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Germany: Response to satirical childrens video exposes self-censorship of the media By Dietmar Gaisenkersting 11 January 2020

The week before Christmas, German broadcaster WDR posted an online video of a childrens choir singing an updated version of a satirical song Meine Oma fhrt im Hhnerstall Motorrad (My grandmother rides a motorcycle in the chicken coop), which was then made the subjected of a hysterical media storm.

In earlier versions, the grandma possesses many strange and wonderful things, such as a radio in her hollow tooth, glasses with curtains, a cane with a taillight or has a revolver in her garter. The chorus runs, My grandma is a very smart woman (meine Oma ist ne ganz patente Frau). The song and an English translation of the lyrics can be found here.

In the on-demand video WDR put online, the broadcasters Dortmund childrens choir sings a new version of the satirical song, which ends in the chorus Meine Oma ist ne alte Umweltsau (My grandma is an old environmental sow).

It is a harmless satire, which, according to its authors, is intended to use exaggeration and humour to target the conflict between the generations. The children sing about the discount meat-eating, SUV-driving and cruise ship travelling grandma. At the end of the video, a girl quotes Greta Thunberg saying, We will not let you get away with this.

The way the West German Broadcasting Corporation (WDR) then dealt with the so-called Umweltsau video is a prime example of how the media censors itself under the slightest pressure from the right and spreads the ideology of the far-right.

Spiegel Online, based on a Twitter survey by social media analyst Luca Hammer, has shown how right-wing trolls unleashed a tirade against the video.

His evaluation shows that the first accounts tweeted against the video on December 27, the article says. However, the first tweets about it hardly get any attention. But then the spark jumps over accounts that are too wide-reaching to be assigned to the right-wing spectrum. Many tweets complain about an instrumentalisation of children or speak derogatorily of state broadcasters. Starting from here, the outrage spreads quicklyuntil it finally reaches right-wing conservative multipliers and the first media reports appear.

Granny Gate is a typical example of right-wing outrage and mobilisationboth in terms of structure and in terms of issues and arguments, Patrick Stegemann, author of a book on Right-wing mobilisation, told Spiegel Online. Environmental issues have become insanely popular in right-wing mobilization lately, Greta [Thunberg] is the enemy personified of the right.

The Umweltsau song, according to Stegemann, is not an isolated case. Right-wing influencers and groups have tried again and again to provoke outrage. A lot of bait is thrown outand as soon as something catches, the machine really goes off, then it goes around.

The right wing did not stop at this Twitter tirade. On December 28, about one hundred right-wingers demonstrated in front of the broadcasters building in Cologne. Further demonstrations followed, which had been called by those around such neo-Nazi outfits as the Brotherhood of Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the extreme nationalist Identitarian Movement.

Choirmaster Zeljo Davutovic was accused of instrumentalising the singing children, AfD associations called him a child molester and tweeted his telephone number. The right-wing blogger Jrgen Fritz published the names and photos of members of the production team on his Facebook page. Some WDR employees received death threats, which should be taken seriously in view of the extreme right-wing murders of recent yearsfrom the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground (NSU) to the murder of leading Christian Democrat Walter Lbcke, to the attack on the synagogue in Halle.

But instead of standing up and protecting the WDR journalists and defending the freedom of press, opinion and satire, the broadcasters management, the state government and other media outlets stabbed them in the back.

WDR quickly removed the video from all its internet platforms. WDR director-general Tom Buhrow, who has also been chairman of the ARD, a joint organisation of Germanys regional public service broadcasters, since the beginning of the year, apologized explicitly. On the evening of 28 December, WDR broadcast a special radio program in which Buhrow himself apologized without ifs and buts for the video.

North Rhine-Westphalias state premier Armin Laschet (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) personally joined in, tweeting that the debate on the best forms of climate protection was being escalated by WDR into a generational conflict. Never should children be instrumentalized by adults for their own purposes. With the song, WDR had crossed the boundaries of style and respect for older people. In a guest article for the weekly newspaper Zeit, Laschet wrote, In these times, we urgently need a strong public broadcasting service that serves social cohesion, corresponding to its mission statement.

Deputy state premier Joachim Stamp (Free Democratic Party, FDP) also condemned the video, Perhaps we should make a joint effort for the new decade not to describe people in general as sows, pigs etc.

In the tabloid Bild, the editor-in-chief personally spoke out against the video, its makers and WDR. The paper quoted Bundestag (federal parliament) Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) saying, The fact that a childrens choir is being abused to denounce and re-educate speaks against the TV makers and is a fatal reminder of the failed former East Germany.

In an open letter to Buhrow, more than 40 TV authors have expressed their solidarity with the makers of the video, demanded it be immediately reposted and accused the WDR director of falling into the trap set by right-wing trolls and abandoning his staff. Among the signatories of the solidarity declaration are authors of programmes such as Neo Magazin Royale, Dark and the heute Show.

The dispute over the song lacks any rational basis,, the letter says. Even the word satirical freedom seems inappropriate when the threshold of indignation is so low that it is ruptured by every other pop song. A (!) fictional grandmother discriminates against an entire generation just as little as the alcoholic father from Papa Was a Rollin Stone does not mean all men are unfit for marriage.

Writing about Tom Buhrow, the letter goes on to say, A media manager whose handling of modern, right-wing propaganda shows so much naivete and awkwardness and who is not able to defend his staff on the simplest questions of freedom of the press and freedom of opinion, endangers precisely these freedoms. He should draw the consequences.

In a statement, the WDR editors office also supported the producers of the video and sharply criticized Buhrow. We are stunned, it says, that the program director of WDR 2 has a video with a satirical childrens song deleted, and above all about the fact that director Tom Buhrow gives in so easily to a shitstorm apparently orchestrated by right-wing extremists, hastily distances himself editorially and not only apologizes in person, but also publicly (and repeatedly) in the process, (live on WDR 2, among others), instead of backing them up in the face of staged outrage against WDR and the other public broadcasters. According to the editors representatives, the internal freedom of broadcasting had thus been violated.

On Tuesday, a private meeting of editors took place at WDR, where Buhrow faced the criticism of about 700 employees. About 30 speakers made emotional contributions, one participant told the news magazine Der Spiegel. For some, the question arose as to whether it would be possible to employ satire at all in the future. Although Buhrow had stressed that everyone should continue as before, he had also said in principle that he would do the same again.

The WDRs self-censorship in the case of the Umweltsau video is symptomatic of the ruling elites shift to the right. In the face of growing social tensions, they are arming themselves both internally and externally and are no longer prepared to tolerate criticism and dissenting opinionseven if only in the form of satire.

Those who do not adhere to self-restraint and censorship are to be intimidated and attacked. The persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, who are in prison for having exposed war crimes, sets an international precedent for this development. It is not the perpetrators of crimes and grievances who are being prosecuted, but those who expose and criticise them.

2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

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Germany: Response to satirical children's video exposes self-censorship of the media - World Socialist Web Site

With the click of a computer mouse, Shai Glick has managed to bring about the censorship of films, boycotts of organizations and the closure of institutions that he finds unpatriotically left-wing. Is he a vigorous censor, an ardent informant or a hyperactive troll? Its difficult to decide.

For the past five years, this right-wing activist has been frantically running around behind the scenes of Israels cultural community. Hes the person behind many of the headlines that Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev has made during her four years on the job. He has taken aim at events that have too overt a whiff of being left-wing in his view, and has handed them to Regev on a silver platter. She in turn has then been able to take her own aim at them, threatening them with government budget cuts and nurturing her image as the warrior cabinet minister who is forced to defend Israels trampled honor.

Those who believe that much of what is produced by the Israeli art scene is insufficiently patriotic left-wing propaganda would presumably have high regard for what Glick does, even if they arent aware of his involvement. But his list of his achievements might horrify those who value human rights and freedom of expression.

The list includes breaking up the Acre Fringe Theater Festival over a performance that purportedly glorified terrorists; cutting funding to the Al-Midan Theater in Haifa for staging A Parallel Time, the plot of which was inspired by the life of a convicted terrorist; and getting the Knesset to vote in favor of cultural loyalty legislation that was ultimately not enacted into law, but would have authorized the culture minister to slash government funding to groups that run afoul of its provisions.

Then there was the performance at the Tmu-na community theater in Tel Aviv that was cancelled because it included a poem by Israeli-Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour; and Glicks attack on the Mifal Hapayis national lottery for partially funding the Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival prize for best Israeli film, after it was awarded to Advocate, a film about lawyer Lea Tsemel and her work on behalf of clients charged with politically motivated security offenses. Thats in addition to the Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem, which faces imminent eviction after hosting a meeting of the left-wing Breaking the Silence veterans group. And this is just a partial list.

Glick has fine-tuned his approach. When he spots an event that riles him, he sends alerts to a broad distribution list that includes cabinet ministers, Knesset members, legal advisers and municipal officials, and also contacts journalists with statements labeled breaking news, exclusive or Want a scoop?

When a politician decides to act on the information and things get rolling, Glick keeps the media informed. Websites pick up the story and the tumult grows. Politicians are pleased with the coverage, and Glick looks on in satisfaction.

Hes not shy about asking journalists for appropriate credit in their stories or about bragging to them about his accomplishments. Hes not discouraged when they fail to pick up on a item, and is back in touch a short time later with a new pitch. Sometimes the pitch is about further developments on the same subject and sometimes its about a newer issue.

As Voltaire said

After years of contact with him via the WhatsApp messaging service, I recently met Glick in person for the first time at a Jerusalem caf, on a particularly stormy winter day. He was waiting for me when I arrived and looked more pleasant than I had expected.

I left the horns at home, he quipped, and referring to the caf, added: I havent shut this place down yet.

He had even offered to meet me on the Temple Mount, which he called a great place.

Glick knows what makes leftists tick and is good at joking with reporters, but I remind myself that he has another side.

I dont know how this article is going to turn out, but as far as Im concerned, it should say one thing: that its the left that is silencing people, he said for openers. Everything you would write about events that I have censored has already been written in dozens of places. But do you know how many places have invited me to talk about these issues? Guess, he asked. Zero, he answered.

Left-wingers only want to hear themselves, he insisted, rather than hearing opinions that differ from their own. In support of his case, he mentioned the cancellation by the city government in the Tel Aviv suburb of Raanana of a lecture by Prof. Mordechai Kedar after Kedar unleashed a storm of controversy by claiming that Yigal Amir did not kill Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

They said that was incitement, but what he said was nonsense, not incitement. No one filed a police complaint against him. [Meretz Knesset member] Tamar Zandberg didnt say a word. Haaretz didnt write about it. There was nothing from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber refused to get involved. Its crazy, he said. He was silenced simply because hes right-wing.

In fact, Haaretz published an editorial on the matter and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel contacted Bar-Ilan University, where Kedar is on the faculty, urging that he not be subject to disciplinary proceedings over his comments.

Glick was so worked up when we met that he spoke in a loud voice that an elderly man at the next table asked him to moderate. Glick apologized and lowered the volume, but not for long.

Im the only person in Israel whos not a hypocrite, he said emphatically, adding that he is also the only person who has put a stop to events sponsored by left-wing groups such as Breaking the Silence and right-wing organizations such as Lehava, which opposes Arab-Jewish miscegenation.

In all of Israel, you wont find anyone like me. As Voltaire said, I dont agree with your views, but I will fight to the death for your right to express them. Give me even one instance in which someone from the left has fought for freedom of expression on the right.

Glick showed me a social media post in which Lehava leader Benzi Gopstein called him a traitor following the cancellation of a Lehava event in Beer Sheva, which Gopstein ultimate funded at his own expense.

Sounds wonderful, but in practice 95 percent of your activity is aimed at events identified with the left.

True, of course, and you know why. Because the right is a lot weaker. Someone like Benzi Gopstein has no access anywhere at the moment.

Come on. How can you claim the right wing is weaker when it has already been in power for a decade and leftists are going around labeled as traitors and have become a persecuted minority?

Thats an appropriate question. Yesterday I was at a wedding, where I met Amir Peretz [of the Labor Party]. Glick went on to describe how he told Peretz about his efforts to make the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank town of Hebron accessible to the disabled. Glick said it was the most important project that he was working on.

Glick said Peretz agreed that the tomb should be made accessible, added that Peretz, whose party is not in government, replied: Obviously, but when Glick asked him to write to Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on the issue, he said Peretz replied. No way. Have you no shame? You [meaning the right] are in power and you want me to write a letter for you?

I told him he was right, Glick admitted with a chuckle.

On the subject of the cancellation of the Barbur Gallerys lease in Jerusalem, he recounted: When I asked the Barbur Gallery why they were hosting Breaking the Silence, they told me they host anything thats legal, and if I think its illegal I should file a complaint with the police We dont muzzle people. So I ask. Are you willing to host Lehava? And they say no. In other words, they are the censor, not me.

So what bothers you is not that they host Breaking the Silence but that they wont host Lehava?

Im a liberal. If an institution tells me,were fighting for freedom of expression for everyone, I would take my hat off to them. But if they host one and not the other, I will not accept that.

Thats not the campaign youre pursuing. Youre complaining because they hosted Breaking the Silence.

Yes, because that harms Israel. But if they gave freedom of expression to everyone, I would accept that. I dont get on peoples cases just like that. Im not about muzzling people.

Glick said he has helped out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on several occasions. I am in touch with his family and with people in his office, and if I think its legitimate, I fight for him.

Glick said when Channel 12 television journalists Oded Ben Ami and Amnon Abramovich made reference to the Kaddish prayer, the traditional prayer for the dead, in proclaiming the end of the Netanyahu era, the prime ministers son Yair Netanyahu asked him to file a complaint. The truth is that I would have done it even without him. I help anyone who I think deserves help, including Arabs.

Glick said he had worked to have shelters opened for Arab women victims of domestic violence and supported special accommodations for Muslim students in taking exams during the Muslim fast of Ramadan.

Enlightenment in Petah Tikva

Glick, who is 32, was born into an ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem. As a boy, he linked up with supporters of the racist leader of the Kach movement, Rabbi Meir Kahane. I never beat anyone up, Glick noted.

Now married and the father of three, he lives with his family in Beit Shemesh. He wears a black skullcap but prefers to leave the traditional dark suit at home. His father is a rabbi who teaches at an American yeshiva in the city, and his uncle is Yehudah Glick, the former Likud Knesset member who gained prominence for his efforts to lift restrictions on the Jewish presence on Jerusalems Temple Mount.

In 2014, Yehudah Glick was shot and wounded by a Palestinian as Glick was leaving a meeting of Temple Mount activists.

With my own eyes, I saw that incitement kills, Shai Glick said. An Arab tried to kill my uncle, someone who never hurt a fly. [His assailant] told him: I apologize, but you are harming the Al-Aqsa [mosque]. In other words, I dont know you personally, but I was incited against you, Shai Glick continued. So I understood that incitement kills.

It was that year that Shai Glick launched his efforts in opposition to cultural events with a political agenda that he disagreed with. During Israels 2014 war against Hamas and its allies in Gaza, Glick was doing reserve duty at Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv and saw a video about an exhibition at Yad Labanim in Petah Tikva, a public facility that is in memory of soldiers killed in Israels wars.

In the exhibition, artist Arkadi Zaides made use of images collected by BTselem, which monitors human rights in the territories. I didnt understand how it was possible, he said. Today I understand that its simply money. They rent the place out, but at the time, it looked off the wall to me.

At the end of that day I rushed over there and saw an exhibition based on BTselem images showing stones being thrown at soldiers. It wasnt incitement, but it certainly wasnt appropriate for Yad Labanim, he said.

Glick said that when he returned home that day, he found the names and email addresses on the internet of the members of Petah Tikva city council and copied all of them into an email protesting the use of Yad Labanim for the exhibit.

The whole thing, including the Google search, took me less than five minutes. It was late at night. By morning, I had already received emails from all of them stating that they were against it, and the exhibition was taken down that same day. That motivated me. I understood that with one email, I had shut down the exhibition.

Lea Tsemel

Glick targets work or events that he believes feature content with incitement to murder. In recent months, he made quite a fuss over the documentary Advocate, about the Israeli human-rights lawyer Lea Tsemel. First he contacted parents of children killed in anti-Israeli hostilities and suggested that they lodge a protest with Regev over the fact that the film was awarded the prize for best Israeli film at last years Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival, held annually in Tel Aviv. (The culture minister issued a condemnation).

That was followed by a demonstration (that he did not organize) by parents, outside the offices of Mifal Hapayis the Israel Lottery Council For Culture & Arts is one of the sponsors of the prize and a revolt by lottery subscribers which he did organize. Mifal Hapayis said it would no longer sponsor a prize for the festival, but it reversed the decision after receiving numerous protests and after a number of cultural figures resigned. It did cancel a scheduled screening of Advocate at a film festival in the northern Israeli town of Maalot, prompting one of the states deputy attorneys general to intervene and declare the cancelation illegal. The film is on the respected longlist of 12 films, from which five will be chosen to compete for the Oscar for best documentary next month. Glick hasnt yet reached Hollywood.

On the day after our interview, he sends me a few frames from Advocate to prove that it contains incitement. In one of them, Tsemel says she represents people who would be called freedom fighters elsewhere. (That is incitement plus a gross lie, Glick says.) In another, she states, There is an occupation and its necessary to respond to that occupation, and everyone responds according to his strength and his ability. That, he says, is incitement to murder. At the same time, he takes pride in being in contact with Tsemel via WhatsApp, as he is with other people whose activity he has attacked.

I take life in a good way. Ask all the people and you wont find one who hates me. I dont go to demonstrations, because demonstrations are gratuitous hatred, and my struggle is from love, not hate.

How from love?

You just spoke with me. Do you hate me? Are you angry with me?

Youre very nice, but you do things that are, how to put it gently, problematic.

Its professional, not personal. I am in touch with Lea Tsemel and also with the director of the Al-Midan Theater, with everyone. I dont hate them, I dont fight them, I dont publish Traitor! posts. I dont allow one word of incitement to appear on my Facebook page.

Atmosphere of censorship

Over the years Glick has managed to bring about the closure of a few institutions and prevent a few screenings, but most of all he has made noise. His fruitful cooperation with Regev has made many headlines, because she demanded repeatedly that the finance minister invoke the so-called Nakba law to reduce or cancel state funding for institutions that in her view were acting against the states interests. According to the Finance Ministry, 98 requests were received in 2018 concerning enforcement of the Nakba law, of which 17 came from Regev and no fewer than 60 from Glick. All were rejected.

The question really is whether I am winning or losing, he says. On the one hand, I filed a hundred complaints and all were rejected, so you could say I lost. On the other hand, thats not accurate. You know, today the legal adviser of the Finance Ministry no longer tells [Regev] its off the wall. He replies only to me.

Glick has appeared in court several times to pursue defamation suits against Breaking the Silence (which called him a troll who spread groundless lies about us); the director Udi Aloni (who claimed he had a distorted brain), the blogger Yossi Gurvitz (who termed him vermin) and Anat Matar, a university philosophy lecturer who is the chair of the Israeli Committee for the Palestinian Prisoners (who termed him an archfascist). He has won some cases and lost others.

Of late hes been active under an organization he established, called BTsalmo, in a play on BTselem. It receives donations from private individuals, he says, but he himself does not draw a salary, only reimbursement for expenses. The only salaried officials, he says, are a lawyer and a spokesman. His income derives from a job in a computer company, he explains, but refuses to say which one. The people there know my views, but I dont argue with anyone at work, he says.

His activity as a self-appointed censor is a side gig. I call it a total hobby, he says. I dont make a living from it and it doesnt take up too much of my time. Over the years, he relates, some theater artists who saw the headlines that works he attacks get, asked him at their initiative to assail them. I told them to give me a cut, he smiles, refusing to name names. But I do it happily. If I can make someone happy, why not?

It seems to me that your biggest success is in having created, together with Regev, an atmosphere of censorship. Creative artists are afraid to touch certain subjects today.

True, and I am proud of it. I dont call it censorship. Calcalist [a financial newspaper] once did an article about me and took me to the Monster [a huge slide for children in Jerusalem in the shape of a monster] to be photographed. Maybe they wanted me to look like that, I dont know. It was a good picture. They tried to paint me as an extremist, because the media and the public like extreme things, but I am not extreme.

On the one hand, you are pleased with the censorship atmosphere, on the other hand you claim you are in favor of human rights. How does that go together?

My message is human rights, because the first right is the right to life. When I silence Dareen Tatour, I prevent incitement and thereby prevent murder. To me, that is a struggle for human rights. Its simple math.

Your activity is dangerous. When you got a screening of Advocate canceled in Maalot, there was a violent demonstration by right-wing activists.

That is exactly the reason I dont go to demonstrations.

But you are creating an atmosphere that encourages this.

I do not create demonstrations. I am against demonstrations, against hatred, against incitement. I believe that my activity prevents incitement.

In your activity against Advocate, you mobilized bereaved parents. That was cynical and manipulative.

Its complicated, and therefore I dont mobilize them for everything. If there is a bereaved family and the murderer of their son was represented by Lea Tsemel, its legitimate for them to be against a film about her. Life is complicated, not everything I say is true, its impossible to censor the whole country and impossible to fire Lea Tsemel despite my attempts. I am financing her, and as long as she supports the murder of settlers I dont want to finance her.

Your activity is perilous. In the case of Breaking the Silence, for example, it contributes to a public atmosphere that perceives them as a dangerous organization, extra-legal, and leads to people attacking them.

What you say is true, and I think about it all the time. Still, if I die someone else will do it, people who will be far more inclined to incite, who attack more fiercely than I do. I am very considerate of every persons dignity. I dont call people terrorists, for example. With the exception of Dareen Tatour, but thats because a court found that she incited to terrorism.

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Israel's 'censor in chief': The activist who manages to silence the left - Haaretz

Facebook is in the doghouse with certain liberal constituencies because it declines to edit or censor political advertisements that may contain false statements or misleading claims. We side with Facebook on this one.

Among other things, attempting to tease truth from political claims is often as challenging today as it was when Hamilton and Burr went at it a few years ago. We arent suggesting that todays politicians settle their disputes in similar fashion, in a field with pistols. But ... never mind.

While some political assertions are demonstrably false, others are not; and some fact-checking outfits allow their own political biases to affect their true or false verdicts.

Facebook says it is adding features that will allow its users some measure of control over the number of political and social issue ads they want to see. But it says it operates from the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all.

It is up to the people to decide whether they buy what some politician or group is selling. Facebook is one platform and while it is huge, we dont think imposing some government censorship on it is a good thing.

Part of the trouble here is that some anti-Trumpers still refuse to believe that rational people voted for this guy of their own free will. They must have been duped, the theory goes, by Facebook and other means.

Continuing to believe that is not going to win elections. Stating facts and offering sensible solutions to the nations problems may do so.

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Facts and Facebook: It shouldn't censor political ads - The Union Leader

The head of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a scathing statement Wednesday aimed at China's government over its treatment of protesters in Hong Kong and other suspected rights abuses.

In his opening essay for HRW's yearly report, executive director Kenneth Roth wrote that China's efforts to maintain control of its territories "is increasingly undermining the international system for protecting human rights."

"To maintain its grasp on power at home, the Chinese Communist Party has constructed an Orwellian high-tech surveillance state and a sophisticated Internet censorship system to monitor and suppress public criticism," Roth wrote.

"President Xi Jinpings government is overseeing the most brutal and pervasive oppression that China has seen for decades," HRW added in a news release accompanying the report's publication.

Roth went on to accuse the Chinese government of constructing an "Orwellian" surveillance state that it is seeking to export abroad.

"Now, China has begun to use its growing economic and diplomatic clout to extend that censorship abroad, silencing critics and carrying out the most intense attack on the global system for enforcing human rights seen since its emergence in the mid-twentieth century," he wrote.

"If not challenged, Beijings actions portend a dystopian future in which no one is beyond the reach of Chinese censors, and an international human rights system so weakened that it no longer serves as a check on government repression," Roth continued.

His warnings come after the NBA faced backlash in China over a team manager's statement in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, while the organization's efforts to apologize to angered Chinese fans drew criticism from lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

Washington has threatened to respond with sanctions should violent crackdowns against protesters in Hong Kong begin, while China has vowed to retaliate if the Trump administration implements such measures.

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Human Rights Watch rips 'brutal and pervasive oppression' in China | TheHill - The Hill

After anti-regime protests rocked Iran over the weekend, the country is considering an even further crackdown on internet freedom on top of the censorship that's already in place. This offers yet another reminder why we must resist calls from liberals and nationalist conservatives alike to give the government increased power over the web.

The threat of a violent crackdown on protesters looms after demonstrations began on Saturday. The unrest arose after the revelation that the Iranian military accidentally shot down a passenger aircraft, killing all 176 people on board, including Ukrainians and Iranians alike. Thousands took to the street, protesting the regime and chanting, Death to the dictator. Now, government forces have started shooting protesters.

Meanwhile, the countrys authoritarian crackdown on technology threatens to make the situation much, much worse. According to Newsweek, parts of the country are now experiencing suspiciously-timed internet outages, raising alarms in light of the Iranian internet infrastructure being state-run. So, too, the regime will reportedly consider mandating a complete structural shift from an internet to an intranet. This would cut off access for millions and force everyone else onto the wired intranet connections it controls and has previously used to silence protesters and quell unrest.

Heres how tech publication Wired explained the regimes past repressive practices:

Increasingly over the past decade, the Iranian regime has focused on building out a centralized national "intranet." That allows it to provide citizens with web services while policing all content on the network and limiting information from external sources ... In the process of establishing this internal web, the Iranian regime has taken more and more control over both public and private connectivity in the name of national security.

Specific examples reveal the terrifying consequences of such concentrated government control.

For example, in 2009, the Iranian regime simply "turned off" the internet in many parts of the country to quell unrest that emerged as a result of that year's elections. And it interfered with the 2013 election as well, by blocking websites containing certain keywords and candidates' names. In a more recent example, in 2018, the Iranian regime blocked the popular messaging service Telegram in a blatant attempt to shut down critics' communications. It also launched a crackdown on the virtual private networks citizens were using to circumvent censorship tools.

The technicalities and specifics involved in this kind of internet censorship are quite complicated, but the lesson is clear: Granting government power over the free flow of information is a recipe for abuse.

The Iranian example offers an important warning against the kind of big-government policies proposed by socialist presidential aspirants such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and a poignant reminder as to why we should never grant the state control over the internet. Of course, most Democrats arent calling for an all-out takeover of the web, but some are getting dangerously close.

Sanders, for instance, has called internet access a human right and thus believes it should be a publicly owned utility. As I previously described his formal campaign plan, The senator ... would essentially have the federal government take control of the internet in almost Orwellian fashion.

And Warren has repeatedly called for big government to step in and break up Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Google.

This isnt as extreme as a complete government takeover, but the Massachusetts Democrat and socialist-lite presidential candidate has nonetheless said she thinks Silicon Valley should be subjected to the whims and dictates of Washington bureaucrats. Sadly, in this desire to see government heavily involved in the internet, Warren is joined by some anti-tech conservatives, such as Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

Plus, pretty much every elected Democrat supports reinstating net neutrality, the unnecessary regulation of internet service providers that was instituted under the Obama administration. Support for various levels of state control of the internet has become commonplace on the Left, and, increasingly, on the nationalist Right as well.

But sensible observers should look at the way Iran has used state control of the internet to oppress its people and reject these proposals. No, none of the Democrats' individual policies would turn our online experience into an Iranian nightmare overnight. Yet they would all shift the needle substantially toward state control, paving the way for further expansion of government power and future abuses. The Iranian example makes it clear that the only way to preserve a free and open internet is to keep the government as far away from it as possible.

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Iran's digital dystopia shows why we should never give government control of the internet - Washington Examiner