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The arXiv.org (said as archive) is one of the oldest websites on the internet and serves as a curated collection of scholarly preprints submitted by recognized scientist. I even have a paper there on massive star formation (arXiv:1311.3983). I tried to publish in another area and they say submit to a journal and get feedback. Then a favorable review isnt enough, so I need to get it published. Then in a subsequent email from them, I must get it published in a mainstream journal with no guarantee that being published in any journal would do the trick.

What is arXiv, why they moderate, and why that can go wrong.

The arXiv has to maintain a certain standard for a reason. The value of arXiv is that it provides a copy of papers that cost money either way. That means it is moderated. This is a reasonable thing to do. There is also an appeals process which is supposed to avoid abuses. However, when moderation devolves into unreasoned censorship and even doing what they tell you to get a paper up there may not sway them someone has to call it what it is.

So, I get endorsements, twice, that is not so unusual.

They ask that I submit to a peer reviewed journal for the requisite feedback. I get back a review from Science/Nature (does not matter which one) a long detailed review stating that the paper is not bad, and would be of interest to a small audience. Just not a big enough audience for Nature/Science.

Then arxiv says they need for it to be published in a mainstream journal. I ask for clarification of just what comprises a mainstream journal which would ensure acceptance on arXiv. Then I get this.

So even if I did what they asked it would probably not be enough. Supposed I submitted to another Nature/Science journal more focused on a specialty . What would the result be. I could never pay an open access fee for such a journal it would be too much. So even if I got it published in Nature/Science or a journal in one of those families that may not be enough. Hypothetically acceptance in Nature/Science wouldn't be enough for them.

Whats the big deal?

In this day and age most papers, in the fields of Physics, and Astronomy, are published open access in some form or fashion.

In this climate being published in a paywalled, traditional, and what I surmise they mean by mainstream, format is little better than not being published at all.

If one is browsing for papers on their Ipad, or phone or other device and has to pay they are not going to read it. If one has to even enter university library credentials that can be a pain in the rump many will simply avoid.

The assumption that serious researchers would be reading on a computer, on a campus, logged into a university or national lab IT system, etc is from the early 2000s or really the 1990s.

Philosophically, I believe in open access and I believe in public, post publication, peer review. The peoples taxes pay my salary, and for my retirement, and whos taxes loaned me money for school and pay for the facilities I rely on. They shouldnt have to pay Springer or Elsevier $30 bucks to read my work. If anything I should pay them to host it.

As for public, peer review, post publication, the attitude of the arXiv moderators shows why thats needed. It is possible to be frank, honest, and negative, without being unreasonable or insulting. Having to be publicly accountable for ones words ensures fairness in the process. Individual researchers are then free to use their own judgement on the pros and cons of a paper and contribute to the flow of ideas that will lead ultimately to greater knowledge accepting or rejecting all or part of a paper individually. The mainstream and traditional process is based on authority and belongs to a past era of paper and ink not hard drives and internet.

The bottom line

Yes, the arXiv does in fact censor ideas that dont fit the taste of the moderators. Even if those ideas have been found acceptable enough to publish, or have at a conference. . Yet they accepted how many papers about faster than light neutrino physics based on a clearly obviously flawed set up? Accepting those and not papers like mine which have a prayer of being right and propose an experiment to prove or disprove them is not scientific moderation. What that is is art criticism based on ones feelings about an idea without reasons and logic. That is the essence of censorship, not moderation.

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Censorship at the arXiv: endorsements, and even publication won't matter. - Science 2.0

Marine Le Pen

A presidential candidate in France who is riding the wave of anti-globalist populism that helped fuelBrexit and Donald Trumps victory is facing prosecution for tweeting graphic images of ISIS executions.

On Tuesday, the European Union took one step toward allowing the prosecution of Marine Le Pen as the legal affairs committee of the European Parliament voted 18-3 to lift her immunity as a member of parliament, Reuters reported.

Le Pen is under investigation in France for posting three images of ISIS executions on Twitter in 2015.

The images included the beheading of American journalist James Foley.

A Paris prosecutor is examining whether or not the photos violate a law against distribution of violent images.

Le Pen reacted to the EU decision Tuesday.

This only shows French citizens what the EU is, what the European Parliament is and that its all part of the system that wants to stop the French peoples candidate that I am, she said, according to Agence France-Presse

Le Pen, who is leading a tight, three-way race to succeed Francois Hollande, is president of the National Front Party, which opposes French membership in the EU and the mass immigration of people from mostly Islamic countries who largely are not assimilating into French society.

Le Pen tweeted the graphic photographs of ISIS killings in December 2015 in response to a journalist who compared her party to ISIS, which is also known by the Arabic acronym Daesh.

Daesh is THIS! she wrote, along with the photos.

Her tweet drew strong criticism from the victims families and French politicians across the political spectrum.

Le Pens immunity also was lifted in 2013, leading to prosecution of her in 2015 for incitement to discrimination over peoples religious belief because she compared Muslims praying in public to the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. The charges eventually were dropped.

Major terrorist attacks over the past two years by members of the Muslim immigrant community in France, attributed to ISIS, have bolstered the National Fronts popularity.

Le Pen is regarded as more democratic and republican than her nationalist father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and has sought to soften her partys image, expelling members accused of racism and anti-Semitism, including her father.

How political correctness handcuffs Americas Homeland Security officers is the story former counter-terrorism agentPhilip Haney tells in See Something Say Nothing. Its available now at the WND Superstore!

Nigel Farage, the former UKIP leader who was the face of the successful referendum last yearin Britain to exit the EU, known as Brexit, said in an interview in December he believes that if Le Pen were to win, France would hold its own referendum on leaving the EU, a Frexit.

He summed up his opinion of Le Pen, describing her as very socialist on economic issues but a defender of French sovereignty.

Oh yes, she is (controversial). I mean look, let me absolutely clear about this. Ive never said a bad word about Marine Le-Pen, Ive never said a good word about her party.

That is my position on this. I think she has tried to make things better within the front national. Shes got rid of people who held genuinely extreme positions. I dont agree with her economic analysis at all or her view on trade or many other things.

Its completely different but she does believe in the sovereignty of France.

Incitement to discrimination

Le Pen is not the only member of the European Parliament to be punished for her speech.

Last month, after the parliament refused immunity, UKIPs Jane Collins was ordered by the high court in London to pay 335,000 pounds in damages and court costs for alleging three British members of Parliament had failed to speak out about child abuse carried out by British-Pakistani men in Rotherham, England.

Collinscharged the MPs were guilty of grave misconduct because they kept silent due to political correctness and cowardice.

A report commissioned by the British government supported her claim. It found that failures of political and police leadership contributed to the sexual exploitation of 1,400 children in Rotherham over a 16-year period.

Naming the horror of Islam

The vote Tuesday to lift Le Pens immunity was in response to a request by the French judiciary. The full European Parliament must back the decision. A vote is expected this week, Reuters said.

Prosecutors are considering a charge of publishing violent images, which can carry a penalty of three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros, about $79,000.

Reacting to the vote, National Front Vice President Florian Philipott argued: Showing and naming the horror of Islamism allow us to fight against it.

Polls show Le Pen winning the first two rounds of the French presidential election but losing in the runoff.

DHS agent Philip Haneys blockbuster revelations of the federal governments appeasement of supremacist Islam are told in his first-person account, See Something Say Nothing

Continued here:
Censorship weaponized against anti-globalist wave - WND.com

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Thats the lowkey Orwellian message that greets visitors to the website of Perspective, Googles new AI system for detecting (and potentially deleting, hiding, or burying) toxic comments on the web.

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

Perspective is still in early days of development, but in the future, you may have to adjust your speech in order to satisfy the lofty standards of Google. Otherwise, the companys faceless AI might just have to improve you. Wheres Sarah Connor when you need her?

The good news is that, for now at least, Perspective is about as effective as C-3PO with a lisp. Software engineer and columnist David Auerbach has found the program woefully inept at sorting toxic comments from ordinary ones. Because the AI currently focuses on words rather than meanings, inoffensive comments like, Rape is a horrible crime, or, few Muslims are a terrorist threat, were assigned toxicity ratings of over 75 percent.

Of course, even if Perspective could successfully sort toxic comments from innocuous ones, that doesnt necessarily mean theyre going to be deleted or buried. According to the projects homepage, the systemperforms no function other than detection.

But statements from the projects developers make it clear that censorship is the end goal. Indeed, the system seems to have been developed to augment the lefts ongoing war on comments sections.The software was initially made available just to organizations that are part of Googles Digital News Initiative, including the BBC, The Financial Times, andThe Guardian,whichpromptly began testing the software to moderate their comments sections.

News organizations want to encourage engagement and discussion around their content, but find that sorting through millions of comments to find those that are trolling or abusive takes a lot of money, labour and time, says Jared Cohen, president of Jigsaw, the Google social incubator that built the tool. As a result, many sites have shut down comments altogether. But they tell us that isnt the solution they want.

Google couldnt be clearer: its a censorship bot. And just because its currently limited to news sites and comments sections doesnt mean it wont be rolled out to social networks and the rest of the web. Twitter, which just introduced yet another system to punish users whohurt celebrities feelings,would probably love to get their hands on a working version of Perspective.

Twitter already has a tremendous depth of data on its users, including gender, location, and personal interests. Imagine that data, combined with an AI tool designed to pinpoint inconvenient content, in the hands of a CEO who has done little to conceal his political biases.

The idea of an all-powerful Google robot watching over us all, making sure our speech is improved, has greatly excited mainstream media. Google, says the BBC, is going to make talk less toxic. According to WIRED, Perspective will put a stop to abusive comments that silence vulnerable voices. New York magazine portrays Perspsective as a friendly a robot, a kind of Clippy for the comments section.Our robot overlords are certainly getting a warm welcome

The left are likely to be disappointed though. If Auerbachs early research on Perspective is any guide, the system is designed to filter out impoliteness, not political disagreement. Googles censorbot might turn the comments section and perhaps the web into a grey, sanitized dystopia scrubbed of strong emotions and trollish humor, but it wont get rid of facts.

In other words, myths about gender wage gaps, police racism, and moderate Islam are still going to get debunked. Even Skynet cant keep some things quiet.

You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitterandadd him on Facebook.Email tips and suggestions to abokhari@breitbart.com.

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War on Comments: Google Built an AI To Censor The Web, And The Media Is Celebrating - Breitbart News

Well, not quite. The assumption that students share the political views of their officers forgets that SUs and their overlord - the NUS - are entirely unrepresentative of the people they claim to represent. In UCLs union elections last year, only 12% of the study body bothered to vote. In 2015 at the University of Manchester, turnout reached a national record of around 25%. Hardly a resounding victory for democracy.

Indeed, contrary to the claim that students spend their time printing off topless calendars of Jeremy Corbyn, research carried out by the Universities of Southampton and Sheffield revealed that todays young people are more right-wing and authoritarian than any generation in recent history.

And even if students did support their student unions, the increasingly warped regard for genuine left-wing politics by union officers makes it hard to label their cause as truly left-wing. In an attempt to demonstrate their leftie credentials, working class officers have been created at Manchester, Soas, King's College London, and St Hildas, Oxford to ensure working class students dont feel marginalised.

This demonstrates just how far todays student Left has wandered from the barricades manned by its predecessors. Back in Paris in 1968, student activists took to the streets in a genuine attempt to overthrow capitalism. Todays self-labelled lefties are more concerned with fighting for Meat Free Mondays. Rather than uphold the power of the proletariat, student union officers view their working class peers as vulnerable creatures who need protecting. Marxs claim that workingmen have nothing to lose but their chains no longer resonates. Todays campus warriors just want to make the chains are a bit more comfortable.

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We can't just blame the Left for student censorship every side is at it now - Telegraph.co.uk

Another day, another leftist attempt at censorship. The target is, once again, University of Toronto professor and psychologist Jordan Peterson.

It should come as no surprise given the myriad prior attempts by left-wing activists to prevent Peterson from speaking about gender pronouns or free speech itself. But this time, theyre trying to stop him from giving a lecture about the psychology of creativity, his actual field of research.

Peterson is recognized internationally on the subject, hence the invitation by the National Gallery of Canada on March 9.

Cara Tierney, a former gallery employee who demands people refer to her as they, said to CBC, Peterson shouldnt be allowed to speak on his research because of his views on gender.

If there was a known anti-Semite who also perhaps had something interesting to say about psychology or creativity, I dont imagine that we would be inviting this individual to come and talk, Tierney said.

Another Ottawa activist said that Peterson threatens the reality that art itself has always been, historically, a safe space.

The comment is laughably tone deaf, given that art has always been the bastion of controversyartists just want that controversy on their terms, rather than anyone elses.

No one who has attempted to block Peterson from speaking at the gallery has disputed his credentials, nor his message. This is why the censorship efforts are so chilling: because he disagrees with them on something else, he shouldnt be entitled to speak about anything, in their view.

The goal is nothing short of 100 per cent conformity, lest you find yourself on the receiving end of boycotts.

The National Gallery is a public institution, which means cancelling this event would be an effort by government to block certain viewpoints. So far, theyre holding the line.

Lets hope it stays that way.

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Left's demands for National Gallery to ban Prof Peterson cross dangerous censorship line - The Rebel