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According to Irans state-run media, the clerical regimes parliament is about to pass an internet protection bill, restricting the countrys internet and online freedoms even further.

The bill, which is officially called the Cyberspace Users Rights Protection and Regulation of Key Online Services, will disrupt citizen access to international services, primarily social media, and allow the regimes security apparatus to control internet gateways in order to intensify suppression of dissent.

In his speech on July 20, 2021, the mullahs Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, expressed his utter fear of social media, describing the need to control it as his regimes significant task at hand. He added that officials should pay attention to it as a key issue.

The cyberspace and social media are out of our control. This is a [serious issue]. Social media shouldnt be used any way [people] want. Like water, it should be channeled properly. Others are now managing social media, and we shouldnt stand idly by, Khamenei said, according to Tasnim News Agency, an outlet linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.

The enemy has taken a combat formation through social media. The [regime] should also take its own position and prepare itself, Khamenei acknowledged.

Other regime officials have expressed similar fears. It is like handing [the social media] to the enemy so it could perform psychological operations amid the economic warfare, Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali, head of the regimes Civil Defense Organization, told the state-run ISNA news agency in March 2021.

Two major nationwide protests shook the regimes foundations in 2018 and 2019. People called for regime change and democracy. When the regime started its brutal crackdown, citizen journalists and the social network of the main Iranian opposition quickly spread the news of the regimes vicious actions and peoples calls for democracy to the world community. In addition, protesters and the opposition used social media to organize further protests.

The Iranian regime had to impose an internet blackout to prevent additional uprisings and to stop news and information flow to the outside world.

Iranians from all walks of life use social media to organize daily protests due to exacerbating economic and social woes.

In recent years, despite the regimes extensive demonization campaign against the main Iranian opposition, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), thousands of youths have joined the MEKs Resistance Units network The MEKs Resistance Units have been shattering the regimes atmosphere of suppression and fear by conducting daring daily operations under the nose of the mullahs overt and covert agents.

The MEK, stationed in the capital of a European country, are busy night and day creating an ambiance against the Islamic Republic on Twitter, Instagram, and Telegram, General Ebrahim Golfam, Cultural Deputy at the Joint Chiefs of the regimes Armed Forces, said in May 2019.

So, by adopting the new bill to restrict the internet, the regime intends to prevent the ruling theocracys downfall. It will also have severe economic consequences for millions of Iranians who earn a living through social media, particularly during the worsening Covid-19 crisis.

For roughly over one million Iranians, social media platforms such as Instagram, Telegram, and Twitter serve as virtual businesses. The proposed bill requires international technology firms to have a legal representative in Iran as a means of cooperating with Tehran to increase online surveillance.

Companies that host unregistered social media apps in Iran would risk penalties. Millions of Iranians must either turn to regime-affiliated platforms and risk their basic freedoms or risk sinking deeper into poverty.

The regimes former Minister of Information Technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, acknowledged that the bill curtails access to information and leads to a complete ban on popular messaging apps.

In a letter to Reza Taghipour, Chairman of the Joint Commission to Review the protection bill, the Parliamentary Research Center warned about the economic and social consequences of adopting this bill.

According to the parliaments Research Center on December 31, 2021, the bills adverse impact on the digital economy will induce a significant capital exodus while encouraging corruption and embezzlement. It added that the bill will deliver an irreparable blow to small online businesses while increasing the rate of brain drain and further aggravating the peoples grievances against the ruling regime.

While the regimes ultimate goal is internet censorship and control, some institutions and individuals are directly involved and will stand to benefit from the so-called protection bill. These include: Research Institute of Islamic Culture and Art, Research Institute of Islamic Culture and Thought, Center for Deep Strategic Studies and Institute for Research and Explanation of the Discourse of the Islamic Revolution.

These entities receive budgets from the government but are private institutions under the IRGC and Khameneis control. The Institute of Islamic Culture and Thought alone receives 293 trillion rials from the 2022-2023 general budget. Meanwhile, the share of the Cancer Research Institute of the University of Tehran in the 2022-2023 budget is 50 billion rials.

Nepotism and corruption also play a role. Abbas Moradi, Sina Kalhor, Massoud Fayazi, and Ruhollah Momen are some notable individuals and relatives of regime officials behind the measure. They promote domestic social media platforms.

Massoud Fayazi, the Scientific supervisor of the bills review has no background in computer science. He told the state TV that the era of filtering social media is over, and that the regime should instead establish basic regulations for internet services.

By forcing international social medial platforms out of Iran, companies like Sharif Amid Computer Company will take over the market. This company is headed by Maryam Zakani, daughter of Tehrans Mayor Alireza Zakani, and her husband Hossain Heydari. Heydari also works in Arsh Ideographer Company, another application-developing company, whose most prominent application is Rubika.

Currently, Irans service providers allow users to download this application for free. However, there is some speculation that after social media platforms like Telegram are forced out of Iran, Rubika would shift to a paid subscription model.

Another so-called domestic application is Instagram Plus. In a TV debate on July 31, 2021, Abbas Mordai, another planner of the protection bill, acknowledged that, On Instagram Plus we will have online banking. Moradis words revived the bitter experience of previous attempts to produce local copies of social media platforms such as Golder Telegram, or search engines. These actions resulted in squandering millions of dollars of the countrys wealth, the state-run Hamshahri daily reported on August 2, 2021.

Quoting Nima Namdari, Member of the Board of Directors of Tehran Computer Guild System, Hamshahri wrote that adopting the internet protection plan will result in a 10,000 trillion rials embezzlement [equivalent to $35 million based on the current free-market exchange rate].

According to this plan, 10% percent of the shares of private companies providing telecommunication services will be provided to the Ministry of Communications to develop replacement apps for filtered platforms. If the Ministry of Communications does not meet this objective, this credit will be handed over to the Secretariat of the High Council for Cyberspace, which is controlled by Khamenei.

Like other decisions adopted by the regime, limiting the internet will spark major protests, a bitter nightmare already predicted by state-run media. While people are crushed under the burden of poverty and Covid-19 has damaged many businesses, the parliament is seeking to pass a law [restricting] internet. This plan has shocked society, as people fear the loss of their businesses. This will have consequences, the state-run Khabar-e Fori website reported on December 1, 2021.

Despite Khameneis direct order for controlling social media, his handpicked deputies in parliament are hesitating. The most basic issues are left unattended in our country due to mismanagement. Then we seek approval to intrude on peoples privacy, and under the pretext of protection, reduce the speed of the Internet and bandwidth, said a member of parliament, Ruhoallh Hazrat-Pour, on November 14, according to Khan-e Mellat News Agency.

The regime is in a serious bind. If it adopts the bill, it would risk major protests by an already angry population. And if it doesnt, then more youth will join the MEK, and protests would become more organized and more frequent. This is the very definition of a desperate regime whose days are numbered because it has run out of options and can find no way out of compounding crises.

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Exclusive Report: Iran Regimes Internet Censorship Plan and Its Consequences - National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

The arrival of February might mean Valentine's Day for some, but for Shudder, it's another business-as-usual month of bringing in great new movie exclusives, great TV shows, and classic catalog horror.

Shudder's latest batch of new movies kicks off on February 1 with Censor, the well-received 2021 movie about a British film censor linking a disturbing horror movie to her own sister's mysterious disappearance. According to an official synopsis, Enid "sets out to solve the past mystery of her sister's disappearance, embarking on a quest that dissolves the line between fiction and reality."

On February 14, a pair of horror movies striking quite different tones will come to Shudder. Corporate Animals stars Demi Moore as a delusional CEO who takes her staff on a "disastrous" team-building retreat led by an overeager guide played by Ed Helms. Also hitting the platform that day is XX, an all-female helmed horror anthology featuring four stories written and directed by "fiercely talented" women: Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Karyn Kusama (The Invitation), Roxanne Benjamin (Body at Brighton Rock), and Jovanka Vuckovic (Riot Girls), featuring a cast that includes Natalie Brown, Melanie Lynskey, Breeda Wool, and Christina Kirk.

Take a look at the complete list of everything arriving on the platform next month below. Additionally, you can also check out our similar lists for Disney+ and Netflix.

See the original post here:
New On Shudder February 2022: Censor, XX, And More - GameSpot

If you care about book challenges and censorship, one Supreme Court case you should familiarize yourself with which hasnt been cited nearly during this flux of challenges is Board of Education, Island Trees School District vs. Pico (Island Trees). This landmark 1982 case was the first to address the removal of books from school libraries across the country. Though it was a 5-4 split within the court, the ruling in favor of Pico meant that no school board could remove books from a library once itd been added, simply because they disagreed with the content within it.

Justice Brennan, in announcing the judgement which did not have a majority opinion to it, stated:

The Island Trees case came from an incident in the school district located in Levittown, New York, in 1975. A group which called themselves Parents of New York United submitted a list of 11 books they considered inappropriate to the school board, which then removed the books from the library and proceeded to send them through the review committee. Even though the committee said five of nine titles should be returned to shelves, the school board overruled the decision, returning only two (the other two books in question were a book in the junior high school that contained the satirical essay A Modest Proposal, and a book in the 12th grade curriculum, and both were removed).

The school board made this decision because they were anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy, according to the case syllabus.

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High school senior Steven Pico, in the case, helped bring the voices of four fellow high school students and one junior high school student into the story. All of them pushed back against the boards decision. They believed thanks, in part, to the precedent set with the Tinker vs. Des Moines case that their First Amendment rights were being violated.

One possible reason why this case hasnt been cited is that it wasnt legally binding because there wasnt a majority opinion. But because it also hasnt been challenged, it stands as a powerful reminder of a few things: this isnt and never has been the first time books in school libraries have been challenged, let alone that books by authors of color have been at the center of the discussion (the 11 titles included books by Piri Thomas, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Alice Childress, and Eldridge Cleaver); its not the first time that students have been forced to speak up for their First Amendment Rights; its noteworthy that the ruling stated this means books cannot be removed from school libraries because of disagreement with what they present (i.e., stories of those from the global majority and queer stories); that school boards have exerted more power than granted to them; and more.

When and if we begin to see lawsuits arising from todays censorship landscape, watch for Island Trees to be cited and revisited. The Supreme Court isnt stacked in favor of intellectual freedom right now, given the appointments made by the treasonous former administration, but prior rulings give weight to the reality that book censorship denies rights granted to young people in the First Amendment.

Onto this weeks book censorship news, with a toolkit for how to fight book bans and challenges, as well as how to spot fake news sites many of which are fueling these censorship attempts. Note: This will be the final roundup of 2021. Roundups will continue beginning the first full week of 2022.

Heres this weeks intellectual freedom hero:

And a couple more must-reads from authors experiencing challenges or outright censorship: author Jo Knowles talks about two of her queer-positive books being challenged in Texas and Derf Backderf talks about why his graphic memoir My Friend Dahmer has been banned.

See the article here:
Can The 1982 Island Trees Case Impact Todays Book Censorship? This Weeks Book Censorship News... - Book Riot

Author and journalist Jemimah Steinfeld said in an interview with the Stockholm Center for Freedom that the jailing of journalists in Turkey is worrying and that Index on Censorship has been closely following the country for 10 years and will continue to do so in the future. What is happening in Turkey has obviously been very upsetting. In countries like Turkey there is, of course, a lack of plurality of the press, and the circumstances are very challenging. We will continue to monitor Turkey and highlight problems associated with press freedom in the future, she said.

As part of SCFs interview series Freedom Talks, our research director Dr. Merve R. Kaykc talked to Jemimah Steinfeld about freedom of press and the suppression of journalists in Turkey.

Steinfeld is the head of content at Index on Censorship, a nonprofit that campaigns for freedom expression worldwide and publish work by censored writers and artists. She has lived and worked in both Shanghai and Beijing, where she has written on a wide range of topics, with a particular focus on youth culture, gender and censorship. She is the author of Little Emperors and Material Girls: Sex and Youth in Modern China, which was described by Financial Times as meticulously researched and highly readable. Steinfeld has freelanced for a variety of publications, including The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Vice, CNN, Time Out and the Huffington Post. She has a degree in history from Bristol University and went on to earn an MA in Chinese studies at SOAS University of London.

You work at Index on Censorship. How are organizations like yours important in monitoring media freedom and advocating for improvement?

The first issue of our magazine came out in 1972. The organization was founded in 1971, and right from the start it has been about addressing censorship in all forms, while some of the early foundations of Index and the idea behind Index was to smuggle writings from and work with writers from Iron Curtain countries. We look at censorship in its entirety. Censorship is not a right problem or a left problem. We look at it globally and from the top down, for instance, an autocrat imprisoning a writer. But also, from the bottom up, for instance, weve had cases with LGBT people from China who dont feel like they can come out to their parents because there is too much pressure on them to have kids. Freedom of speech is probably the most important human right because without free speech you cannot talk about other human rights. Media freedom really sits at the center of free speech because journalists really are the people who hold power to account in the most visible, open way they are the ones who investigate whats going on. Journalists are so crucial to free speech that they are quite often the first people to be punished when there is a dictatorship. They are the first people to be arrested and to be told that their words need to be changed. Therefore, media freedom fits in the broader structures of power and coercion.

We have a magazine, where in each issue we work with up to 40 journalists and we pay everyone because we see that as really, really important to media freedom. I mean, one of the things thats happened in the last few decades, especially with the increasing use of the Internet, is that journalists often dont get paid for their work. And that in and of itself is a way of silencing journalists and making it incredibly hard to be a journalist. Paying journalists is really key to treating them with respect.

Do you think media freedom is at the point it should be in liberal countries, or are there still steps that can be taken for improvement?

It would really depend on the different countries. Even in liberal countries there are laws that can be very punishing to journalists. For instance, at the moment we are leading an initiative called SLAPP, which is short for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

One of the most important cases is that of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed on October 17, 2017. She got into her car outside her home, and it exploded. Killing her basically silenced her because she was a very daring, courageous and brilliant journalist who had been exposing a lot of corruption. Around the time she died there were 40 lawsuits against her.

Powerful individuals and organizations resort to these lawsuits with the aim of physically and financially exhausting journalists even if there isnt really a case against them. They want to intimidate journalists into silence, and other journalists who witness such lawsuits may self-censor to avoid them. Such lawsuits are currently perfectly legal in many countries.

Of course, the situation is still better than in places like China. Ive worked in a newsroom in China that was censored, and I have worked in newsrooms in the UK. I have seen what happens, and it is not the same thing. However, that does not mean we are at a perfect place in the UK.

A final thing is lots of journalists and particularly female journalists in places like the UK and the US are subjected to online harassment. Such harassment is vicious, and its particularly vicious to women. Journalism is a more high-profile profession, and lots of journalists are putting their names and faces out there in the public.

They are uncovering things that people dont always want to read and hear. Therefore, the online world has made it easier for journalists to be harassed. I have heard of journalists in the UK who have quit their jobs because of this. I think the harassment women face is quite often more problematic than what men face because it can be particularly vicious for the women.

If a journalist is working on exposing corruption and taking a very critical lens to aspects of society, I would not say this is an easy job even in places like the UK. However, it is still a lot easier than in authoritarian countries.

A worrying trend especially in Turkey is broadcasting bans, particularly when it comes to sensitive topics like femicide or child abuse. Almost every time there is an incident concerning women or children, the media is not allowed to broadcast details of the news. Why is it that authorities issue such bans? Doesnt the public have a right to know, especially when it comes to the most vulnerable members of society?

They [the authorities] often make out that theres some moral reason behind broadcasting bans, but its often quite convenient for them. They dont want such news to be shown because maybe it reflects badly on the government in some way, or because theyre trying to control, and police, society.

Index on Censorship condones broadcast bans. We dont think that just anything should be broadcast at any time. I wouldnt want my three-year-old son to be watching certain things. So Im absolutely fine for certain things to come on at an hour when kids will probably be in bed so that theyre not exposed.

But I think that broadcasting bans need to go through a rigorous, open, transparent decision-making process. There should be external regulators as part of the decision-making process as well. One of the biggest problems with many countries where there are broadcast bans is that the broadcasters are often tied to the state. So the decisions are directly linked to the government.

Essentially, if the decision is made in a transparent way from an external regulator that has no vested political interest, then that is less problematic than the reverse, which is what quite often happens with these bans.

Turkey is currently one of the worlds biggest jailers of professional journalists and is ranked 153rd among 180 countries in terms of press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders. Would you like to reflect on the current state of journalism in Turkey?

Turkey has been one of our focus countries for several years at Index on Censorship. By several years, I mean at least 10 years. We have a wonderful contributing editor to the magazine called Kaya Gen, who writes in every issue. What is happening in Turkey has obviously been very upsetting.

As you rightly point out Turkey is one of the main jailers of journalists. Its not the most dangerous country in the world to be a journalist. Such places usually include Mexico, for instance, where a journalist is more likely to get killed.

But in countries like Turkey there is of course a lack of plurality of the press, and the circumstances are very challenging. We will continue to monitor Turkey and highlight problems associated with press freedom in the future.

Many journalists critical of the Turkish government and its regime are being imprisoned for terrorism. When we look at the accusations, they usually include aspects of their journalistic work. What can the international community, civil society and journalists outside of Turkey do to protect their colleagues and make their plight heard?

People can sign petitions and raise their voices. We also publish work from Turkish journalists on our website. We try to offer them outlets for their stories, because sometimes writing for non-Turkish outlets may be easier and less dangerous. We also want to make sure they can still find work through these outlets and their stories are heard.

One of the worrying things in such countries where media freedom is in peril is that people stop hearing about the countries and the terrible things that are going on. As people hear less about it, the situation gets worse, and we see a vicious cycle.

How important are social media platforms and online news sitesin ensuring that the public stays informed? Do Twitter, Facebook and other platforms really have a positive impact on peoples access to news and also their access a variety of coverage of the news?

I think social media is one hundred percent important in ensuring the public stays informed. Especially with Twitter, we cannot underestimate its news sourcing. Also, young people are increasingly using social media.

Twitter and Facebook have been instrumental in changing the proliferation and the access to news. And that puts them in such a difficult place because they are both serving the public and acting as a publishing platform. So they have to straddle being both private and public. While this is quite troublesome, its also exciting as we try and figure out what role they have and how we should work with them to ensure that all the brilliant stuff can stay and be celebrated, whereas the more challenging aspects are improved.

How has feminism reshaped media, or has it? Is feminist journalism possible and what would it look like?

Thanks to the Me Too movement there has been quite an awakening. Also, 40 to 50 years ago there werent many female journalists in the UK. The entire feminist awakening has helped women get into journalism. But there are still important problems. For instance, some aspects of journalism, such as political and foreign correspondence is very punishing on family life. This creates quite a pressure on female journalists because unfortunately we do not live in an equal world, and women still do more of the housework. This means that they might not always be in a position to take those jobs.

We work with lots of countries where its still very hard to work in media as a woman. We are doing quite a lot on Afghanistan at the moment. Since the Taliban takeover in August, the number of women in the workforce has dwindled. Change is not always linear. So although Me Too and feminism have improved some conditions for women, there is still a lot of work to do.

Finally, it is important that we are holding conversations about [online] harassment against female journalists and other forms of pressure.

In a previous article you say that we need to increase awareness around the world about the current state of press freedom during the coronavirus crisis, as well as to raise awareness more broadly about the importance of media freedom and the challenges that journalists face.But how can we do this? How can we mobilize to protect freedom of the media, especially in contexts where violence against journalists is commonplace and journalists face serious risks of being prosecuted for their journalistic activities?

Well, thats the million-dollar question, isnt it? As I said earlier journalists are often first in the firing line. This is usually because someone very powerful, high up, is worried what they will expose, such as corruption and inconsistencies. What happened, especially at the beginning of COVID-19, was that people were being told things they didnt want to hear.

As a result, it was very easy to target the media. The government obviously doesnt want journalists in the room because if they are mishandling the situation, then journalists can expose them. There were plenty of countries that were claiming they had no COVID-19 cases. There were journalists who proved this to be wrong. Of course, governments were furious about this. However, ordinary people, too, blamed the media and accused them of blowing the issue out of proportion. They said that the media was stirring this up and it was the media to blame for the crises.

I think as a solution one of the main things to do is to educate people in media literacy. Ideally, it should be something thats taught at a young age in school. I hate it when people use the term, the media is one monolithic group, because there is a huge difference between all the different newspapers and magazines that are out there. And they have very different editorial processes, although the majority of them are brilliant. So even if you just assume all media is great, people need to see the rich diversity within the media. Some media has a less rigorous editorial process than others. There is a tendency that if there is one bad news story amongst millions, then all the media gets dragged down by that one news story.

And this is again where it comes back to media literacy. If people were trained even for a short period to know what to trust or not trust and to know what to be looking for in a news source, that would really be helpful.

We should also keep praising media organizations and stressing the importance of media freedom. We clapped for healthcare workers during the pandemic. In a similar way we could clap for journalists who are out there day in and day out reporting stories and putting themselves on the line. I think people dont necessarily see this. They dont associate what theyre reading with these challenging situations.

The Nobel Peace Prize this year went to journalists, which shows that what journalists are doing is amazing.

How can ordinary people support organizations like Index on Censorship?

People can support organizations like ours in two main ways. They can donate to our organization. We are a not-for-profit and nongovernmental organization, and we therefore rely on charitable donations, grants and the goodwill of people.

So we encourage people to give as little or as much as they can. These donations go to keeping Index in business.

The other way is to subscribe to our magazine, and you will be supporting the magazine and also getting a really good read. Apart from its importance in human rights advocacy, the magazine also includes some of the worlds best writers, such as Margaret Atwood. There are other less famous but equally good writers who also contribute to the magazine.

Finally, people can support our causes by following us on Twitter or Facebook, and sharing our content. People can sign our petitions when we mention a petition.

Do you think press freedom can rebound after an authoritarian rule is over?

I said earlier that change is not always linear so it can go backwards but it can also go forward. One of the ironies of Index on Censorship is that were all a generally cheerful bunch. We, work with these really depressing stories, but we work with the most brilliant people all around the world in really hard situations.

But whilst there are brilliant people, we can always dream there will be progress. Weve seen plenty of places that have come out of authoritarianism to have more freedoms. For instance, ever since Donald Trump left office, have we heard a story about a journalist being kicked out of the press room?

This is not to say that everything is perfect. There were problems in the US with press freedoms prior to Donald Trump. And there are problems still today. But we can go into dark times and can come out. So we shouldnt give up hope.

Hope is what moves us forward, its the human condition.

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[Interview] Index on Censorship will continue to monitor government suppression of the media in Turkey: Jemimah Steinfeld - Stockholm Center for...

LinkedIn has admitted it can make mistakes after becoming embroiled in censorship accusations. This week the accounts of three prominent Scottish hospitality leaders were removed following viral posts calling out the Scottish government's Covid-19 policies.

In a statement to The Drum about the individual cases, a LinkedIn spokesperson said: "We know we wont always get it right and when we do make a mistake, well work directly with the member to correct it.

The LinkedIn accounts for the Scottish Hospitality Group (SHG), founder of The Scottish Gin Society Steven White and Bucks Bar Group owner Michael Bergson have been suspended with limited communication from the platform.

LinkedIn's statement added: We are focused on keeping LinkedIn a safe, trusted, and professional platform. We have clear terms of service and Professional Community Policies that outline what we expect from all our members, including that member profiles must represent a real name and identity."

On Tuesday (December 14) Stephen Montgomery, leader of the SHG, was unable to access the SHG LinkedIn account and asked to verify his identity by submitting a passport photo. The SHG account was also not searchable for the time Montgomery was blocked from the account. At the same time, Twitter took down Montgomerys personal account which was later restored.

Montgomery told The Drum the SHG account had ramped up its communications on both Twitter and LinkedIn over the weekend to campaign against government guidance change on hospitality.

When youve got three big voices in hospitality saying the exact same thing it begs the question why certain social media platforms are taking down our posts and locking down our accounts, Montgomery said. Nothing Ive posted is derogatory or defamatory, its all issues relevant to the pandemic to give people information.

White, a less vocal member of the Scottish hospitality community, claimed his most recent posts had been taken down on Wednesday (December 15) and his account deactivated. He raised a complaint to the platform but was told there was nothing wrong with the account, the posts and account have since been restored.

The missing entries followed Whites LinkedIn post on Friday (December 10) calling out the Scottish government's guidance to cancel Christmas parties. By Sunday the post had been viewed 130,000 times and White was featured on the front page of Scotland on Sunday.

I cant find another explanation for it other than someone making some serious complaints to LinkedIn about our activity, White said. I never use foul language or make accusations or do anything that would get me in trouble Im acutely aware of that stuff.

He added: Yes Im criticizing the Scottish government but Im very measured.

The third hospitality leader, Bergson, has had his account taken down for up to 14 days while LinkedIn reviews his appeal. After two days of his account being deactivated LinkedIn sent an email which said: Your account was restricted due to multiple violations of Linkedlns User Agreement and Professional Community Policies against sharing context that contains misleading or inaccurate information.

The posts in question were as follows:

Bergson admitted he had been vocal about the Scottish government's Covid policies on LinkedIn but said in the days preceding the account deactivation his posts were becoming more viral. He says the trio didnt have any article simultaneously shared, we dont collaborate in what we are saying.

Reported LinkedIn content is reviewed by its Professional Community Policies based on four pillars: Be Safe which includes sharing harmful material or inciting hate; Be Trustworthy which includes sharing misleading information and creating fake accounts; Be Professional includes sharing explicit or inflammatory content and Respect Others Rights which covers intellectual property rights and privacy laws.

In October Microsoft closed LinkedIn in China after it was called out for blocking access to US journalists for its China-based users.

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LinkedIn hit with censorship accusations for removing critics of government Covid policies - The Drum