024, the undesirable label was primarily used to outlaw religious organizations, but independent news outlets took the lead this year as the countrys most undesirable institutions, Medioza reported.

News outlets have not been previously prosecuted in Russia at this rate, with police reportedly filing more reports concerning people who are associated with these undesirable publications this year than the past three years combined.

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Moscow Times Will Resist Russian Censorship Efforts - The New York Sun

Elon Musk, who owns X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, announced on Thursday that his company plans to take legal action against those involved in what he describes as an advertising boycott racket.

Mr. Musks declaration came after watching a video of Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the Daily Wire, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee during a session titled Collusion in the Global Alliance for Responsible Media on Wednesday.

Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket, Mr. Musk wrote on his social media platform. Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution.

Mr. Shapiro laid out a slew of facts that illustrate how advertisers boycott conservative news sites.

Were in the midst of a trust crisis in the world of media, which is because so many in the legacy media have lied in order to preserve left-leaning narratives, he said.

The question isnt really why the legacy media have lost Americans trust. We know that answer. The question is why despite that loss of trust the legacy media continue to gain share in the advertising market. And the answer is simple. There is, in fact, an informal pressure system created by Democratic legislators, this White House, legacy media, advertisers, and pseudo-objective brand safety organizations. That system guarantees that advertising dollars flow only to left-wing media brands, Mr. Shapiro said.

The author and podcast host cited the left-wing informational safety group Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which he said sets brand safety standards, objective standards by which advertisers and platforms can supposedly determine just what sort of content ought to be deemed safe for advertising.

Companies targeted by GARM, like the Daily Wire, Breitbart, Fox News, and so many others, reach hundreds of millions of people with opinions and beliefs long established as within the mainstream of American conservative thought. GARM and its members have no respect for the beliefs of those people. They would like them marginalized or squashed. Its time to stand up for the First Amendment in this Congress, he said.

Mr. Shapiro said Congress should investigate the informal and perhaps formal arrangements between censorship cartels like GARM and executive branch agencies. And he said lawmakers should stop engaging in violation of free speech principles.

We all know what these government actors, what some people in this room are doing. Youre using the tacit threat of government action to compel private companies to throttle viewpoints you dont particularly like. The First Amendment was not designed to enable workarounds by elected officials. It was directed at Congress, at you, he said.

And youre abdicating your fundamental duty when you exert pressure on private companies to censor speech, Mr. Shapiro said. Some in this room have been doing just that for years. We in the non-legacy media have been feeling the effects. In the name of the Constitution and the name of democracy, this should stop.

See original here:
Musk Vows To Sue Ad Giant After Bombshell Congressional Hearing on Censorship of Conservative Media - The New York Sun

Today the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) expressed alarm at the cancellation of an exhibition at Craft Alliance, an art organization in St. Louis, MO. Following a complaint from a volunteer, the venue asserted that the project, which draws attention to the plight of Palestinians, was in violation of its policies on diversity, equity, inclusion, violence, and bullying.

While cultural institutions are justified in wanting to create spaces free of violence, discrimination, and harassment, DEI initiatives should not be weaponized to censor art. Concerns about artwork on view, and whether it violates noted policies, should be objectively assessed with consideration of the artists intent and the context in which the work is presented. Otherwise, artists ability to participate in exhibitions will be at the mercy of individuals who may object to their work, no matter how few they are, or how broadly they misinterpret the work.

In addition to adopting a policy upholding artistic freedom, NCAC urges Craft Alliance to establish procedures for receiving and responding to complaints against artworks.

Read NCACs full letter to Craft Alliance here: Click here for a full-screen view:

Read the rest here:
NCAC Decries Exhibition Cancellation at Craft Alliance - Blogging Censorship

Carrie Wolinetz, former Chief of Staff at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), claimed Thursday that the so-called lab leak theory was not censored during the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the Senate Homeland Security hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., questioned Wolinetz about her involvement in censoring online discussions about the theory, which proposed the virus escaped from a Chinese lab. Hawley asked whether she regrets not opposing censorship efforts from her boss, former NIH Director Francis Collins, or from Anthony Fauci.

Do you regret your role in helping censor millions of Americans who were kicked off social media, who were disciplined at work for saying maybe a lab was involved? Hawley asked.

I do not believe I ever had the role that you are describing, Wolinetz said.

Hawley asked directly, Do you regret not opposing the censorship?

I dont believe censorship took place, sir, Wolinetz responded.

Due to Wolinetzs denial of censorship efforts, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., whointroducedlegislation to create a board overseeing federal funding for high-risk life sciences research and ensuring agency accountability,statedthat Wolinetz would not be considered for a position in the proposed independent entity within the Executive Branch.

The FBI and Energy Department have stated theres strong evidence supporting the plausibility of the lab leak theory.

Despite Wolinetzs denial, several instances indicate censorship did, in fact, occur.

Facebook censored reports related to the lab leak theory, labeling it a false claim. The Biden White House requested Facebook to suppress what they termed disinformation, including requests for them to censor private WhatsApp messages, as revealed in a series of emails released in 2023 during the discovery phase of the free speech case Missouri v. Biden.

Since Elon Musks release of the Twitter Files, it was exposed that Twitter (now X) significantly expandedits practice of accepting content moderation requests from the intelligence community, the State Department, and various federal and state agencies during the pandemic.

Along with social media giants, the government colluded to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, blacklist prominent conservative voices, and shadowban conservative content. Additionally, the files revealed both the Trump and Biden administrations pressured Twitter to moderate pandemic-related content according to their preferences.

Records obtained by House Republicans indicate that former Fauci adviser David Morens downplayed the lab leak theory to the media at Faucis behest.

The documents also suggest that you may have used your personal e-mail to avoid transparency and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), potentially intentionally deleted federal records, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, the chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, wrote in a letter to Morens.

Arianna Villarreal is a summer intern at The Federalist.

View original post here:
Former NIH Chief Of Staff Denies Lab Leak Theory Censorship Despite Overwhelming Proof - The Federalist

Wikipedia's days may be numbered in Russia, as Moscow's long-standing bid to replace the online encyclopaedia comes to fruition.

A "new version of history is taking shape", on RuWiki, said The Economist, as an expert said that Russia's internet is starting to resemble the heavily censored and closely controlled version in China, where Wikipedia is blocked.

RuWiki is "mostly a straightforward copy" of Wikipedia, but the "most sensitive moments of history" have been "left out or rewritten". It "might be called Orwellian", if only the author "were not himself occasionally censored". The rewriters "hack their way through the sensitive zones of Putinist ideology", producing mangled rewrites on topics including "LGBT rights, oral sex" and "Soviet history".

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Russian "atrocities" in Bucha, near Kyiv, in 2022 are "reimagined" as a "Ukrainian and Western disinformation campaign" and the execution of nearly 22,000 Polish officers in 1940 is rewritten to "cast doubt on the archive documents proving it was done by Soviet secret services".

RuWiki takes a "different direction" from its inspiration, said PC Gamer, portraying a world where the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin "just happened to explode in mid-air". The article on the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal "goes to great lengths" to "express Russia's official stance" on the episode.

According to an analysis of the site by an independent Russian media outfit, the vast majority of the new edits are being made during weekday working hours, which might suggest teams of paid writers are performing the edits, rather than the Wikipedia model of volunteer editors.

Wikipedia has "faced trouble" from the Kremlin since the start of the Ukrainian war in 2014 , said The Economist, and is now one of the few surviving independent sources of information in Russia.

Following a state crackdown on online news media after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Vladimir Putin gave his approval to new alternative platforms. Things stepped up a gear last year, when "glitzy ads" for RuWiki appeared across Moscow, said The Economist.

"Heavy investment" in the project suggests that Wikipedia's "days are numbered". So, although the Russian internet "isn't yet built like the Chinese one", said Sergei Leschina, a former member of the Russian Wikipedia team, "it's the direction we are heading, and quickly".

Since 2015, Wikipedia has been banned in China and in its place is Baidu Baike, a Chinese-language internet encyclopaedia. Unlike Wikipedia, it complies with the Chinese Communist Party's demands for censorship "so it's easy to see why it's the government's preferred (and homegrown) option", said The Independent.

There has also been censorship of Wikipedia by governments in other countries including Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

In another example of information censorship, Hamichlol, meaning "the entirety", is an online encyclopaedia for Haredi Jews, which mainly censors any mention of homosexuality, content that contradicts a creationist world view, and behaviours deemed immodest.

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RuWiki: Russian Wikipedia rival that censors everything from Ukraine to oral sex - The Week