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ANARCHY: Anti-free-speech protesters lit fires and damaged property Wednesday to protest the appearance of campus speaker Milo Yiannopoulos.

In an embarrassing display of vulgarity and violence, rioters at the University of California, Berkeley lit fires and destroyed property to shut down a campus event featuring a speaker whose speech they oppose.

Breitbart technology editor Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak Wednesday night, but had to be evacuated from campus when protesters masked with black scarves began throwing fireworks at the building where hisspeech was to occur.

I have been evacuated from theUC Berkeleycampus after violent left-wing protestors tore down barricades, lit fires, threw rocks and Roman candles at the windows and breached the ground floor of the building, Yiannopoulos wrote on Facebook. My team and I are safe. But the event has been cancelled. Ill let you know more when the facts become clear. One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.

TOLERANCE: Included among the property damage at UC Berkeley weregraffiti death threats against the president of the United States.

The good newsfor the protestersis that they shut down Yiannopoulos speech. The bad news for protesters is that this will likelyhelp Yiannopoulos, as Reason associate editor Robby Soave explained in detail.

[The protesters] turn Yiannopoulos into a free speech martyr, which is exactly what he wants, Soave wrote. When Milo is censored, Milo wins.

A freshmen at Berkeley told Soave that the press gained by the riots turned Yiannopoulos event from one that was going to be attended by 500 people to one that attracted the attention of thousands.

It was a 500-person event, thats like the max occupancy of the room, said university freshman Kevin Quigley. If it was just 500 people going to hear him talk it wouldnt be in the news, but when you have thousands of people gathering in the streets theyre just making him more famous.

Many of the people hearing about the riots will, as Soave wrote, see college students and social justice warriors acting in a belligerent fashion. The riotsmay even cause those who arent familiar withYiannopoulos to seek him out on social media andevaluate his message for themselves. Either way, the campus speakerstands to becomemore famous the opposite of what the rioters intended.

At the core of this situation is the First Amendment, and whether peoplewith differing opinions should be allowed to speak.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education released a statement on the riots late Wednesday evening:FIRE condemns both violence and attempts to silence protected expression in the strongest terms.We also urge that decisions affecting long-term policy be made only after all the facts are gathered and with appropriate opportunity for reasoned discussion.

The university had previously refused to cancel Yiannopoulos speech, which was organized by College Republicans. Changing speech codes to kowtow to violent disrupterscould send themessage that violence is a suitable responseto disagreement, and that censorship is valid.

Former President Barack Obamaon numerous occasions told college students not to shut downthose with whomthey disagree, but to use peaceful dialogue and verbal arguments.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the violence, questioning whether the school should lose federal funding as a result its handling of the anti-free-speech riots. It is unclear what authority the federal government has to remove funding over the actions of violentprotesters and students.

Those who resort to violence stand to lose public support. Moving forward, UC Berkeley will have to bestrong in defendingfree speech to avoid becoming the new face ofcensorship among college campuses.

More here:
Violence and censorship rule at UC Berkeley - Watchdog.org

Angolans are the vainest people in the world.

This is how the documentary Bangalogia from Angolan artist and director Coron D starts. While itmight seem like a harsh place to begin a film, the rest of the documentary does a rather convincing job of explaining why Angolan vanity is, in fact, something to celebrate.

Banga, the Angolan term for swag orstyle, is examined in detail. From the lowest rungs of Angolan society to the countrys cosmopolitan jet-setBanga were told is something vital to the Angolan peoples cultural future.

And if the film has a particularly nationalistic bent to it, well, D is also known as Jos Eduardo Paulino dos Santos, son to longtime Angolan president Jos Eduardo dos Santos. A renaissance man in the Angolan arts, D is a recording artist, soap opera creator and one of the people behind I Love Kuduro, a film that documented the Angolan dance music lifestyle. We spoke to D about Banga, Kuduro and what it means to be an artist living in the shadow of an autocratic father.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Aaron Leaf for OkayAfrica: What is Banga?

Coron D:Banga is a synonym for style, for personality and for attitude. Youve got to combine those three elements into one word. What really drove me to make the documentary is that the concept of Banga in Angolan culture is not really about how you dress but about how you express yourself. But the visual expression is the more obvious one.

Right.

Because, see an African almost anywhere in the world, and youll notice that theres some sort of fashion statement happening. Even if were not trying. The way you dress is an expression of Banga. But the way you talk is an expression of Banga. As is, the way you cook. Basically, whatever is strongest in your personality will come out in that role.

Your mark on the world?

Yes, exactly. While the documentary is primarily about fashion, what really fascinated me was that in the past five or six years theres been a big interest in the African aesthetic. Not just in fashion, but overall. Theres a lot of African visual artists who are now getting more opportunities. African filmmakers. African musicians. African models in fashion. African fashion designers. People used to come research things about Africa and get inspired by it. Now people want to see what the African point of view is directly.

Its no longer an anthropological look. Its Africans themselves.

Exactly. People now no longer want to see what their cultures interpretation of African culture is. They want to see what someone from a specific part of Africa has to say about whatever they have to say. I think thats really interesting.

How did you get started?

After I concluded I Love Kuduro, which was about three years ago. I was fixated on looking at whats happening in Angolan style. I got involved with model scouting in the process.

In Angola?

Yes, in Angola. And then in South Africa. All of a sudden, I saw that it was a big splash. Especially with the few girls that I startednamely the Victorias Secret model Maria Borges.

Cool. We know her.

One of the first girls I scouted was her and Roberta Narciso, a girl that at the time did very well because she did a lot of shows where she was the only black girl. A lot of fashion media started picking up on, Okay, so theres only one black person in the show. Which was news itself because of the diversity conversation. But then she happened to be from a country that most people never heard of. Then Maria came along, and made a big splash.

I saw a lot of people that I knew from all other countries, again, getting architecture awards, visual arts awards. Our music started becoming more popular. I was like, Its time for me to buckle down and focus and start to research this a bit more cohesively. Thats how the process for Bangaologia started. It took me a while to actually get going, but especially last year was a time where I was filming, interviewing, and trying to get in touch with people. Getting the whole process going.

Is Banga analogous to the Les Sapeur movement in Congo?

Thats a question that I get very commonly. The things that I like to say is the Les Sapeurs have Banga. It is related in the fact that La Sap is an expression of Banga. Because Banga is what French people call the je ne sais quoi behind everything. But then, theres various forms of it being expressed. Sapeurs are more like an urban tribe with a very specific visual and behavioral code. Theres many others. Which is why, in the documentary, there is a college professora music researcherthat says, Even someone in a remote village, in a loin cloth, has Banga. Its more of how you carry whatever it is that youre trying to carry out.

What language does Banga come from?

One of the Bantu languages in the region. There are some commonalities between Angola and the Congo, since at one point it was all one kingdom. Im part Bakongo, because my moms family is from the North of Angola. There are some tribes that are the same, but now, since one side has Portuguese influence, the other side has Belgian, and the other one are French, some cultural differences started happening. But a lot of things are very similar.

What are some of the other expressions of Banga we should be looking out for? Are there other movements, subcultures, that have these labels?

Banga is the reason why a lot of people now are starting to tune into African cultural movements. Theyre becoming mainstream. The place where you see it the most is in fashion and music. Right now a lot of African influence is coming into pop music. Especially American pop music. Its been in European pop music for a while. But in American pop music its becoming quite relevant. And in fashion, a lot of the household names are now African.

A lot of the Angolan artists we interview in OkayAfrica are quite political. How does politics relate to your work if at all?

I like to steer clear from politics because it can be a distraction. I just try to focus on things that I find interesting. I try to develop my work very organically. I already am driven by inspiration, as opposed to trying to make a specific statement. But sometimes my work does make a statement. Especially some of my choices to include members of the LGBT community in my work which is very taboo in Angolan culture. That, I think, has been the biggest statement in some of my work. In I Love Kuduro, it was undeniable for me to do that because I was following Titicas career, for example. Its very funny that the first time that I worked with her, most people did not know she was a trans-woman. She actually had to reveal that. Once she revealed that to the world, it became controversial. She was a really awesome performer. No one had an issue.

Was she popular in Angola before?

Yes, before everyone knew she was trans. I worked with her before and after the process. After she revealed that she was a trans-woman, a lot of people stopped working with her. I was like, I see no reason why you should do that. She was still selling out shows. That was one of the things that we showed in I Love Kuduro. Although there was that very conservative and occasionally religiously or politically fueled rejection, at the time, people didnt necessarily agree, but they loved her work. That stood out. And those are the kinds of things I love to show. Which is why I say that sometimes if you get political, it can be distracting from actually showing an interesting moment thats happening. Thats why we would just love to focus on that.

Your family is political.

Well, yes.

So when you do stuff that goes against the grain, like LGBT rights, does that influence

Ive been censored from national television. And that made international news.

You get censored?

Oh yes. Its no secret. Its been covered by many international media because it was quite a recent case and obvious case. I did two telenovelas, like soap operas that were probably the most challenging, controversial, and wonderful pieces of work that Ive done. The second one got pulled off the air temporarily because, again, people were really into it but it did touch on some LGBT topics. It actually got taken off the air, but then viewers started complaining that they wanted to see what happened. They put it back on the air.

Are things changing in Angola?

In my opinion, people were more progressive maybe 10years ago than they are now. That has to do more with where the world is currently, as a whole. As opposed to just specifically one place. Our country is mainly people under the age of 25. A lot of the adults are very much under 40. People are connected to technology. They know whats happening. Theyre very wired. I think thats something people dont really realize, especially when theyre talking about African countries.

A lot of behaviors and attitudes that are very common, because we are in a global world, are very common to our global village as opposed to one place versus the other. And some things are generational. Thats why now, ironically, a lot of people are more conservative. I do portray a lot of that in my work. For example, I was raised by very strong women. By that I mean, when I was born, there was a civil war going on and women were at work. They were a very big pillar of the Angolan household, overall. Whereas now, I have young men, who are younger than me Im 32 but theres guys who are 25 who like to say that their wives should not be at work. Because they are the man they need to be the provider.

I think its interesting to talk about these subjects and create a conversation about them. I can say that I steer clear from politics, but theres a lot of people who like to take advantage of some of my work and try to push it in a political direction. Thats why the soap opera that I made got censored. Its not because theres not other LGBT subject in Angolan popular theater, in film, and even on TV. Its because people want to take my work in that direction. Thats just not where Im at, and Im not really interested in being political at all.

Angolan artists like Ikonoklasta, who weve interviewed before deal a lot with politics and freedom of speech in their work. Do you see your censorship as part of that same issue?

Were a very young society. I think that sometimes, I can chalk that up to a question of maturity. There are certain things that people take personally that you should look at objectively. Occasionally there is work that rubs certain people the wrong way and because of that there are consequences. Ive had that experience. Im pretty sure the artists youve mentioned as well. At the same time, I just keep working. I know theres an audience for my work. At the end of the day, I know it does get trickier when you have a political intention or drive in your work. Thats not really me.

Do you spend most of your time in Angola? Or overseas at this point?

I grew up in the Virginia-D.C. area. I went to college in New Orleans. After that I moved to Angola. Ive been in Angola the past 10years, almost 11years.

Do you worry about being overshadowed your family? Their politics?

Unfortunately, the big problem is that a lot of people are not objective enough to look at my work. They always want to find some hidden meaning. Or some conspiracy theory behind what Im doing. And it is tough. Ive spoken about this before. The simple fact that even in Angola, where Im sort of working, I always get heavily attacked by people in politics because Im doing something that has nothing to do with them. When I started my music career, interestingly enough, and still to this day theres a lot of media that will not play my work. Im not even talking about private. Im talking about public media that will not play my work. I just have to be okay with that and keep going and try to find someone to listen.

What are the issues people have with your work?

Well, no its not issues. I like to call it what it is. Prejudice and bias do exist no matter where you are. When people think you come from a place of privilege, there is also prejudice in that way. Its not only against people who probably would not be in that position. The other part of that still applies. I think it goes both ways. From a humanistic point of view, we already have to be very careful and keep ourselves in check.

Although we complain about biases about ourselves. I grew up abroad, so I did have to deal with other kinds of bias because of my ethnicity. Because of my nationality. I like to be very mindful of that. Everyday, pretty much since I was born, theres another kind of bias, as well, that I have encountered. Ive even had bias from teachers at school, both there and when I came to the U.S. because of that fact. It sort of negatively affected me in that way. It also presents a challenge that I have to overcome as a human being.

Youre also clearly a person with Banga yourself.

Right. We all have Banga, but then its our choice whether we choose to express it or not.

Okay, so its like a switch.

Exactly. Its a matter of confidence. For me to get to this particular point in the way that I express myself, whether its in the way I dress everyday or in my work, I had to build up my confidence a lot. I did not grow up as a very confident kid. I was usually the shy kid in the corner. At this point, Im at the point where Im confident enough to express a lot of these things creatively and also in my everyday appearance. Which is why I say that Banga is there, but its our choice on whether were going to tap into it, and how were going to tap into it. Theres many different ways. For example, I have an uncle whos a chef. His Banga is the fact that he makes the best pastries and the best lasagna ever. So hes very confident about that.

So, yes. Thats just an example. I have friends who are visual artists that a lot of the way they express themselves is very directly connected to visual communication. Across the board, its something that is like the essence. Banga is the essence of style but then how you express your personal style is your choice in how you choose to do it.

Aaron Leaf is OkayAfricas Managing Editor. Follow him on Twitter.

Read the rest here:
Angolan artist and filmmaker Coron D Photo: Patrice De Lemos - Okayafrica

Representatives of media organisations file their opposition to a media-regulation bill with Alongkorn Ponlabut, second right, vice president of the National Reform Steering Assembly, at the parliament on Thursday. (Photo by Chanat Katanyu)

The whip committee of the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) on Thursday rejected the controversial media regulation bill in the face of growing opposition from media organisations and told drafters to review it.

It agreed in principle that there should be a national media council but there were concerns inside and outside the assembly and the issue involved the public, Khamnoon Sitthisamarn, spokesman of the NRSA whip committee, said.

We agree in principle the voluntary self-regulation of media organisations should be upgraded and become a responsibility of a legal profession council. But the composition and authority of the councillors should be reviewed, he said.

The NRSAs media reform panel which drafted the bill would review that and resubmit the bill soon, Mr Khamnoon said.

Early on Thursday, representatives of 30 media organisations filed their written objection to the bill. They stressed that the bill would let authorities influence the mass media against the spirits of the new constitution which already passed a referendum and ensured independence and self-regulation among media organisations.

They also proposed that the head of the NRSAs media reform panel be replaced, saying ACMKanitSuwannatehad falsely claimed representatives of media organisations supported the bill and it passed a public hearing organised by the Thailand Development Research Institute.

Besides, four media professionals resigned as members of the NRSAs media reform panel in protest.

Opponents said the NRSA media reform panels draft bill on rights protection, ethical promotion and standards of media professionals would empower the national media council to issue and revoke licences for all media professionals.

Their main concern is the four seats in the council reserved for permanent secretaries of some ministries. They view the requirement would allow interference in the media and limit peoples rights to information.

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Media control bill suspended | Bangkok Post: news - Bangkok Post

Snap Inc. often likens its app to a new form of television. Its also borrowing from the playbook of traditional media companies to create a small circle of power in its top ranks.

Using three classes of stock, founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy will hold majority voting rights after an initial public offering, according to the companys prospectus. That sort of control is rare outside the media business or the hottest technology companies.

Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.

Photographer: J. Emilio Flores/Corbis via Getty Images

The Snapchat app maker intends to go a step further than most newly public companies by selling Class A shares in its IPO with no voting rights. As a result, Spiegel and Murphy can avoid losing power while raising capital.

Snap is doing something I have not seen before: creating and issuing non-voting shares at the IPO, said Jesse Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School. After the IPO, Snap can issue additional non-voting stock to employees or other parties without eroding the founders control rights.

The use of multiple voting classes has been a common way for media moguls to retain power over their businesses while reducing their financial stakes. Rupert Murdoch uses the strategy at News Corp. and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., as does the Ochs-Sulzberger family at the New York Times Co. and Sumner Redstone at CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. These arrangements come with their share of resistance from stockholders.

Media barons have said the ownership structure is necessary to protect their companies editorial independence or creative freedom,said Paul Gompers, a professor at Harvard Business School. Outside shareholders understand that the insiders have the ability to call the shots, he said.

Tech companies can thank Google for legitimizing the practice in their industry. To sell the idea to prospective investors, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin compared their business with newspaper publishers and Wall Street favorite Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which owns several papers.

When Google filed to go public in 2004, they acknowledged that dual-class structures were unusual for tech companies but typical among publishers that wanted to focus on the long-term task of serious news coverage, despite fluctuations in quarterly results, according to their IPO paperwork. They cited the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, as well as Warren Buffetts Berkshire.

We want Google to become an important and significant institution, Page and Brin wrote. That takes time, stability and independence. We bridge the media and technology industries, both of which have experienced considerable consolidation and attempted hostile takeovers.

Since then, several tech companies have adopted dual-class shares, with mixed results. Under Mark Zuckerbergs control, Facebook Inc. has weathered several technological upheavals, including the shift from desktop to mobile, and more than tripled its share price. However, some investors still chafe at his unchallenged power. Facebook is currently trying to fend off a shareholder lawsuit, including allegations that board member Marc Andreessen helped advise Zuckerberg at the expense of shareholders.

The founders of online coupon site Groupon Inc. and social game maker Zynga Inc. employed dual-class shares to give top executives majority voting control. Each founding CEO was ousted less than two years after their IPOs, and their market values have dropped by more than two-thirds since going public in 2011.

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To our knowledge, no other company has completed an initial public offering of non-voting stock on a U.S. stock exchange, Snap wrote. We cannot predict whether this structure and the concentrated control it affords Mr. Spiegel and Mr. Murphy will result in a lower trading price.

Google, now owned by Alphabet Inc., was sued over the issuance of non-voting stock and later for creating a third class of stock cementing Page and Brins voting control for good. It settled both cases.

Youll continue to see this trend happening until there is something really negative as a result, said Thomas Ivey, partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

The money-making side of Snap is fairly young, but its increasingly positioning itself to take advertising dollars from media companies. Its aiming to keep the eyes of its largely millennial audience glued to its app, interspersing ads into video reels and in publishers Snapchat content.

The company has warned that its financial performance will be lumpy as it continues to grow, people familiar with the matter have said. In its IPO filing, Snap reported a 2016 net loss of $515 million, versus a loss of $373 million in 2015.

Snap is asking potential investors to trust a couple of twentysomethings to figure out how to capitalize on user engagement, keep growing and eventually reach profitability -- without shareholder intervention.

Original post:
Snap's Concentrated Power Structure Takes a Page From Old Media - Bloomberg

Cambodia's wealthy elite is increasingly buying media outlets, according to a joint Media Ownership Monitor (MOM) project by Reporters without Borders and the Cambodian Center for Independent Media. Among 27 owners surveyed in the project, nine are business and political tycoons and 10 are politically affiliated.

Experts say these media owners are keen to protect their interests and the interests of the government which protects them at the expense of providing news to citizens.

In Cambodia, many media owners are tycoons, or oknha in Khmer, the primary language. The king confers this title once a person contributes $100,000 to a so-called social development cause. As of 2012, approximately 2.66 million of Cambodia's 15.9 million people lived on less than $1.20 per day, and the estimated per capita income was $3,700, according to the CIA World Factbook.

"If [the tycoons] are involved in politics, then I would say it even gets more problematic," Charles Davidson, executive director of Kleptocracy Initiative at Hudson Institute, told VOA Khmer. He spoke to VOA in a phone interview after a recent event in the Kleptocracy and Democracy Debate Series, held in Washington.

FILE - A participant asks a question during a Kleptocracy and Democracy Debate in Washington, D.C., Dec. 1, 2016. (Say Mony/VOA Khmer)

"So, I would say that's a danger and it's a worldwide trend," Davidson said.

The control of media by wealthy elites in developing countries and democracies in transition is a worrying trend, which could potentially lead to danger, according to media experts in the United States.

Conflicts of interest

The wealthy who own media outlets have many other financial interests, and there are often obvious and subtle conflicts of interests. The result can be a media environment that bows to power rather than speaking truth to it, as is the best practice in many developed democracies, according to experts.

"If the power gets concentrated in one country with no democratic traditions and no good journalistic traditions, and there is one guy who comes out on top, and there is not any competition any more, then I think there is a very dangerous situation," said Martha Bayles, media professor at Boston College in Massachusetts, in an interview with VOA at the Washington event.

The trend toward a concentration of media ownership in developing democracies is emerging as the media worldwide especially the independent and critical outlets in developed democracies come under attack by politicians and the powerful for reporting facts that negatively touch on the business or political interests of the elite.

Last week, in response to perceived media attacks on the Trump administration, Stephen Bannon, the president's chief White House strategist, told The New York Times that "The media here is the opposition party."

In Cambodia, Pa Nguon Teang, the executive director of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, said when media ownership is concentrated among the wealthy elite, it will lead to a government less accountable to the people it is supposed to serve.

FILE - Pa Nguon Teang, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, is shown at Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Aug. 18, 2016. (Leng Len/VOA Khmer)

"Those working in the media controlled by tycoons or big business people under the political influence from the ruling party and the government, dare not voice their other opinions contrary to the political line already set by their media outlets," he told VOA. "So, this makes a loss to independent viewpoints needed by Cambodian people."

Or, as Davidson put it, "The media is going to be under the government control entirely, and anybody who is practicing journalism outside of that control is essentially a dissident."

Accusations against Hun Sen

Critics say the Cambodian government led by Hun Sen, one of Asia's longest-serving prime ministers, has been attempting to control or influence the media through various means, either by having family members own media outlets or suppressing those independent voices critical of his government and his more than 30-year rule.

Cambodia has more than 100 radio stations, dozens of television stations and more than 400 newspapers in operation within the country, according to the government figures. Most of the media outlets are owned, controlled or run by the ruling elites. Critics often say such outlets devote most of their broadcast time to entertainment programs rather than news, in part as a way to take people's attention away from government or ruling-class businesses.

Jeff Gedmin, a former president of VOA-affiliated Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a senior research fellow at Georgetown University, told VOA Khmer at the debate that "we want to inform the people, too, in a responsible way.

"You can't have good decisions unless you have good facts," he said, adding, "All of us, whether you are Cambodian or American."

Government response

Phay Siphan, a Cambodian government spokesman, said authorities do not control any media outlets except the only state-run National Radio of Kampuchea (RNK) and National Television of Kampuchea (TVK).

"All have freedom of speech and are free to broadcast anything because they are private media," he said in a phone interview. "The state does not provide funds like the ones received by Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. In this country, the media survive by themselves."

FILE - Sok Eysan, spokesman for the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), talks to reporters in Phnom Penh, Jan. 5, 2017. (Hul Reaksmey/VOA Khmer)

Likewise, Sok Eysan, a spokesman of the ruling Cambodian People's Party, which has been in power since 1979, said each media outlet owner is the person who decides what to broadcast without getting any orders from the government or the party.

"The prime minister has never threatened a general director of any radio or TV station to broadcast his activities. Whether they want to broadcast them or not is up to each of them," he said.

"If we determine that you have to write about or broadcast this or that, for example broadcast only boxing and not any concerts, then that's not possible," Eysan added. "It depends on the producer of the program to make sure they have all sorts of entertainments in all art forms."

See the rest here:
Study: Cambodian Media Ownership Concentrated Among Elite - Voice of America