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Folha de Sao Paulo and Globo, the country's two biggest dailies, were forced to halt publication online and in print of reports giving details of the attempted extortion last year by a man convicted of hacking Marcela Temer's cellphone (AFP Photo/Miguel Schincariol)

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - A Brazilian judge on Wednesday overturned a ruling that barred leading newspapers from publishing reports on an extortion attempt against President Michel Temer's wife.

Folha de Sao Paulo and Globo, the country's two biggest dailies, were forced to halt publication online and in print of reports giving details of the attempted extortion last year by a man convicted of hacking Marcela Temer's cellphone.

The reports reproduced chat messages between the first lady and the blackmailer who, at one point, referred to a video he said he had hacked that "drags the name of your husband in the mud."

On Monday, the newspapers removed reports which the judge had ruled harmed "the inviolability of the privacy" of the hacking victim.

Folha reported that another judge has now overturned the ruling.

In his ruling, which was posted on the Folha website, Judge Arnoldo Camanho de Assis said that the publishing ban was "apparently unconstitutional" as "it violates the freedom which is a true pillar of the democratic rule of law."

"There is no indication... that the journalistic activity on the part of (Folha) was meant to follow an irresponsible or abusive editorial line," he wrote.

Folha and Globo argued that the details they wished to publish regarding Temer's wife had already become available in court documents and that their suppression in the newspapers amounted to censorship.

"Those who inform have to be accountable for the relevance of what they publish. Those who feel harmed have every right to appeal to the courts," Folha said. "What is not reasonable is to censor before publication, something that should be consigned to the memory of authoritarian regimes."

The hacker, Silvonei Jose de Jesus Souza, was sentenced in October of last year to five years and 11 months in prison after being convicted of trying to extort $96,000 from Marcela Temer in exchange for not publishing audio and images on her phone.

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Brazil judge overturns 'censorship' of newspaper - Yahoo News

The director of a major new war museum in Poland has vowed to fight against government censorship and try to bring his collection to the public.

The Museum of the Second World War in Gdask is almost ready to open after eight years of preparation.

But a bitter legal battle has delayed its launch: the government has sought to gain control over the institution, which the ruling Law and Justice party fears will present an insufficiently nationalist view of Polands wartime experience.

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Writing in the design journal Disegno, the museums director Pawe Machcewicz said a final decision is due on the dispute in March or April. He said that before that, we will feverishly attempt to use this time to open the museum to the public before it is too late.

Machcewicz and his team want the museum to focuson the everyday experiences of millions of ordinary people, with a permanent collection centered around approximately 2,000 historical artefacts, many of them family relics donated by individuals.

But the government, he said, condemned our museum as too pacifistic, humanistic, universal, multinational, and not sufficiently Polish.

While the museum aims to make the Polish history a part of the European and world history, the government wants it instead to focus on presenting exclusively Polish sufferings and heroism, Machcewicz said.

In order to get its way, the government wants to merge the museum with an as-yet unbuilt institution, the Museum of Westerplatte and the War of 1939, a plan first announced in 2015.

This move would allow the government to appoint a new director, and gain influence over the tone and direction of the new, merged museum. But the museum has challenged the plan in the courts. Machcewicz said that the court had suspended progress on the merger. One ruling in the Supreme Administrative Court in January found in favor of the government. But the final decision is expected in the coming weeks.

Plans for the Museum of the Second World War were first announced in 2007 under the government of former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, now the President of the European Council.

The Second World War was different from all earlier conflicts because it touched civilian populations the most, Machcewicz said, As we developed the main concepts for the museum, we decided that the human dimension of the conflict is the most important to us.

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Polish Second World War Museum Director Vows to Fight ... - Newsweek

Clay Calvert Professor and Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL This post is hosted on the Huffington Post's Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and post freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

The aftermath of Donald J. Trump's stunning victory over Hillary Clinton brought with it much handwringing in news media circles and on social media platforms about the dangers of fake news. Some blame fake news for causing Clinton's defeat, with the erstwhile candidate herself calling it "an epidemic."

But theres a major paradox when it comes to peoples beliefs about fake news.

Specifically, many of us tend to believe that we can spot fake news -- we won't be fooled by it -- but others out there, who are more naive and less media savvy than us, surely will be duped.

For instance, a December 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that most Americans

Yet despite the fact that some 84% of those surveyed were either very or somewhat confident in their own ability to spot fake news, 64% of the same people "say fabricated news stories cause a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current issues and events. This sense is shared widely across incomes, education levels, partisan affiliations and most other demographic characteristics."

In other words, "I'm no fool, but others are!"

If that's truly the case, then why are we so worried about fake news? A few high-profile incidents like the Pizzagate shooting perhaps have caused undue panic.

The notion that "I'm no fool, but others are" is, in fact, consistent with what communication scholars call the third-person effect. As W. Phillips Davison, the theory's founder, summed it up in a 1983 article

The danger here, as I explain in a new article published in the Wake Forest Law Review Online, is that individuals who exhibit signs of the third-person effect are also prone to call for censorship of media content in the name of protecting others. This, of course, raises serious First Amendment concerns regarding free speech. In other words, the third-person effect has both a perceptual aspect (what we believe about the influence of messages) and a behavioral component (censorship).

For example, a scholarly study on support for censorship of rap music found that those surveyed

Ultimately, consideration of the third-person effect might help to tamp down some of the rampant frets and fears about fake news. And if it does something more than that, as I argue in my article, the third-person effect "should give lawmakers serious reason to take a thoughtful and deliberate pause before proposing any bills aimed at the censorship of fake news."

Remedies of educating people about how to spot fake news and publicly shaming fake news websites are far better alternatives than governmental censorship.

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Fake News, Censorship & the Third-Person Effect: You Can't Fool Me, Only Others! - Huffington Post

Wrestling Rumors

Impact Is Being Forced Into Some Strange Censorship Tonight Wrestling Rumors Normally when you hear censorship, you think violence or sexual content. Maybe some profanity, or a if we're in a dystopia, a restraint against political opinions. You don't generally expect an entire person to be censored. But that's exactly what's ... and more »

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Impact Is Being Forced Into Some Strange Censorship Tonight - Wrestling Rumors

Jonathan Nez | Published 17 hours ago

THE ISSUE: The UC Berkeley College Republicans invited Milo Yiannopoulos to speak on campus. Protests erupted in response, leading to the event being canceled. The violent protest came from a non-student organization, but the event inspired substantial debate over free speech on campus. You can read the other sidehere.

Our disagreement is really about what free speech is and what its limits are. On one side, you have an alt-right figure whose views are pretty extreme. He has called feminism toxic, attacked transgenderism and labeled campus rape culture a myth. His views should never be normalized because they enable hate. On the other side, you have a liberal university culture. To these students, Milos words are emotionally traumatic, and by extension, they serve as an assault on their person in a way that warrantsbanishment.

While I am aware of my privilege and empathetic to those Milo belittles, violence is still not justified. No one has the right to live free of content that offends them. The victim card is not one that supersedes someone elses right to speak. What you do have a right to do is use your freedom of speech to fight back. You can organize a peaceful protest, engage in discourse with those you disagree with and publicly condemn organizations that support speakers whose beliefs you find repugnant. Attacking others and causing over $100,000 in property damage are not included in those rights.

People often conflate my support of Milos right to speak with support for his views; this is not the case. I disagree with all of his views, with the exception of those on free speech. Taking away freedoms sets a dangerous precedent that can be hard to undo. When you allow people to believe opposing views violate a nonexistent right, they will believe that censorship is not only justified, but also the only solution to the disagreement. Creating such an unhealthy culture of discourse with suppression is precariously fascist, which is why I believe we should err on the side of freedom. Milo sucks, but censorship is worse.

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Viewpoints: Err on the side of freedom, rather than censorship - The Daily Tar Heel