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Deniz starts his daily commute by opening the Youtube app to understand whats happening in the country around him. Apart from a brief newsletter that provides the top headlines, the 25-year-old business analyst has taken to getting his news almost exclusively in video form. Its easier to get the full story, Deniz, who preferred to use a pseudonym given the political climate, tells Index on Censorship. The young professional said that following journalists and information creators on YouTube he finds is the only way to get a balanced view.

Print journalism and social media presence has come under close watch after the government issued legislation last October that jails journalists and social media users for spreading disinformation. In the months since, one journalist, Mir Ali Kocer, was detained for his reporting on the February earthquake which struck southern Turkey and northern Syria.

Getting information in video format isnt necessarily a new concept for Turks. In 2021, for example, Cuneyt Ozdemir, a Turkish journalist whose main platform is YouTube, aired interviews with major government officials before other mainstream media sites. But today more and more younger Turks are gravitating towards video-format news. The theory is it can present less bias as creators are separate from traditional news outlets.

Asli, a 23-year-old undergraduate student, said she is an avid Ozdemir watcher, being one of his 1.48M subscribers. She also watches Nevin Meng, an independent journalist who attracts 150 thousand people to her YouTube news hour every day. She hears about topics on TikTok, often featuring shorter video content than YouTube, and then turns to YouTube for a longer, more informative video essay.

Asli and Deniz video news habits are becoming common for young Turkish media consumers, who are growing tired of a media scene which, according to an independent newspaper BirGn, is 90% in line with the government, Popular broadcast CNN Turk and newspaper Hrriyet, for example, are owned by Turkish conglomerate Demirren Holdings, the largest media group, and are known for their pro-government line. The two often avoid government criticism altogether and publish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans speeches in full. In broadcast videos with Erdogan, programmes give the president full rein, avoiding questions altogether and giving him the time slot to just speak.

In this environment its no surprise younger people are turning to alternative sources. According to MOM, or the Media Ownership Monitor Turkey, YouTube is the second most popular social media site in Turkey after Facebook. And according to DataReportal, there are 57.9M active YouTube users.

Damla, who is a recent graduate, told Index that she approaches traditional media with deep suspicion.

Theres no in between, the bachelor of economics student said. The foreign media paints Turkey only in a developing light; the Turkish media says its their [western medias] fault. Damla said that while she reads Turkish media, anything that more directly questions the government, by Turkish speakers, tends to be in video format, something she thinks may be due to it being harder to monitor the video content versus traditional, written news, which can be more easily pruned and filtered.

Video platforms also feel like a safer place of sorts. Following the passage of the disinformation bill, many people, Deniz included, have questioned whether to favourite certain tweets and think twice before sharing on Instagram. While Deniz worries about actively sharing thoughts on platforms attached to his name, he said he felt safer commenting on YouTube where one wasnt pressured to have a profile photo or build an online presence but could just be a viewer.

Where and how Turkish citizens are consuming their news matters as the 2023 presidential elections approach this May, heralded by many as the most important in the world this year.

Voters will head to the polls on 14 May, with Erdogan facing some of the greatest challenges he has seen in years. Polls are predicting a record voter turnout, as Erdogan faces his main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) and presidential nominee for the six-party Nation Alliance bloc.

In an environment of fury over the earthquake, a serious economic crisis and the continued erosion of civil liberties, Kldarolu is popular. He leads Erdogan in some polls. He is using the video platforms too. He has attracted wide viewership to his videos (many of which are on Alevis, a religious minority group, and the drastic price rise of onions). Erdogans AK Party has also taken to YouTube production over the past few months, creating specific videos for over 60 cities, but has significantly lower followership than other channels. The AK Party and Kldarolus CHP both have TikTok accounts, though once again they were struggling to achieve the hits that the non-partisan commentators in Turkey are getting.

None of this makes YouTube or TikTok immune from the government. They could ban access, as they did with Twitter in the earthquake aftermath.

Still, for now YouTube is proving invaluable as the elections approach.

Days before casting my vote, I want access to all the information: governmental and what the government may deem misinformation, Damla said.

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Turkish youth turn to YouTube amid stifling of information - Index on ... - Index on Censorship

Montana State Rep. Zooey Zephyr is coming off a wild legislative session,one that ended with her being silenced. How does she feel now, after the session came to a close on May 2? Chin up, eyes forward to what comes next, she tellsTeen Vogue in a phone interview the following day.

On April 26, Montana conservatives made headlines for deciding to censure Zephyr. The reason given at the time was decorum.Teen Vogue spoke to Oklahoma Rep. Mauree Turner last week, who was censured nearly two months before Zephyr. (Zephyr and Turner are the first openly trans and openly nonbinary representatives in their states, respectively.) They are writing policy that will eradicate communities," Turner toldTeen Vogue. "That is what they are looking for: authoritarian rule and eradication of life. And you're worried about folks speaking up? That's not decorum for you?

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Following Zephyrs censure, 52 LGBTQ+ legislators from 19 states sent a letter of solidarity (coordinated by theState Innovation Exchange) to the State House leadership of both Montana and Oklahoma in support of both Zephyr and Turner. While it may be uncomfortable for some lawmakers to be confronted with public outcry and forthright debate, that is the purpose of the legislative process and the freedom your constituents and duly elected representatives inherently have in your state capitols and every state capitol in our nation, theletter reads, in part. As LGBTQ+ lawmakers, we refuse to be silenced.

Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr.

A sense of decorum was certainly not what defined the coming days as Zephyr attempted to legislate from outside the chamber. She chose a bench to work from and on Monday morning,three older white women, who told the press they were related to Montana legislators (one of whomallegedly is the mother of the House speaker who targeted Zooey and is part of aconservative political dynasty in the state), occupied the bench, laughing, meaning Zephyr couldnt sit there. Anda New York Timesstory out today says the speaker, Matt Regier, after winning the title in a private caucus vote last fall, asked other women legislators if they were afraid to share a bathroom with Zephyr.

In response,Montanans worked together to protect the bench for Zephyr. Zephyr challenged the censure in court with the help of the ACLUand on May 2, a judge rejected Zephyrs attempt to return to the floor. The legislative session is over, but the impact of the last few weeks isnt. On Tuesday, both Zephyr and her girlfriend werethe victims of SWATting attempts (currentlyalso plaguing schools and colleges). The nation has not turned away from Montana, focusing a level of scrutiny that Zephyr couldnt possibly have prepared for.

Zephyr spoke toTeen Vogueabout Republican censorship and the support she's received.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Teen Vogue: The eyes of the nation have been on you. Youve experienced widespread support and also threats and harassment. How are you feeling?

Zooey Zephyr: We saw how willing folks on the right were to toss away democracy in order to achieve their goals [by censuring me] and I think when that happened the eyes of the world turned toward Montana and said,That is wrong. That is wrong likeit was wrong in Tennessee, its wrong likeit was wrong in Oklahoma. That is wrong and it is not the way our country should be run. That goes against everything our country stands for.

At that moment, it feels like there is an opening in the machinery of politics where change becomes possible. I feel a sense of community and drive that feels unprecedented, and I am excited and determined to make sure that I can be there to help folks as we try to stand together and make this a place we could be proud of, this place being Montana, and the country, as well.

TV: I want to ask about what looked like a really celebratory moment: When you returned to your constituents in Missoula andthey celebrated your strength and bravery in a show of solidarity, last Friday.

ZZ:On that Friday when I went back to Missoula, people saw what I've been saying: that I represent my community. Those are the people who sent me here and they were the ones demanding that their voices be heard in the Capitol. When I went home, I was rooting myself back in the community that I love and that I'm a part of.

I was overwhelmed with joy and love in a way I did not anticipate because as you move through something like the anti-democratic cruelties of this legislative body, you move so quickly and you rarely get time to sit back, reflect, and process your emotions and what's going on. That is doubly true for me more than doubly true in a moment where there's so much press and so much heightened awareness around Montana.

So I was going from, Okay, what am I going to do here? Okay, I show up and there are people on the benches, how am I going to respond to that? This action took place and that action took place. How am I going to make sure I'm talking to my legislative colleagues when they're in the room and I can't go in that room? How do I get my constituents' voices represented? You just are going and you do not have time to sit and reflect and process your emotions. When I showed up, as I walked out to my community, the moment I grabbed the microphone, theystarted chanting, Let her speak. And I started crying because I knew I was back home.

Someone posted that she could never have imagined the moment that a trans woman would walk onto a stage in broad daylight in public, in front of smatterings of community members, and receive that kind of welcome. I don't remember exactly what they said, but I think what that moment shows is what trans people have been saying again and again.

The laws that these legislators are passing do not reflect the general community's understanding or care for trans people. These laws do drum up fear around trans people and there are real threats of harm to our community by individuals who use phrases like groomer or pedophile, buy into that damaging rhetoric, and target us. But, by and large, trans people are just part of our communities: friends, neighbors, colleagues. What I have said from the beginning is you're never far from someone who is trans or someone who loves someone who is trans. And in Montana that is true, whether you are in a coffee shop, in an office space, or in the governor's mansion.

TV: Quite literally. (Editor's note:David Gianforte, the child of Montana governor Greg Gianforte,asked their father not to pass anti-LGBTQ+ legislationlast week. Gianforte is nonbinary.)

ZZ:When you're in a moment like this, all I'm trying to do is rise to the next moment, bear witness to what happens, stand by your values, hold those in power accountable when they harm people, and meet each moment as it comes. And when you do that, especially in a moment like this, the days and the weeks blur together.

TV: On the other end of things, youve really experienced multiple levels of cruelty and harassment, from the high school antics of your colleagues wives and possibly mothers filling your seat outside the chamber, to being swatted.

ZZ:We see again how far people will go to achieve their very cruel ideological goals. We see the speaker silence me on the floor and in doing so take away representation from my 11,000 constituents. We see the speaker try to remove me from the public space that I was allowed in. And then when I was able to stay in that public space, we see other people sitting there and filling the bench, as they are allowed to do, as is their prerogative, obviously.

When I walked around the corner and there were people on the benches, I carried on. I went to the next available open space because that does not bother me. I'm not concerned. I came there to do the work. That's on that side of things.

The swatting attempts are an extension of that. Extremists on the far right, both politically and as individuals, will go to extreme lengths to try to ensure that trans people who, again, are just trying to live our lives in peace and experience the joy that we get when we are allowed to transition in that pursuit of happiness, they will go to extremes to try to silence us or harm us. But we will not be deterred is what I said and what I will say a thousand times.

TV: Do you have any final thoughts for those across the country watching whats happening to you and your community?

ZZ:What you saw here in Montana and what you saw in Tennessee is that political leaders are rising up and saying these policies get our community killed. They're not letting themselves get crushed by the political machinery. They're standing up in defense of their communities, calling out real harm, and holding the powerful accountable. And what we also see is that's what peoplewantfrom their political leaders. They want people who will stand for democracy. They want people who will hold the powerful accountable.

People say that was courageous of you, that was so brave of you. It should be easy to stand and do the right thing when you're standing on the side of what is just and morally right, when you're standing on the right side of history. When people look at this moment here in Montana and across the country, they see a glimpse of what my state, what our country, could be if we collectively have the courage to stand up for democracy, stand up for what is right and just.

Going forward, I hope if they do feel that glimpse, that drive, and want to help, that they turn toward their communities, toward the places they call home, and say, What room is my voice needed in? What room can I make a difference in? And I hope they go there and I hope they're invited in. Otherwise, I hope they find a way into those rooms, make their voices heard, and together, we're going to change the world.

Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take.

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Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr on Republican Censorship and Her Next Move - Teen Vogue

NEWBURYPORT Adam Laats, a professor of history and education at Binghamton University in New York, appears Thursday on The Morning Show.

Laats is the author of multiple books, including Creationism USA: Bridging the Impasse on Teaching Evolution (2020). He is an expert on cultural battles over education and school reform.

Earlier this year, the governor of Florida stirred up controversy when he blocked the first draft of an advanced placement African American studies course offered by the college board. A national discussion about political efforts to control the narrative of Black history has been ensuing ever since.

Laats will put this current discussion within the context of a lengthy American history of efforts to censor and control the teaching of Black history, starting immediately after the Civil War.

By making it unacceptable to teach the truth of Americas racial history, even when the facts are unambiguous, Laats said, the result is that students learn less, and often emerge feeling confused about the past.

The Morning Show airs Thursday at 9 a.m. on Channel 9 and WJOP FM 96.3, and livestreams on YouTube (at NCMHub.org). After broadcast, click Playlist on YouTube and scroll down.

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Censorship of history featured on 'Morning Show' | News ... - The Daily News of Newburyport

Oklahomas Republican governor is on a crusade against "Clifford the Big Red Dog," the network that produces the animated children's show, and the local affiliate that airs it.

Last week, Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed a bill that authorized funding the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA), which broadcasts PBS programming, through July 2026.

Republicans have targeted PBS funding for years, including Donald Trump during his presidency and Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate in 2012. Stitt appears to be seizing on a sordid political moment in the United States to advance that cause.

"I don't think Oklahomans want to use their tax dollars to indoctrinate kids," Stitt told reporters on Friday about his decision to veto the bill. "Some of the stuff that theyre showing just overly sexualizes our kids.

Here, Stitt seems to be winking at Republicans crusade against so-called groomers with his criticism of PBS, much like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is targeting Disney to push his anti-LGBTQ agenda.

Tulsa World on Friday laid out the Stitt administrations issues with PBS, and theyre just as bigoted as one might imagine.

To back up Stitts claims, a spokeswoman for the governor sent the Tulsa World information showing that OETA promoted LGBTQ-focused Pride Month programming in recent years. The spokeswoman also shared information indicating that two animated childrens cartoons 'Clifford the Big Red Dog' and 'Work It Out Wombats!' that air on PBS affiliates have included lesbian characters in some episodes. The spokeswoman also sent a Fox News article that criticizes a 'PBS Newshour' segment in which an Indiana couple talked about how gender-affirming care was beneficial for their daughter.

First of all, if you watch Clifford the Big Red Dog or Work It Out Wombats! and think, Gee, theres an awful lot of sexiness going on here, that sounds like a personal issue. But fundamentally, Stitts veto is nothing more than anti-LGBTQ government censorship.

And the governors cruelty is likely to impact Oklahomans in a major way. Just last year, Stitt vetoed more than $8 million in funding authorized for the OETA to improve its emergency alerting services, hampering the agencys effort to improve a tool it uses to notify residents including many in rural areas of local issues.

Stitt claimed he doesnt see a reason for public funding to go toward a broadcast network. And that stance has him at odds with some members of his own party in the state Legislature.

Multiple Oklahoma Republicans told Tulsa World they support OETA funding. That includes state Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat, who pointed to public broadcasting's key role in relaying emergency communications.

According to Tulsa World, the Legislature appears likely to override the veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in the Oklahoma House and state Senate.

Ja'han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer.

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Oklahoma governor cutting PBS funds is anti-LGBTQ censorship - MSNBC

The big idea

From Lady Chatterleys Lover to novels about trans children, attempts to suppress works of literature tend to have the opposite effect

The 17th century rector of St Albans College in Valladolid, Spain, must have rolled his eyes at the size of the book he had to review for the library. The Jesuit seminary, known as the English College because it produced missionaries committed to the reconversion of England to Catholicism, had received a 900-page volume of Shakespeares plays.

William Sankey prepared his quill and began the long work of censoring ungodly, anti-Catholic and otherwise unsuitable material. Holy-day fools a jibe in the Tempest that seemed to impugn the Christian calendar struck out. Heavier soon by the weight of a man, as Margaret tells Hero on the eve of her wedding in Much Ado About Nothing filth blotted into unreadability with heavy ink. A play about a pretend friar and a novice nun: actually, at Measure for Measure Sankey admitted defeat, put down his pen and took a sharp blade to cut out the pages of the entire play.

Whats striking about this, however, is not the censorship. It is that these cheerfully secular, prominently anti-Catholic, ribald dramas were even considered for inclusion in this religious institution in the first place. Sankeys redactions were less about censorship and more about doctoring the text to enable it to circulate. He made it more possible, not less, for seminarians to read Shakespeare (except Measure for Measure).

That censorship might actually enable the circulation of books rather than restrict it seems counterintuitive, but its a pattern we see again and again. As an addendum to the better known Index of Forbidden Books, the Vatican published an Index Expurgatorius: a list of the bits that could be cut from otherwise offensive books to make them acceptable. Of course this became the book equivalent of Barbra Streisands attempt to restrict the online circulation of images of her Malibu beach home: a move that inadvertently drew attention to the very things it was intended to suppress. The Protestant librarian Thomas Barlow wrote gleefully that the Catholic church had done his work for him, by pointing to what he himself wanted to read. Similarly in 1960s Oklahoma, when the moral crusading group Mothers United for Decency set up a smutmobile filled with objectionable books, surely some locals used this as a handily curated wishlist?

The best sales pitch is the threat of censorship. It draws attention to books that might otherwise have gone under the radar. The academic Indologist Wendy Doniger observed that the lawsuit against her book The Hindus: An Alternative History had had the effect of making it an unexpected bestseller. The publishers, Penguin, originally defended her against charges of being defamatory about the Indian national movement and the pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses, but then agreed to cease publication and pulp copies. There were none to be found, because theyd sold out. Probably relatively few readers in 1961 were agog for a cheap copy of Lady Chatterleys Lover, but the trial created an eager market. Had the prosecutors wanted to restrict access to DH Lawrences explicit novel, they might have done better simply to keep quiet about it.

We tend to believe that when books are censored, they are obliterated or withdrawn from view. But much more often they are edited to increase sales. Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, a dystopic novel about book burning, was shocked to find that his US publishers had been censoring it to make it more acceptable in the American classroom. Seventy-five instances of damn and hell were stripped out to establish the book in the lucrative education market; Bradbury grudgingly acceded.

Censorship to allow material to circulate with younger readers is commonplace. Outrage about the updating of Roald Dahls fiction earlier this year suggested this was a regrettable modern phenomenon, but the template was set long before. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salingers coming-of-age novel that is often credited with inaugurating the contested genre of young adult fiction (books that young people enjoy and parents worry about), was subject to constant demands for censorship. The language was a perennial complaint, as one reader, galvanised by the National Organization for Decent Literature, enumerated bathetically: 237 goddams, 58 bastards, 31 Chrissakes, and 1 fart. Slightly redacted versions of the novel were produced to minimise classroom anxieties. These censored versions had more, not less, circulation than their uncensored predecessors.

Contemporary censorship is also fixated on the classroom and on young adult fiction, but now outraged readers are not going to the trouble of counting blasphemies (sometimes not even reading the texts they find so offensive). Previous censorship regimes attempted a compromise between the book and its more sensitive readers; these have now been overruled. Todays censorship is about the withdrawing, wholesale, of volumes deemed problematic.

Alex Ginos novel about a trans girl, Melissa, previously published as George, topped the American Library Associations list of most banned books for several years, but again, the act of suppressing the book drew more attention to it. When the American Family Association encouraged a letter-writing campaign to the publishers to have the book withdrawn, Gino organised a crowdfunding campaign to provide copies to school districts in Kansas. It reached its fundraising target within the hour. The free availability of digital versions of banned books, supported by major libraries including the New York Public Library, has also worked to stymy attempts to restrict their circulation. Again, it seems that censorships perverse outcome is increased awareness of, and access to, challenging books or at least lets hope so.

Emma Smith is the author of Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers (Penguin, 10.99), now available in paperback. To support the Guardian and Observer order a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack by Richard Ovenden (John Murray, 20)

Melissa by Alex Gino (Scholastic, 6.99)

Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age by Paul S Boyer (University of Wisconsin, 20.50)

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The big idea: what if censoring books only makes them more popular? - The Guardian