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Grant Berardo, a Wall High School junior, saw his image digitally altered with a plain black T-shirt in his yearbook. Mike Davis

Wall Township High School junior Grant Berardo's T-shirt was digitally altered in the school's yearbook. He wore a Donald Trump campaign shirt for his portrait.(Photo: Courtesy of Joseph Berardo, Jr.)

WALL The Wall High School teacher and adviser of the yearbook club has been suspended due to alleged censorship of images and quotes by students supporting President Donald Trump.

Superintendent Cheryl Dyer said Monday that the teacher, who she declined to name, was suspended "pending further disciplinary action" from the school board.

On the high school's website, the yearbook club's adviser is listed as Susan Parsons. According to public records, she collected an$87,950 salary last year.

"I don't have definitive answers to all of my questions yet, but I knew enough at this point to get board approval to take that action," Dyer said.

ICYMI: Wall teen's Trump shirt censored in yearbook

Dyer declined to identify what disciplinary action could be taken. Termination would require the board to file tenure charges against her.

According to her LinkedIn page, Parsons has worked in the district for 15 years.

On her yearbook class's website within the district homepage, Parsonsincludes "photo editing" as one of the "real world skills" that students learn during yearbook production.

She did not return a call to her home seeking comment. In an interview with the New York Post, she said we have never made any action against any political party.

But when asked if she knew who altered the photos, Parsons simply said, Im going to hang up.

There have been three reported instances of censorship in the yearbook, all revolving around students supporting President Donald Trump.

Grant Berardo, a junior at the school, took his school pictures wearing a navy blue "Make America Great Again" shirt from the campaign. But in the yearbook, his photo had been digitally altered so it resembled a nondescript black T-shirt, which you can see in the video at top of the story.

Wall High School(Photo: File photo)

It was Photoshopped," Grant said in an interview on Friday. "I sent it to my mom and dad, just like You wont believe this. I was just overall disappointed.

"I like Trump, but its history too. Wearing that shirt memorializes the time," he said.

According to CNN, a brother and sister at the school also alleged censorship. Wyatt Debrovich-Fago wore a sweater vest in his picture with a Trump campaign logo, but it was seemingly cropped out of the photo.

His sister, Montana, served as president of the school's freshman class. That role usually comes with a quote next to a picture, and Montana selected: "I like thinking big. If you are going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big."

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But in the yearbook, hers was the only photo without a quote.

"I want to know who thought it was OK to do this," Janet Dobrovich-Fago, the teens' mother, told CNN. "I want the school to seek disciplinary action and to be held accountable."

In a statement released Sunday night, Wall school board President Allison Connolly said the board "found the allegations of wrongdoing disturbing and take the charge that students have had their free speech rights infringed upon very seriously."

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In a previous interview, Dyer saidthe only reason a student's image would be altered isif itwasin violation of the dress code clothing referencingdrugs, alcohol or violence. Political messages are "absolutely not" a violation, she said.

A spokesman for Jostens, the companythat takes the photographs and prints the yearbooks, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

It's not immediately clear whether the change was made by someone from the school district or photography company.

NEPTUNE:Superintendent responds after racist photo

In an interview, Joseph BerardoJr. Grant's father called for the school to recall the yearbooks and reissue new ones with the unaltered photo. He said he would consider legal action if that doesnt happen.

From my perspective, I dont understand the censorship, Berardo said.I think it was probably politically motivated. It was inherently offensive to somebody and they made a decision to Photoshop it and without discussion, which is the worst part."

TEACHING TRUMP:How schools handled 2016 election

The problem would be "equally" as egregious if images of clothing supporting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton also had been altered, Berardo said.

What are you doing? Dont you go to school to debate this stuff at the collegiate level, at the high school level, asked Berardo. Whats frustrating to me is that this was the first election he took interest in, but what message did the school send?

Mike Davis: 732-643-4223; mdavis@gannettnj.com

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Link:
Wall HS teacher suspended over Trump yearbook censorship - Asbury Park Press

A New Jersey high school teacher has been suspended after pro-President Trump messages were Photoshopped and edited out of the schools official yearbook.

Wall Township Public Schools Superintendent Cheryl Dyer said Monday that a teacher had been suspended pending further disciplinary action over the reported anti-Trump censorship at Wall Township High School, the Asbury Park Press reported.

The action comes after three students reported that their pro-Trump messages were censored by school officials. Grant Berardo, a junior, said a campaign slogan reading, TRUMP: Make America Great Again, was digitally editied from the shirt he wore in his class portrait.

It was Photoshopped, Grant told the Asbury Park Press. I sent it to my mom and dad, just like, You wont believe this. I was just overall disappointed.

A photo of Wyatt Debrovich-Fago, a junior, was cropped so that the Trump campaign logo on his sweater vest wasnt visible, CNN reported. Wyatts sister, Montana, was also left without an accompanying quote for her photo as class president when her quote from Mr. Trump didnt make it to print.

I want to know who thought it was OK to do this, their mother, Janet Dobrovich-Fago, told CNN. I want the school to seek disciplinary action and to be held accountable.

Ms. Dyer said the high school administration does not condone any censorship of political views on the part of our students.

In a statement Sunday night, Wall school board President Allison Connolly said the board found the allegations of wrongdoing disturbing and take the charge that students have had their free speech rights infringed upon very seriously, the Asbury Park Press reported.

Ms. Dyer did not name the suspended teacher, but the schools yearbook instructor is listed as Susan Parsons. Ms. Parsons told the New York Post: We have never made any action against any political party.

When asked if she knew who censored the messages, she said, Im going to hang up, the Post reported.

Go here to read the rest:
NJ teacher suspended over yearbook censorship of pro-Trump messages - Washington Times

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has called forgreater regulation of the Internetto combat the growing threat of Islamist extremism.Addressing the public after the latest attack on Londonthe third act of Islamist terrorism in the U.K. this yearMay rightly placed blame for the string of recent attacks on the evil ideology of Islamist extremism.

Defeating this ideology is one of the great challenges of our time, she said. But it cannot be defeated by military intervention alone. It will only be defeated when we turn peoples minds away from this violence and make them understand that our valuespluralistic British valuesare superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate.

To combat this evil ideology, May has proposed greater regulation of the internet, imposed through international agreements, in order to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning.

We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed, May said. Yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide Internet-based services provide.

May is yet to outline the details of her proposal. But ifinitial reportsare anything to go by, it is likely to include laws forcing companies to weaken their encryption standardsmaking all online data less secureas well as a push for new international agreements that require internet companies to deny a platform to extremist propaganda. In other words, it will be nothing short of a China-style regime of internet censorshipa comparison May hasdeclined to refute.

This proposal has alreadygained the supportof Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, after Australia suffered its own small attackon Monday, when a lone gunmanclaimed as a soldier of ISISkilled one man and took a women hostage.The idea is also likely to gain support from President Trump, who called for closing that Internet up in some way,during his campaign.

It is good to see a western political leader facing up to the challenge posed by Islamist ideology. But increased internet censorship is not the solution to this problem. It will only make the problem harder to combat by infringing on legitimate speech, pushing the problem further underground, and leaving the real-life safe spaces untouched.

The internet safe space argument is compelling. Its undeniable that groups like ISIS devote considerable resources to online propaganda, and have motivated people in the west to both join them and to carry out attacks in their homelands. People are right to worry about lone wolves being radicalized on the internet.

But this doesnt describe the perpetrators of the last three attacks in the U.K., most of whom were already known to the police. Nor does it describe the Australian terrorist, who not only had a history of violence and connections to terrorism, but was out on bail at the time of the attack.

More importantly, it ignores the far greater problem of the safe spaces Islamist extremism benefits from in the real world.For too long terrorist attacks have been met with little more than stoic sympathy and willful blindness, as leaders deny that repeated attacks are anything more than the actions of a few maniacs, with no discernible connection to the religion of Islam.

On the one hand, its understandable for political leaders not to want to ascribe blame to the wider Muslim community, the vast majority of whom have nothing whatsoever to do with the barbarism carried out in the name of their religion.

On the other hand, this approach has only exacerbated the problem by insulating the Muslim communityand therefore Islamismfrom the sort of criticism that all other groups in western societies are subjected to. In many European countries, this bigotry of low expectations has led to the development of entire suburbs that are de-facto no-go zonesareas of a city that are completely disconnected from wider society, where its dangerous for any non-Muslims to enter.

A prime example is the area of Molenbeek, in Belgium, where an alleged participant in theNovember 13Paris attacks (which left 130 people dead and 368 wounded) wasable to hide outfor nearly four months, despite being the most wanted man in Europe.Theres nowhere as bad as Molenbeek in the U.K., but the British Muslim community has nevertheless been afforded the kind of protection from criticism that no other community enjoys.

The harm caused by this insidious political correctness was highlighted in 2014, when anindependent inquiryfound that police, community leaders, and local politicians had systematically failed to prevent the sexual exploitation of 1,400 children between 1997 and 2013a figure described as a conservative estimatein the north-England town of Rotherham (population 257,000).

The reason blamed for this failure was thefear of being accused of racism, since these so-called grooming gangs were mostly made up of Muslims of Pakistani origin. Even when the crimes were eventually reported, the perpetrators were described as mostly Asian men, rather than as Muslims.

It obviously goes without saying that these appalling crimes are not the fault of all British Muslims, most of whom would be horrified by such behavior. Nevertheless, it highlights the failure of British society to hold the Muslim community to the same standards as everyone else.

Its undeniable that appallingly illiberal views have been allowed to persist in the British Muslim community. In a2015 pollof 1,000 British Muslim, 27 percent said they have some sympathy for the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. Anadditional 2016 pollfound that two out of three British Muslims would not report someone they knew to the police, if they became involved with terrorist sympathizers. These sentiments arent new. A2006 pollfound that 20 percent of British Muslism had sympathy for the motivations of the London bombings of July 7, 2005 (which left 52 people dead and784injured).

Its unlikely that these attitudes, which are alarmingly out of step with the rest of British society, would still exist if not for their safe spaces, created by the taboo on criticism of Islam. The first step to combating Islamist extremism is to remove this taboo.

Not only will increasing internet censorship do nothing to remove the safe-spaces that exist in the real world, it may even make the problem worse.

There is simply no way to completely censor anything in the internet age. All states can do is push ideas and discussions further underground, where the ideas are harder to combat and where it is harder for intelligence services to keep track of thema point stressed by the U.K.s leading digital advocacy organization, theOpen Rights Group.

There is also a long track record of anti-free speech lawsdesigned to protect the public from harmful speechbeing used suppress discussion of important issues, simply because they are controversial and may offend some people.In 2016, Dutch politician Geert Wilders wasfound guiltyof violating Hate Speech laws for comments he made in 2014 that were demeaning and thereby insulting towards the Moroccan population. Wilders had asked a roomful of his supporter if they wanted to have more or fewer Moroccans in the country. When the crowd shouted back Fewer! he replied, Well, well take care of that.

In the recentMarch 15election, Wilders party got over 1.3 million votes (13.6 percent), so he clearly represents a significant proportion of the Dutch population. He would not have this support if the issues he talks about didnt resonate with the public. Ironically, these are the same issues that Mays proposal is attempting to addressnamely, the spread of radical Islamism.

People might disagree with the solutions Wilders proposes, but this is not the way to combat unwanted ideas. No one is served when we collectively decide to stick our heads in the sand. The problem will not magically disappear.

There is every reason to expect that Mays internet censorship proposal will also be used to suppress more than just Islamist propaganda. Perhaps the best evidence of this is a private conversation between German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, which waspicked up by a hot micin 2015. Merkel was overheardasking Zuckerberg what he was doing about anti-immigrant posts on Facebook. Zuckerbergs response was, We need to do some work. Make no mistake, this was nothing short of an attempt to reduce opposition to Merkels unprecedented decision to open Germanys borders to a seemingly unlimited number of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

Mays internet censorship proposal will create the infrastructure for politicians like Merkel to not just ask internet companies to act, but demand it.

Several European countries introduced Hate Speech laws in order to prevent the sort of anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. However, not only have these laws failed to eradicate anti-Semitism, it is now widely reported to be on the rise throughout Europe. The situation has gotten so bad, some people are now discussing whether itstime for the Jews to leave Europe, for good.

The situation could not be more different in the United States, which has become arguably the safest country for Jews on earth. The U.S. is also significantly better than Europe at integrating its immigrant population, including its Muslim population. This is because of the First Amendment, which helps ensure the existence of a vibrant and robust marketplace of ideas in which extremist propaganda can be combatted. This is an important lesson for western societies to learn: Free speech is the best way to combat unwanted ideas.

The western world needs to combat the ideology of radical Islamism. But this is only possible if we can openly discuss issues, free from the kind of politically correct taboos that have insulated the Muslim community. Mays internet censorship proposal will only make this more difficult.

Patrick Hannaford is an Australian writer based in Washington DC.

Read more from the original source:
Why Censoring The Internet Would Make It Harder To Fight Terrorism - The Federalist

New York Times

Making Google the Censor New York Times And studies suggest that ordinary internet users self-censor when they think they are being surveilled. Researchers found journalists afraid to write about terrorism, Wikipedia users reluctant to learn about Al Qaeda and Google users avoiding searching ...

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Making Google the Censor - New York Times

Boris Johnson has been caught trying to exercise control of the media. But unfortunately for him, the media landscape has changed significantly, and he doesnt stand a chance.

A leaked WhatsAppmessage from Johnson to MPs stated that:

We must not allow the media to spread mischief.

"The PM is a woman of extraordinary qualities": This WhatsApp from Boris doesn't sound *at all* as though it was meant to be leaked https://t.co/KQbA5kHX5P

Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) June 11, 2017

Hang on, so Conservative MPs have a WhatsApp group? Using the exact end-to-end encryption Theresa May says is a threat to our security?

Nathaniel Tapley (@Natt) June 11, 2017

The dramatic results of the general election and the ensuing hung parliamenthavecaught many media pundits by surprise. But unsurprisingly, given that Theresa Mays government now hangs by a thin thread supported by a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP that doesnt appear to have been finalised, the media are asking questions.

Central to these questions are whether May has the mandate or the ability to form a workable government. And given her utter failure to deliver her stated aim of a strong and stable government, questions will also ariseabout whether she can continue as leader.

A hung parliament also raises questions over whether there will have to be another general election. If neither main party manages to gain enough votes to get a Queens speech approved in parliament, then there will be.

These are all crucial questions that people on the right and leftof the political spectrum will be asking. And they will be looking to our media, in all its various forms, to discuss and analyse these questions. This is not mischief. This is whats necessary in these uncertain times. And indeed, it should be the norm regardless.

Johnsons message is business as usual with his eighth pointget on with the job being indicative of this. He also calls for MPs to unite behind May. And hetalked about how he wants to control the narrative:

We have got to stop the narrative that Corbyn somehow won this thing he barely did better than Gordon useless Brown when we beat him in 2010.

The problem for Johnson is the two results are not comparable. May was projected a landslide victory. And Labours campaign has forced the Tories into a hung parliament. Labour might not have won this election. But there is no way of spinning this as a victory for the Tories.

May can talk about a government of certainty until she is blue in the face. But nothing is certain, and it is not business as usual by any stretch of the imagination.

But the other major headache for Johnson is that there is now a different media landscape. Politicians can no longer issue edicts to the press and expect the rest of the population to fall in line.

Whether it isThe Canary, or places likeEvolve Politics andAnother Angry Voice, people now have a strong independent media that is not dominated by billionaires or a Westminster elite.

Time and time again, Johnson has shown himself to be a shameless liar. One who is prepared to stoop as low as stealing interview notes. He now wants to control the media agenda. But luckily, hes in for a nasty surprise. And the reach and scope of the corporate media is now well and truly out of the control of the Westminster elite.

Get Involved!

Sign the petition ofno confidence in a Conservative/ DUP coalition. Make your thoughts on the deal known. Contact your MP and be vocal on social media.

Organise! Join (and participate in the activities of) a union, an activist group, and/or a political party.

Want to contribute to the increasing democratisation of Britains media environment? Read and support independent news outlets that hold the powerful to account:

The Canary, Media Diversified, Novara Media, Corporate Watch, Another Angry Voice,Common Space, Media Lens, Bella Caledonia,Vox Political, Evolve Politics, Real Media, Reel News, STRIKE! magazine, The Bristol Cable,The Meteor,Salford Star, The Ferret.

Featured image via Flickr

Emily Apple

Emily has been a writer and activist for over twenty years, co-founding numerous organisations including Fitwatch, Network for Police Monitoring and Counselling for Social Change. She has been published in a variety of online and print publications and is currently working on her first book Dear Martin: Letters to a Corporate Spy. Emily is writing for The Canary because she is passionate about creating an alternative media, and is excited to have the opportunity to write and investigate stories from a different perspective.

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Boris Johnson wants to control the media. But he's in for a nasty surprise - The Canary