wreg.com | Twitter users, blocked by President Trump, cry censorship wreg.com NEW YORK (AP) President Donald Trump may be the nation's tweeter-in-chief, but some Twitter users say he's violating the First Amendment by blocking people from his feed after they posted scornful comments. Lawyers for two Twitter users sent the ... |
Read more:
Twitter users, blocked by President Trump, cry censorship - wreg.com
Episode 168 features the Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance of global censorship, as Filipino contractors earning minimum wage delete posts in order to satisfy US tech companies who are trying to satisfy European governments. In addition to Maury Shenk, our panel of interlocutors includesDavid Sanger, Chief Washington Correspondent forThe New York Times, andKaren Eltis, Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa. Even if you think that reducingIslamic extremist proselytizingonline is a good idea, I conclude, thats not likely to be where the debate over online content ends up. Indeed, even today, controls onhate speechare aimed more at tweets that sound like President Trump than at extremist recruiting. Bottom line: no matter how you slice it, the first amendment is in deep trouble.
In other news, I criticize the right half of the blogosphere for not reading the FISA court decision they cite to show thatPresident Obamawasspying illegallyat the end of his term. Glenn Reynolds, Im talking about you!
The EU, in a bow to diplomatic reality, will not bother trying to improve theSafe Harbor dealit got from President Obama. Instead, it will try to get President Trump to honor President Obamas privacy promises. Good luck with that, guys!
Wikimedias lawsuit over NSA surveillancehas been revived by the court of appeals, and I find myself unable to criticize the ruling. If standing means anything, it seems as though Wikimedia ought to have standing to sue over surveillance; whether Wikimedia should be wasting our contributions on such a misconceived cause is a different question.
Chinas cybersecurity law has mostly taken effect.Maury explains how little we know about what it means.
Finally, David Sanger, in his characteristic broad-gauge fashion, is able to illuminate a host of cyber statecraft topics: whether the North Koreans are getting better at stopping cyberattacks on their rocket program; how good a job did Macron really did in responding to Russian doxing attempt; and what North Korean hackers are up to in Thailand.
As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback.Send an email to[emailprotected]or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.
Download the 168th Episode (mp3).
Subscribe to the Cyberlaw Podcast here. We are also oniTunes,Pocket Casts, andGoogle Play(available for Android and Google Chrome)!
The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.
Link:
Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast: Globalizing Censorship - Lawfare (blog)
Ismail Khalidi (l) and David Zellnik at the NY launch of Break the Wall theater project, June 5, 2017, photo by Phil Weiss
Heres some joyous news that seems very much in the spirit of the week the recognition of the 50th anniversary of the permanent Israeli occupation.
Last night the playwrights David Zellnik and Ismail Khalidi announced the launch of a theater project to create and produce works that challenge the dominant cultural narrative about Palestine. They did so in the Lark, a theater space on 42nd Street in New York, to an ebullient standing-room crowd of about 100 people. Ten of the short works were performed to spirited celebration; and the message of the evening was entirely positive: We are being shut out of the mainstream and we will take matters in hand, and we will be heard.
The playwrights said in a joint statement at the start:
We had both written plays about Israel and Palestine that were deemed too political, biased, leftwing, angry, anti Israel, and even anti-Semitic.Artistic directors said they would lose half their boards if they produced our shows and to be fair they probably would.
So inspired by the content and dissemination of Caryl Churchills great play, Seven Jewish Children, which she has shared with the world post-Gaza
We decided to take matters into our own hands, to circumvent censorship.
Here is the website for Break the Wall, with 13 plays so far, to be performed anywhere by anyone, in classrooms, in theaters and on the streets. Khalidi and Zellnik hope to have 25 by the end of the year, and another 25 by the end of the Nakba anniversary year, next year. They have simple requirements:
To address the issue of Palestine Israel in such a way that illuminates the actual power balance of the conflict and avoids the mainstream medias search for balance. togive witness and urgency to the ongoing human rights disaster of the occupation and apartheid.
And they ask that the plays be inspired/linked to an actual event.
A handful of skilled diverse players (Id name a couple but that would be unfair to the others) then presented ten of the works, humorous, lacerating, experimental, and yes, too, uplifting. Israeli soldiers peopled the stage, so did Palestinian mothers and, silently, Hitler. The American attitude of progressive-except-Palestine was lampooned. Happily, the writers Naomi Wallace, Noelle Ghoussaini, Betty Shemiah, Laura Maria Censabella, Kia Corthron, Stan Richardson, Yussef El Guindi, and Khalidi and Zellnik, too, would all rather laugh and observe than preach.
The mood was one of a page being turned: that the 50th anniversary of occupation has given strength and undeniability to the leftwing criticism of the occupation. An audience of consciously political people is demanding that the matter be addressed by American culture; and we are sure to influence the mainstream.
The program last night included a fine statement by Alisa Solomon addressing the transformative power of the works:
The political suspension of disbelief that governs so much of US discourse on Israel and Palestine has sought for decades to make the occupation invisible and the Nakba unutterable. For nearly 40 years, plays that have dared to tell Palestinian stories or challenge standard Zionist narratives have been shut out of major venues and sometimes silenced altogether, from Joe Papp reneging on a plan to present El Hakawati at the Public Theater in the late 1980s to the panicked backing away from the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie at New York Theatre Workshop some 10 years ago (a reaction from which the theater admirably learned and made amends).
Break the Wall seizes on theaters rare power in myriad forms, from street plays to family dramas, abstract experiments, raucous comedies, you name it to ignite radical empathy, to shake us out of complacencies, to kindle our political commitment and creativity. Its not just a good idea. Its a necessary one.
Google has just announced that it is establishing new guidelines to determine whichcontent is ineligible to receive advertising dollars on its YouTube platform. More than any of the otherdebatesabout fake news and bias in media, this kind of financial muscle (censorship) is whats really going to haveimpact on the content business in the long-term. And, at the moment, the real leverage is held by the very small number ofgatekeepers which control large scale distribution and major ad dollars on the internetchief among them Google and Facebook.
YouTubesnew clarificationwill prevent ad money from being allocated to content in which family entertainment characters (think Mickey Mouse)are shown engaging in violent, sexual,or otherwise inappropriate behavior. Hard to argue with that one, though some satirical news outlets might still ask how YouTubes algorithm can really determine context and nuance.
The updated guidelines also take cash away from content that isgratuitously incendiary, inflammatory, or demeaning. Specifically, no more money for videos that are gratuitously disrespectful or language that shames or insults an individual or group. Imagine applying that test to the mainstream political debate. Basically, a good portion of cable news, talk radio, and political punditry would be un-monetizable.
This might translate into defunding videos from CNN or The Young Turks in which pundits call President Trump despicable and disgusting and all sorts of other things which are undeniably hateful.On the other side, imagine if youre a hardcore member of the alt rightand the incendiary voices of Alex Jones or Glenn Beck are financially censored?
So who actually makes these decisions on what is acceptable, or rather how to program the algorithm of financial acceptability? Is it some crusty Capital J journalism professor hired as a consultant? Perhaps some actual practicing journalists? Or maybe a panel of voices from different economic backgrounds, geographies, and intellectual viewpoints as well as the more conventional definition of diversity including varying racial, ethnic, and gender make-ups?
No, not really. Its most often some well educated, perhaps well intentioned, Silicon Valley executive who has climbed thecorporate ladder enough to be trusted, or saddled, with this sort of issue, which is the opposite of what a tech company actually wants to be handling.
Enter the product manager.
While its not possible for us to cover every video scenario, we hope this additional information will provide you with more insight into the types of content that brands have told us they dont want to advertise against and help you to make more informed content decisions, VP of Product Management Ariel Bardinwrote in the blog post directed at publishers who choose to let YouTube sell their ad inventory in return for a cut of the proceeds. According to LinkedIn, Bardin is a Stanford and USC grad who has been at Google for the last 13 years working inAdwords, Payments, and now YouTube.Not the usual resume for a key arbiter of the national conversation.
Perhaps itsa good thing after all that its next to impossible for large news brands to earn enough money on YouTube to meaningfully sustaintheir businesses. But thats not the case for smaller upstarts and individuals who may well havecontent which is no more or less inflammatory than the stuff which gets slung around on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News.
Moreover, these same issues of objectionable content and the questions about the real value and placement of ad dollars have all existedfor adecade or more. Google is just now reacting to the howling of a bunch of advertisers.Companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, The BBC, The Guardian, Channel 4, Toyota, McDonalds, and even the British Government allwithdrew advertsfrom Google-owned sites, including YouTube, claiming tobe deeply concerned about their ads appearing alongside content on YouTube promoting hate.
In this case, the big brands, and the agencies that manage their ad spend, saw an opportunity for some leverage. If youre a big consumer brand and you want audience reach thats going to move the needle, Google and Facebook are currently capturing most of your dollars, so why not goose them a bit when you have the chance? Certainly they are entitled to allocate their marketing dollars as they see fit.
The bigger issue here is the advent of a truth algorithm. Thats not what Google says its doing. But in the end its the money that matters.
Steve Alperin is the CEO of DSA Digital Holdings
View post:
Youtube's Financial Censorship: the 'Product Manager' as Ultimate ... - Heat Street
(CNN)Many in the United States, including the President, are likely to welcome British Prime Minister Theresa May's suggestion that it is time to place restrictions on "safe space" Internet websites, such as Facebook and Google, that allegedly allow terrorist ideology to "breed."
Such a policy in the United States would clearly violate the First Amendment's sacred guarantee of free expression -- the very same principle that helped spur the American Revolution against British tyranny. This core American belief should not be tossed aside, even in the face of terrifying ISIS attacks.
The fight against "Islamist extremism" does require continued and even more aggressive military action in Great Britain and throughout the world, but that action should not take the form of restrictions on free political speech.
Such calls for censorship always emerge when terrorists, foreign and domestic, preach and kill in pursuit of their hateful ideology. Ironically the speech requiring the strongest defense is often the most hateful speech of all. But in these cases, those who believe in freedom must stand even more firmly. Otherwise all political expression will be in danger of censorship, depending on who runs the government at any point in time.
Defending hateful speech may appear to be a crazy academic or legal position until we look at the "slippery slope" toward fascist or socialist totalitarianism created when we adopt our own special bans on the free speech of others. Soon the ideological radicals are calling for their own "safe spaces" and censorship of what they define as "hate speech."
Those who oppose abortion as murder might seek to ban speech that advocates such "killings." "Right to choose" advocates on the other side of the argument might seek to ban anti-abortion talk as a form of gender-based discrimination. In the end, the free speech rights of all Americans would be determined by the ideological flavor of the party in power.
Once the censorship of political expression begins, everybody wants to impose his or her own particular definition of religious propriety, discrimination and political correctness. Opponents of the current majority view are then intimidated into silence by law and by the aggressively expressed moral or intellectual superiority of the majority. We are already seeing a lot of this on American college campuses.
UK PM raises terror threat level to critical 02:42
May's proposed Web regulation as well could lead to government regulation of the permissible parameters of Muslim faith discussions online. Those with "radical" tendencies beware. But what defines "radical" in the world of religion? Should the belief in Sharia law be banned as antithetical to the fundamental view that all religions are free to practice in a free secular democracy?
Does the advocacy of one of the diverse styles of Muslim female head-covering constitute a form of hateful gender-based discrimination that should be banned? Would the same ban apply to female head-covering by Roman Catholic women attending church on Sunday? This is where the "slippery slope" of speech censorship leads.
The nation's high court confirmed an important free speech doctrine that only "fighting words" can legitimately be banned without violating the First Amendment and that even the display of a Nazi swastika in a village occupied by numerous Holocaust survivors is permitted under the US Constitution. This forcefully confirmed prior precedent that banned speech must be akin to yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
See British PM's full remarks on terror attack 08:00
In an age where overly sensitive college students and their supportive professors are seeking to ban unpopular speakers who advocate what they define as improper and "hateful speech," the Skokie case deserves to be added to the required reading list at American universities. There should be no "safe space" protection from free speech at any public forum in America, including college campuses and the Internet.
Intelligence agencies and law enforcement authorities have the right to review and monitor public Internet postings that suggest a direct link to ISIS' terror-related activities. Such sites may actually be helpful in locating and destroying ISIS terror cells.
If probable cause is established by the content of such postings, US law already provides the mechanism to follow up with a court-sanctioned search warrant and the arrest of a suspected conspirator.
What we do not need is an abridgment of our freedom of speech in a misguided effort to ensure the nation's security. We already fought one revolution to establish and preserve our First Amendment right, and we don't need another, prompted by the latest brand of barbarism and insanity emanating from the Middle East.
Link:
Callan: We can't censor our way out of terrorism (Opinion) - CNN.com - CNN International