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Russia on Tuesday claimed that "censorship and manipulation" of the media in Germany was in "full bloom."

Pointing to a German government report on the state of independent media in the country, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram that Berlin had transferred at least 1.5 million ($1.6 million) to outlets in recent years.

"The 'independent, separate-from-the-state-budget' media received more than 1.5 million euros in cash and bank transfers," Zakharova said, pointing to Berlin's 2022 decision to remove Russian state news agency RT from its broadcasting network and statements from German officials saying they had no influence on information processes.

According to the 30-page report requested by lawmakers asking the government about the state of German independent media, 200 journalists were involved in the services for which the payments were made, including moderation, lecturing, and media training.

Zakharova also suggested that the information in the report was incomplete. "This is not all the state money and not all the journalists that Berlin contracts for its information and propaganda activities. This is explicitly stated in the government's response."

"That is, the German security forces pay journalists for no reason at all, no matter how, no one knows how much, and no one should know and will not know about this, because we are talking about 'state security considerations'," Zakharova further claimed, adding: "Censorship and manipulation of the media in Germany is in full bloom."

Germany's media regulator banned Russia's German-language TV channel RT Deutsch in January 2022, claiming that it lacked a valid license to operate in the country.

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Media 'censorship, manipulation' in Germany in 'full bloom,' Russia ... - Anadolu Agency | English

Not many people know that 16 November 2022 was the day that freedom of speech died on the internet. This was the day the European Unions Digital Services Act (DSA) came into law. Under the DSA, very large online platforms (VLOPs) with more than 45million monthly active users like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram will have to swiftly remove illegal content, hate speech and so-called disinformation from their platforms. Or they will face fines of up to six per cent of their annual global revenue. Larger platforms must be DSA compliant by this summer, while smaller platforms will be obliged to tackle this content from 2024 onwards.

The ramifications of this are immense. Not only will the DSA now enforce the regulation of content on the internet for the first time, but it is also set to become a global standard, not just a European one.

In recent years, the EU has largely realised its ambition to become a global regulatory superpower. The EU can dictate how any company worldwide must behave if it wants to operate in Europe, the worlds second-largest market. As a result, its strict regulatory standards often end up being adopted worldwide by both firms and other regulators, in what is known as the Brussels effect. Take the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a privacy law which came into force in May 2018. Among many other things, it requires individuals to give explicit consent before their data can be processed. These EU regulations have since become the global standard, and the same could now happen for the DSA.

The EUs enforcement of GDPR has been somewhat tentative. It has issued only about 1.7 billion in penalties since 2018, according to The Economist, which is peanuts in an industry that generates more than a trillion euros in revenue annually. But the EU seems to have learnt from this: the DSA has enormous enforcement capabilities built into it. The European Commission expects its internal industry watchdog to have over 100 full-time staff by 2024. Plus, contract workers and national experts will be expected to supervise Big Techs operations, too. It amounts to what EU internal-markets commissioner Thierry Breton calls a historic moment in digital regulation. The VLOPS are expected to fund this enforcement operation themselves, paying up to 0.05 per cent of their global annual turnover each year to the Commission.

This gives the EU an extraordinary amount of power. The regulation of the DSA will be overseen by the Commission itself, not an independent regulator. Whats more, the DSA includes a crisis-management mechanism, added last year in a last-minute amendment. The Commission argued it needs to be able to direct how platforms respond to events like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Apparently, in a crisis, the anticipatory or voluntary nature of obligations on tech companies to tackle disinformation would be insufficient. Under the DSA, the Commission has given itself the power to determine whether such a crisis exists, defined as an objective risk of serious prejudice to public security or public health in the Union. Given the EUs willingness to weaponise the rule of law against its ideological opponents, such as Poland and Hungary, the potential this gives the EU to abuse this mechanism is worrying indeed.

Not only does this give the EU immense powers for censorship, it also represents a profound technocratic evasion of democratic accountability. The unelected European Commission is forcing Big Tech to police the internet to rein in what the EU deems to be unacceptable speech or disinformation. In so doing, the Commission has empowered itself to impose its values on the rest of us. If this draconian censorship were being enforced by a national government, we would at least be able to vote it out. But this is an altogether different scenario.

Under the new law, the undemocratic European Commission has empowered itself to regulate content on the internet without any hint of accountability to the millions of ordinary European citizens who use these services. By placing the onus on Big Tech to carry this out, the EU can censor at arms length, which lowers the risk of mass opposition from within Europe. It is cunning but cowardly. The EUs technocratic, anti-democratic impulse to censor is being outsourced to Big Tech. And all the leading Big Tech firms have agreed to operate under these regulations, even to the point of funding the EU regulatory body that will supervise their operations.

Big Tech has little choice but to comply. It is, after all, the price firms will pay to remain operational in Europe. Even Elon Musk has fallen in line, despite his promises last year to make Twitter a common digital town square with minimal censorship and maximal free expression. Good meeting with Thierry Breton regarding EU DSA, Musk tweeted in January. The goals of transparency, accountability and accuracy of information are aligned with ours, he said. Emboldened, the EU is now instructing Twitter to employ more content-moderation staff instead of relying on algorithmic moderation.

Perhaps we shouldnt be surprised that Big Tech is motivated by profit rather than principle. What is most shocking is how unaccountable and anti-democratic all this is. Every player in this sorry saga is unaccountable to ordinary people. Each hides behind the other to deflect criticism: the Commission claims its censorship laws are necessary to protect European citizens from the harm of unregulated social-media companies; Big Tech then complies with that law in order to serve its millions of users. While both sides claim to be doing this for the public, neither is remotely accountable to the public.

Worst of all, the EUs censorship regime is now going global. Last year, the EU opened a new office in Silicon Valley to forge closer relationships between EU regulators and Big Tech. Without Big Tech companies of its own, it is only through its regulatory muscle that the EU can claim to be a player on the world stage. Indeed, Washington now appears set to follow suit, with President Biden calling for bi-partisan measures to regulate Big Tech earlier this year.

The DSA has set a precedent that online content should be regulated, and this has now been accepted on principle. As a result, freedom of speech on the internet is effectively dead killed by the EUs undemocratic and authoritarian Digital Services Act.

Dr Norman Lewis is managing director of Futures Diagnosis and a visiting research fellow of MCC Brussels.

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The EUs censorship regime is about to go global - Spiked

Book Challenges Nearly Doubled From 2021

CHICAGO The American Library Association (ALA) today released new data documenting*1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles the 729 challenges reported in 2021.

A record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color.

Of the reported book challenges, 58% targeted books and materials in school libraries, classroom libraries or school curricula; 41% of book challenges targeted materials in public libraries.

The prevalent use of lists of books compiled by organized censorship groups contributed significantly to the skyrocketing number of challenges and the frequency with which each title was challenged. Of the overall number of books challenged, 90% were part of attempts to censor multiple titles. Of the books challenged, 40% were in cases involving 100 or more books

Prior to 2021, the vast majority of challenges to library resources only sought to remove or restrict access to a single book.

A book challenge is a demand to remove a book from a librarys collection so that no one else can read it. Overwhelmingly, were seeing these challenges come from organized censorship groups that target local library board meetings to demand removal of a long list of books they share on social media, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALAs Office for Intellectual Freedom. Their aim is to suppress the voices of those traditionally excluded from our nations conversations, such as people in the LGBTQIA+ community or people of color.

Each attempt to ban a book by one of these groups represents a direct attack on every persons constitutionally protected right to freely choose what books to read and what ideas to explore, said Caldwell-Stone. "The choice of what to read must be left to the reader or, in the case of children, to parents. That choice does not belong to self-appointed book police.

ALA will unveil its highly anticipated list of the top 10 most challenged books in the U.S. on Monday, April 24 during National Library Week, along with its full State of America's Libraries Report. The theme ofNational Library Week 2023, There's More to the Story, focuses on the essential services and programming that libraries offer through and beyond books.

ALA President Lessa Kanani'opua Pelayo-Lozada said, Every day professional librarians sit down with parents to thoughtfully determine what reading material is best suited for their childs needs. Now, many library workers face threats to their employment, their personal safety, and in some cases, threats of prosecution for providing books to youth they and their parents want to read.

ALA began documenting the book challenges reported to us over two decades ago because we want to shine a light on the threat of censorship facing readers and entire communities. Book challenges distract from the core mission of libraries: to provide access to information. That includes access to information and services for learners of all ages, homeschooling parents, job seekers, new computer users, budding readers, entrepreneurs, veterans, tax filers and amateur genealogists just to name a few.

While a vocal minority stokes the flames of controversy around books, the vast majority of people across the nation are using life-changing services that public and school libraries offer. Our nation cannot afford to lose the library workers who lift up their communities and safeguard our First Amendment freedom to read.

Polling conducted by bipartisan research firms in 2022 showed that voters across the political spectrum oppose efforts to remove books from libraries and have confidence in libraries to make good decisions about their collections. To galvanize support for libraries and respond to the surge in book challenges and other efforts to suppress access to information, in 2022 ALA launched Unite Against Book Bans, a national initiative to empower readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship.The coalition will mark its first anniversary during National Library Week.

* ALA compiles data on book challenges from reports filed with its Office for Intellectual Freedom by library professionals in the field and from news stories published throughout the United States. Because many book challenges are not reported to the ALA or covered by the press, the 2022 data compiled by ALA represents only a snapshot of book censorship throughout the year. A challenge to a book may be resolved in favor of retaining the book in the collection, or it can result in a book being restricted or withdrawn from the library.

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American Library Association reports record number of demands to ... - ala.org

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Ethereums censorship problem seems to have changed course over the past six months. After the government's Office of Foreign Asset Control sanctioned Tornado Cash transactions to U.S. citizens in August, the vast majority of blocks added to the blockchain were OFAC compliant.

Now, the share of censored blocks has shrunk to less than a third in what might be seen as a comeback for Ethereums anti-censorship ethos.

According to the site MEV Watch, during the past weekend and into the beginning of this week, roughly one in three blocks that made it onto the Ethereum blockchain was OFAC compliant. This means that about 30% of blocks excluded transactions sanctioned by the OFAC, including Tornado Cash.

This article originally appeared in Valid Points, CoinDesks weekly newsletter breaking down Ethereums evolution and its impact on crypto markets. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Flipping that around, more than two-thirds of blocks that made it onto the Ethereum blockchain over the last 24 hours are not OFAC compliant.

(mevwatch.info)

Just a month ago, Ethereum validators were still censoring about 50% of blocks that made it onto the blockchain. The last time that Ethereum had such low levels of censorship was Sept. 24, 2022.

Since Ethereum went through the Merge in September, about 85% of the blocks that made it onto the blockchain participated in a middleware known as MEV-Boost, where validators can request pre-made blocks from builders.

MEV-Boost is a software that helps validators earn MEV, or maximal extractible value, which are profits that come from rearranging or including certain transactions within a block. The MEV-Boost software was innovated by Ethereum research and development team Flashbots in order to distribute MEV among validators more equally.

While MEV-Boost hasnt been integrated into Ethereum at the protocol level, its widely used by the Ethereum ecosystem, as 85% of validators have relayed blocks via the middleware component. Flashbots also has its own relayer for validators to connect with, used by roughly 25% of validators.

Story continues

After OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash, there was debate over whether validators should include those transactions or not. Ever since then, the Ethereum community has continued to push for a censorship reversal, and the results of those efforts now appear to be paying off thanks, in large part, to the introduction of new, non-censoring relays.

At the time the sanctions went into effect, most validators were connected to Flashbots MEV-Boost relay, which Flashbots immediately programmed to censor transactions by default.

In response to community backlash, however, Flashbots raced to complete the process of open sourcing its code for MEV-Boost, so others could develop their own non-censoring relays.

Read more: As Censorship on Ethereum Begins, Could This Open-Sourced Code Help Counter It?

In November, Agnostic and ultra sound relays with a non-censoring version of MEV-Boost were introduced. Since then, they have risen up in the ranks of relays delivering blocks on Ethereum. Flashbots accounts for delivering about 26% of the blocks over the past 14 days, while Agnostic and ultra sound each have delivered roughly 20% of the blocks over the past 14 days.

(mevboost.pics)

Over the weekend, Agnostic and ultra sound each delivered more blocks on Ethereum than Flashbots did.

Martin Kppelmann, co-founder of Gnosis Chain, which runs the Agnostic relay, told CoinDesk that it took some time to get the word out and demonstrate that we offer a reliable relay.

Now that validators have had the opportunity to experiment with MEV-Boost, many have started to turn to alternative relays like Agnostic and ultra sound.

The number of validators that are connected to us is constantly growing, Kppelmann said. We were already able to deliver the most blocks of all relays for some period of time.

Read more: Fewer Than Half of New Ethereum Blocks Over the Past 24 Hours Are OFAC Compliant

Read more:
Latest Ethereum Blocks Suggest Validators Are Reversing Censorship - Yahoo Finance

A history of the transformation of American liberalism over the past half-century could well be told with just a focus on free speech and censorship. But this story of changed attitudes toward censorship yields lessons far beyond just the liberal attitude toward free speech.

Aside from the inevitability of death and taxes, there is another immutable rule: history repeats itself. Its repetitions may come in different ways, but history seems inevitably prone to recycle itself.

The censorship impulse reflects one such way in which history repeats itself.

In the 1950s and 1960s, censorship campaigns arose in response to the Cold War and the danger of communist infiltration and influence. These high-profile campaigns were followed in the 1970s and 1980s by efforts to control the burgeoning flood of violent and sexually explicit media speech available to children. Generally speaking, these censorship efforts were acquiesced in or supported by conservatives. Behind the banner of the Free Speech Movement that began in California in the 1960s, liberals stood as staunch allies of free speech, regardless of how repulsive or destructive that speech.

Liberals continued that solid free speech defense through the 1990s and 2000s, although with cracks beginning to appear as they began succumbing to political correctness. It was liberals who strongly resisted a congressional attempt to regulate Internet pornography accessed by children, as well as state attempts to protect children from graphically violent video games. This probably marked the apex of the liberal defense of speech. For at least the past decade or two, the liberal position on free speech has eroded considerably, to the point where the political left has become the primary advocate for censorship across an array of speech issues.

Censorship, in fact, is really no longer a speech issue. It has become a tool within the political weaponry arsenal.

The instances of political speech censorship appear across the spectrum of contemporary life. A belief in election fraud can disqualify you from a job. A position on pro-life can subject you to FBI harassment. A skepticism on lockdowns or mandated vaccines can brand you as a social outcast. An adherence to certain religious views can subject you to innumerable sanctions.

The recent release of the Twitter files reveals an astonishing attempt by the federal government to control the speech content of Twitter users. And most recently, because of a fear that a public panic might threaten the banking industry, there have been liberal calls to censor social media reports of bank failures. Censorship has become a forefront tool for the achievement of political objectives, much like tax cuts or spending promises.

A history of the transformation of American liberalism over the past half-century could well be told with just a focus on free speech and censorship. But this story of changed attitudes toward censorship yields lessons far beyond just the liberal attitude toward free speech.

To the left, the purpose of government is no longer the protection of liberty. The lefts indifference toward freedom of speech is but one example. Another appears in how quickly the left has turned away from religious liberty. Indeed, freedom has disappeared from the list of principles and values believed in by the left. In the place of freedom now comes the amorphous term equity. But equity is not a natural right or individual liberty; it is instead a label for a political agenda.

The prevalence of censorship advocacy also demonstrates how the left continually sponsors the growth of government in all areas of life. Twenty-five years ago, liberals vehemently opposed any content regulation of the Internet, warning that government interference could stunt the growth of the Internet. Since then, and true to prediction, the Internet has grown, to the point of becoming a mainstay of the American economy. The way in which American business has converted the Internet into a growth engine that has reshaped culture and society should be cause for celebration. Instead, the left sees this triumph in private entrepreneurship as a prompt for greater government control and activism. Indeed, now that the Internet has prospered, the left seeks to use it to further promote the reach of government into our lives.

An age-old justification for free speech, even speech that is unwanted, holds that if a democratic people want to address unwanted conduct in society it must certainly protect the speech concerning that unwanted conduct. Because only through that speech will a democracy be able to know the existence and extent of the underlying unwanted conduct. In this context, speech is always the tip of the iceberg. And if the iceberg is to be avoided, the tip needs to be seen.

Likewise, censorship has become the tip of the lefts political iceberg.

The Imaginative Conservativeapplies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics as we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please considerdonating now.

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Censorship: The Tip of the Iceberg - The Imaginative Conservative