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One thing weve learned over the past three years of ever-tightening social media censorship is that where one tech giant goes, the others often follow.

Just look at the mass-ban of Infowars that occurred last September. At the urging of CNN and others, one Silicon Valley company after another dropped the controversial independent media outlet from their platforms. First Apple, then Facebook, then Spotify, then YouTube, then Twitter most of these in a 48-hour window.

Its a tech censorship domino effect. Remember that these companies are beset by constant pressure from left-wing advocacy organizations, from the mainstream media, and from their own far-left employees to censor and blacklist the right. When one company buckles, those forces have the ammunition they need to force other companies to buckle too.

Apple did something! Why arent we doing something too?

Thats probably how the conversation went among Facebook employees in the window between Apples ban of Infowars and Facebooks. Thus the domino effect began.

This time its Facebook raising the bar of censorship, with its introduction of politically motivated link-banning. Not only have they banned Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones personal account, but theyve also promised to delete any links to Infowars that appear on the platform, and ban anyone who tries to post them too often.

This is a formula not just for banning high-profile political targets, but masses of their supporters as well. Its a tool for culling the anti-establishment grassroots.

The second thing Facebook has done is set a public precedent for targeting individuals not just for alleged violations of the terms of service on their part, but also on the basis of their connections to banned figures.

According tothe Verge, a Facebook representative explained that one factor in yesterdays bans was the fact that the banned individuals had appeared in videos or praised people like Gavin McInnes and Tommy Robinson, who have previously been banned by the platform.

In other words, its not just posting links. If you praise the wrong person, pose for a selfie with them, or worse appear in a video with them you could be banned too.

This is censorship on a new scale, censorship Facebook-style. The platforms slogan was once connect the world now its using its knowledge of those connections to censor not just individuals, but entire social networks and movements.

The only question is, will other companies now follow suit? Will independent personalities on YouTube be banned for interviewing the wrong person? If you invite Alex Jones on your Periscope channel, will that be banned too? What about Amazon, Discord, Spotify? Game streaming platform Twitch is already ahead of the curve, having a person banned from Twitch on your Twitch stream can result in your own banning.

Remember, this is far-left Silicon Valley were talking about. You can practically hear the employees of those companies, berating their upper management.

Facebook took a stand against hate speech! Why arent we?

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. You can follow himon Twitter,Gab.aiandadd him on Facebook.Email tips and suggestions toallumbokhari@protonmail.com.

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Bokhari: Beware the Big Tech Censorship Domino Effect ...

Randall Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

In HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press), the constitutional scholar Nadine Strossen recalls the first time she was subjected to an anti-Semitic slur. Although she was a well-educated young adult when targeted, she was nonetheless stunned into silence. That did not last long. Strossen later became a leading champion of freedom of expression. She has served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991 to 2008) and has persistently propounded the key tenet of engaged pluralism More speech! against the reflexive upshot of fear and disgust Ban it! Now she has come forward with a splendid, accessible, instructive book that could not be more timely.

Strossen argues that, except in tightly defined circumstances, it is a mistake to attempt to deploy the coercive force of the government to eliminate so-called hate speech speech that expresses hostility, detestation, contempt, or any related animus against individuals or groups. She accepts governmental suppression of this category of speech in an emergency, when there is no opportunity for deliberation or counter-speech, or when a speaker is directly threatening or harassing an individual. She resists suppression, however, when the basis for it is a conclusion that the type of speech in question is too hurtful, too vicious, or too loathsome to allow.

She acknowledges, quoting the Supreme Court, that speech is powerful, that it can stir people to action and inflict great pain. She concedes that malevolent expression can scald sensibilities and intimidate the vulnerable. She insists, however, that the cure of censorship is worse than the disease of hate speech. Even worse than speechs potential power to harm individuals and society, she maintains, is governments potential power to do likewise, by enforcing hate speech laws. Predictably, this elastic power will be used to silence dissenting ideas, unpopular speakers, and disempowered groups.

Continue reading here:
Is the Cure of Censorship Better than the Disease of Hate ...

Midway through the most recent episode of The Good Fight, a legal drama that deals with Trump-era politics, a scene depicting a confrontation between lawyers and their clients abruptly stops. Shortly after, for about eight seconds, a black screen flashes the words, CBS HAS CENSORED THIS CONTENT.

Some viewers saw the message as satire, just part of the shows irreverent approach to current events, Michelle King, one of the showrunners, said in an interview on Tuesday.

Others, Ms. King said, took it as the producers had intended: literally.

The show, which runs on the CBS All Access streaming channel, and is a spinoff of The Good Wife, often breaks from its plot for an animated musical short that digs into controversial political issues of the day with an explanatory style similar to Schoolhouse Rock! A theme of last Thursdays episode was American companies that want to do business in China and the pressures they face to appease Chinese government censors. An animated short was created on that same theme.

But the short was pulled from the show at the request of CBS about two weeks before it was scheduled to stream, said Ms. King, who created the show with her husband, Robert King.

Jonathan Coulton, the songwriter who makes the shorts, said in an interview that this particular video started with the fact that The Good Wife had been banned in China, most likely because of an episode that showed a Chinese dissident character being tortured. (The spinoff The Good Fight has not been banned.)

Mr. Coulton said the animated short included a host of references to topics that have been censored on the internet in China. Those include Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that is repressed by the Chinese government; Tiananmen Square, a reference to the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989; Winnie-the-Pooh, to whom Chinas president, Xi Jinping, is often compared; and the letter N, used by critics of the recent change to the Chinese Constitution that lets Mr. Xi stay in power indefinitely.

It was a little bit like poking the bear, Mr. Coulton said. They had gotten approval all along, and at the last minute, a couple of weeks before, they got word that they couldnt put it in the show.

In a statement, CBS All Access said: We had concerns with some subject matter in the episodes animated short. This is the creative solution that we agreed upon with the producers. A spokeswoman declined to comment further.

The New Yorker first reported the details of CBSs decision to censor the animated short.

Ms. King said she and her husband were taken aback by what they called CBSs highly unusual decision, because of how much controversial material the network normally allows in the show and its musical shorts. The shorts have previously delivered tutorials on neo-Nazi frog memes, Russian troll farms and how Congress could impeach President Trump.

Ms. King said that she and her husband initially told CBS that they would quit the show if the song was pulled but that they eventually agreed on inserting a message saying that the company had censored it.

We love the show, and we love the cast, she said, One doesnt want to walk away from something that is so creatively fulfilling.

Mr. Coulton said that he was told that CBS had concerns for the safety of its employees in China if the segment were included. CBS also has a Chinese audience, and when releasing content that is critical of China, American entertainment companies often have to weigh the risk of having their shows or movies blocked in the country.

Just before the censorship message, in fact, the shows characters discuss a fictional tech companys decision to appease Chinese censors. The company, called ChumHum, is engaged in a secret project to build a customized search engine for China. (Google was said last year to be considering such a product.)

Customized? As in it allows China to censor its content? one of the characters says.

A ChumHum executive responds: We dont like to call it censoring. It just obeys the laws of the land. Seconds afterward, the show cut to its brief censored message.

Mr. Coulton said he bore no ill will toward CBS, understanding that as a large multinational corporation, it had some tough choices to make. Still, the whole situation is the definition of irony, he said.

The song ends with me saying, I hope this song is banned in China, Mr. Coulton said. Now itll never get the chance.

See original here:
CBS Censors a Good Fight Segment. Its Topic Was Chinese ...

BEIJING (AP) For three years, Chen Chun published articles on his public WeChat account touching on politics, philosophy and current affairs subjects that are often censored on Chinese social media.

More recently, the writer in southern China has focused on the countrys growing #MeToo movement. He drew attention to several sexual assault cases, and collected money for victims families.

Yet it was only after Chen advocated support for Jingyao Liu, a woman who accused online shopping giant JD.com founder Richard Liu of rape in Minnesota, that his account was permanently shut down.

WeChat informed Chen this week that his account could no longer be used because it shared an online petition in support of Jingyao Liu which violated regulations. Five other accounts that were circulating the petition with the hashtag #HereForJingyao have also been disabled in recent days.

This is a pretty big case, Chen told The Associated Press. Its quite meaningful because in China we havent yet had a case that reaches this level.

Billionaire Richard Liu is the most high-profile Chinese businessperson to be publicly accused of sexual assault. University of Minnesota student Jingyao Liu alleges in a lawsuit filed in Minneapolis last month that the 46-year-old internet tycoon forced himself upon her in his vehicle and later raped her at her apartment last summer.

The two Lius are not related. Richard Liu is also known by his Chinese name, Liu Qiangdong.

Richard Liu was initially arrested on suspicion of felony rape, but prosecutors announced in December that he would not face criminal charges because the case had profound evidentiary problems. His defense attorneys said at the time that his arrest was based on a false claim.

Jingyao Liu was 21 years old when the alleged attack took place, according to the lawsuit. The Associated Press does not generally name alleged victims of sexual assault without their consent, but the law firm representing her said she agreed to be named.

She is seeking damages of more than $50,000.

The case has stirred intense online debate, as Chinas #MeToo movement grapples with the first allegation against a prominent business leader. Advocacy for sexual assault victims has gained considerable traction despite persistent censorship, but most of those publicly accused have been university professors.

This case is different because it involves a business mogul, said Chen, who believes that Richard Lius financial might has allowed him to press a strong defense in the court of public opinion an option not available to most who have been accused of sexual assault in China. JD.com is Chinas biggest online direct retailer, and his fortune is estimated at $7.5 billion.

Supporters of both parties have waged aggressive online public relations campaigns claiming to show the truth of what happened the night of the alleged rape.

Last Monday, two edited surveillance videos of Richard Liu and Jingyao Liu were posted on Chinas Twitter-like Weibo platform by a recently created anonymous account. The videos show the two at a group dinner, in an elevator and walking arm-in-arm that night.

An attorney for Richard Liu, who showed the AP full, unedited surveillance videos from a restaurant and apartment complex, said they provide a different account of what transpired.

The way it gets described sounds so much more nefarious than it actually is, said attorney Jill Brisbois. Shes step-in-step with him at every point. While the woman has alleged she was impaired and coerced to drink, she appears to be walking without assistance and linking her arm with the businessmans.

Chen said Jingyao Liu also sent him and other supporters the full surveillance videos, which they edited themselves and posted online along with their own interpretations in support of the woman.

It is not clear who is behind the account that first posted the videos. The account, called Minnesota Events, said it was exposing Jingyao Lius intimate manner in appearing to invite Richard Liu inside her apartment. The account user did not respond to requests for comment.

After the first surveillance videos were posted, some online commentators attacked Jingyao Liu, saying they were evidence she had been a willing participant. In response, other Weibo users rallied around the hashtag #ImNotaPerfectVictimEither a rebuke of what they said were unrealistic standards imposed on sexual assault victims.

The law firm representing Jingyao Liu said the videos are consistent with what she told law enforcement officials and alleged in her lawsuit. The videos dont show what happened in the apartment or in the car, which are the core of her allegations.

An incomplete videotape and the silencing of WeChat supporters will not stop a Minnesota jury from hearing the truth, said Wil Florin, an attorney for the accuser.

___

Associated Press researcher Shanshan Wang in Beijing and writer Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

Original post:
Supporters of Chinese billionaires accuser decry censorship

We must do things, I have been sometimes told, because everyone is doing them.

At an early age, I was first exposed to this sort of reasoning, and the reverse of the coin: we must not do things because nobody is doing them. It struck me as a weak argument. I made a mental note, never to use it.

But it is stronger than first appears. If the great majority in any society were to do entirely as they pleased, we would have anarchy: genuine anarchy, not the kind that Hollywood celebrates in movies. Ones life would be worth little, and anyone who wished to survive to the end of the day would go about heavily armed.

Perhaps thats why God made most of us conformists, why the world is discernibly ordered, and man is able, however vaguely, to distinguish up from down, good from evil, the beautiful from the ugly and so forth. But God also gave us freedom, and the consequences of our choices, not only to ourselves but to others.

Gentle reader may suspect that I am making an argument for censorship. I am.

It is in the nature of any culture, society, civilization (choose your weapon) to introduce signposts. Focus our eyes, and we may see them everywhere, even along paved roads. We have laws, too, not always hung in signs, but available for public inspection. And there are unwritten laws.

Consider the law, Thou shalt do no murder. This has been spelled out in detail, with exceptions, and acts of murder may be tried in our courts, but we didnt actually invent the law. It was written into our hearts; it was inscribed on a tablet to Moses long before we were born.

We use the criminal code merely to finesse this natural law; we use lawyers and legislators to get around it, should it turn out to be inconvenient in certain circumstances. Abortion, euthanasia, and whatever will come next, are now among our exceptions.

Freedom is our watchword. Freedom from children, freedom from grandparents always assuming they are unwanted are now among our man-made goods. Freedom from such constraints as being a man or a woman, or being rich or poor, or from any other accident of our being, have been added to the watch list.

It is true there are some traditionalists like me, who regret the overthrow of the moral order, and sometimes even those who support it have twangs of conscience that need to be suppressed. But in the main, society is progressive. We go along to get along.

In the olden time I refer here to very deep ancient history, going back to my childhood we went along with ideas wed inherited, and kept our little murders to ourselves. Today, we have begun to put them on Facebook.

Why not?

Recently a younger acquaintance decided to have herself killed. She had cancer; things were not looking up. Her case shocked me in two especial ways. One, she was a brave soul, who was doing a sterling job of facing down adversity. Two, she was what we call a conservative, who had cheerfully taken heat for various politically incorrect views. She even had Christian tendencies.

Yet she suddenly opted for the exit plan, and quickly found support among her friends, who gathered round the execution bed with smiles of encouragement. When Id queried her life/death choice privately, her argument was in effect, Everyone is doing it.

The stigma had lapsed, gone. The advocates for killing off the old and the ill, even the young and depressive, had overturned the stigma. This made overturning the law a cinch. And by the time the law had been changed, demeaning human life becoming an important step forward, the bulk of society had come round.

Everyone is doing it, in a certain sense. It is convenient. They dont all have themselves executed, for some human instincts have survived, but this everyone would like to have the option should they ever find themselves desiring it.

Pain is no fun. I admit that. The notion that it could have not only a physical, but a moral purpose, has been extinguished. The idea that suicide is self-murder is now taken to be ridiculous. The old laws that banned it could not be enforced (the person who commits suicide has gotten away with it, from a glib point of view). They could only punish those who assisted.

Many things once unthinkable were thinkable all along. Murder is a good example. Infanticide, for instance, is something that must have occurred to many mothers, in moments of child rearing. But one throws a fit instead, perhaps breaks something, or makes a joke of it. You wouldnt actually do what was unthinkable.

It was unthinkable, narrowly, because the laws of God were reinforced by the laws of the State, and of the culture. You did not go there because, Nobody goes there. Except those who do, and become infamous as a consequence.

Among the travesties of the Right (well leave the Left alone for a brief moment) is that censorship is the enemy of freedom. Those on this side are inclined to argue that everyone has the right to his opinion, except those who cry Fire! in cinemas. Let any who disagree with anything make their argument, and then we will vote.

We should have learned, in our wild ride since the sixties (or from the Garden of Eden, should we wish to trace it back), that this view is nave. Some things ought to remain as unthinkable as they were in those old, oppressively Christian times, when dissent was censored.

There is nothing wrong with censorship. Even those on the Left take pride in what they censor: racism, sexism, transphobia, whatever. Unfortunately, by their perverse definitions, they give censorship a bad name.

The real question is not whether censorship is a good thing, but what we should censor.

*Image:An Unhappy Family or Suicide(Une famille malheureuse ou le Suicide) by Octave Tassaert, 1852[Muse Fabre, Montpellier, France]

2019 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

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