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The minister of state security, David Mahlobo, is apparently advocating forthe regulation of social media, which would replace the free space for expression with bureaucratic surveillance.

This alarming scenario reflects a tension between privacy and security around the world, not just in South Africa. But theres more.

Mahlobos proposal is part of the ruling ANCs broad strategy to control the media, if its policies on media from Sundays briefing session in preparation for the partys June policy conference are anything to go by.

It wants to step up its inquiry into a media appeals tribunal, which it first mooted in Polokwane in 2007, before the conference.

The ANC also wants a media charter to transform the hostile media.

The mainstream media is out of sync with the rest of country, the ANC has claimed in most of its policy statements on communications. The assumption is the ANC is in sync with the country. This is a regular mistake the ruling party makes as it conflates the country, its people and the party.

Now social media is out of sync with the ruling party. The default position is to regulate it and use fake news as the excuse.

The reality is no one knows what to do about fake news. But to regulate the internet and social media would be overreach and inconsistent with the noise and robust contestations that characterise a democracy.

Facebook and Twitter, the two most used social media in South Africa, allow free expression (albeit only for those who have internet access). They are also mediums that allow expression to those who do not have access to mainstream media.

Of course social media is open to abuse in the age of fake news disinformation, propaganda, lies, rumour which has been around forever, but now is a full-scale industry. Take ANN7, for instance, which watches everything mainstream media does and then says and does the opposite its a bit like trying to turn diamonds into pistachio nuts.

The state security ministers reasoning about social media is part of the ANCs general trajectory a desire to control news and self-expression so it can win better majorities during elections.

It works in tandem with other controlling proposals: the Protection of State Information Bill (better known as the secrecy Bill), the media appeals tribunal, the Film and Publications Act and the Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Amendment Bill.

Aspects of all of the above are unconstitutional and this is the most likely reason that, in the main, they have not completely fulfilled the governments desire.

So thats politics and legalities. In practical terms, social media is too large a space to regulate. WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook posts and tweets go off faster than the rate government can keep up with constitutional rulings against it. The odd random racist will get caught and it wont stop someone else from mouthing off disgusting views.

What is the value of leaving social media as is? What do people talk about or share on their various social media platforms? A lot of narcissist nonsense for much of the time, granted, such as pics of sublime holidays to show how happy they are, pics of kissing their partners in romantic locations, showing off their bodies rippling muscles and six packs and odd poses with puckered lips.

But there is more: its an outlet for activism, a diversity of voices, a space to rage about corruption in the public and private sector, and a lack of humanity.

Social media is used to rail against public officials who dont do their jobs but increase their salaries, the state of hospitals, the poor delivery of textbooks and rising unemployment. We see arguments between people and groups that hold different views, such as black and white feminists about questions of whats universal and whats particular.

Social media is also used as info-sharing: a talk happening at a university, for example, and which area does not have water and electricity and when it will come on again. Even in China and Zimbabwe, two countries that regulate media, including social media, people find a way to share information. So the government would be wasting its time.

On the light side, through social media you can flirt with someone and you can overuse emoticons if you like, especially the laughing till you are crying one which is very popular in South Africa for some reason. It can be fun and serious as we try to balance security and privacy in a world of violence, racism, sexism, poverty, climate change, inhumanity.

All of this has value. Its so clear that this space should not be regulated.

But its also clear only those who feel threatened and insecure would want to regulate it.

Glenda Daniels is a senior lecturer in media studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.

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ANC's desire to control social media is simply undemocratic - Mail & Guardian

The controversial legislation is being delayed and probably wont reach the Knesset in its current session.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon will oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus proposed legislation aimed at ensuring political control over Israels broadcast media unless changes are made to it, treasury sources said on Tuesday.

Kahlon has been the main obstacle to Netanyahus repeated efforts to wrest control of the new public broadcasting corporation, Kan, or kill it off altogether and keep alive the Israel Broadcasting Authority, which is now responsible for the states network of television and radio stations.

Netanyahu reportedly fears that the news division of Kan, which is due to go on the air at the end of this month, will oppose him and his policies. If he cant block it altogether, the prime minster is determined to exercise control over it.

I committed to ensuring freedom of expression and freedom of the press. There will be no subordination to politics. Supervision will be profession and not political, Kahlon told a conference sponsored by the Calalcist financial daily on Tuesday.

Kahlon told Army Radio earlier in the day that the current formulation of the legislation is unacceptable and that his Kulanu Party the second largest in the coalition would work to amend it. I dont think you can silence journalists; they have Facebook and Twitter, he said.

Shlomo Filber, the Communications Ministry director general and Netanyahu ally who formulated the legislation, ran into opposition from treasury officials and from Assistant Attorney General Avi Licht at a meeting two weeks ago, where a draft was presented for the first time.

Sources said Licht, who was responsible for writing legislation on communications in his previous job and still carries weight on the matter, expressed serious objections to the way the draft bill would allow elected officials to interfere in public broadcasting.

As a result, the legislation is being revised and probably wont be brought up for discussion in the cabinet or ministerial committees any time soon and it most likely wont be submitted to the Knesset during its current session.

Under the bill, whose terms were revealed by TheMarker last week, the communications minister would appoint a single supervisory body for all public and commercial broadcasters, including Kan and Army Radio.

It chairman and director general would be appointed by the communications minister without any input from an appointments committee or other outsiders. According to the draft, two of the other 10 members of the new authoritys board would be appointed by the communications and culture ministers, and the rest by a search committee.

Other elements of the bill aim to increase competition in broadcast media by enabling new players to enter. They would not have to meet any content requirements.

Treasury sources said they were opposed to the parts of the bill that politicize broadcast regulation.

Although Finance Minster Director General Shai Babad and Asi Messing, the treasurys legal adviser, were involved in the early stages, Filber demanded that no one from the budget division participate in the discussion.

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Israeli Fnance Minister Comes Out Against Bill That Puts Broadcast Media Under Political Control - Haaretz

Right-wing preacher Lance Wallnau is calling on his followers to engage in a Purim fast for President Trump this Purim against the, media, progressives and the sabotaging, sniping and snarling forces that Wallnau sees as aligned against the president.

Like Esther, the heroine of the Purim tale, Wallnau hopes that Trump can turn the tables on his enemies, Right Wing Watch reported on Friday.

While Wallnau, has called on his Twitter following of more than 37,000 to fast over Purim, the Fast of Esther was observed by Jews from Wednesday night to sundown Thursday.

In a Periscope video, Dallas-based Wallnau described a campaign being waged against Trump, in which liberals, the deep state and the media were all working together to sabotage Trumps presidency.

Were not playing games, Wallnau said, We are fasting and praying so that the Lord will turn the tables.

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For Purim, Right-Wing Preacher Fasting And Praying For Trump Against The 'Mind Control' Media - Forward

If you paid attention, you knew it was coming. Justin Trudeau and the Liberals have completely revamped a key committee that advises the government on Canadas gun laws.

Gone are the people that actually know about firearms and in are the people that fear them and dont want you to have them.

But of course the Liberals telegraphed this by promising to do it in their 2015 election platform:

modify the membership of the Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee to include knowledgeable law enforcement officers, public health advocates, representatives from womens groups, and members of the legal community;

Then at the beginning of February they announced John Major, the retired Supreme Court justice as chair of the new committee. He has a reputation of being a fair and reasonable man, not a huge record on gun rulings, so not bad.

The two vice-chairs I didnt know but the government seemed to be sending a message; one was an Olympic shooter, the other an advocate for more control, so a split.

Watch as I tell you who makes up the rest of the committee. If you just glance at it and dont pay attention, it doesnt tell you much and you might even think its not a bad list, right?

Wrong.

This is a well-stacked committee struck with the sole intention of advising the government to bring in tougher and more expensive gun control, which we know is the Liberal goal.

They were upfront in their election platform with promises on background checks, a proposal for a gun registry in all but name, their support for implementing the International Arms Trade Treaty which effectively requires a gun registry, and a proposal that would drive up costs and make many firearms so much more expensive, maybe even stop some companies from doing business in Canada.

I think we all know where were heading with this.

Its going to be an interesting couple of years ahead for gun owners, but like I always say, elections have consequences.

More here:
Gun control advocates are firmly in charge with Trudeau Liberals at the helm - The Rebel

Connor Johnson, a former longsnapper on the Oregon football team, said its a bummer how many athletes have to make decisions they dont want to make due to conflicts with sports.

Almost all the time, he said whether its being unable to enroll in certain majors or take classes that conflict with their practice schedules athletes are asked to put sports above their education.

It would be really nice to have the academic people looking out for the athletes so that theyre actually getting a decent education and what they were promised out of high school, Johnson said.

Johnson said he would be in favor of some faculty oversight when it comes to how the athletic department spends its $120 million budget. Because all the athletic departments decisions, he said, boil down to money.

There used to be a Senate committee tasked with overseeing the athletic budget, but it was abolished in November 2016. It was called the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee (IAC), and it became so ineffective that then-UO President Michael Gottfredson stopped requiring athletic department representatives to show up to meetings.

Several former IAC members described the meetings as contentious and antagonistic. A few particular faculty members, they said, behaved inappropriately and unprofessionally when athletic department representatives did not provide sufficient answers to their questions. Meetings sometimes escalated to shouting matches, after which people would leave upset, sometimes in tears.

Now, a new committee, the Intercollegiate Athletics Advisory Committee (IAAC), has taken the IACs place. It met for the first time on March 1, and University of Oregon President Michael Schill opened the meeting with a firm message to committee members:

Athletic department finances will not be a topic of discussion.

Tough questions and vague answers

The IAACs charge its stated duty is to advise the president on athletic department policies and practices that affect the academic performance and welfare of student-athletes. Its a much narrower version of the the IACs charge, which included advising the president and athletic director on the athletic departments budget. The old IAC charge also required the athletic department to consult the IAC before making decisions that could impact the landscape of athletics or the university at-large.

Faculty Athletics Representative Tim Gleason said the IACs charge was drastically wider and broader than is generally the case in committees at other Pac-12 and NCAA schools.

It had all kinds of things in it, Gleason said. The charge spoke as if the athletic department reported to the IAC, which it didnt and doesnt. The athletic department reports to the president, not the faculty.

(Mary Vertulfo/Emerald)

Biology professor Nathan Tublitz, who helped write the IAC charge, argues that any decision made at a university, including by the athletic department, impacts academics and thus should require faculty input. But he said the athletic department for years has made decisions that ran contrary to UOs academic values, such as moving some sporting events from weekends to school days to cash in on television contracts.

Tublitz said the new committees charge is watered down such that IAAC members cant ask questions about a range of important issues, reducing the facultys role in shared governance.

Its been muzzled and restricted to a very, very limited set of topics, Tublitz said. Unless Im mistaken, this is still an academic institution that has a sports team, not a sports team that happens to have a small academic sidelight.

Before Tublitz became IAC chair in 2011, Kurt Krueger, a former classified staff IAC member, said IAC meetings often consisted of presentations from the athletic department about the positive things it was doing for student athletes. Krueger recalled hearing about tutoring services at the Jaqua Center, the O Heroes volunteer program, athlete scholarships and graduate rates. He said the committee gained insight but didnt actually accomplish much.

That all changed when Tublitz became chair. He, economics professor Bill Harbaugh and a couple other faculty members began digging into athletic department finances and policies and asking tougher and tougher questions. They inquired about for-credit classes designed for student athletes but taught by athletic department personnel, bonds to pay for the new basketball arena and university subsidized student-athlete support services at the Jaqua Academic Center, including engraved Macbooks for each athlete and individual tutors for each of their classes.

The root of each of their questions, Tublitz said, was the more fundamental question, Why are you making a decision that is contrary to our values? Krueger said the athletic department representatives provided vague, not very solid answers. Tublitz and Harbaugh said the athletic department provided minimal answers or none at all.

The athletic department was extremely hard to deal with and extremely reluctant to release information, Harbaugh said. The committee had been dominated for years by people who were quite fond of the athletic department, until Nathan Tublitz and I and a few others started asking hard questions.

Ninety-five percent of the time the athletic department just listened and said, Thank you very much, goodbye. You could just see their eyes glaze over, Tublitz said. Theres no even semblance of listening. And thats what pisses people off.

UO Athletic Director Rob Mullens said the athletic department members were certainly trying to answer their questions.

We were doing the best that we could, thats for sure, Mullens said. We were providing the information that fit with the charge of the committee.

Unprofessionalism and inappropriate behavior

Many former IAC members said the way Harbaugh and Tublitz but particularly Harbaugh approached those discussions was not conducive to productive conversation. Human physiology professor Andy Karduna recalled shouting matches between certain faculty and athletic department representatives. Business professor Lynn Kahle said people often left meetings very upset and sometimes in tears.

Mullens said he became concerned about how his staff was being treated at meetings. Athletic department staffers told him they sometimes felt like they were being targeted, a message Mullens relayed to Gottfredson at their regular meetings.

There probably were some times when it crossed the line to being unprofessional, Mullens said. Some of those meetings I was the target, but that comes with the position.

Its been muzzled and restricted to a very, very limited set of topics Unless Im mistaken, this is still an academic institution that has a sports team, not a sports team that happens to have a small academic sidelight. UO biology professor Nathan Tublitz, who helped write the IAC charge.

Math professor Dev Sinha said Harbaugh and Tublitz behavior was characterized by sophomoric rudeness, scoffing and guffawing, and a very basic lack of human decency. He said they sometimes brought factually inaccurate information to discussions and used the committee as a vehicle to generate outrage. The unprofessionalism, he said, was all one-sided.

You know when somebody thinks that youre less than human. Thats sort of the basic dynamic, Sinha said. You know when somebody has no professional or even human respect for you, and thats still the attitude some of these folks have.

Harbaugh responded to Sinhas comments saying:

Duck athletics makes millions for the coaches and athletic department staff, but only if they can keep their unpaid athletes academically eligible. Given how much money and how much of the universitys reputation is at stake, the IAC and now the IAAC has to ask uncomfortable questions of the athletic department. So Im not surprised that they and their boosters reacted with personal attacks on me, Nathan Tublitz, and some of the other faculty on the IAC.

A parallel committee

The IAC meetings became unproductive to the point that in March 2014, the IAC chair at the time, Rob Illig, wrote in the IACs annual report to the Senate president that the committee was broken. He recommended withdrawing the administrations and athletic departments involvement, and said the main structural problem was that the IAC was trying to accomplish two competing goals.

It is attempting to be a watchdog committee, aimed at ensuring that the athletics department acts in the best interest of the UO community and does not become the tail that wags the dog. At the same time, it is attempting to be an advisory committee, seeking to influence the faculty athletics representative and athletic department as they make important and potentially controversial decisions, Illig wrote.

Because it is trying to do both, the IAC is accomplishing neither.

In response to Illigs report, President Gottfredson told athletic department representatives they no longer had to attend IAC meetings. Gottfredson then decided to establish a new group, the Presidents Advisory Group on Intercollegiate Athletics (PAGIA), that would run parallel to the IAC until the IAC could fix its structural problems.

We were doing the best that we could, thats for sure We were providing the information that fit with the charge of the committee. UO Athletic Director Rob Mullens.

The PAGIA was ineffective for different reasons. Because the president called the meetings, it only convened four or fives times in two and a half years, even though its charge required it to meet twice per academic quarter. Former PAGIA members cant remember the exact number of meetings, but they agree it wasnt often. Kahle say they met on an as-needed basis.

The PAGIA also excluded the Senate from the decision-making process. The president appointed his own faculty members, its meetings were held in private and its minutes were not made public.

Meanwhile, the IAC continued to meet regularly and athletic department representatives mostly refused to come. Karduna, who chaired the IAC during the 2015-16 school year, spent the whole year working to create a new committee with a revised charge that would serve as a compromise between the IAC and PAGIA.

A fresh start

In November 2016, Karduna brought his proposal for the IAAC to the Senate. The new committees charge would only focus on academic performance and welfare issues related to student-athletes, and the senate would get to select half the faculty members. The senate ended up passing it 30-6.

Harbaugh proposed a motion to keep the IAC around in a watchdog capacity, but the Senate voted it down narrowly, 20-18, thus ending the long-standing and troubled committee.

Now there is no senate committee providing faculty oversight on athletic department decisions. Harbaugh said its ridiculous that faculty shouldnt have a say over the athletic departments funding when the athletic department spends $120 million a year and the universitys entire education, research and general fund budget is only around $550 million.

The athletic department wants us to have no influence over any of those decisions, and thats not good for the university, Harbaugh said. Its good for the people collecting money for the athletic department, but not the for the university as a whole.

Karduna, who helped write the charge for and now chairs the IAAC, said although not all constituents are happy with the charge, at least it enables the faculty to have productive conversations about issues they can actually impact. Hes not against a faculty committee that examines athletic department finances, but said such a committee should not be under the same umbrella as one that deals with student-athlete academic performance and welfare. Sinha, Kahle and Gleason agreed.

When asked whether he thinks faculty should have a role in athletic department decisions, Rob Mullens did not answer the question.

Thats not for me to decide, Mullens said. My job is to run the athletic department.

Follow Kenny Jacoby on Twitter @kennyjacoby

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Faculty vs. athletics: Fighting for control - Oregon Daily Emerald