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YouTubeIn a federal lawsuit filed last week, a group of Jewish plaintiffs allege that San Francisco State University has systematically turned a blind eye toand in some instances actively facilitatedcensorship and harassment of Jewish students and speakers on the public university's campus. The lawsuit points, in particular, to the 2016 disruption of a speech by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, numerous incidents of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel speech on campus, as well as an incident in which the Jewish student organization Hillel was allegedly banned from a student fair.

Opinions about the lawsuit fall along predictable dividing lines. The editorial board of J., the Jewish News of Northern California, praised the suit and argued that the protesters at the Nir Barkat event had "trampled the free speech rights of Jewish students." On the other hand, Dima Khalidi of Palestine Legal called the Barkat protest "political speech that is protected by the First Amendment" and said that "the complaint is going to fail."

Both sides have a point. The lawsuit raises real concerns about the treatment of Jewish students at SFSU. But the plaintiffs seem to want it both ways: Even as the suit contends that SFSU is violating the free speech rights of Jewish students, it also demands that the university censor protected speech by Palestinian students and their allies, citing anti-Jewish harassment.

As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, "the freedom to speak and freedom to hear are inseparable; they are two sides of the same coin." If, as the lawsuit alleges, SFSU officials told campus police to "stand down" while anti-Israel protesters disrupted Nir Barkat's speech, the university may indeed have violated students' First Amendment rights to invite and hear a speaker of their choosing.

Video footage of Barkat's attempt to speak at SFSU last year shows protesters engaging in loud, sustained chanting while students attending the speech huddle around a seated Barkat in an attempt to hear him. While protest is indeed protected by the First Amendment (as is a normal level of "booing" and brief interruptions from the audience), the right to protest does not extend to the right to be so vocally disruptive, for such a prolonged period of time, that the speaker cannot be heard.

And if, as the suit alleges, the university allowed the Hillel student group to be excluded from tabling at a university-sponsored fair because of the organization's viewpoint, that too could constitute a First Amendment violation at a public university like SFSU.

Moving from the First Amendment to the harassment claims, some of the speech cited by the plaintiffs may have crossed the line from protected speech into unprotected threats, such as counter-protesters allegedly yelling "get out or we will kill you" at Jewish students participating in a Hillel-sponsored peace rally.

Other parts of the lawsuit, however, point to examples of clearly protected speech and expression as grounds for the claim that a "hostile environment" exists for Jewish students on campus. In alleging that the university has been deliberately indifferent to a racially hostile environment, the plaintiffs point to examples of constitutionally protected political expression such as posters featuring a picture of a dead baby with the caption "Made in IsraelPalestinian Children Meat, Slaughtered According to Jewish Rites Under American License," as well as students holding placards proclaiming "my heroes have always killed colonizers" and "resistance is not terrorism" alongside portraits of Leila Khaled, the first female airplane hijacker. It is not difficult to see why such speech would offend many students, but asking a government institution like SFSU to police this kind of political rhetoric in the name of preventing a "hostile environment" is a prescription for both First Amendment violations and political side-choosing.

In short: it's complicated. If the truth of the allegations is proven in court, the plaintiffs have some very real grievances about some of the university's conduct and, certainly, about what J. refers to as the "selective outrage" when it comes to the university's response to Jewish students on campus versus other students who claim to feel silenced or threatened. But in other ways, the suit goes too far, citing constitutionally protected political speech and expression as examples of harassment.

This fight should never have had to go to court in the first place. A university campus should be a place where people who disagree about important issues can discuss their differences openly, not a place where opposing views are shouted down, threats are tossed across protest lines, and both sides work to suppress the speech of their opponents.

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'Get Out or We Will Kill You': Jewish Students Allege Censorship and Harassment in Campus Lawsuit - Reason (blog)

Channel 7's logo on display at a digital fair. BBTV's Channel 7 and Channel 5 have set up their own censorship association, disgruntling the Advertising Association of Thailand. (Photo by Jiraporn Kuhakan)

The Advertising Association of Thailand (AAT) has asked BBTV's Channel 7 and Channel 5 to explain why they have established their own censorship association, given the waste of time and money that such a group would represent.

Having two standards of censorship presents additional expense and procedural hurdles for advertising agencies and brands and will also affect the ad industry as a whole, said AAT president On-Usa Lamliengpol.

She said the creation of a new censorship association led by Channel 7, Channel 5 and some digital TV operators, and without any obvious explanation, would result in a double standard for the ad industry.

Royal Thai Army Radio and Television Channel 5 is owned and operated by the army. Channel 7 officially is owned by Bangkok Broadcasting Television. It was originally acquired by the army in 1967.

"We urge these channels to explain this move clearly and as soon as possible," Ms On-Usa said, adding that otherwise it will lead to complications for the ad industry.

The AAT has been operating for more than 23 years. The association is a non-profit coordinator between ad agencies and digital TV operators and allows the industry to run smoothly, Ms On-Usa said.

The Radio and Television Broadcasting Professional Federation and the Association of Digital Television Broadcasting also voiced displeasure with the establishment of the second standard. The entities pushing for the second standard must stop or at least provide clarification, they said.

Ms On-Usa said the censorship procedure will run as usual on the AAT's side, but brands and agencies must know that they will run into trouble if their TV spots are assessed by both associations.

"Ad agencies need to help the AAT clarify the issue for their own sake," she said.

AAT vice-president Niwat Wongprompreeda said that while he does not know Channel 7's and Channel 5's intentions, he knows that having another censorship commission will complicate matters.

Agencies and brands will struggle with the rising costs of TV ad production, Mr Niwat said, since they still need to broadcast on Channel 7 -- the most influential channel in the country. He said Channel 7 receives 30-40% of total TV ad expenditure.

The censorship process normally has no cost. It takes one day to know if a TV spot is rejected or not; if it is, it must be modified and presented again to the association for approval.

Palakorn Somsuwan, assistant managing director for programming and advertising at Bangkok Broadcasting & TV Co, the operator of Channel 7, said the new censorship association will uplift censorship standards and benefit TV operators by creating stronger networks.

On the other hand, Col Natee Sukonrat, vice-chairman of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said media regulations are sensitive and whether the self-censorship measure established by the private sector will help the NBTC to regulate the media industry will need to be looked into in close detail.

"The NBTC supports the latest establishment of a censorship association, as it will help create stronger measures for broadcasting suitable ads in the future," Col Natee said.

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Advertisers protest as military TV sets separate censorship - Bangkok Post

Everyone whos visited the internet has seen the ugliness that a websites comment section can host. Oftentimes, hate, slander and generally ignorant comment threads will bury genuine, insightful and civil discussion, leaving readers frustrated and hostile to say nothing of the irrelevant trolling, name-calling and spam that will just as often flood the page. How is a news organization meant to combat this? Some, like the New York Times, will strictly moderate each comment and leave articles open for comments for only a brief period. NPR shut down their comment sections in August of 2016, electing to move the discussion over to their myriad of social media platforms, as has Business Insider.

Although approaches such as these may hide inflammatory and discriminatory posts, they come at the cost of curbing free and open expression, as well as weakening the channels for direct communication between content creators and their audiences. While comment sections can easily become choked with vile posts, they still offer an open platform for the exchange of ideas, and the unfiltered expression of the audiences honest reactions to the content. The comment sections primary purpose is to enable conversation, and while its understandable that content creators would only want to see civil discussion, teetering at the edges of censorship is not the way to go.

Ultimately, inflammatory comments are an unavoidable aspect of the internet. Rather than shut down comment sections altogether, or constantly regulate each and every comment, an alternative solution is for websites to ask their users upfront to adhere to a loose set of community guidelines aimed at encouraging an environment of relevant and open discussion. Its inevitable that some users will still post comments that others will not like, but instead of silencing those users, the website can, in addition to maintaining community guidelines, give each user the tools to block or hide posts which they find objectionable. A solution like this gives users more power over what they can see, and allows for free discussions without moderators having to constantly regulate or ban anyone.

The existence of abusive and hateful comments can be credited to the nature of the internet itself as an open and wild platform that can never be truly, completely controlled. Anyone can put anything out there, and while this isnt an inherently bad aspect, many people use that power for malicious ends, particularly in comment sections. As much as an article or videos comment section allows for interaction between the creator and the audience, it also allows for the audience members to be as spiteful and confrontational as they please. It would be easy to chalk this up to the anonymity that being online affords you: Some websites allow commenters to post completely anonymously, but even if they dont, you can make an account with a fake name and profile, then flame and troll all you want with little to no repercussions. Even if you get banned, you can just make a new profile ad infinitum.

There may not be any absolute blanket solution to alleviate this issue. However, one way of addressing it may be to limit or remove anonymity as an option for posting online, and require users to log into and use their Facebook profile to post comments, as some websites currently do. This could cause users to be more careful about their posts, since it can be tied to their real identities. There are plenty of comments online that users would not be willing to say with their real name attached to it, since they would be held accountable and possibly get in trouble for what they say. Potentially, this could serve to reduce the amount of abuse and venom that we see online.

However, this solution could also be ineffectual. The problem is that anyone can make a fake social media profile, Facebook profiles included. Besides that, despite the added accountability, people make poor decisions with their personal social media all the time. Consider the Harvard freshmen who recently got their admission offers revoked for posting obscene memes and jokes on Facebook. And besides them, there is no shortage of examples of people getting fired or arrested for posting things that can be considered unprofessional, threatening or illegal. Consider also that Facebook, Twitter and other social media are no haven from toxic and idiotic comments in general. While one would think that having your real name and reputation at stake for what you post online would serve to curb abusive and hateful content, it seems that vitriolic posts and comments will always crop up here or there.

Another aspect to weigh is whether there are situations where anonymity can be more valuable than accountability. For some users, remaining anonymous is the only way in which they feel comfortable expressing how they truly feel about certain sensitive topics, or to talk about their personal experiences without fear of compromising their privacy or that of their friends or family. However, just because there are some legitimate uses for anonymity online doesnt discount that many users also abuse their anonymity to harass, stalk and bother others. Although having your identity tied to your online presence may not always deter users from posting hateful content, complete anonymity and the lack of accountability also allows plenty of users to harass and attack others all they want, meaning that neither of these extremes can work for keeping comment sections civil and constructive.

Dealing with online comments is a tricky business. Comment sections can be informative and spark thoughtful conversation, but are also home to a myriad of spam and worthless and generally terrible posts by users who have nothing better to do. However, it is not the job of a websites moderator to obsessively monitor each and every comment or rule with an iron fist. Instead, sites that allow comments should establish guidelines for the kind of content they want to see, and then give the the users the power to respond as they will. In order to facilitate a free and open discourse, the policing of comments should only be kept to a bare minimum, such as removing posts which incite or threaten violence or contain other illegal content. Free expression is essential for intellectual conversation, and maintaining that means coexisting with speech that not all users will appreciate.

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Fixing toxic comment sections requires light moderation and guidelines, not censorship - Highlander Newspaper

Donald TrumpDonald TrumpUS, South Korea can bury the trade barrier hatchet this week OPINION: Trump's right GOP health bill is mean, mean, mean Pelosi on criticism of leadership: 'This is such a small item, it isn't about me' MOREs Twitter account manages to create controversy even when hes not tweeting. Over the last few weeks, many legal academics haveaccusedthe President of violating the First Amendment by blocking some critics from posting on @realDonaldTrumps timeline. Their argument and a recent Supreme Court decision on free speech and social media create an even stronger case that all government accounts on social media with companies with discriminatory speech codes are unconstitutional.

Earlier this month, attorneys with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia Universitywroteto the president on behalf of two Twitter users who were blocked by Trumps account.They argued the account is a designated public forum for citizens to respond to the President. Knight Institute director Jameel Jaffer explained, Having opened this forum to all comers, the president cant exclude people from it merely because he dislikes what theyre saying.

Last week, The Supreme Court unanimously invalidated a state law barring registered sex offenders from social media inPackingham v. North Carolina. The case strengthens the concept that social media is a public forum. Justice Anthony Kennedys opinion noted that a fundamental principle of the First Amendment is that all persons have access to places where they can speak and listen. He described "social media in particular" as one of the most "important places" for Americans to express these rights.His opinion emphasizes how citizens can interact with their public officials on social media,noting on Twitter, users can petition their elected representatives and otherwise engage with them in a direct manner.

This ruling does not necessarily prohibit President Trump from blocking his Twitter antagonists.UCLA law professor and Washington Post legal blogger Eugene Volokharguesthat the Trump is not acting as a government official with his private account, as opposed to the official @POTUS handle. However, he acknowledges it is unsettled law and ultimately the question is whether Trump is acting as Trump-the-man and not Trump-the-government-official in running.

Whether or not the @realDonaldTrump can block accounts is an interesting, but relatively trivial, issue. However, these recent cases could have a far more consequences for Twitter and Facebooks speech policies. Both companies prohibit hate speech, even when not accompanied with harassment or threats. These policies would be unconstitutional if enforced by the government.

While Twitter and Facebook are private companies, the state effectively adopts their unconstitutional speech restrictions when government agencies and public employees conduct official business on the platforms. Conservatives have accused Facebook and Twitter of suspending accounts for taking merely taking strong stances against refugee admissions and illegal immigration. Congressmen haveheldTwitter town halls on these very topics, which effectively excluded citizens who Twitter kicked off. Even if these complaints are unfounded and the platforms only censored extremist and Alt-Right accounts, those users still have the constitutional right to interact with their government officials.

While the First Amendment rarely applies to non-state actors, the government cannot delegate censorship to a private party. For example, a church or private club have the right to kick out its members for advocating legalized abortion. However, if a city council rented a church or clubhouse for a town hall, the city could not prohibit the pro-choicer from attending the meeting and advocating his policies on the grounds that it is just following a private organizations policies. Either everyone would be allowed to attend the town hall, or the city would have to find another venue.

Mark Epstein is an attorney and legal policy advisor forThe American Cause, a nonprofit conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Should government 'outsource' censorship to Facebook and Twitter ... - The Hill (blog)

We all know the Chinese government is keeping a close eye on what content can be found on the Internet. China is not exactly known for freedom of speech or making information easily accessible. Various broadcasters and media platforms have been put on notice regarding broadcasts putting China or its government in a negative spotlight. This is another clear example of how censorship is enforced by oppressive governments.

It is understandable governments are not too happy when negative press gains mainstream traction. Reading about how a government official did X or Y wrong is not fun, even though such information deserved to be shared. Contrary to what the Chinese government may want to believe, negative information deserves to be known by the public as well. However, if it is up to government officials, that situation will come to a halt very soon.

More specifically, the Chinese government has warned local broadcasters regarding what they can and cannot share with the public. Any negative news regarding China or its government will be banned from now on. This appears to be a rather drastic decision, as this is a clear example of censorship. According to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television, airing the dirty laundry violated local regulations.

It has to be said, this is quite an interesting turn of events. According to the government, all of the notified broadcasters share large amounts of programs with the public. However, a lot of this information doesnt comply with national rules. Moreover, there are seemingly more broadcasts regarding negative discussions about public affairs. This seems to indicate the local government isnt doing the job to the best of their abilities, yet no one is supposed to know about these things, it seems.

It is believed the agency will take measures: to shut down these programs airing the dirty laundry of China and its government. Considering the agency contacted both traditional and online broadcasters, it remains to be seen how this new rule will be executed. It is possible some broadcasters may effectively lose their license or suffer from major government repercussions, including fees and potentially even jail time.

It is not the first time we see such drastic actions taken by the Chinese government regarding censorship and freedom of speech. The country ranked in the bottom 5 countries on the 2017 World Press Freedom Index. It is evident freedom of speech and China will never be two peas in a pod, and one can only expect harsh measures like this to become even more common in the future. In fact, the government has recently been granted more control over the Internet and broadcasts in May of this year.

Interestingly enough, it looks as if some broadcasters are taking this new guideline to heart. Both Weibo and Acfun have made a post on their official Weibo accounts to state how they will enforce stricter content management. For Chinese companies, complying with new regulations is a top priority. No one wants to lose a license or face severe punishment for disregarding the rules. Moreover, Weibo will only allow users to broadcast if they have the proper government license to do so.

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Chinese Government Enforces Censorship by Targeting Local Broadcasters - The Merkle