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I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I dont believe anything the government tells me. Nothing. Zero.

George Carlin

Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community and they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a 2017interview on MSNBC

As someone whose website was slanderedby the earliest manifestations of the hysterical Russiagate mob, I could go on and on now thats the whole spectacles been disproven, but Im not going to do that. Rather, I want to highlight how despite the whole thing blowing up, well be living with severe direct consequences for years to come.

First, its important to point out that none of Russiagates most irresponsible grifters will face any serious repercussions for wasting the countrys time, money and energy on a fake story for the past two years. Russiagate was as much a business model as it was a conspiracy theory, and some of its most shameless peddlers made out like bandits over the past couple of years.

As Glenn Greenwald noted:

Lets not forget Luke Harding, a guy who literally wrote a book titled Collusion, which naturally soared to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

Of course, nothing seriously damaging will happen to Rachel, Luke or the other myriad Russiagate charlatans who drove and profited handsomely from what was by far the biggest conspiracy theory of the past two years. Will they be banned from Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? Of course not, despite the fact that they played a larger role than anybody else with respect to driving our national conversation into a cesspool of insanity, xenophobia and falsehoods.

Nevertheless, you can be sure Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg will never come out and condemn them for peddling endless amounts fake news. No tech giant scarlet letter will be forthcoming for the priests and priestesses of Russiagate; but why not?

The simple answer is that all the public concern about fake news was just a ruse the tech giants were just pretending to care about it. The real objective was to appease angry politicians by finding an excuse to erase and de-rank opinions that dont conform to the dispositions and leanings that dominate the executive suites of the largest tech companies and the power players in establishment Washington D.C.

Incredibly enough, the entire push that convinced much of the public of a pressing need to encourage tech giants to aggressively censor and ban certain opinions was driven by Russiagate in the first place. In other words, hysteria and fear that Russian propaganda would infect the minds of the American public was a primary driver in getting much of our culture to accept flippant de-platforming from tech giants across the platforms that have come to dominate online conversation in this country. Russiagate is now over, but tech giant censorship remains. Weve been scammed in far more serious and long-lasting ways than meets the eye.

Now would be a good time to revisit a few excerpts from last years piece,These Are the Times Bitcoin Was Made For:

Donald Trumps election and Bernie Sanders unexpectedly strong run in a rigged Democratic primary really shook the neoliberal/neocon establishment to its core. The status quo response has been as pathetic as its been extraordinary, with the hysteria so completely off the wall I sometimes wonder if the whole Russia-Trump collusion narrative was invented and propagated for the sole purpose of promoting a cultural acceptance of censorship.

There are two crucial attack vectors being targeted when it comes to punishing the transgressions of American thought criminals; money and communications, and we need to understand that Alex Jones is our cultural guinea pig. The tech giants started by kneecapping his voice by simultaneously de-platforming his presence from many of todays dominant communications platforms. Now PayPals moved in to make payments more difficult, thus threatening his ability to earn money. You dont have to like anything Alex Jones does to see how dangerous this is. Whats being done to him can and will be to done to others deemed undesirable by Silicon Valley oligarchs should they get popular enough. Whats emerging is a playbook on how to exert pressure and encourage self-censorship in the digital age and you better pay attention.

Lets take another step back to take stock of where were at. Sure a bunch of scam-artist pundits and fake journalists were momentarily embarrassed, but these people have no shame and many of them already achieved fame and fortune. Moreover, just like the banker crooks of the financial crisis era and the Iraq war WMD peddlers that came before them, these people are more likely to be promoted than face any life-altering consequences for the society damaging lies they spread. In fact, our system is so completely rigged in favor of certain kinds of opinions, not even the most bald faced liars amongst them will even see their social media accounts shuttered.

So yes, Russiagate has blown up spectacularly, but were still left with selective tech giant censorship which focuses on a certain type of conspiracy theory or fake news. What Facebook, Apple, Google and others have made clear at this point is that fake news is fine as long as its repeating lies of the government or intelligence agencies. Theres no amount of war-creating government inspired fake news someone can spread that will ever get you banned by the tech giants, but if you dare to have a discussion about vaccines, 9/11 or flat-earth, youll never be heard from again.

Russiagate ending doesnt alter this entrenched and very dangerous double standard. Were once again left with a monumental falsehood exposed, yet the damage has already been done to public discourse and the ability to freely communicate on Americas dominant tech platforms. As such, well continue to be led apathetically in a very restrictive and unfree direction unless we wake up and make some serious changes.

Yes, a ridiculous, false and deranged conspiracy theory has been disproven, but the damage has already been done and the damage is severe.

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Russiagate Might Be Dead, but Big Tech Censorship Is Here ...

The study of censorship blossomed in the mid-1960s, amidst broader cultural and political changes. In the United States, this occurred at the same time that the long-running, self-regulatory Production Code was winding down to be replaced by a Ratings Code in 1968 that is still in use. Carmen 1966 surveys legal decisions up to that point in the United States, Randall 1968 looks closely at the functioning of city and state boards in the United States, while Hunnings 1967 offers a more comparative study (one of the few in studies on censorship, and this is something of a lacuna in current scholarship). The study of legal decisions in the United States is pursued in more recent scholarship: Jowett 1990 offers an excellent overview, DeGrazia and Newman 1982 gives details of a number of court cases (the former was a lawyer actively involved in censorship cases), and Wittern-Keller 2008 helpfully examines the long history of the legal record, using the files of state censors. The broader contexts for battles over the cinema and the functioning of self-regulatory bodies are addressed in two excellent collections of essays: Bernstein 1999 focuses on Hollywood before the 1968 Ratings Code went into effect, and Couvares 2006, an essential collection, covers a longer history, beginning with the emergence of cinema and culminating with the so-called culture wars of the 1980s.

Bernstein, Matthew, ed. Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999.

E-mail Citation

Very useful collection that carefully gathers together a number of previously published essays, combining them with two newly commissioned pieces, to examine movie censorship in the United States from the Supreme Courts important 1915 decision on the legitimacy of state censorship to the emergence of the Ratings Code in 1968.

Carmen, Ira H.. Movies, Censorship and the Law. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966.

E-mail Citation

Account of significant court cases in the United States and the impact of these on the existence and functioning of various city and state censor boards operative in the 1960s.

Couvares, Francis G., ed. Movie Censorship and American Culture. 2d ed. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.

E-mail Citation

Couvares insightfully situates movie censorship as a central node within broader culture warsbattles about defining cultural value and deciding what is legitimate to see and hearthat are connected to questions of hegemony and power. Essays examine examples from the United States across the 20th century and are the best point of entry for undergraduate and graduate students.

DeGrazia, Edward, and Roger K. Newman. Banned Films: Movies, Censors, and the First Amendment. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1982.

E-mail Citation

Overview of movie censorship that also includes a useful detailed account of 122 court cases involving the censorship of films in the United States from 1908 to 1981.

Hunnings, Neville March. Film Censors and the Law. London: Allen and Unwin, 1967.

E-mail Citation

The material here on the emergence and functioning of censorship in Britain is useful, but the book is most valuable for the chapters on the history and (then) contemporary functioning of censorship in other countries, including the United States, India, Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, and Soviet Russia.

Jowett, Garth. Moral Responsibility and Commercial Entertainment: Social Control in the United States Film Industry, 19071968. Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 10.1 (1990): 331.

DOI: 10.1080/01439689000260011E-mail Citation

Good overview of the censorship situation in the United States until the late 1960s by a significant media historian.

Randall, Richard. The Censorship of the Movies: The Social and Political Control of a Mass Medium. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.

E-mail Citation

Randalls book delineates the legal contexts and the procedures of state and city prior restraint censorship, as well as more informal mechanisms, as they operated in the 1960s. Written amidst the broad social, cultural, and political changes of the 1960s, the book was published the same year the Ratings Code went into effect.

Wittern-Keller, Laura. Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 19151981. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008.

E-mail Citation

Wittern-Keller outlines the judicial attitudes toward film censorship and the responses by individuals and the film industry as they sought to challenge legal restrictions.

Originally posted here:
Censorship - Cinema and Media Studies - Oxford ...

Francisco Martn Moreno is one of Mexicos best-known writers, and several of his more than two dozen historical novels have been national bestsellers. So I was surprised when he told me that his latest book a thinly disguised novel about President Andres Manuel Lpez Obrador is not getting any traction.

The novel, titled Ladrn de Esperanzas (Thief of Hopes), is about a fictional Mexican president named Antonio M. Lugo Olea. His initials are AMLO, just like those of Mexicos president.

In the book, his predecessor is another fictional character, Ernesto Pasos Narro. His initials, EPN, are the same as those of former Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto. The books cover shows a picture, taken from behind, of Mexicos real-life AMLO.

The novels AMLO is a well-meaning but messianic and somewhat unhinged leader who lies constantly, unaware of it most of the time. These are some of the same things critics say about Mexicos current leader.

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This is my first journalistic novel written in real time, Martn Moreno told me. And Im having a lot of problems to publicize it.

He said that he is having a hard time getting journalists to interview him about his new book, in sharp contrast to what happened when he launched previous work.

I must have sent about 60 letters to radio and TV presenters, and only four or five have invited me to their shows, he said. When I wrote my previous book, which dealt with the history of the henequn plant in Yucatan, they swamped me with interview requests.

Asked if he believes the AMLO government is trying to censor his book, Martn Moreno told me that, Its not censorship, but rather self-censorship. Journalists are panicking about this man. Fear is spreading at a phenomenal pace.

It may be fear of AMLO, fear of his supporters or simply fear of going against the current.

AMLO was elected with 53 percent of the vote a landslide by Mexican election standards and his popularity has skyrocketed since. A new poll by the daily Reforma this week shows that he has a 78 percent approval rate, with only 18 percent rating him unfavorably.

During his first 100 days in office, AMLO has, among other things, raised the minimum wage by 16 percent and sharply increased Social Security payments for seniors.

But most economists fear that AMLOs honeymoon wont last long, because as often happens with populist presidents the economy eventually will fizzle. The International Monetary Fund and most major financial institutions have already downgraded Mexicos growth forecasts for this year.

Much like President Trump, AMLO routinely attacks the press and derides his critical media as la prensa fifi, or the elitist media.

In recent days, he lashed out against the daily Reforma, accusing it falsely of silencing corruption scandals in the 1990s. Reforma also reported that its main stockholder has been summoned by tax authorities for questioning over a trivial tax bill, in apparent retaliation for the newspapers recent investigative reports.

Whats just as troubling, there are well-organized armies of AMLO supporters in social media who routinely attack and intimidate journalists who dare ask hard questions to the president, or who criticize him. A study by Mexicos Signa Lab media lab confirmed that this week, but said it could not determine whether these social media campaigns are spontaneous, or government-directed.

Perhaps as a result of these intimidation tactics, AMLOs daily press conferences have become a podium for laudatory statements masked as questions. Many of these pseudo-questions are posed by journalists who represent largely unknown media outlets.

All of these are ominous signs for Mexicos future. If there is a climate of intimidation against critical journalists at a time when AMLOs popularity is at 78 percent, what will happen when it drops to 30 percent or 40 percent, as it probably will once the president runs out of money to give wage increases?

Mexico still has a significant reserve of courageous journalists, but the danger is that they and novelists like Martn Moreno soon might be overshadowed and silenced.

At a time when Mexicos president has almost unprecedented powers including a huge majority in Congress an independent press may be the best hope to preserve a system of checks and balances. Without it, Mexico may soon have an imperial populist presidency.

Dont miss the Oppenheimer

Presenta TV show Sundays at 8 pm Miami time on CNN en Espaol. Twitter: @oppenheimera

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Is censorship making a comeback in Mexico? Its early yet ...

Internet censorship is the ability to restrict specific websites or online content from being viewed. It may come in the form of an edit, regulation, or law issued by the government. It could also occur privately is an ISP objects to the content that certain individuals wish to view.

The advantage of allowing internet censorship is that content which is violent, obscene, or dangerous can be immediately blocked. This protects children from inadvertently viewing content that could be scary or harmful to them, such as the murder and decapitation videos which have made their way to sites like Facebook and Twitter in recent years.

The disadvantage is obvious: internet censorship is a restriction on a persons ability to view the content they wish to see, when they wish to see it.

Here are some additional internet censorship pros and cons to discuss.

1. It creates the chance to set common sense limits. There are some things that just arent part of what a society would deem to be healthy. A simple search right now on an unfiltered public search can provide anyone with access to numerous videos that purport to show real murders in progress. High-profile cases, such as the murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward, were broadcast on-air and then a first-person video of the event made its way through social circles afterwards. Restricting this content sets a common-sense limit on the content that van be viewed.

2. It limits access to harmful activities. There are dark areas of the internet where anything goes right now. Access to illicit drugs, sex trafficking, human trafficking, and child pornography can be accessed with relative ease by those who seek out such things. By restricting content that can be accessed, it limits the opportunities that predators can create to reach out to find new victims.

3. It could lessen the impact of identity theft. One of the fastest growing crimes in the world today is identity theft. NBC News reports that more US citizens were victims of identity theft in 2016 than any year before. More than 15.4 million reports of identity theft were compiled by Javelin Strategy and Research, which reflects a 16% increase in the total number of reports from 2015 figures. Restricting content that would allow identity information to be easily shared could lessen the impact that identity theft causes to a society.

4. It may provide a positive impact on national security. Although hacking will occur no matter what internet censorship laws may be in place, by creating internet censorship regulations with strict and mandatory penalties for a violation, it could become possible to reduce the number of hacking incidents that occur. That could have a positive impact on national security because the restrictions would possibly prevent alleged incidents like what occurred during the 2016 US Presidential election.

5. It stops fake news. Claims of fake news increased dramatically in 2017. Fake news websites promote false reports for money through clicks because readers think the news is real. Internet censorship would provide another level of discernment which could possibly stop divisive incidents that are based on events that never occurred.

1. Who watches the watchers? Even if internet censorship is directly supervised and ethically maintained, someone somewhere is deciding on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable for society to see online. At some level, someone does not have anyone to whom they report regarding their censorship decisions. With that kind of power, one individual could influence society in whatever way they chose without consequence.

2. It stops information. Although fake information can be restricted through internet censorship, so can real information. According to the World Economic Forum, 27% of all internet users live in a country where someone has been arrested for content that they have shared, published, or simply liked on Facebook. 38 different countries made arrests based solely on social media posts in 2016.

3. It is a costly process. According to research from Darrell West, VP and Director of Governance Studies and the founding director of the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings, internet shutdowns cost countries $2.4 billion in 2015. The decision to cut connectivity in Egypt came at a cost of $90 million. Censoring content is costly and it will come at the expense of taxpayers.

4. It provides a negative economic impact. What happens if a business has their website blocked because it doesnt meet an arbitrary standard of goodness? Allowing the government or some other entity to declare what is good or bad for the internet can have a dramatic economic impact at the local level. If a business cannot promote themselves online or sell their goods on an e-commerce platform, then they are placed in a disadvantageous state compared to industry competitors who would be allowed to sell online.

5. It shifts where responsibilities lie. If the government is dictating what individuals can see online, then people are no longer as responsible for the decisions they make. It cedes that control over to the government. Once that control is ceded, it becomes easier to cede more control over responsibility because the action was normalized.

6. It prevents individuals from accessing a freedom of expression. A free internet allows individuals to post what they want. It gives them the chance to freely express their thoughts, opinions, and views. Laws may already exist in many jurisdictions that would allow for the prosecution of individuals who share illegal content already, such as child pornography, so placing additional restrictions would simply create another layer of bureaucracy.

7. A lack of truth leads to ignorance. In 1984 by George Orwell, people in this dystopian environment are kept under tight control so that specific societal results can occur. Once people in this society begin to discover love, they discover truth. That truth prevents them from living in ignorance. With internet censorship, there is a lack of truth which exists in such a policy. That means there is a societal ignorance in place that a ruling party could attempt to control.

8. It limits entrepreneurial opportunities. In a world of internet censorship, entrepreneurs would be forced to have their ideas approved by an oversight committee, board, or individual instead of pursuing the idea immediately on their own. If a business in the same industry as the entrepreneur has enough wealth or influence, they could potentially restrict the entrepreneur from pursuing their opportunity. Such an action would limit innovation in many sectors.

These internet censorship pros and cons show us that what can be used for good can also be used for selfish intent. Who do you think should determine if content is inappropriate? Should it be a government, an oversight committee, or yourself?

Continued here:
13 Internet Censorship Pros and Cons Vittana.org

For nearly as long as the written word has existed, it has been a target for censorship. Religion was the most frequently cited reason for the censorship of written works. In 14th century England, for example, reading the Wycliff Bible was forbidden by the clergy for fear that the translation had corrupted or misinterpreted the original text. In the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church placed Machiavellis The Prince on the Index of Prohibited Books in the banned absolutely category for its heretical content.

But book-banning isnt really an issue in the United States anymore, right? Wrong.

Literary works are still challenged, censored and banned for many different reasons. Books as varied as Judy Blumes Forever, Vladimir Nabokovs Lolita, and Maya Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings have been challenged by parents and school boards who deem certain sexual passages inappropriate for young people. Works such as Its Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman, among others, frequently face demands for removal from library shelves for their focus on gay/lesbian issues. And the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and the Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz, among others, have been challenged by dozens of parents, administrators, and clergy for their scary, violent or occult themes.

Written works on evolution have also faced censorship, as have books that represent race in a way that is deemed objectionable by certain groups.

Types of Objections against Books

Profanity: Books are often challenged for the language they contain, even though profanity is often used in literature to convey social or historical context, local dialect or simply to better depict reactions to real-life situations. Books such as Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut have been challenged or banned due to objections to profanity.

Sex: Books as varied as Toni Morrisons Beloved and Maureen Johnsons The Bermudez Triangle, among many others, have been challenged by parents and school boards who deem certain sexual passages inappropriate for young people. Works such as Its Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman, among others, face demands for removal for their frank discussion and focus on gay/lesbian issues.

Violence: Objections to violent content are often based on the idea that these works trivialize violence or desensitize readers to its effects. Books challenged on these grounds include One Fat Summer by Robert Lypsyte and Native Son by Richard Wright.

Religion: Religious grounds have long been cited as reasons for censoring books. Reading translations of the Bible was once forbidden. Today, parents and ministers often object to works which discuss topics such as sex and evolution or witchcraft or occult themes.

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Books - ncac.org