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The SABC continues to censor political views that oppose the ruling party. Thats according to ANC veteran Khulu Mbatha, author of the critical new book Unmasked: Why the ANC Failed to Govern.

Mbatha was scheduled to discuss his book on Motsweding FM on Thursday night in an interview set up by his publishers, KMM Review Publishing Company. After not receiving a call from the popular radio station, he contacted his publisher.

It was only on Friday morning that Mbatha learned why the interview was canned. He received a text from his publisher that had been sent from a producer at Motsweding FM.

The producer apologised for the lack of communication and explained what happened: I was advised earlier as I submitted my script to put the interview on hold because of the editorial policy of the SABC. I will be informed further on how to treat the interview moving forward because the content is against the ruling party.

Mbatha, once a special adviser to former president Kgalema Motlanthe, was angry when City Press contacted him on Friday morning.

I am very much disturbed. Censorship is still happening at the SABC. It is the worst form of censorship, he said, just before boarding a flight to the Franschhoek Literary Festival, where he will be talking about his book.

In Unmasked, Mbatha who is one of 101 ANC veterans who have called for a conference to deal with the ANCs crisis delivers a sharp critique of the party. The ANC, he writes, was never truly ready to rule in 1994 and has failed dismally to address the core issue of economic inequality in the country.

Kaizer Kganyago, SABC spokesperson, said the interview was postponed because the station wanted to have time to read the book.

An email was sent to the relevant party in this regard, and it is not true that the reason for postponing the interview was due to the contents of the book which are said against the ruling party. The reasons are clear and there is no mention of the ruling party.

On March 8, the council of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), acting on the recommendation of the Complaints and Compliance Committee, declared the SABC boards 2016 amendment of its editorial policies to be invalid.

This was after the The SOS Coalition and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), represented by the Legal Resources Centre, challenged amendments to the SABCs editorial policies over, among other things, the broadcasters refusal to show violent protests.

During former chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoenengs reign at the SABC numerous adverts, commentators and programmes were reportedly canned for presenting views negative to President Jacob Zuma and the ANC.

Icasa found that, in amending its policies, the SABC had failed to consult the public, which is a breach of the SABCs licence conditions and of the Broadcasting Act.

The SABC was forced to revert to its original editorial policies of 2004.

Contacted on Friday, Icasa spokesperson Paseka Maleka said that Mbatha can lodge a formal complaint with Icasa and we shall engage the SABC on the matter.

MMAs William Bird was aghast when told about the SMS.

This is fundamentally outrageous, he said, with all the emphasis on trying to restore credibility at the public broadcaster. Its a flagrant violation of [Mbathas] right to freedom of speech. The board and parliament need to be investigating this as well.

Mbatha said he had contacted Communications Minister Ayanda Dlodlo about what happened with Motsweding FM.

She promised to get back to me, he said.

* This article was updated on May 19 to include the SABC's response to the matter.

See original here:
'Censorship is still happening at SABC' - News24

Hassan Rouhani does the rounds at the Tehran book fair.

Human rights watchdogs repeatedly shame Iran as one of the worlds worst offenders against freedom of expression, a harsh censor with little compunction about cracking down on critics with direct methods such as prior restraint and violent means of repression. But Iran, like other states around the world, is increasingly using other, more unorthodox ways of controlling speech what might be called indirect censorship.

Instead of the classic methods of removing content wholesale or blocking access to it, indirect censorship methods make producing or accessing undesirable ideas and information costly, technically difficult or legally risky. They often do so via unrelated laws, or by bypassing weak or nonexistent protective regulations. Deployed by both governments and private actors, these methods often dont fall under conventional definitions of censorship, and are therefore often not condemned as such.

The Iranian government is using indirect censorship partly out of geopolitical necessity. Tehran clearly wants to improve relations with the West, but the countrys domestic human rights situation is a major obstacle and its attitudes to freedom of speech are a particular sticking point. Since the government is hardly inclined to fundamentally change its ways, it has come up with a typically neoliberal solution: to transfer responsibility for enforcing censorship to the private sector.

In a speech at Tehrans 2016 International Book Fair, president Hassan Rouhani proposed that the ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance hand its job of censoring books and cultural products to an association of writers and publishers. His government promoted this idea as an initiative to relax book censorship, and it was broadly accepted as such by the Western media. But because there are few clear regulations regarding censorship and a huge range of sensitive subjects, it would more likely have the opposite effect.

The plan is currently in its pilot stage, and if it becomes operational, the government will free itself from direct responsibility for book censorship. It would be left to publishers and writers themselves to enforce vague red lines, including upon themselves, lest they fall foul of a judiciary capable of seizing books after publication and inflicting paralysing financial damage.

This would inculcate a conservative culture of self-censorship, with writers and publishers desperate to avoid unbearable financial or legal consequences taking an even more cautious and strict approach than the government itself.

Using unrelated laws to put pressure on media and to silence the dissidents is a typical method of indirect censorship. In Iran, defamation and insult lawsuits are an effective instrument with which to punish critics, and have a powerful and chilling effect on the media. And the way defamation laws are currently interpreted by the court means they can easily be used to restrict freedom of expression.

The Iranian legal system hosts two major approaches to dealing with defamation cases. The first, dominant until the Islamic Penal Code was introduced in 1983, considers that when someone attributes a specific crime to someone else, the accusations must be adjudicated by a court, and that if the accused is acquitted and considers themselves defamed, they may take their defamer to court in turn.

The other approach, which began to take hold in 1983, also allows someone claiming defamation to take their alleged defamer to court, but puts the burden of proof on the accuser. This violates the principle of presumption of innocence, and it puts particular pressure on investigative journalists who rely on anonymous or secret sources.

Worse still, according to an additional clause in the Islamic Penal Codes article 697, allegedly defamatory statements can be punishable even when they are proven justified and true. This provision makes a useful pretext to crack down on any whistleblower or investigative journalist who reveals defensible evidence of the governments corruption to the public.

A notorious case of this sort kicked off recently when the Iranian website Memari News published a set of official reports by the General Inspection Office that indicated that the Tehran Municipality had illegally transferred properties to a number of its high-ranking officers. Memaris editor-in-chief, Yashar Soltani, was soon arrested and charged with defamation and gathering classified information with the intent to harm national security.

Even though the General Inspection Office confirmed the credibility of the documents and that the municipality was involved in the illegal transfer of public properties, Soltani remains on bail with his case open, and still stands accused of harbouring a hidden political agenda.

For now, the Iranian government is still using the same harsh methods of direct censorship for which it has long been known blocking critical websites, for instance, or arresting government critics. But as it increasingly turns to more indirect methods, it is doing a better job of evading the scrutiny of the human rights watchdogs whove justifiably criticised it for so long.

Read the original here:
Iran is using indirect censorship methods to avoid international criticism - The Conversation UK

AAP had said that if an advertisement appears to be communal or obscene, then the government needs to take action against the person as per the law in existence.

In a democracy there cannot be pre-censorship, the Delhi High Court told the AAP government regarding its policy on display of advertisements on auto rickshaws on Thursday.

In a democracy it (pre-censorship) should not be done. What is the need for pre-censorship or prohibition of any political advertisement? How can you do it? A citizen can be political, a justices S Ravindra Bhat and Pratibha M Singh said.

AAPhad said that if an advertisement appears to be communal or obscene, then the government needs to take action against the person as per the law in existence.

The Delhi government, meanwhile, told the court that it is coming out with a new policy regarding display of advertisement on public service vehicles (PSVs) including auto rickshaws in which the prohibition against political ads would be removed. However, they also said that pre-censorship was required to which the court did not agree.

The bench listed the matter for hearing on August 9 giving time to the government to place its policy before the court.

It was hearing a PIL by filed by some auto unions against the then Delhi governments August 2014 policy on display of advertisements on PSVs, particularly the bar on political ads and the provision allowing pre-censorship.

The high court had in 2015 reserved its verdict in the matter, but had taken it up again last year as it wanted to know whether the government on its own would address the issues raised by the petitioners. However, since July 2016, the Delhi government had been seeking more time on each date for placing its revised advertisement policy before the court.

Earlier in September 2014, the high court in an order had raised three questions - whether political advertisements should be allowed on PSVs, the need for pre-censorship, and whether ads ought to be allowed only for vehicles having GPS and GPRS systems.

In June 2013, the then Delhi government had banned advertisements on PSVs after auto rickshaws started sporting AAP posters in the run-up to Delhi assembly elections. Thereafter, the high court had stayed the ban.

In May 2014, the city government had informed the court that it was in the process of finalising the general guidelines for allowing advertisements on PSVs and was awaiting approval of the Lt Governor.

On August 1, 2014, the government had placed before the court its latest guidelines for display of advertisements on PSVs, as per which ads containing political, ethnic, religious or sectarian text would not be permitted.

The policy also stated that advertisements cannot be displayed without prior approval of municipal bodies and would be allowed only for vehicles which have installed GPS/GPRS systems and was challenged in the PIL.

Continue reading here:
There cannot be pre-censorship in a democracy: Delhi HC - Hindustan Times

More foreign censorship is coming to American social media companies. Back in January, Facebook hinted it would be at least partially receptive to the government of Thailand's desire to be free from criticism. Fortunately, the Thailand government has been slightly more rational than, say, Austria's by not demanding offending content be removed everywhere. So far, it seems amenable to Facebook just preventing Thailand's citizens from seeing anything deemed insulting to their rulers (dead or alive).

The problem right now (at least in the minds of Thailand government officials) is that Facebook isn't making with the targeted censorship quickly enough.

The social media giant has been given until next Tuesday to remove more than 130 items from pages viewable in Thailand.

Facebook says it does consider requests from governments to block material, and will comply if it breaks local laws.

The "or else" part of the government's threat seems to be nonexistent at this point, although it probably involves cutting off citizens' access to Facebook entirely. The Thai government insists Facebook has been mostly cooperative, but is dragging its feet on the 100+ posts it has declared illegal under the country's "don't badmouth your authoritarian leaders" law.

It's disappointing to see Facebook agree, even partially, to act as a proxy censor for Thailand's government. While it's generally a good idea for social media companies to be somewhat responsive to local rules and regulations, there's very little to be gained by being an errand boy for a regime where insulting kings results in secret trials and 15-year jail sentences.

It must be noted that Facebook isn't the only US tech company working with the Thailand government to ensure its top officials remain unoffended. Google has also participated in proxy censorship. Last year, it reported it had complied with 85% of requests made under Thailand's lese majeste laws, although it did not explain whether this was location-based blocking or complete removal of the literally-offending posts.

Any form of tolerance for this only encourages further abuse. The country's cybersecurity laws are already being abused by the government, which has declared that merely communicating with foreign critics online violates the Computer Crime Act. Censors' requests for inches quickly stretch into miles. If either of these companies tries to reel in some of the censorious slack they've given Thailand's government, it will most likely be greeted with a complete blockade or ban of their services and sites. If that's going to be the inevitable result, why bother humoring these requests at all?

Here is the original post:
Thailand Demands More Proxy Censorship From Facebook - Techdirt

Certain stealthy spacetime curiosities might be less hidden than thought, potentially exposing themselves to observers in some curved universes.

These oddities, known as singularities, are points in space where the standard laws of physics break down. Found at the centers of black holes, singularities are generally expected to be hidden from view, shielding the universe from their problematic properties. Now, scientists report in the May 5 Physical Review Letters that a singularity could be revealed in a hypothetical, saddle-shaped universe.

Previously, scientists found that singularities might not be concealed in hypothetical universes with more than three spatial dimensions. The new result marks the first time the possibility of such a naked singularity has been demonstrated in a three-dimensional universe. Thats extremely important, says physicist Gary Horowitz of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Horowitz, who was not involved with the new study, has conducted previous research that implied that a naked singularity could probably appear in such saddle-shaped universes.

In Einsteins theory of gravity, the general theory of relativity, spacetime itself can be curved (SN: 10/17/15, p. 16). Massive objects such as stars bend the fabric of space, causing planets to orbit around them. A singularity occurs when the warping is so extreme that the equations of general relativity become nonsensical as occurs in the center of a black hole. But black holes singularities are hidden by an event horizon, which encompasses a region around the singularity from which light cant escape. The cosmic censorship conjecture, put forth in 1969 by mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose, proposes that all singularities will be similarly cloaked.

According to general relativity, hypothetical universes can take on various shapes. The known universe is nearly flat on large scales, meaning that the rules of standard textbook geometry apply and light travels in a straight line. But in universes that are curved, those rules go out the window. To demonstrate the violation of cosmic censorship, the researchers started with a curved geometry known as anti-de Sitter space, which is warped such that a light beam sent out into space will eventually return to the spot it came from. The researchers deformed the boundaries of this curved spacetime and observed that a region formed in which the curvature increased over time to arbitrarily large values, producing a naked singularity.

I was very surprised, says physicist Jorge Santos of the University of Cambridge, a coauthor of the study. I always thought that gravity would somehow find a way to maintain cosmic censorship.

Scientists have previously shown that cosmic censorship could be violated if a universes conditions were precisely arranged to conspire to produce a naked singularity. But the researchers new result is more general. There's nothing finely tuned or unnatural about their starting point, says physicist Ruth Gregory of Durham University in England. That, she says, is really interesting.

But, Horowitz notes, there is a caveat. Because the violation occurs in a curved universe, not a flat one, the result is not yet a completely convincing counterexample to the original idea.

Despite the reliance on a curved universe, the result does have broader implications. Thats because gravity in anti-de Sitter space is thought to have connections to other theories. The physics of gravity in anti-de Sitter space seems to parallel that of some types of particle physics theories, set in fewer dimensions. So cosmic censorship violation in this realm could have consequences for seemingly unrelated ideas.

Read more:
Naked singularity might evade cosmic censor - Science News