Mediaboss Marketing

Photo credit: Tumisu, via Pixababy.

Editors note: See also, The Rise of Totalitarian Science, 2022 Edition.

A leading science organization, the Royal Society (Britains equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences), has put out a reportdiscouraging social media censorship,with special reference to theCOVID-19pandemic:

The Royal Society, the U.K.s academy of sciences, published a study of online scientific and health misinformation Wednesday, investigating its root causes and brainstorming possible solutions. The scientists concluded that censoring content deemed to be misinformation is often harmful and antithetical to the principles of scientific inquiry

The report found that online censorship risked pushing misinformation underground and off of major social media platforms, where it is less likely to be exposed to countervailing opinions. Censorship also risks removing or suppressing content that may be true or helpful to the evolving scientific understanding of certain concepts.

The Royal Society report seeks to establisha rational basis for public trustin science:

While misinformation isnt a new problem and uncertainty and debate are intrinsic parts of sciencethe internet has drastically magnified the speed and scale at which poor quality information can spread.

The report highlights how online misinformation on scientific issues, like climate change or vaccine safety, can harm individuals and society. It stresses that censoring or removing inaccurate, misleading and false content, whether its shared unwittingly or deliberately, is not a silver bullet and may undermine the scientific process and public trust. Instead, there needs to be a focus on building resilience against harmful misinformation across the population and the promotion of a healthy online information environment

The media release adds,

In the early days of the pandemic, science was too often painted as absolute and somehow not to be trusted when it corrects itself, but that prodding and testing of received wisdom is integral to the advancement of science, and society.

This is important to bear in mind when we are looking to limit scientific misinformations harms to society. Clamping down on claims outside the consensus may seem desirable, but it can hamper the scientific process and force genuinely malicious content underground.

Heresthe open-access report.

The Royal Societys stance is wise. For one thing, terms like misinformation (and fake news) have become manipulative terms of art, to justify cracking down on unpopular (but not disproven or even disprovable) viewpoints. Trust in science, as they emphasize, should berationaltrust, alert to evidence and aware of the possibility that strongly held views can be mistaken.

But there is another factor to consider. If we look at for example the COVID news vortex, the difficulty is thatmuch information that was later thought to need correction was in fact purveyed by official sources,not by conspiracy sites or social media.

Consider the case ofAnthony Fauci. One freelance writer startedkeeping track ofhis rapid shifts in opinion:

To start, we need to focus on Dr. Faucis perspective on the virus itself and its risk to the United States. In late January 2020, Fauci said that COVID was a very, very low risk to the United States, Holden wrote. I think it goes without saying that his perspective has evolved since.

One big, obvious area of flipping is around the benefits of wearing a mask. Dr. Fauci originally said that masks werent effective & publicly encouraged Americans not to buy them (guidance he doesnt regret). Now even vaccinated people need to wear masks, Holden wrote to accompany images of various headlines showing changing positions on masks.

Those are hardly the only examples.

Official sources, includingDr. Fauci,have, at times, attempted to persuade the public that the claim that the COVID virus originated at a Level 4 virus lab in Wuhan was just aconspiracy theory.But for anyonefamiliar with the circumstances,there was no reason to dismiss the idea. If there was any conspiracy, it was on the part ofrespected, major institutions:

From almost the moment the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in the city of Wuhan, the medical-research establishment in Washington and London insisted that the virus had emerged naturally. Only conspiracy theorists, they said, would give credence to the idea that the virus had escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Now a string of unearthed emails the most recent being a batch viewed by the House Oversight and Reform Committee and referred to in itsJanuary 11, 2022 letter is making it seem increasingly likely that there was, in fact, a conspiracy, its aim being to suppress the notion that the virus had emerged from research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed by Anthony Fauci. The latest emails dont prove such a conspiracy, but they make it more plausible, for two reasons: because the expert virologists therein present such a strong case for thinking that the virus had lab-made features and because of the wholly political reaction to this bombshell on the part of Francis Collins, then-director of the National Institutes of Health.

Yet shortly afterward, the lead virologist suddenly proclaimed a different view:

In a February 4, 2020 email, he derided ideas about a lab leak as crackpot theories that relate to this virus being somehow engineered with intent and that is demonstrably not the case.

But Wade notes,

A striking feature of the excerpts released in the committees January 11, 2022 letter is that the virologists had little doubt that the virus bore the fingerprints of manipulation.

The rest of his article details how the United States came to be involved in the Wuhan research.

But for the rest of us, the key question should be: In this atmosphere, do we really want Big Tech companies deciding what constitutes a crackpot theory and then censoring information that is currently unpopular with government?

Its not just news-dominant COVID where this sort of thing happens. Recently, a court reporter at National Public Radio (NPR) appears to have dropped a fake news story on the public concerning face masks on the U.S. Supreme Court. Theclaim, made by NPRs Nina Totenberg apparently relying on a single anonymous source was that Justice Gorsuch didnt mask despite Justice Sotomayors COVID worries, leading her to telework instead of sit at the bench.

That led to a wild flurry of denunciations of Gorsuch on social media, as might be expected. The only problem is, the claim apparentlywasnt true.Not only did the two justices concerned deny the story but the chief justice, Roberts, discredited the story as well.

Reliance on a single, anonymous source is the sort of thing one might expect of an ignorable Facebook page or discreditable blog. So if NPR turns out to be doing it, there is certainly something unjust about targeting a social media account with vastly less reach and prominence.

There is no a priori reason to believe that censorship targets are chosen simply because they are especially wrong or dangerous. Politicized situations simply do not work that way.

Considering the current high state of public anxiety aboutCOVID-19,the consequences of attempts to control misinformation could lay the foundations for a totalitarian state. Consider the results ofa recent poll:

Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. Only 27% of all voters including just 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters favor criminal punishment of vaccine critics.

Yet if we look at the actual history of official statements about anything to do with COVID, the proposal that these respondents support would merely ensure that, should government prove wrong about something once again, anyone who talks about it will face fines or imprisonment. And thats the signature of a totalitarian state.

View post:
Royal Society: Don't Censor Misinformation; It Makes Things Worse - Discovery Institute

From left, Joe Biden and Pope Francis appear together in Rome.

Column By Melissa Martin

All aboard. The censorship train is pulling out of the station. And Pope Francis is tooting the whistle.

Pope Francis recently commented that spreading fake news and disinformation on COVID-19 and vaccines, including by Catholic media, is a violation of human rights. He met with a fact-checking network of Catholic journalists, as reported by The Associated Press.

The people will believe what the media tells them to believe. George Orwell

But what if the fact-checkers are working for the shadowy side? And their facts are fiction. Separating facts from fearmongering can be difficult when the powerful are propagating misinformation.

Oops! Anthony Fauci and his comrades may cancel my trip ticket. Substitute censorship for disinformation and the story changes. Why do the powerful want to discard freedom to choose? The railway engineer operating the train does not decide the destination of the passengers.

You cannot stop misinformation any more than you can stop gossip in a democratic society. Ask citizens in China or North Korea and theyll speak a different narrative as they tell tales of torture for speaking against dictators. Discriminating against the unvaccinated is the talk of the town in D.C.

Because to take away a mans freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.Madeline LEngle

But misinformation about the coronavirus is not my point. The crux of the matter is a clampdown of freedom of speech by those with political power, religious power, media power, or any type of power. Name any calamity it does not matter. Our freedoms are never to be taken away ever. Freedom is our foundation. Crack the foundation and the house begins to wobble. Stability must not be sacrificed by leaders or citizens.

What happens when mainstream media is muzzled? What happens when the group/troop in power decides what citizens can and cannot read or watch? What happens when people believe that a crisis can be used to usurp freedoms?

Its called the fear factor. Open a dictionary. Fearmongering is the action of intentionally trying to make people afraid of something when this is not necessary or reasonable. Fear is a tactic used to control the masses. Open a history book.

Presidents, politicians, preachers, or popes are granted the authority to tell free citizens what they can and cannot read or discuss during a pandemic concerning opposing viewpoints. Citizens are neither stupid nor nave. Its called using critical thinking skills to converse, debate, learn and decide.

Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.Robert A. Heinlein

Melissa Martin, Ph.D., is a therapist, an opinion-editorial columnist, and author. She lives in Ohio.

Please follow and like us:

Continue reading here:
Editorial: Pope jumps on the censorship train - The Gila Herald

NCAC Objects to Removal of Students LGBTQ Artwork in Georgia School

The National Coalition Against Censorship is deeply concerned that officials at Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School in Athens, Georgia, removed student artwork celebrating gay rights. Media reports indicate that multiple school officials compared displaying a rainbow flag to displaying a swastika in the classroom after demanding a teacher remove artwork students had created on their own time.

Whether administrators removed the artwork because they disagreed with the particular social views expressed or because they disapprove of any student expression of political or social views, this silencing of student expression is inconsistent with freedom of expression principles and violates the public schools First Amendment obligations. NCAC has written to the Board of Education to urge the district to return the artwork to public display, apologize to the student and take steps to ensure that similar acts of art censorship do not occur in the future.

The removal of the students artwork raises serious First Amendment concerns. More than fifty years ago, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), the Supreme Court declared that students have the right to express themselves on school grounds as long as they do not substantially disrupt the activities of the school. The Court reconfirmed that principle just months ago in Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B. L. (2021). Mere disagreement with students points of view obviously doesnt meet that standard. Students must be permitted to express their political and personal beliefs in school, including in their artwork.

To avoid the recurrence of such incidents in the future, NCAC urges the District to instruct its employees on the free expression rights of students and to take further steps to ensure that those rights will be respected in the future.

View NCACs Youth Censorship Database and Map

Read the full letter to the school district below. Click here for a full screen view:

See the rest here:
NCAC Objects to Removal of LGBTQ Artwork in Georgia School - Blogging Censorship

Willie Carver| Opinion Contributor

I have been a public school teacher since 2009, and Ive seen plenty of silencing. Im not proud to say that Ive even partaken in some, when I thought I had to keep quiet myself just to keep my job. But the censorship persists: I have been chastised directly by male colleagues for being too feminine, Ive been pulled aside by a principal who said that if I chose to be open about being gay I would be crucified and undefended, and, most recently, Ive been bluntly told that people felt that my LGBTQ student advocacy lending a listening ear, or sponsoring student-led clubs was being shoved down their throats.

Still, none of this comes close to the silencing we are now experiencing in the Kentucky classroom. It is so bad that the future of free speech and our students empathy and self-image hang in the balance.

Whereas most of my silencing has been behind closed doors, whispered only to me, this new censorship is boldly proclaimed as moral or even best practice. And it goes far beyond squelching LGBTQ experiences: It silences huge swaths of people and entire eras of history by banning discussion of anything related to race.

All of this is framed in the controversy over critical race theory, a term hyper-conservative politicians have hijacked to try and censor the painful truths of our nations history. Although CRT is a concept limited to university-level study, that has not stopped the introduction of legislation that is preventing K-12 educators from teaching honest history or discussing its connection to systemic racism and discrimination today.

Censoring tactics like the Krause list, a list of 850 books Texas state Rep. Matt Krause wants schools to track because of content related to sexuality, race, or anything that may cause discomfort or psychological distress, and Kentucky House Bills 14 and 18, which hope to outright ban certain topics and books from schools under the guise ofavoiding division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social classor class of people are causing major damage to free speech. In the schools themselves, local decrees, made in fear of these proposed bills, are just as damaging, if not more so, due to their vague nature. My schools English department has been instructed by multiple administrators in the last year not to teach anything racial, and our superintendent has requested anything sexual or racial be discussed with administrators before being presented to students.

The people behind this censorship are firmly rooted in the current zeitgeist, and their views are shared by administrators across the country: They believe the presence of race, genderand LGBTQ identities to be potentially problematic or disruptive. That silences teachers who want to be team players or just keep their jobs.

Given these circumstances, how willing is a teacher to read excerpts from The Bluest Eye? Not very. Why? Because Black author Toni Morrison describes racism through the eyes of a little Black girl. Might the same teacher read The Great Gatsby? Yes. Why? Because white author F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on privileged white people. Herein lies the issue.

The censors say they are offended that race should matter at all. But if we eliminate all discussion of race which censors equate with all discussion of anything Black we whitewash the entire curriculum and erase the students in our classrooms, our own communities, and history itself. We deny our students the tools they need to see the world clearly.

More: Kentucky lawmakers file dozens of education bills each year. Ones to watch in 2022

I worry most about the students. In a system that disincentivizes even references to race, gender, or LGBT identities, in which two-thirds of the books on Krauses list are LGBTQ-centered and one-tenth discusses racism, how can students learn about themselves as part of a system? And how ourwhite, straight, cisgender students to learn about the experiences of people who are different from them experiences that are, essentially, illegalized in schools?

The First Amendment ensures that freedom of speech may not be abridged, and our understanding of speech has evolved tremendously since its writing. Legally, speech has been expanded to mean actions, workand even the free use of money by corporations. Academically, we also understand that speech involves the opportunity to listen: Hearing and reading are essential and fundamental aspects of free speech. Censorship denies students this very right: to hear someone talk about themselves, to know more about the human experience, to better understand their place in relation to each other, to partake in the sharing of the marketplace of ideas.

I urge teachers, administrators and stakeholders to become aware of the extent to which curricula include people of color and LGBTQ people, and I urge them to speak up when voices would silence that inclusion. I fully support legislation and am thankful for advocacy by groups like the American Federation of Teachers that guarantee and fight for students rights to access voices in their classroom regardless of their gender, sexuality, raceor political beliefs and that protect those teachers who share them. I believe strongly that when any of us is not allowed to be heard, all our voices are threatened.

Willie Carver teaches French and English at Montgomery County Schools in Mount Sterling, KY. He is the 2022 Kentucky Teacher of theYear.

Interested in submitting an op-ed or guest column?

Read tips here: How to submit a guest opinion column or op-ed to The Courier Journal

Read this article:
Hyper conservative politicians have hijacked critical race theory to try and censor painful truths | Opinion - Courier Journal

Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Japanese politician, writer, and former Governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara passed away this morning at 89 following a relapse of pancreatic cancer. He is remembered as an extremist, ultranationalist, xenophobe, and censor.

Ishihara was born in 1933 and rose to popularity as an author. While still in college, he was awarded one of the nations most prestigious literary awards, the Akutagawa Prize, for his novel Season of the Sun (published as Season of Violence in English). He entered politics in 1968 following his reporting on the Vietnam War.

Ishihara joined Japans Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955. The party is broadly conservative and nationalistic, though Ishihara would define his own extremist ideology under no uncertain terms as a rising star in the party and the governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012.

As Crunchyroll reports, his views range from xenophobia towards Japans neighbors to war crime denialism to homophobia. He was also closely involved in Tokyos bid to host the Olympic Games as governor and then as Chairman of the Japanese Olympic Committee.

And in his last of four terms as governor, Ishihara infamously stoked tension with China by pushing the LDP to stake claims in the East China Sea and notably amending the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths to expand the governments control over the publishing industry. Despite widespread opposition to the bill from publishers and writers, the bill passed and has been enforced since 2011.

While in office, Ishihara split from the LDP, forming a faction of far-right politicians under the banner of the Sunrise Party (named for his novel). After he left office, the party would undergo several splits and mergers, all of which have dissolved in the years since. He retired following a lost election in 2014.

The Japan Times reports former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, another controversial conservative figure, praised the late politician.

He is survived by his four sons.

Read the original:
Former Tokyo Governor, Infamous for Manga Censorship, Passes Away - We Got This Covered