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Despite routinely interrogating dissident writers, the government is losing itsability to control the message.

By Jessie Yang, The University of Hong Kong

In China, citizens freedom of speech is under constant monitor by authorities.

Although the news media ishighly developed, their affiliations with the government make itdifficult to exercise their power as the fourthpillar of democracy. Journalists are constantlyexploring different measures to expose corruption of the government to the public, but its not uncommon for officials toinvite them for tea, which is a term in Chinese indicating interrogation.

Recently, some journalists critical of social issues have disappeared without leaving any message behind. Some suggest that the Chinese government is responsible for their disappearance, and if you examine the cases carefully, it becomes apparent that themissing journalists all haveone thing in commonpolitical dissidence.

Last year, an active journalist in China, Jia Jia, who was prominent in petitioning against President Xi, went missing on his plane to Hong Kong. Jia had a strong political stance, and he commented frequently on social and political issues. Prior to his disappearance, his name showed up in the Chinese media Wujie, and the sensitive article detailed criticisms of the central governments conducting a personal cult.

After his release, the server was immediately cut. It was after several days that government officials released Jia Jia, and he soon afterleveled down on his sharp commentaries.

Image via AVO News

Chinese president Xi has embarked on an unprecedented effort to clamp down on the internet and censor opinions that do not reflect those of Communist party leaders, including imposing tougher penalties for what the government calls spreading rumors through social media, which leads others to suspect the level of free speech that exists in China.

In fact, Jia Jia is not the only journalist who has been interrogated in recent years. Another journalist, Li Xin, a dissident writerwho refused to be an informant for the Ministry of State Security, went missing on his way to Thailand. Although the Bangkok Post reported that the government and police were not aware of the incident, a month later, his wife received a call that he was volunteering and assisting the government in investigation.

I know this is [the Chinese government] speaking, his wife said in a tearful conversation with CNN. It completely contradicts what Li Xin would like to say.

While Jia Jia and Li Xin remained silent after their releases, journalist Wen Tao, who was missing along with famous artist Ai Weiwei, both spoke about their experience.

Just hours after Ai Weiwei was detained at the Beijing airport, five plainclothes officers took away Wen Tao.

I was beaten and they dragged me into a black car. I stayed in a room without curtains for three months. It was three months later when they released me, Taosaid.

Image via NPR

Ai Wei Wei, instead of staying quiet, created a series of artworks about his life in prison as a wayof critiquing thecentral government. As the artist was cruelly denied his freedom by nearby guards, peepholes offered a glimpse at the humiliation on display. Ais vitriol against the Communist Party has made him a polarizing figure in the Chinese art world.

All three cases of missing journalists follow similar patterns, asthe government simply deprives their freedom of speech in order to maintain harmony in society. Human rights are constantly under question, and even though Chinese journalism struggles to take different measures, the complex political environment still meansuncertainty in regard tothe future of Chinese media.

In order to better understand the nature of Chinese journalism, it is necessary to understand its development. Since 1976, when China adopted socialism with Chinese characteristics to satisfy material aspirations of the people, the media also drifted from being a mouthpiece for the government to making profit to sustain business.

While the government cut down on sponsorship, media agencies began to gain power to choose personnel and manage their own finances. The opportunity gave media agencies in China a new space for expression. Increased press autonomy diversified the news content, but itdoes not mean that news media are free of government control.

Journalists are often under scrutiny, from applying self-censorship to ending up in prison.

For the sake of combating the strict regulation, more and more investigative journalists have emerged, forming a bottom-up approach to better assesspublic perception ofgovernment policies.

Moreover, diverging interests open up space to pursue investigative reporting without prior official sanction; however, asthe previous examples of missing journalists prove, the media still cantfully exercise their power to monitor the government.

As a result, inrecent years, there has been a rise in citizen journalism, which is when ordinary citizens take up an active role to collect and report news, documenting social issues instantly in order to break through government control.

On July 23, 2011, two high-speed trains crashed into each other and caused serious casualties in China. Before the news was released by Xinhua, a major news agency in China, citizen journalists and photographers quickly responded to the incident and spread photos and news on Weibo, which accumulated more than two million related tweets in a month. The eyewitnesses also served as evidence to criticize and monitor the governments actions in the crisis, and the public were further mobilized by social media to provide immediate assistance to the victims.

Citizen journalism has expanded the role of social media to provide a platform that allows for instant response to social issues in order to mobilize the public. When only certain news is published, and dissenting journalists are banned from their publications, social media offers an alternative in news reporting to airthe hidden stories.

The nature of social media brings certain political and social issues into discussions, and further challenges the existing problems and regulations. As a result, journalists in China, both citizen and professional, are continuing to exploredifferent platforms to foster discussion and exert influence as whistle-blowers, exposingevidence of corruption and misconduct by their government.

censorshipChinaChinese journalism

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Journalistic Censorship in China Is Struggling to Silence Social Media - Study Breaks

Here's an excerpt from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451:

Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did.

There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no!

Farhrenheit 451 was published in 1953.

Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post news story:

Before a book is published and released to the public, it's passed through the hands (and eyes) of many people: an author's friends and family, an agent and, of course, an editor.

These days, though, a book may get an additional check from an unusual source: a sensitivity reader, a person who, for a nominal fee, will scan the book for racist, sexist or otherwise offensive content. These readers give feedback based on self-ascribed areas of expertise such as "dealing with terminal illness," "racial dynamics in Muslim communities within families" or "transgender issues."

Sensitivity readers have emerged in a climatefueled in part by social mediain which writers are under increased scrutiny for their portrayals of people from marginalized groups, especially when the author is not a part of that group.

The Washington Post article was published in 2017.

As Post reporter Everdeen Mason points out, if you're an author of best-selling renown whose published works include Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone just for starters, you might think you don't need to be screened by a sensitivity reader. You'd be wrong:

Last year, for instance, J.K. Rowling was strongly criticized by Native American readers and scholars for her portrayal of Navajo traditions in the 2016 story "History of Magic in North America." Young-adult author Keira Drake was forced to revise her fantasy novel "The Continent" after an online uproar over its portrayal of people of color and Native backgrounds. More recently, author Veronica Rothof "Divergent" famecame under fire for her new novel, "Carve the Mark." In addition to being called racist, the book was criticized for its portrayal of chronic pain in its main character.

Furthermore, sensitivity readers aren't even controversial in the eyes of a surprising number of the media. "What's not to like?" asks Claire Fallon of the Huffington Post:

There's really no meaningful difference between the content editing any reputable publisher would offer and sensitivity readingexcept that most agents and editors, to this day, are white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied women. The average editor at a publishing house isn't personally familiar with the experiences of an American bisexual child of Chinese immigrants, or a black teenager, or a deaf woman. An editor can and will alert their author that an odd coincidence reads as ridiculously contrived, or that a character's dialogue seems stiff and unrealistic; that's part of helping a writer hone their craft and polish their book. What, then, if the book's flaw lies in a cultural detail misrepresented, or a glaringly dated stereotype of a person of color? Unless the editor has more fluency in a given culture than the author, the editing process could skip right over that weakness.

And Slate's Katy Waldman, although not quite so enthusiastic about the sensitivity industry as Fallon, still thinks it's a generally good industry to have around:

As a push for diversity in fiction reshapes the publishing landscape, the emergence of sensitivity readers seems almost inevitable. A flowering sense of social conscience, not to mention a strong market incentive, is elevating stories that richly reflect the variety of human experience. Americaspecifically young Americais currently more diverse than ever. As writers attempt to reflect these realities in their fiction, they often must step outside of their intimate knowledge. And in a cultural climate newly attuned to the complexities of representation, many authors face anxiety at the prospect of backlash, especially when social media leaves both book sales and literary reputations more vulnerable than ever to criticism. Enter the sensitivity reader: one more line of defense against writers' tone-deaf, unthinking mistakes.

Even authors these days seem to see no problem in having to rewrite their books to fit the exquisite sensitivities of sensitivity readers. Waldman mentions one author "who totaled 12 sensitivity reads for her second novel on LGBTQ, black, Korean American, anxiety, obesity, and Jewish representation issues, among others."

There's another name for sensitivity screening, of course. It's called self-censorship. In Fahrenheit 451 some 64 years ago, Ray Bradbury prophesied that ever-increasing authorial sensitivity to the demands of an ever-increasing group of aggrieved minorities would result in books so blandly inoffensive that no one would care about books anymore. And then you'd have actual censorship.

Read more from the original source:
'Sensitivity' or Self-Censorship? - The Weekly Standard

Censorship is the opposite of what art should be about. Nobody is saying that we should accept alt-right ideas. But artists and curators must be free to let their imaginations, and political ideas, run wild. Rather than just disagreeing with the content of the work on display, these protesters want to limit the creative imagination, and limit what the public is able to engage with.

Even to the end of tackling bigotry, censorship is counter-productive and cowardly. Its much easier to call for the silencing of offensive ideas, and far harder to counter arguments in the form of art, literature or political manifestos. But it is only through democratic challenge that backward ideas are defeated.

The LD50 gallery describes the reaction to its shows as exceptionally aggressive, militant and hyberbolic. Sadly, this isnt the first time this sort of thing has happened. For years, art galleries have been called upon to No Platform particular artists, even where the work itself is not explicitly prejudiced. Exhibit B, an anti-racist installation, was closed at the Barbican in 2014 after protesters deemed it racist.

Whats astounding is that those behind Shutdown LD50 dont even consider themselves censors. The group says the gallery and its collaborators are the authoritarian ones, for giving a platform to hate speech. Some protesters have gone so far as to label LD50 actual fascists, comparing themselves to those who faced off Oswald Mosley at Cable Street. A pink swastika has been painted on the gallery door.

These people seem to think that racist words are in themselves violent and anti-democratic, that they pose a threat to people from ethnic minorities. The act of displaying white-supremacist works in an art gallery is seen as just as much of a threat as a national, fascistic movement, crushing freedom through terror and violence. In truth, it is LD50 that is the real threat to liberty.

As someone who considers themselves a progressive, and who supports immigration and equality, it might seem strange that Im so concerned about the illiberal tactics of these protesters. Why not focus on opposing right-wing ideas? But the fact remains that you cant oppose authoritarian, illiberal ideas through authoritarian and illiberal means. Both sides in this case must be criticised.

Undermining democratic values is the wrong way to oppose views you disagree with. Its also inconsistent. How can those who support equality argue that certain rights must not extend to far-right voices, and galleries willing to give them a platform. Clearly, these protesters dont support freedom or equality at all.

Tessa Mayes is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. Visit her website here.

For permission to republish spiked articles, please contact Viv Regan.

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Censorship and art don't mix - Spiked

Barney Rosset turned down a chance to publish The Hobbit. That, he would recall, was an act of stupendous stupidity.

But The Hobbit would surely have seemed out of place on the long list of significant books Rosset published in his several decades running Grove Press, the imprint that challenged Americas ingrained prudery. Groves specialty wasnt fantasy but realism, in all its ungainly beauty.

Under Rossets plucky leadership, Grove introduced U.S. readers to Henry Millers Tropic of Cancer, William Burroughs Naked Lunch and Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot. Amid the volatile culture of the mid-20th century, Grove legitimized degenerate authors such as Jean Genet and Hubert Selby Jr., and it backed the search for Che Guevaras diaries and the publication of Malcolm Xs Autobiography.

Some prominent names dot the modern history of alternative book publishing James Laughlin at New Directions, Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights, John Martin at Black Sparrow. But Rosset, who died in 2012 after 60 years in the business, was in a category of one.

Inspired, as he writes in this gruff and amusing memoir, by his familys history of rebellion in Ireland and his own youthful admiration for the Robin Hood-style bank robber John Dillinger, he set out to topple government authority over the publishing business. And he succeeded.

First, Grove published the unexpurgated version of D.H. Lawrences Lady Chatterleys Lover, in 1959. Then it brought out Millers Tropic of Cancer and Burroughs Naked Lunch. In each case, the company fought legal battles to defend the social value of its authors work and the imprints freedom to publish them.

The old obscenity laws were a cultural barrier raised like a Berlin Wall between the public and free expression in literature, film and drama, he writes. Near the end of his life, hes clearly pleased to make it plain: We broke the back of censorship.

In its heyday, Grove was not just a publisher of novels. Rossets little empire helped establish a mass market for the publication of dramatic works, with titles by Beckett, Harold Pinter, Eugene Ionesco, Joe Orton, David Mamet and many more.

Grove published the Evergreen Review, which hosted a sizable chunk of the literary and political discussion of the 60s. The company also elbowed into the film business; Rossets recollections of Norman Mailers ridiculous escapades while directing his film Maidstone, involving real violence and a drunken Herv Villechaize, are a hoot.

Boldface names make cameos throughout. Rosset, who was married five times, kept up a long friendship with his first wife, the painter Joan Mitchell, and he writes of being stalked by Valerie Solanas, the militant feminist who shot Andy Warhol. (She once showed up at the Grove offices with an ice pick in her pocket.) In another episode, he negotiates with Francis Ford Coppola, who briefly entertained the idea of buying Grove Press.

Rosset reportedly began writing his autobiography a decade or so before his death, and its publication now could have something to do with the timing of an upcoming biography by Michael Rosenthal called Barney. By the second half of the book, Rossets habit of excerpting his correspondence with some of his closest confidants becomes a bit of an irritant. To his credit, he also gives voice to some of his detractors, including fellow publisher Maurice Girodias, who calls his colleague unbearable.

For bibliophiles and those with a renewed investment in guarding the First Amendment, Rossets long-overdue account of his career in publishing is a welcome addition to all those musty old Grove paperbacks. Recalling the implications of his first big censorship battle, for Lady Chatterleys Lover, he writes, It would be a savage kick in the face to Death and a lovely kiss to Life. That could have been the company slogan.

Former Chronicle critic James Sullivan is a regular contributor to the Boston Globe and the author of four books. Email: books@sfchronicle.com

Rosset

My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship

By Barney Rosset

(OR Books; 360 pages; $28)

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'Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship' - San Francisco Chronicle

This is a salad which works fine for Trump's oligarchy. However, these false fears and economics do nothing for the majority of our citizens.

After an hour and a half of waiting for his censorship to end, I hung up and I am sure I wasn't alone in this fiasco.

I wanted to ask questions about two pieces of legislation. The first was House Joint Resolution 40, which would allow "mentally incapable" persons to be omitted from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and enable them to legally buy a firearm.

Question: Congressman, really, haven't you heard of Sandy Hook?

The second was HJR 41, which would remove the requirement for energy companies to report any funds received from foreign countries.

Question: Congressman, do you really think that is an overly burdening regulation for Exxon and others?

You have said that "doing live town halls" doesn't work because it lets in the radical protesters and turns it into a political rally. I am not a radical protester. I simply wanted you to explain why you voted "aye" on both these bills. Because you censored your tele-town hall, I didn't get an answer and I am sure that there are others who didn't get their legitimate questions answered.

By the way Congressman, Michael Flynn's phone was not wire tapped. The truth is that the Russian ambassador's phone was monitored while Flynn was doing Trump's bidding. Nice try, but you can't defend or excuse this guy.

Gary Anderson

Red Wing

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Letter: Tele-town hall is form of censorship - Republican Eagle