Mediaboss Marketing

Over the past decade and half, the streets of Venezuela have become a battlefield for journalists. This year, the country came third-to-last in the2017 World Press Freedom Index, withindependent NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) naming Venezuelas situation difficult. The independent medias virtual blocking from official sources, and the active persecution practiced by Nicols Maduro and his government and Hugo Chvez before him against critical voices, are some of the biggest obstacles these professionals face.

The examples are many just read about Chilean-Venezuelan political prisoner (now on house arrest) Braulio Jatar, or New York Times reporter Nicholas Casey, who wasbanned from the country in October 2016.Reports abound of the countless arbitrary arrests and assaults suffered by reporters, camera crews, and photographers in the recent protests against Maduro and his constituent assembly referendum.

The shift in how information is shared in Venezuelas mass media can be traced back to Chvezs silencing of TV station RCTV 20 years ago. A large percentage of TV & radio stations and print publications are now government-owned, and only share what Venezuelans have come to know as the official version of events; the majority of the remaining private outlets recur to self-censorship in order to stay out of trouble.

This means Venezuelas citizens have practically just one place where they can find out whats going on in their own country: the Internet. And here too, there are obstacles. Venezuela has the slowest internet connection in Latin America, and a penetration of just 53% of which only 2% represent low-income communities. Right now, its becoming more and more common for opposition politicians to broadcast their press conferences on Periscope, for example, or to witness police enforcement excesses on Facebook Live transmissions.

In the context of these past 100+ days of protests, a group of journalism students from Montevila University, in Caracas, have stepped in to try and fight journalisms good fight. They turned their thesis into El Tambor a full-fledged independent online news medium, which uses tools like infographics, videos, photos, and animations targeted to millennial audiences. What began as a four person outfit is now a team of 45 young people based in Caracas and an Instagram account with over 70,000 followers with a passion and a sense of duty to keep their fellow Venezuelans informed.

Their special coverage of the almost-daily demonstrations that have been going on in Caracas has required them to remain on the frong lines, which means their reporters are often risking their lives in the middle of violent actions from police, military, and even paramilitary groups. Thats why El Tambor has started a crowdfunding campaign to acquire equipment to protect themselves in these situations, like gas masks, bulletproof vests, safety helmets, as well as additional technology to keep doing their job.

We spoke to Jorge Lander, co-founder of El Tambor, to learn about their experience as an independent news medium the social turmoil of todays Venezuela.

What are some of the obstacles journalists face today while doing their job in Venezuela? Every day when we go out to cover the demonstrations in Venezuela, we have to wear bulletproof vests, gas masks, safety helmets, and we have to identify all of our equipment with press tags to ID ourselves. Still, three of our reporters have been assaulted by both government police forces and by violent paramilitary groups looking to stop us from doing our job. Despite all these threats, we remain determined, informing our citizens and the rest of the world about whats going on, because thats our role as journalism students.

How has the experience been for the El Tambor members covering these ongoing 100+ days of protests? Going out to do coverage gives us mixed feelings and emotions. At one moment, youre photographing a protest full of chants and posters against the government, and minutes later you start seeing people badly hurt because of repression by police enforcement officers. We risk our lives doing our job because, with this censorship and lack of information, our society needs us. In spite all of this, seeing the final result seeing the debates generated by the news and knowing that our audience is thinking critically about what we post, makes us proud and gives us strength to go on.

In this particular moment, whats the importance of online media outlets like yours which inform about whats going on in Venezuela? In the middle of the censorship we experience in Venezuela, digital media has been fundamental for sharing whats going on here. Thats why the responsibility we assume as a medium is increasingly bigger; were committed to the country, and thats why all the information we post on our website and social media is rigorously confirmed. Weve witnessed how people are trusting online media more and more; theyre basically the only windows Venezuelans have to know whats going on in the country.

As journalism students, how do you see the future of your profession in a country like yours? We face Venezuelas situation with optimism. We believe deeply that there will be a positive change in our country, politically and socially speaking. Thats why we keep working with care, using the few resources we have at hand, and always fighting to overcome the obstacles. Because we know were responsible for building the future of our country; its in our hands to build tomorrows journalism. We firmly believe well be pioneers in communications here and, amidst the crisis, we see a space for learning and opportunities that will guide us to a bright future.

Donate here to support El Tambors crowdfunding efforts.

.

See original here:
Venezuelan Journalism Students Are Fighting Media Censorship. Here's How You Can Help - Remezcla (blog)

Photo courtesy of Jon King

History Professor Steven Levine is a specialist in East Asian affairs at the University of Montana. Fluent In Chinese, Levine was partly responsible for bringing the Confucius Institute to the state, a decision he now says was a mistake that has opened the door to Beijing soft power.

When I was at the Mansfield Center as Associate Director, I was partly responsible for bringing the Confucius Institute to the University of Montana, and, frankly, now I regret it because the Confucius institute, which is not particularly active actually at UM, is in fact an instrument of Chinese soft power.

Levine says the Confucius Institute offered money and language opportunities to the cash-strapped university, but he has come to be very critical of the educational structure of the institute.

The teachers are very carefully vetted to make sure that they dont differ one syllable from any of the official lines in Beijing, Levine said. As you get beyond the basic ABCs, so to speak, of Chinese, the books that are used and the teachers that are teaching them are forbidden by their contract from speaking about things like Tibet, for example, or Taiwan, or Liu Xiaobo, the Noble Prize winner that just died. They are constrained and censored basically.

Levine says it is unfortunate that Montanas education system cannot supply language teachers and funds to teach one of the worlds most important languages, rather than rely on Beijing.

View post:
Professor Criticizes Beijing Censorship At University of Montana's 'Confucius Institute' - Newstalkkgvo

SEOUL

Despite North Koreas increased efforts to prevent outside information from entering the country, international activists say technology and market forces will eventually overcome state censorship.

North Korea is one of the most isolated nations in the world, where foreign media is prohibited and most people don't have access to the Internet. The repressive state has even executed citizens for distributing media from South Korea, according to the Transitional Justice Working Group that documents human rights abuses in North Korea.

Familiar pattern

Still it is following a pattern similar to other authoritarian regimes that view knowledge as power and have tried to limit and control access to outside information. This according to leaders from Cuban and Myanmar (or Burmese) independent organizations working to evade authoritarian censorship and outside information restrictions in their own countries, who were recently in Seoul to share their experiences and strategies with Korean counterparts.

I believe that the increasing Internet penetration is going to be inevitable. Eventually the government will need this and needs this for its own development, said Rafeal Duval with the independent news organization Cubanet.

In Cuba, as in North Korea, growing demand for foreign movies and television dramas, not political news, has made smuggling in outside information an increasingly profitable venture.

Using a variety of USB drives, Micro SD cards and DVD discs, Cubanet distributes through the black market a weekly compilation of video content, audio podcasts and entire webpages known as El Paquete for its growing list of customers in Cuba.

Duval said Cuban authorities charged with preventing the influx of foreign media are eventually co-opted by being bought off and often becoming users themselves.

Theyre going to realize the impossibility of a ban because of corruption, he said.

Another Cuban project called Apretaste targeted the countrys elites, the estimated 25 percent of Cubans who have access to email. Apretaste works as a proxy search engine in which volunteers in places like Florida email results to over 100,000 Cuban inquiries each month.

Right now we are giving to the people in Cuba something that they really need. We are giving them a window to see you outside the island, said Salvi Pascual who founded Apretaste.

Prior to democratic reforms that began in Myanmar in 2011, the military government highly censored the Internet. But the porous border with Thailand and the proliferation of satellite TV receivers in the country made it easier for exile opposition groups to penetrate the countrys information blockade.

Emerging black market

The North Korean economy has been steadily growing in recent years despite increased international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang for its continued nuclear and ballistic missiles tests. In the last year, the countrys gross domestic product rose 3.9 percent, driven in part by the exports of coal and other minerals, according to Bank of Korea in Seoul.

However an emerging private market that is tolerated but not sanctioned by the communist state is also driving economic growth. A survey by the Beyond Parallel project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC says most North Koreans now earn 75 percent of their household income from the black market. The Illicit export of North Korean seafood, shoes, cigarettes and cooking oil has given people new purchasing power to bring in outside information and technology.

The number of households with TVs and DVD players in North Korea has grown to the point of being ubiquitous said Nat Kretchun, Deputy Director of the Open Technology Fund, a group that promotes internet freedom and is funded by the U.S. government through the Voice of Americas sister organization Radio Free Asia.

And the number of legal North Korean cell phones users has also been growing in recent years. Initially many of these domestic phones were used to transfer unsanctioned media and information files but recent updates to the phones operating system installed inhibiting censorship and surveillance software.

It effectively blocks all unsanctioned files from being used on domestic phones, said Kretchun.

However for every measure taken by authoritarian governments to block outside information, activists are developing technological counter measures.

That said North Korean defector Kim Seung-chul, who founded North Korea Reform Radio, which broadcasts into the North, expressed frustration that the South Korean government seems to provide less funding to groups working to penetrate the Norths closed information environment than do these Cuban and Myanmar exiles groups.

The South Korean government, conservatives, veterans, and famous people have a lot of money but they do not use the money for this. They get angry about North Koreas situation, but they do not act, said Kim.

Youmi Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.

Visit link:
Cuban Activists Say North Korea Fighting Losing Censorship Battle - Voice of America

July 25, 2017, 10:04 pm

Gretchen R. Hammond, a transgender reporter, was personally threatened, subject to sexist and anti-Semitic abuse and Neo-Nazi slurs as retribution against an article she wrote, losing her job as a result and the National Review is the only major American publication reporting on it. How did this happen? Hammond was the first reporter to write about the Chicago Dyke March removing three Jewish women from the march for having Jewish symbolism on their flags. While the Dyke March holds that there is nothing anti-Semitic about forbidding Jewish symbols while allowing other religious imagery, they were evidently unhappy with anyone reporting on their totally not anti-Semitic actions and letting the public draw its own conclusions. Shortly after the article was published, Hammond and her employer, the LGBT newspaper Windy City Times, began receiving insults and threats, which included anti-Jewish and sexist slurs. Shortly after, Hammond was forced off of reporting and placed into sales, which she blames on harassment from the Dyke March.

Instead of condemning this harassment, the Chicago Dyke March bragged about it, tweeting Zio tears replenish my electrolytes. Zio is an anti-Jewish slur popularized by the KKK, and the Dyke March initially defended the comment before deleting and replacing the original tweet.

If other organizations used derogatory slurs towards or celebrated the abuse of an individual by people angry at her reporting, the outrage would be deafening. After all, when CNNs Andrew Kaczynski faced harassment from redditors after publishing an article perceived as threatening to dox the private individual responsible for a gif that president Trump tweeted, Vox and the New York Times were quick to document the harassment that he faced. When a bunch of angry videogame fans harassed feminist journalist Anita Sarkeesian and game developer Zoe Quinn for criticizing sexism in videogames, it kicked off a 3+ year cycle of story after story on what became known as Gamergate. Surely, harassment that cost someone their job and that has the support not just of fringe internet users, but a large mainstream institution is the sort of bullying and intimidation that people would be up in arms against. And yet, the same organizations that have long campaigned against what they see as harassment and intimidation of progressive writers are suddenly silent, or even supportive of this bullying when its done by supporters of the Chicago Dyke March. Are journalists falling for the disingenuous invocation of LGBT rights by the March to distract from the racism, sexism, harassment, and courting of fascism that their movement is engaging in? Or have journalists seen what happened to the last left-wing writer who tried to expose intolerance and hypocrisy in the Chicago Dyke March and decided that is safer to turn a blind eye? Whatever the answer, the Chicago Dyke Marchs successful war on the media should be deeply disturbing for those interested in a free and honest press.

Wiki Commons

View post:
Pinkwashing Censorship: How the Chicago Dyke March Won its War on the Media - American Spectator

Canada's highest court recently upheld a controversial order requiring Google to remove certain results from its worldwide search listings. Now, Google is asking a federal judge to rule that that the Canadian order is unenforceable in the U.S.

"Without a declaration from a United States court that enforcement of the Canadian order in the U.S. is unlawful, Google believes that Equustek will continue to pursue enforcement of the Canadian order," the company writes in a complaint filed Monday in San Jose, California. "Google now seeks a declaration from this court that will protect its rights."

The battle over the search results dates to 2012, when technology company Equustek asked a judge in British Columbia to order Google to remove search results for Datalink Technologies -- which allegedly stole trade secrets from Equustek and engaged in counterfeiting.

advertisement

advertisement

The Canadian issued a worldwide injunction prohibiting Google from displaying search results for Datalink. That order was upheld last month by Canada's Supreme Court.

The digital rights groups Electronic Frontier Foundation, which weighed in on Google's side, criticized the Canadian court's ruling.

"The courts decision will likely embolden other countries to try to enforce their own speech-restricting laws on the Internet, to the detriment of all users," the EFF wrote. "Its not difficult to see repressive regimes such as China or Iran use the ruling to order Google to de-index sites they object to, creating a worldwide hecklers veto."

Google argues in its new court papers that enforcing the Canadian court's order in the U.S. would violate free speech principles. Among other arguments, Google says that the First Amendment prohibits injunctions that are not "narrowly tailored" to achieve a substantial interest.

"The existence of the Datalink websites is, and remains, a matter of public record," Google writes. "Equustek cannot show that it has no alternatives available other than enjoining Googles search results outside of Canada."

Google adds that Equustek has not sought injunctions against other search engines and social media sites and has not stopped Amazon from selling Datalink products.

Google also argues that the order shouldn't be enforced because it's "repugnant" to public policy in the U.S. "The ... standard applied by the Supreme Court of Canada did not come close to satisfying well-settled United States law for imposing injunctions," Google writes.

"The Canadian court placed the burden on Google, a non-party, to disprove Equusteks rights in every country outside of Canada, rather on Equustek, the plaintiff in the action, to prove its entitlement to removal of search results in each country in which it sought removal," Google writes. "Moreover, the Canadian standard took no account of the 'public interest' at all."

While Google says it's trying to protect the company's rights, it's uncertain how this lawsuit will do so, according to Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman. That's because even if Google prevails, it's not clear that a victory in the U.S. would prevent a Canadian court from holding the company in contempt, Goldman says.

"There could still be Canadian enforcement actions that would not be governed by U.S. law," he says.

Link:
Google Wants Federal Judge To Nix Canadian Censorship Order - MediaPost Communications