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JESSE WATTERS (HOST):Tulsi, it is striking when yousee Putin propaganda and youline it up against Bidenpropaganda.Do you think that we're at riskof kind of moving in thatdirection right now?

[...]

TULSI GABBARD (FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE): This is what is so dangerousabout the place that we are inright now as a country.Where this idea, this principle,this foundation of freedom ofspeech, freedom of expression isdirectly under threat and underattack.

And you are right, it's not so different.What is happening here is not so different from what we're seeing happeningin Russia, where you have got state TV and controlled messagingacross the board.This is where we are at.

WATTERS: It worked so well for themduring COVID.If you questioned anything, theywanted to knock you off socialmedia, they wanted to get you introuble because you were seen asa danger to other people. And now they are trying the sameplaybook with the war inUkraine.

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Jesse Watters and Tulsi Gabbard say the so-called censorship of conservatives in America is not so different to media censorship in Russia - Media...

Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from the maternity hospital, damaged by shelling, in Mariupol, Wednesday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the claims of an attack on a functioning hospital as lies and propaganda. [AP]

In a liberal country, the state does not even censor the banners suspended by soccer fans. For example, we dont know what one batch of PAOK hooligans meant with their recent banner reading Hang in there brothers, but we can certainly guess. Yes, the banner unfurled in the PAOK stadium should have been taken down. But not by the police or a judicial official who have no such authority. It should have been taken down by the stadiums owner, which is PAOK itself.

By the same token, the European Union has no business censoring Russian President Vladimir Putins propaganda in Europe. The plug should not be pulled on the online versions of Russia Today and Sputnik, even though, to paraphrase, the first casualty of this war has been lies. If anything, it would have given us a laugh to read Putins continued claims of feeling threatened by the Ukrainians.

We mention the online versions specifically because radio waves are something quite different. The electromagnetic spectrum is a very valuable resource, with specific and limited broadcasting frequencies and wavelengths. It is also a public commodity. And just as a state has a duty to ban the use of its airspace by the aggressors bombers, so it is well within its rights to forbid the use of any of its public resources for anything its democratic society considers detrimental. Banning certain broadcasts is not censorship, in the sense that it is not forbidding the propagation of a specific message. It is simply ensuring that the state is not enabling the dissemination of, say, fake news.

A liberal state does not forbid a message, even one the majority may regard as harmful, but it does not help propagate it either

In other words, a liberal state does not forbid a message, even one the majority may regard as harmful, but it does not help propagate it either. It is this fundamental principle that gives the National Broadcasting Council its legitimacy. It is an independent authority whose task it is to manage our public property by setting certain rules and limitations.

But the council has absolutely no authority over the internet or print media, whose producers use private resources to get their message across. The responsibility of dealing with the kind of propaganda and fake news that has been spread for years by the Putin regime lies with civil society.

In this sense, the European Union may decide that there is no room on the public radio waves of its member-states for the kind of Putin nonsense and poison disseminated by Russia Today and Sputnik, just as it may decide to ban Nazi propaganda. The Commission, however, has absolutely no authority over online networks and cable channels none whatsoever.

Freedom of information is a fundamental European value, and it must not be undermined, not even in times of war.

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Propaganda, censorship and the limits of authority - Kathimerini English Edition

In celebration of Read Across America Day, schools and libraries championed favorite books in a giant celebration of all things reading. Among the participants on social media was the New York State Education Department. Several employees had their photos taken with a book they love, alongside a short statement of why they encouraged people to pick up those titles.

One of those tweets was quickly picked up by a Twitter account notorious for reposting content to its right-wing following and encouraging them to harass the person in question. This account was the reason behind the removal of a 3rd grade teacher from her classroom in the fall because she shared LGBTQ+ books on her personal TikTok account available to her students (she was later reinstated).

The response was swift and immediate. Followers of the above account began to ask the New York State Education Department. The tweet, as well as the Facebook post, were deleted.

The story here isnt (yet) what has or has not happened to Moore. Its the fact that the State Eduction Department, where Moore is State Librarian, failed to defend her choice in a book thats been making censors angry for the last year. Rather than double down on their choice to run the tweet and defend the right to read rather than even note that accusations about the book being child pornography are wrong the Department removed the tweet and rendered themselves complicit in active censorship. It was and remains a victory for right-wing groups like this one, further emboldening and empowering them to continue pushing for silence.

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Compare this to stories of quiet censorship and see that where an institution of power like the above quietly pulls and buries its story while individual librarians whose jobs and livelihoods may be on the line by speaking out about the right for people to read whatever theyd like to read, and its impossible not to wonder what the Department was doing and who that Department is working for.

Its certainly not the students.

Its the bullies from which the State Eduction Department should be protecting those students.

Emily DeSantis, spokesperson for the New York State Eduction Department told The National Desk that,[NY]SED was not aware of the graphic nature of the contents of the book, which is not apparent from its title. Once we became aware, we immediately removed the post. SED is investigating the circumstances under which this title was selected and posted.

Its unclear what graphic nature DeSantis and the rest of the team deemed unfit for promotion Gender Queer is an award-winning book appropriate for teen readers but what is clear is that the priority isnt intellectual freedom and the freedom to read for people in New York state.

As of writing, no reputable news site has followed up on this, and the previously public LinkedIn account for Lauren Moore has been deleted.

Frank Strong has put together an incredible resource for Texans: The Book-Loving Texans Guide to May 7th School Board Elections. This voters guide offers a look at school districts where board elections will be on the ballot in May, along with whose running, their beliefs, and where energy is really needed right now to ensure censorship doesnt win at the voting booth. Youll see clear lines of where money and support comes from for many of these candidates, as well as short histories of those communities and their ties to book removal agendas.

If youre not in Texas, this guide is still for you. Can you help out with an election there by donating or spreading the word? How can you adapt this guide to your own state? Its an incredible and collaborative tool.

For more ways to take action against censorship, use this toolkit forhow to fight book bans and challenges, as well as this guide toidentifying fake news. Then learn how and why you may want touse FOIA to uncover book challenges.

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Why Didnt The New York State Education Department Defend Its State Librarian?: This Weeks Boo... - Book Riot

The Chinese government is scrubbing the countrys media of sympathetic or accurate coverage of Ukraine and systematically amplifying pro-Putin talking points about Russia's invasion of Ukraine..

Why it matters: Chinas wide use of its propaganda and censorship muscle helps insulate Beijing from a domestic backlash against its support for Putin and leaves its citizens with an airbrushed, false version of events, similar to whats seen in Putins state-controlled Russia.

What's happening: Chinese media outlets were told to avoid posting "anything unfavorable to Russia or pro-Western" on their social media accounts, and to only use hashtags started by Chinese state media outlets, according to a leaked censorship directive.

But the Chinese government made a miscalculation in the early days of Russia's invasion, according to a new analysis published by Doublethink Lab, a Taiwan-based organization that researches online disinformation suggesting that Beijing underestimated Europe's resolve.

"They tried to depict the U.S., the West and NATO as not trustworthy, and people in Taiwan as delusional to think the U.S. will protect Taiwan at all," Doublethink Lab CEO Min Hsuan Wu told Axios.

Yes, but: Censorship means that opposing viewpoints are muted, making it seem like anti-west, pro-Russia sentiment is more ubiquitous among Chinese people than may actually be the case.

Go deeper: Governments around the globe hold upper hand online

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China is censoring the invasion of Ukraine - Axios

Almost two weeks into Russias invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities have already banned over 200 websites, 300 foreign companies have pulled out of the country and fears are growing that the government may move towards disconnecting Russia from the global internet.

The Kremlin has cracked down on independent media by bringing in a new law making dissemination of "false information" punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Simply referring to the Russian invasion as a "war" instead of a "special military operation" is enough to fall afoul of these new rules.

To circumvent the censorship bearing down on the country, Russians are increasingly turning to VPNs - or virtual private networks - to keep channels open to information from outside Russia.

VPNs are a kind of software that creates an encrypted tunnel between the user and a remote server, changing the users unique IP address in the process and concealing where in the world their IP address is originating from.

"If a website is trying to block Russian traffic, you no longer appear to be Russian. It looks like you're coming from London or from Paris or anywhere in the world," Simon Migliano, head of research at Top10VPN, told Euronews Next.

VPN apps rose to the top of the App Store and Google Play in Russia last week as the government blocked social media sites.

According to data from Top10VPN, search traffic originating from Russia related to VPNs rose 633 per cent week-on-week.

At the time of writing, it is still possible to access banned social networking sites via VPNs in Russia but Migliano cautions that even while using VPNs, there are ways that states can still try and block websites.

"The Russian government will be desperately trying to block VPNs. It is possible to identify VPN traffic at the network level and block it. And what that means is that your VPN will stop working," said Migliano.

What happens in this instance, Migliano says, is that the biggest, paid VPN providers with lots of budget end up constantly hiding the traffic and performing what is known as "obfuscation".

"This is what works in China. This is why there are VPNs that still work in China, despite China being the most advanced nation on Earth when it comes to censorship," he explained.

"Russia is a long way behind China. But as you know, they are ever more closely allied with China, and I'm sure they'll be sharing information."

According to Migliano, while a VPN itself is completely secure, it is possible for a VPN provider to be compromised or for a government to pose as a VPN provider.

They can then access all of your traffic, he added.

Miglianos advises people to be judicious when selecting a VPN and recommends paying for one where possible because you do get what you pay for.

Some of the VPNs Migliano recommends for Russians to download are Proton VPN, Astrill and PrivateVPN.

[Note: Proton, Astrill and PrivateVPN are not main partners of Top10VPN but the website receives customer referral fees if users sign up to a paid subscription plan and have clicked through from their site]

Beyond that there are a few trustworthy free VPNs, but research is recommended.

Make sure you choose a provider that is well known, that has plenty of information about them already online and isn't a no-name provider, [one] that might be top of the VPN download chart at any given time, he said.

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Russians turn to VPNs to stay connected as online censorship tightens over Ukraine war - Euronews