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Francisco Martn Moreno is one of Mexicos best-known writers, and several of his more than two dozen historical novels have been national bestsellers. So I was surprised when he told me that his latest book a thinly disguised novel about President Andres Manuel Lpez Obrador is not getting any traction.

The novel, titled Ladrn de Esperanzas (Thief of Hopes), is about a fictional Mexican president named Antonio M. Lugo Olea. His initials are AMLO, just like those of Mexicos president.

In the book, his predecessor is another fictional character, Ernesto Pasos Narro. His initials, EPN, are the same as those of former Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto. The books cover shows a picture, taken from behind, of Mexicos real-life AMLO.

The novels AMLO is a well-meaning but messianic and somewhat unhinged leader who lies constantly, unaware of it most of the time. These are some of the same things critics say about Mexicos current leader.

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This is my first journalistic novel written in real time, Martn Moreno told me. And Im having a lot of problems to publicize it.

He said that he is having a hard time getting journalists to interview him about his new book, in sharp contrast to what happened when he launched previous work.

I must have sent about 60 letters to radio and TV presenters, and only four or five have invited me to their shows, he said. When I wrote my previous book, which dealt with the history of the henequn plant in Yucatan, they swamped me with interview requests.

Asked if he believes the AMLO government is trying to censor his book, Martn Moreno told me that, Its not censorship, but rather self-censorship. Journalists are panicking about this man. Fear is spreading at a phenomenal pace.

It may be fear of AMLO, fear of his supporters or simply fear of going against the current.

AMLO was elected with 53 percent of the vote a landslide by Mexican election standards and his popularity has skyrocketed since. A new poll by the daily Reforma this week shows that he has a 78 percent approval rate, with only 18 percent rating him unfavorably.

During his first 100 days in office, AMLO has, among other things, raised the minimum wage by 16 percent and sharply increased Social Security payments for seniors.

But most economists fear that AMLOs honeymoon wont last long, because as often happens with populist presidents the economy eventually will fizzle. The International Monetary Fund and most major financial institutions have already downgraded Mexicos growth forecasts for this year.

Much like President Trump, AMLO routinely attacks the press and derides his critical media as la prensa fifi, or the elitist media.

In recent days, he lashed out against the daily Reforma, accusing it falsely of silencing corruption scandals in the 1990s. Reforma also reported that its main stockholder has been summoned by tax authorities for questioning over a trivial tax bill, in apparent retaliation for the newspapers recent investigative reports.

Whats just as troubling, there are well-organized armies of AMLO supporters in social media who routinely attack and intimidate journalists who dare ask hard questions to the president, or who criticize him. A study by Mexicos Signa Lab media lab confirmed that this week, but said it could not determine whether these social media campaigns are spontaneous, or government-directed.

Perhaps as a result of these intimidation tactics, AMLOs daily press conferences have become a podium for laudatory statements masked as questions. Many of these pseudo-questions are posed by journalists who represent largely unknown media outlets.

All of these are ominous signs for Mexicos future. If there is a climate of intimidation against critical journalists at a time when AMLOs popularity is at 78 percent, what will happen when it drops to 30 percent or 40 percent, as it probably will once the president runs out of money to give wage increases?

Mexico still has a significant reserve of courageous journalists, but the danger is that they and novelists like Martn Moreno soon might be overshadowed and silenced.

At a time when Mexicos president has almost unprecedented powers including a huge majority in Congress an independent press may be the best hope to preserve a system of checks and balances. Without it, Mexico may soon have an imperial populist presidency.

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Presenta TV show Sundays at 8 pm Miami time on CNN en Espaol. Twitter: @oppenheimera

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Is censorship making a comeback in Mexico? Its early yet ...

Internet censorship is the ability to restrict specific websites or online content from being viewed. It may come in the form of an edit, regulation, or law issued by the government. It could also occur privately is an ISP objects to the content that certain individuals wish to view.

The advantage of allowing internet censorship is that content which is violent, obscene, or dangerous can be immediately blocked. This protects children from inadvertently viewing content that could be scary or harmful to them, such as the murder and decapitation videos which have made their way to sites like Facebook and Twitter in recent years.

The disadvantage is obvious: internet censorship is a restriction on a persons ability to view the content they wish to see, when they wish to see it.

Here are some additional internet censorship pros and cons to discuss.

1. It creates the chance to set common sense limits. There are some things that just arent part of what a society would deem to be healthy. A simple search right now on an unfiltered public search can provide anyone with access to numerous videos that purport to show real murders in progress. High-profile cases, such as the murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward, were broadcast on-air and then a first-person video of the event made its way through social circles afterwards. Restricting this content sets a common-sense limit on the content that van be viewed.

2. It limits access to harmful activities. There are dark areas of the internet where anything goes right now. Access to illicit drugs, sex trafficking, human trafficking, and child pornography can be accessed with relative ease by those who seek out such things. By restricting content that can be accessed, it limits the opportunities that predators can create to reach out to find new victims.

3. It could lessen the impact of identity theft. One of the fastest growing crimes in the world today is identity theft. NBC News reports that more US citizens were victims of identity theft in 2016 than any year before. More than 15.4 million reports of identity theft were compiled by Javelin Strategy and Research, which reflects a 16% increase in the total number of reports from 2015 figures. Restricting content that would allow identity information to be easily shared could lessen the impact that identity theft causes to a society.

4. It may provide a positive impact on national security. Although hacking will occur no matter what internet censorship laws may be in place, by creating internet censorship regulations with strict and mandatory penalties for a violation, it could become possible to reduce the number of hacking incidents that occur. That could have a positive impact on national security because the restrictions would possibly prevent alleged incidents like what occurred during the 2016 US Presidential election.

5. It stops fake news. Claims of fake news increased dramatically in 2017. Fake news websites promote false reports for money through clicks because readers think the news is real. Internet censorship would provide another level of discernment which could possibly stop divisive incidents that are based on events that never occurred.

1. Who watches the watchers? Even if internet censorship is directly supervised and ethically maintained, someone somewhere is deciding on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable for society to see online. At some level, someone does not have anyone to whom they report regarding their censorship decisions. With that kind of power, one individual could influence society in whatever way they chose without consequence.

2. It stops information. Although fake information can be restricted through internet censorship, so can real information. According to the World Economic Forum, 27% of all internet users live in a country where someone has been arrested for content that they have shared, published, or simply liked on Facebook. 38 different countries made arrests based solely on social media posts in 2016.

3. It is a costly process. According to research from Darrell West, VP and Director of Governance Studies and the founding director of the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings, internet shutdowns cost countries $2.4 billion in 2015. The decision to cut connectivity in Egypt came at a cost of $90 million. Censoring content is costly and it will come at the expense of taxpayers.

4. It provides a negative economic impact. What happens if a business has their website blocked because it doesnt meet an arbitrary standard of goodness? Allowing the government or some other entity to declare what is good or bad for the internet can have a dramatic economic impact at the local level. If a business cannot promote themselves online or sell their goods on an e-commerce platform, then they are placed in a disadvantageous state compared to industry competitors who would be allowed to sell online.

5. It shifts where responsibilities lie. If the government is dictating what individuals can see online, then people are no longer as responsible for the decisions they make. It cedes that control over to the government. Once that control is ceded, it becomes easier to cede more control over responsibility because the action was normalized.

6. It prevents individuals from accessing a freedom of expression. A free internet allows individuals to post what they want. It gives them the chance to freely express their thoughts, opinions, and views. Laws may already exist in many jurisdictions that would allow for the prosecution of individuals who share illegal content already, such as child pornography, so placing additional restrictions would simply create another layer of bureaucracy.

7. A lack of truth leads to ignorance. In 1984 by George Orwell, people in this dystopian environment are kept under tight control so that specific societal results can occur. Once people in this society begin to discover love, they discover truth. That truth prevents them from living in ignorance. With internet censorship, there is a lack of truth which exists in such a policy. That means there is a societal ignorance in place that a ruling party could attempt to control.

8. It limits entrepreneurial opportunities. In a world of internet censorship, entrepreneurs would be forced to have their ideas approved by an oversight committee, board, or individual instead of pursuing the idea immediately on their own. If a business in the same industry as the entrepreneur has enough wealth or influence, they could potentially restrict the entrepreneur from pursuing their opportunity. Such an action would limit innovation in many sectors.

These internet censorship pros and cons show us that what can be used for good can also be used for selfish intent. Who do you think should determine if content is inappropriate? Should it be a government, an oversight committee, or yourself?

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13 Internet Censorship Pros and Cons Vittana.org

For nearly as long as the written word has existed, it has been a target for censorship. Religion was the most frequently cited reason for the censorship of written works. In 14th century England, for example, reading the Wycliff Bible was forbidden by the clergy for fear that the translation had corrupted or misinterpreted the original text. In the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church placed Machiavellis The Prince on the Index of Prohibited Books in the banned absolutely category for its heretical content.

But book-banning isnt really an issue in the United States anymore, right? Wrong.

Literary works are still challenged, censored and banned for many different reasons. Books as varied as Judy Blumes Forever, Vladimir Nabokovs Lolita, and Maya Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings have been challenged by parents and school boards who deem certain sexual passages inappropriate for young people. Works such as Its Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman, among others, frequently face demands for removal from library shelves for their focus on gay/lesbian issues. And the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and the Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz, among others, have been challenged by dozens of parents, administrators, and clergy for their scary, violent or occult themes.

Written works on evolution have also faced censorship, as have books that represent race in a way that is deemed objectionable by certain groups.

Types of Objections against Books

Profanity: Books are often challenged for the language they contain, even though profanity is often used in literature to convey social or historical context, local dialect or simply to better depict reactions to real-life situations. Books such as Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut have been challenged or banned due to objections to profanity.

Sex: Books as varied as Toni Morrisons Beloved and Maureen Johnsons The Bermudez Triangle, among many others, have been challenged by parents and school boards who deem certain sexual passages inappropriate for young people. Works such as Its Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman, among others, face demands for removal for their frank discussion and focus on gay/lesbian issues.

Violence: Objections to violent content are often based on the idea that these works trivialize violence or desensitize readers to its effects. Books challenged on these grounds include One Fat Summer by Robert Lypsyte and Native Son by Richard Wright.

Religion: Religious grounds have long been cited as reasons for censoring books. Reading translations of the Bible was once forbidden. Today, parents and ministers often object to works which discuss topics such as sex and evolution or witchcraft or occult themes.

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Books - ncac.org

The Provisional Government that succeeded the tsars in March 1917 abolished censorship. However, two days after the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, they reintroduced censorship and extended it to films, art, and music. Though labeled a temporary measure, censorship lasted until the late 1980s. Even labels on bottles were subject to censorship; the knowing eye could discern the censors individual number, stamp, and date of issue. Violation of censorship rules could be construed as divulging state secrets, a crime punishable by imprisonment.

Soviet censors worked with a large volume called Perechen svedenii ne podlezhashchikh opublikovaniiu v otkrytoi pechati (List of Information Not Suitable for Publication in Open Sources). It was informally referred to among censorsmany of whom were Jewsas the Talmud. Among the items not suitable for publication were crime statistics, reports of natural and man-made disasters (such as airplane crashes), price increases, individual incomes, the names of many officials, and the identities of their spouses. The censorship system was administered by Glavlit, established in 1922 as the Chief Directorate for Literature and Publishing Houses at the Peoples Commissariat for Education (Narkompros). Immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution, works on Judaism and almost all publications inHebrew were banned. Foreign Jewish literature was strongly censored in the 1920s and thereafter. By the 1930s, the list of forbidden subjects included Lenins Jewish ancestry on his mothers side. Although in 1936 work critical of antisemitism was passed by the censor, at the same time Jewish themes began to disappear from Soviet prose and poetry, except in Yiddish. By 1938 brochures critical of antisemitism that had been published just a few years before were removed from libraries. The recording of Lenins 1919 speech condemning antisemitism was removed from record sets. It was reported that a six-cornered star, used as an illustration in a geometry text, had to be excised before the text could be published.

A comparison of a story published in 1936 and republished in 1940 illustrates the policy of diminishing Jewish visibility. In the story The Blue Cup, Arkadii Gaidar writes of a city in Germany, Dresden, from which a worker, a Jew, fled from the Fascists. Four years later, following the 1939 SovietNazi pact, the same sentence reads: Theres a city somewhere abroad, and from there a worker fled from the bourgeoisie. In May 1940, Bezbozhnik (Godless), the magazine of the Militant Atheists, wrote that the major achievement of the Third Reich was the Nazi attack on Judaism, and that Soviet atheists should cooperate with their allies in the struggle against religion. At the same time, antifascist books published from 1933 to 1939 were relegated to special collections, some of them never to reappear.

In the first years of World War II Jewish themes and characters reappeared in Soviet literature, but in 1942, the Agitation-Propaganda department of the Communist Partys Central Committee took up the question On the recruitment and promotion of cadres in the arts, resolving that there was a disproportionate representation of non-Russian peoples (mostly Jews) in these fields. The number of Jews in leading artistic institutions and mass circulation newspapers began to fall, and from 1948 until Stalins death in 1953, their numbers plummeted drastically.

Among Jewish themes that were censored was the Holocaust, which, while never denied, was submerged in the general and terrible suffering of many Soviet national groups. Some Yiddish writers dealt with the Holocaust by transferring the locale of the events beyond Soviet borders, especially to Poland, but the subject was rarely raised in Russian publications. As is well known, the Black Book of Soviet Jewry, edited by the distinguished Jewish war correspondents Vasilii Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg and documenting the experiences of Soviet Jews during the war, was about to be published when the order came not to release it; the book did not appear in Russia until 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union. By 1949, a review of evreiskaia literaturawhich can mean Jewish or Yiddish literaturein the Lenin library concluded that it was littered with bourgeois-nationalist, Zionist, and clerical material. Glavlit told all Soviet organs at the republic level to purge the Jewish book holdings of libraries and in light of the special immediacy of these measures, it asked the Party Central Committee to assume special responsibility and supervision.

Despite the thaw and a certain political relaxation in the post-Stalin era, former Soviet publication officials testify that censors would ask, Are there not toomany Jewish names among the authors and characters in journals and magazines? Many Jewish authors responded by writing under non-Jewish pseudonyms. The secretary of the Union of Writers, Aleksei Surkov, inquired of the Central Committee in 1955 whether works of Jewish national literature could be published, and was told that only a small series of classic and contemporary Yiddish works could be republished. Glavlit also consulted the Central Committee about objectionable passages in Ilya Ehrenburgs memoirsfor example, where he said that he had been attacked by both Fascist and Soviet authorities who forbade him to write about Jewish combatants in the Red Army. Ehrenburg was told that publication was not recommended unless he removed the offending passages, which he did.

A well-publicized instance of Soviet censorship of Jewish themes was the poem Babi Yar by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, published on 19 September 1961 in Literaturnaia gazeta. His protest against the silence that enveloped the Jewish tragedy in World War II and his criticism of the antisemitism he perceived in the Soviet Union aroused a storm of condemnation. When Dmitri Shostakovich featured the poem in his Thirteenth Symphony, first performed in 1962 and only three years later in the composers native city, Leningrad, further public controversy ensued. Anatolii Kuznetsov published a heavily censored novel, Babi Yar, in 1966. Since an uncensored edition was published abroad some years later, it is possible to see which offensive passages had been changed or removed by the censors.

Following the 1967 Middle East war, anything pertaining to Israel or Zionism was heavily censored and politicized. Works of writers who emigrated or who were expelled from the USSR were removed from bookstores and libraries. Only in the final years of Mikhail Gorbachevs perestroika was censorship relaxed, permitting the publication of formerly banned Russian, Jewish, Ukrainian, and other writers. Within the Soviet and post-Soviet intelligentsia these works found a very receptive audience, but by the middle of the 1990s many Russian and other readers no longer found much interest in them.

Arlen V. Blium, Evreiskii vopros pod sovetskoi tsenszuroi, 19171991 (St. Petersburg, 1996); Arlen V. Blium, Zensur in der UdSSR, trans. Jurij Elperin, 2 vols. (Bochum, Ger., 1999), vol. 2 is comprised of archival documents in Cyrillic; Marianna Tax Choldin, A Fence around the Empire: Russian Censorship of Western Ideas under the Tsars (Durham, N.C., 1985); Marianna Tax Choldin and Maurice Friedberg, eds., The Red Pencil: Artists, Scholars, and Censors in the USSR(Boston, 1989); Martin Dewhirst and Robert Farrell, eds., The Soviet Censorship (Metuchen, N.J., 1973); T.M. Goriaeva, Z.K. Vodopianova, et al., eds., Istoriia sovetskoi politicheskoi tsenzury: Dokumenty i kommentarii (Moscow, 1997); Harold Swayze, Political Control of Literature in the USSR, 19461959 (Cambridge, Mass., 1962).

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YIVO | Censorship: Censorship in the USSR

As Big Techs censorship of conservatives becomes ever more flagrant and overt, the old arguments about protecting the sanctity of the modern public square are now invalid. Our right to freely engage in public discourse through speech is under sustained attack, necessitating a vigorous defense against the major social media and internet platforms.

From shadowbans onFacebookandTwitter, todemonetization of YouTube videos, topulledads for Republican candidates at the critical junctures of election campaigns, the list ofviolations against the online practices and speech of conservativesis long.

I certainly had my suspicions confirmed when Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, accidentally censored a post I made regarding the Jussie Smollett hoax, which consequently led to me hearing from hundreds of my followers about how they've been having problems seeing, liking or being able to interact with my posts. Many of them even claimed that they've had to repeatedly refollow me, as Instagram keeps unfollowing me on their accounts.

While nothing about Big Tech's censorship of conservatives truly surprises me anymore, it's still chilling to see the proof for yourself. If it can happen to me, the son of the president, with millions of followers on social media, just think about how bad it must be for conservatives with smaller followings and those who don't have the soapbox or media reach to push back when they're being targeted?

Thanks to a brave Facebook whistleblower whoapproachedJames OKeefes Project Veritas, we now know that Mark ZuckerbergMark Elliot ZuckerbergTop antitrust Dem calls on FTC to probe Facebook's market dominance Conservatives face a tough fight as Big Tech's censorship expands Actually, consumers love Big Tech, even if they say they don't MOREs social media giant developed algorithms to deboost certain content, limiting its distribution and appearance in news feeds. As you probably guessed, this stealth censorship was specifically aimed at conservatives.

Facebook appears to have deliberatelytailoredits algorithm to recognize the syntax and style popular among conservatives in order to deboost that content. Mainstream media, SJW" (Social Justice Warrior) and red pill all terms that conservatives often use to express themselves were listed as red flags, according to the former Facebook insider.

Facebook engineers even cited BlazeTV host Lauren Chens video criticizing the social justice movement as an example of the kind of red pills that users just arent allowed to drop anymore. Mainstream conservative content wasstrangledin real time, yet fringe leftists such as the Young Turks enjoy free rein on the social media platform.

Despite the occasionalbrave gesture, politicians have been far too sluggish in recognizing the extent of the problem. But the Republican Party and the conservative movement are becoming more vigilant against the suppression of our speech, as we saw at last weekendsConservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Silicon Valley lobbyists have splashedmillions of dollarsall over the Washington swamp to play on conservatives innate faith in the free-market system and respect for private property. Even as Big Tech companies work to exclude us from the town square of the 21st century, theyve been able to rely on misguided conservatives tocarry waterfor them with irrelevant pedantry about whether the First Amendmentappliesin cases of social media censorship.

Sen. Josh HawleyJoshua (Josh) David HawleyGOP steps up attack over tech bias claims Hillicon Valley: Nunes sues Twitter for 0 million | Trump links tech giants to 'Radical Left Democrats' | Facebook settles suits over ad discrimination | Dems want answers over spread of New Zealand shooting video Trio of NFL players intern on Capitol Hill as part of league program MORE (R-Mo.) has beenmakinga name for himself as a Republican prepared to stand up to Big Tech malfeasance since his time as Missouris attorney general. Hedelivereda tour de force interview with The Wall Street Journals Kimberly Strassel in front of the CPAC crowd, one that provided a clear-eyed assessment of the ongoing affront to the freedoms of conservative speech and expression.

Hawley demolished the absurd notion that conservative principles preclude taking action to ensure free debate online simply because Big Tech firms the most powerful corporations in the world are private companies.

Hawley pointed out that Big Tech companies already enjoy sweetheart deals under current regulations that make their malfeasance a matter of public concern. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, for instance, allows them to avoid liability for the content that users post to their platforms. To address this problem, Hawley proposed adding a viewpoint neutrality requirement for platforms that benefit from Section 230s protections, which were originallyenactedto protect the internet as a forum for a true diversity of political discourse.

Google and Facebook should not be a law unto themselves, Hawley declared. They should not be able to discriminate against conservatives. They should not be able to tell us we need to sit down and shut up!

Its high time other conservative politicians started heeding Hawleys warnings, because the logical endpoint of Big Techs free rein is far more troubling than conservative meme warriors losing their Twitter accounts. As were alreadystarting to see, what starts with social media censorship can quickly lead to banishment from such fundamental services as transportation, online payments and banking.

Left unchecked, Big Tech and liberal activists could construct a private social credit system not unlike what the communists have nightmarishlyimplementedin China that excludes outspoken conservatives from wide swaths of American life simply because their political views differ from those of tech executives.

There is no conservative principle that even remotely suggests we are obligated to adopt a laissez-faire attitude while the richest companies on earth abuse the power we give them to put a thumb on the scale for our political enemies.

If anything, our love of the free market dictates that we must do whatever is necessary to ensure that the free marketplace of ideas remains open to all.

Donald Trump Jr.Donald (Don) John TrumpOn The Money: Liberal groups pressure Dems over Trump's tax returns | Top Trump economist says tax cuts powering economy | Trump Jr. slams Theresa May over Brexit delay | Watchdog warns of 'rosy' assumptions in Trump budget Trump Jr. slams Brexit delay: 'Theresa May should have taken my father's advice' The Hill's Morning Report - Dems contemplate big election and court reforms MORE is executive vice president at The Trump Organization.

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Conservatives face a tough fight as Big Tech's censorship ...