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Global Censorship

America’s First Amendment set a standard and a goal for the rest of the planet, establishing freedom of speech as a key standard of an advanced civilized society.

However, as the Left within the United States continues its relentless assault on this cornerstone of the Bill of Rights (using a variety of excuses) those portions of the globe with governments eagerly seeking any excuse to silence critics sense a shifting paradigm, and are moving to clamp down on dissent. They are using all the tools at their disposal to not only attack free speech within their own borders, but across the world as well.

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Radio Free Europe reports that “A controversial Russian law on the Internet came into force on November 1 amid warnings from critics that the legislation is an attempt to increase censorship. The so-called ‘sovereign Internet’ law …requires providers to install equipment that could route Russian web traffic through points that are controlled by the state. It also includes provisions on the creation of a Russian domestic domain-name system… critics have warned the law will lead to censorship across wide parts of the Internet and allow for greater surveillance of Internet users by Russian intelligence agencies…Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the Russian government gained ‘even greater control over freedom of speech and information online’ when the legislation went into effect.

China has been the most powerful assailant. Using its financial might, it has successfully attacked its governments’ critics not only at home but even within America as well, as certain NBA players recently discovered. Mike Gonzalez, writing for the Chicago Tribune   notes that “Russia has drawn a lot of criticism for its heavy-handed manipulation of U.S. social media, and deservedly so. But almost unnoticed, another nation has been trying to control what Americans think by censoring free expression at our universities, the internet, media, movies and even sports clubs: China… China’s obsessive actions represents nothing less than an attempt by a foreign power to shape the views of a democratic electorate whose opinions, translated through the ballot box and other means, shape public policy. Beijing gives millions to universities in exchange for silence on its human rights transgressions, forces Hollywood studios to submit their productions to Chinese censors and buys radio stations here. More recently, it censored what NBA players and executives can say about China, even threatening NBA Commissioner Adam Silver with “retribution sooner or later.”

In a speech at Georgetown University, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg discussed China’s growing influence: “China is building its own internet focused on very different values, and is now exporting their vision of the internet to other countries. Until recently, the internet in almost every country outside China has been defined by American platforms with strong free expression values. There’s no guarantee these values will win out. A decade ago, almost all of the major internet platforms were American. Today, six of the top ten are Chinese… It’s one of the reasons we don’t operate Facebook, Instagram or our other services in China. I wanted our services in China because I believe in connecting the whole world and I thought we might help create a more open society. I worked hard to make this happen. But we could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they never let us in. And now we have more freedom to speak out and stand up for the values we believe in and fight for free expression around the world.”

Russia and China are not alone, either in their attempts to suppress dissent at home or in their efforts to stifle criticism abroad. As the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail notes, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is suing a French magazine for criticizing his incursion against the Kurds in Syria.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Under-Reported News of 2018

Despite a 24-hour news cycle, many of the most important issues of 2018 were only lightly covered by the media.  We conclude with some of the most important under-reported topics.

The Growing Danger within the Western Hemisphere

In December, there were reports that the Russian military had returned to levels of activity within Cuba, and that its nuclear bombers were flying around the Caribbean. That’s only the tip of a growing iceberg.

In an el-Nacional newspaper article first reported by Fox News, Vladimir Medrano Regifo, former director general of the Office of Identification, Migration and Immigration of Venezuela, revealed that the Venezuelan government may have distributed about 10,000 passports to Syrians, Iranians, and nationals of other Middle Eastern nations. “Nowadays, they do not know where these people are or what they are doing. They can be anywhere in the world, traveling with Venezuelan documentation… Around 173 individuals from the Middle East have been detected with Venezuelan passports. Likewise, the majority of Iraqis who tried to enter Canada first arrived in Caracas, detailed a study by the Center for a Free and Secure Society (SFS) of 2014.”

Antonio Mora, writing for The Hill  reports that Russia has an “insidious, increasing influence in Venezuela… Chavez turned to Russia for investment in the country’s energy and mining sectors and as a supplier of weaponry, with Venezuela becoming a major purchaser of Russian military hardware, including fighter jets.

The U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission reports that Venezuela maintains strong ties to the Chinese military “through a high number of official visits, military officer exchanges, port calls, and limited arms sales.”  Venezuela has purchased Chinese arms and military equipment, including radar and aircraft.

A Council of the America’s study  found that “Running a cash-strapped country didn’t stop Maduro from announcing his plans to “modernize” the Venezuelan Armed Forces with new military equipment, marking another aspect of Venezuela’s relationship with China and Russia.

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The base was allegedly planned to be established on the Orchila Island located in the Caribbean Sea some 160 kilometers away from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. The isle hosts a Venezuelan airfield and a Navy base and was already visited by the Russian military ten years ago… Caracas also clearly indicated its intention to ‘extend’ military cooperation with Russia and ‘make it more effective’… [according to Konstantin Sivkov, a retired Navy officer and a military analyst ‘Moscow would likely need a full-scale military facility, adding that a small installation would not be enough to support Russia’s operations in the area… It might be initially reduced to a limited presence at a level of a flying squadron or an air regiment,” he said, adding that Russia would then likely increase its presence by building fuel and munitions depots as well as deploying air defense systems to the area and making the Venezuelan installation potentially similar to Russia’s Syrian Khmeimim base.’”

Censorship

The moves by Facebook and Google to censor out non-leftist perspectives has not received the attention it deserved in 2018.  Google has recently demonstrated its intense progressive leanings by refusing to work with the U.S. Government on defense-related issues, while at the same time cooperating with the Beijing regime in its suppression of dissident views.

Some Facebook staff have rebelled their employers’ censorship and bias. According to a Daily Mail report Facebook engineer Brian Amerige has described the company’s “political intolerance” and the threats against employees who don’t go along with leftist ideology.

Robert Epstein, writing in U.S. News, states that “Google, Inc., isn’t just the world’s biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world’s biggest censor.  The company maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives, generally without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed, a practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion – even on voting. Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block.”

Illustration: Pixabay

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Banning the Truth

The weird concept of banning any discussion that could potentially offend anyone, which originated on college campuses and has now spread across the internet and other media is neither harmless nor random.

It is not a coincidence that the proponents of the silencing concept are advocates of philosophies and politics that have a long history of failure and oppression, and which serve to disunite the American nation. Revealing those facts, along with the tainted motives of those endorsing limiting First Amendment rights is certainly inconvenient for the progressives and leftists that seek so diligently to avoid exposure.

The most self-evident of the various issues which some seek to ban honest analysis of is immigration.  Serious review of the merits of essentially open borders (and, yes, that is what the left desires) is cut off by unfounded claims that those arguing for rational policies are racists, anti-immigrant, and therefore their ideas should be ostracized from the public square.

Not having substantive border controls clearly leads to danger on multiple fronts, including the introduction of contagious diseases, admission of criminal gangs such as MS-13, penetration by terrorists masquerading as economic refugees, and extraordinary expense to federal, state and local governments. Legal residents with limited means endure serious competition for housing, jobs, and fair pay.

Why do open borders have so many advocates, when those threats exist? Take a quick look at those who want open borders, and why.

Politically, Democrats profit. New entrants to the nation, by a very large majority, vote for their party because in general they campaign on promising more public assistance of various forms for new arrivals. Progressives not only  look the other way when new arrivals vote illegally, but facilitate the commission of it, as California has done with the provision of drivers licenses to illegals and as various local legislatures do by providing voting rights to them in local elections.

Silicon valley tycoons (and related internet giants) and Wall Street plutocrats love extensive immigration, legal and illegal.  They profit tremendously by the far lower salaries they can pay newcomers.
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But  factual discussion of these realities get drowned out by charges of being racist or anti-immigrant. One internet behemoth decided to ban any use of the legally accurate term of “illegal immigrant.”

Turn to another failed concept, in which attempts to disclose facts are silenced far too frequently. Socialism, in every incarnation, has failed miserably whenever and wherever it has been tried, for a century. But America’s leftist-dominated educational system continues to warp facts about the reality that socialism has failed universally, and invariably results in enlarging poverty and knocking down individual liberties. The Progressive establishment on college campuses would be rebelled against by students if the history of this totalitarian concept was laid bare.

An ancient wrongdoing that proponents frequently seek to avoid honest analysis of, and which continues to be perpetuated, is one that has a long and horrible pedigree. Anti-Semitism has been a staple of history. It has taken many forms, from the religious discrimination of prior centuries to ethnic persecution which reached its worst expression in the National Socialist government of Adolf Hitler. By the way, the fact that “Nazi” is shorthand for the Third Reich’s National Socialist regime is one which  advocates of socialism scrupulously ignore.

The modern form of anti-Semitism wears the camouflage of miscasting Israeli actions as being oppressive.  The tiny nation awash in a sea of enemies has been the target of attempted extermination by hostile regional neighbors since its founding.  It has endured both major military assaults as well as constant terrorist threats, including rocketry  attacks from Palestinian territory and elsewhere. Palestinians could have had a deal providing them with almost all of their desires, but their leaders turned it down in an attempt to preserve their ability to rob their own people. The Obama Administration sought to alienate the U.S. from its Israeli ally, a symptom of the anti-Semitism of the left that the media turns its attention away from.

The list could go on and on, but the strategy is already clear: defend failed, self-serving and oppressive policies by cutting off the debate that exposes its true nature. When countervailing ideas cannot be contained, engage in personal attacks against those exposing the key truths.

Photo: A scene from Harvard University (AANM photo)

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Internet Freedom Debate Continues

Senate passage, via a quirk of the rules and the cross-over of three Republicans resulting in a 52-47 vote on a measure (which faces relatively poor odds for approval by the House) that seeks to reimpose Obama-era net neutrality rules (scheduled to expire on June 11) has re-opened the contentious and confusing debate on the future of freedom of the internet. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had previously voted against the measure.

On the surface, net neutrality sounds attractive. It mandates that internet providers treat all equally, despite claims by providers that certain customers who stream heavy content such as movies require faster speed than, say, a casual user who only deals in words.

Alex Bugaeff succinctly described the issue to New York Analysis of Policy and Government readers in April:

“Prior to 2015, the internet was open and operating freely, albeit in a rough-and-tumble fashion at times. Then, after the Congressional election of 2014, the Obama Administration tried to take complete control. The President ordered the FCC to implement the regulations found in Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. Those regulations had been designed to reign in the monopoly that Bell Telephone had on landline phone circuits. Though outmoded, those regulations gave control of the internet to government.

“The White House named this order “Net Neutrality” in an attempt to put a benevolent face on this takeover of internet operations. They claimed that the big companies were stifling innovation and that the regulations would impose a level playing field for the small service providers. The implementation of Title II had the effect of freezing in place the rules which benefitted the big companies and gave the FCC (and its Obama appointees) the power to enforce government regulations as a form of public utility.

“In fact, the term “Net Neutrality” appears nowhere in the law or regulations and has no legal definition. It is a fiction designed to serve a larger purpose – government control of communications and internet commerce. So, the 3-2 vote of the FCC after Trump took office merely returned the internet to open and competitive business. Innovation is once again unfettered by government bureaucracy.”

Beyond the typical “signs” such as, she’s great looking, good in bed or insists she doesn’t want you to experience relaxing sex without the complications like early ejaculation or infertility, then you should consult the best sex spe cialis pricest in Delhi, Dr. There are times when the problem is major with the device, but sometimes it is because of a heart disease which disrupts your freely blood flow to your penis which results to Erectile Dysfunction. viagra prescription After a careful evaluation, a speLearn More Here cheap cialist can make a conclusion in view of a specific example of side effects. It is because of its buy viagra without prescription http://secretworldchronicle.com/category/podcast/season-nine-avalanche/page/2/ faster action over the erectile dysfunction rather than giving their attention towards the blood pressure. In a recent PBS interview,  FCC Chair Ajit Pai explained his opposition to the net neutrality concept:

“I favor a free and open Internet…My concern is with the particular regulations that the [Obama era]  FCC adopted two years ago. They are what is called Title II regulations developed in the 1930s to regulate the Ma Bell telephone monopoly. And my concern is that, by imposing those heavy-handed economic regulations on Internet service providers big and small, we could end up disincentivizing companies from wanting to build out Internet access to a lot of parts of the country, in low-income, urban and rural areas, for example. And that, I think, is something that nobody would benefit from.

“There is significant evidence that investment in infrastructure has gone down since the adoption of these rules. For example, there is a study by a highly respected economist that says that among the top 12 Internet service providers in terms of size, investment is down by 5.6 percent, or several billion dollars, over the last two years. And amongst smaller providers as well, just literally this week, 22 Internet service providers with 1,000 customers or less told us that these Title II regulations have kept them from getting the financing that they need to build out their networks. And, as they put it, these net neutrality regulations hang like a black cloud over our businesses. And so what we’re trying to do going forward is figure out a way that we can preserve that free and open Internet that consumers want and need and preserve that incentive to invest in the network that will ultimately benefit even more consumers going forward.”

The left’s move to bring the internet under government control through the net neutrality concept should be seen as part of a two-pronged effort to bring this vast medium to heel.  In 2014, President Obama announced that the United States would surrender administrative control of the internet.  America loosely had jurisdiction over areas such as domain names, with the input of international concerns. But a number of foreign governments, such as Russia, China and Iran complained.  Those nations engage in censorship over their domestic internet users and are angered when the citizens of other nations openly criticize them. First Amendment restrictions prohibited similar actions within the United States, but internationalizing controls was a step to overturning those protections.

Regulating the internet as though it were a public utility gives the government the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent to control this most free and open source of speech and ideas.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Fighting Social Media Censorship

Conservatives are constrained in their attempts to overcome the censorship of social media sites.

Strict devotion to the First Amendment, and opposition to internet regulation prevents them from advocating for government intervention or oversight. Unlike their opponents on the left, they do not believe that any form of speech should be subjected to government control.

The issue is of crucial importance. There is little doubt that the internet is a decisive force in the 21stcentury American politics.  The Pew Research Center  found that 62% of American adults get news from social media. An NYU research project notes that “Our study of search engines suggests that they systematically exclude… certain types of sites in favor of others… giving prominence to some at the expense of others.”

The internet research organization Can I Rank reports that Google “search results were almost 40% more likely to contain pages with a “Left” or “Far Left” slant…Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results…the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint.”

The issue began to garner an even greater degree of note when, as reported by Lifesite “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai scolded Twitter…for censoring conservative users of its platform…’ The company has a viewpoint…and uses that viewpoint to discriminate…to say the least, the company appears to have a double standard when it comes to suspending or de-verifying conservative users’ accounts as opposed to those of liberal users…’”

In 2016, writes Robby Soave in the New York Post, “Twitter…formed the Orwellian-named ‘Trust and Safety Council’ to propose changes to the company’s use policies… practically none of the 40 people chosen to be part of the council are all that concerned about free speech…”
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Some have taken to the courts for relief reports Max Greenwood in The Hill. Political consultant Roger Stone has filed a lawsuit against internet giant Twitter, an institution that has been noted for harassing conservative accounts. Twitter gained a great deal of notoriety when one of its employees cut off President Trump’s account. Twitter has openly “purged” conservative accounts on occasion. Similarly, You Tube and its parent corporation Google have been sued by the right-leaning educational site PragerU for censoring its online videos. The blatant nature of You Tube’s bias can easily be discerned by the organization’s use of an extreme left-wing group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, to decide what constitutes “offensive” speech.

Selwyn Duke proposes in The Hill using antitrust laws, but that runs into conservative objections as well.  “I may object to such things. But here’s the issue: if antitrust laws are unjust, eliminate them. But if we’re going to have them, they should be applied where most needed. As for Google, most people admit it’s ‘a de facto monopoly.’ The breakup of AT&T’s Bell System was mandated in 1982. That came even without Bell denying service to people, blocking their calls or hiding their phone numbers based on the content of their conversations.”

There may be another alternative. Conservatives rightly objected to the dangers of government control inherent in classifying internet providers as “common carriers.”  But, traveling a path as precise as threading a needle, a modified version of the common carrier concept could be applied without the overlay of government control that proponents of the concept maintain is necessary for the more physical world of trains and planes.  That highly modified common carrier concept could warrant—without any other government intrusion, regulation, or oversight– that monopolistic internet giants such as Twitter and Google treat all users equally.

This article, written by Editor-in-Chief Frank Vernuccio, originally appeared in the Washington Times. 

Dept.of Commerce photo

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Academia, Internet Giants vs. Free Speech Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government continues its examination of the growing threats to free speech throughout the United States academia, and the rising influence and power of social media giants.

Hayden Ludwig, a communications associate at the Capital Research Center, reports:

“If you’ve ever contemplated what censorship in media looks like, here’s an illustration.

At 12:00 PM on February 8, the Capital Research Center released our latest short video entitled ‘The Dirty Secrets of Democratic Politics.’ I narrated that brief exposé on Robert Creamer, the longtime Democratic Party operative whose attempts to smear Donald Trump supporters in 2016 using violent agitators were exposed by the investigative group Project Veritas. When Project Veritas promoted the video in a tweet that afternoon, we discovered that YouTube had removed CRC’s video for supposedly violating their community guidelines on ‘hate speech.’  In less than 6 hours, our video—which contains no “hate speech” or other violations of YouTube’s community guidelines of any kind, and even used footage from Project Veritas that has been up on YouTube for well over a year and has millions of views—was flagged for review and removed by a platform supposedly built on promoting free speech.It isn’t the first time YouTube has censored our work. In December 2017, the company targeted another CRC video called ‘Right-Wing or Left-Wing, Identity Politics is Destroying America,’ narrated by CRC film and video producer Joseph Klein. Despite our nonpartisan critique of identity politics for driving Americans apart, YouTube restricted access to the video—blocking it from view in 28 foreign countries and halting American viewers from advertising, commenting, or ‘liking’ the video…After we fought back and brought these outrages to light, YouTube quietly reinstated both videos. But it’s become increasingly clear: when it comes to allowing free speech, YouTube is willing to break their professed values if it advances their ideology at the cost of conservatives.”

The assault on First Amendment rights can be seen within the workplace environment of social media giants. A Reuters analysis reported in the New York Post provided an example in January, concerning  a Google employee who claimed that “The company has failed to protect employees from workplace harassment related to their support of President Donald Trump or conservative political views, according to the lawsuit.”

Hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis’s function which is not perfect nor stable, that is the main reason. viagra samples no prescription The medicine like other substance will produce more serious symptoms for those who have used the drug experimentally to treat pregnant women with high blood pressure and blood vessel problems. prescription cialis In addition, you can also go with online service. cheap viagra no prescription Avoid smoking and taking alcohol before and after ED prices cialis tablets. Robert Epstein, writing in U.S. News, states that “Google, Inc., isn’t just the world’s biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world’s biggest censor.  The company maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives, generally without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed, a practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion – even on voting. Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block.”

Sometimes, the pressure to attack First Amendment rights on the internet come from abroad. Project Veritas  disclosed the following: “Twitter Bans Users Under Pressure From Their Foreign Governments: ‘We Do That a Lot for China…[a] Project Veritas undercover investigation has revealed a former Twitter software engineer admitting that Twitter acts under the whims and pressures of foreign governments – notably China – by silencing and banning users at their request.”

How has censorship become an increasingly acceptable tactic, predominately for those on the left? Andrew analyzed the question in a City Journal article:

“Nothing scandalizes a leftist like the truth…The Left has co-opted our good manners and our good will in order to silence our opposition to their bad policies. The idea is to make it seem impolite and immoral to mention the obvious…Google/YouTube now stands charged by multiple accusers of singling out conservative voices for censorship, “fact-checking,” and demonetization. Hidden-camera videos released by Project Veritas this week show Twitter employees conspiring to “shadow ban” conservatives on their system. On campus, intelligent conservative speakers of good will like Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray, and Christina Hoff-Sommers have faced violent protests meant to shut them up. No person of importance on the right seeks to silence anyone on the left. The Left, on the other hand, is broadly committed to ostracizing, blacklisting, and even criminalizing right-wing speech…”

 

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Academia, Internet Giants vs. Free Speech

The growing threats to free speech throughout the United States come from a number of sources, including government officials, academia, and the rising influence and power of social media giants.

The threats by government leaders, such as former attorney general Loretta Lynch who, while in office, considered “criminally prosecuting” anyone who disagreed with President Obama on climate change, and the move by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) to limit the application of the First Amendment concerning paid political speech, may have diminished due to the results of the 2016 election. But in other circles, the pressure to mothball free speech rights continues.

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has released a vital document, which charts academic freedom over the past 103 years. According to author David Randall, “We publish this chart today because America faces a growing crisis about who can say what on our college campuses.”

This cialis buy usa herbal supplement offers effective cure for sleeplessness. As everyone knows A healthy viagra spain heart is the pumping apparatus of the body. Reliable outlets usually offer side effects of levitra complete details about the medication and buy the one as recommended by your doctor. The side effects viagra most important aspects of a satisfying sexual life that you required. According to the study, “At root this is a crisis of authority. In recent decades university administrators, professors, and student activists have quietly excluded more and more voices from the exchange of views on campus. This has taken shape in several ways, not all of which are reducible to violations of ‘academic freedom.’ The narrowing of campus debate by de-selection of conservatives from faculty positions, for example, is not directly a question of academic freedom though it has proven to have dire consequences in various fields where professors have severely limited the range of ideas they present in courses …Potent threats to academic freedom can arise from the collective will of faculty members themselves. This is the situation that confronts us today. Decades of progressive orthodoxy in hiring, textbooks, syllabi, student affairs, and public events have created campus cultures where legitimate intellectual debates are stifled and where dissenters, when they do venture forth, are often met with censorious and sometimes violent responses. Student mobs, egged on by professors and administrators, now sometimes riot to prevent such dissent. The idea of “safe spaces” and a new view of academic freedom as a threat to the psychological wellbeing of disadvantaged minorities have gained astonishing popularity among students.”

Students have begun to realize the dangers of campus censorship.  Shuhankar Chhhokra, writing in the Harvard Crimson notes: “What happens when we replace the high-strung, passionate atmosphere of the campus protest with the sober, more intellectually demanding lecture hall? Far scarier than any campus protest was my experience in class last week, when in light of the grievances of these student protesters, we discussed the limits that should be placed on disagreeable speech on campuses. We asked ourselves in all seriousness a question that, despite the irony, I believe is too dangerous to even entertain: When is censorship okay?…If we dive into the diction of this new student activism—diction that some of the most vocal supporters of free speech restrictions used in my class ad nauseam last week—we may see some, albeit poor, rationalization of their demands. Disagreeable speech is no longer “offensive”; rather, it’s “hostile.” It is no longer a violation of good taste, but a prima facie violation of the victim’s personhood and liberty. A student in my class claimed that repeated microaggressions pose a quantifiable threat to their victims’ lives, equal in severity to physical violence itself. This reframing of an argument about decorum to a patently false, histrionic one about something far more critical is how these calls for censorship may actually gain some traction.”

The internet is the greatest revolution in the availability of information since the invention of the printing press.  However, the leadership and staff of social media giants have begun to use their extraordinary power to warp public discussion by censoring out ideas and beliefs that they disagree with.

The Report Concludes Tomorrow.

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Free Speech, Independent Media Under Attack

The principles of free speech and independent media are enduring substantial attacks both within the United States and abroad.

Since President Obama, without the consent of Congress, surrendered control of the internet to an international body with a membership comprised of many nations that advocate censorship, and with the growing willingness of American media sources to bend their will to the needs of left wing candidates, the ability of the public to receive unfettered news and information has been dwindling. Wikileaks’ (which has been attacked by the Obama Administration) revelation that CNN colluded with the Democrat Party on presidential debate questions illustrates one aspect of this challenge, and China’s tightening controls on free speech, another.

The Daily Mail reports that Beijing has strengthened its “Great Firewall” of restrictions on internet speech by tightening rules and imposing further limits on online speech.  Using vague concepts such as “damaging national honor” and “disturbing economic or social order,” as well as the blunter charge of seeking to overthrow the socialist system, China’s powerful censors continue to expand their control of internet content. As a further chill to candid online activities, Beijing prohibits anonymous posting. The Daily Mail noted that “Amnesty’s Poon [Patrick Poon, China researcher at global rights group Amnesty International] said the law ‘goes further than ever before in codifying abusive practices, with a near-total disregard for the rights to freedom of expression and privacy.’ Chinese authorities have long reserved the right to control and censor online content. The country stepped up controls in 2013, launching a wide-ranging internet crackdown. Hundreds of Chinese bloggers and journalists were detained as part of the campaign, which has seen influential critics of Beijing paraded on state television. Under regulations announced at the time, Chinese internet users face three years in prison for writing defamatory messages that are re-posted 500 times or more. They can also be jailed if offending posts are viewed more than 5,000 times. Comments posted on social media have been used in the prosecution of various activists, such as human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang.”

China’s official internet controls are mirrored, to a limited extent, by actions by private internet sources within the United States to restrict content.  Project Veritas  reports that its founder James O’Keefe was temporarily blocked from his Twitter account after posting two items. The first was a video showing that Manhattan Democratic Election Commissioner Alan Schulkin admitted that voter fraud does indeed exist. The second was a video revealing that a Clinton staffer claiming he could rip up Republican voter registration forms and not be reprimanded.

What is done through government action in China is accomplished through left-wing activism within the United States.
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The College Fix reports that Rutgers University student Aviv Khavich was fired for a column in which he argued that being in favor of  immigration enforcement was not “anti-immigrant.” Apparently, the “trigger” for the dismissal was Khavich’s use of the phrase “illegal aliens.”  The move was not unique to the University.  There has been an attempt, spearheaded by sources such the AP style manual, to control the dialogue by eliminating certain terms that clearly describe issues, turning instead to language that favors left wing positions.

Direct collusion between media and political campaigns also hampers the public’s ability to receive objective information. Polizette reports that further Wikileaks releases reveal that  “CNN commentator Donna Brazile alerted Hillary Clinton’s campaign team about a possible audience question the candidates would field at the Democratic primary debate in Flint, Michigan. Hillary Clinton apparently did not just get to see forum questions from CNN in advance thanks to Brazile — her campaign was also notified on questions to be asked by regular citizens.”  Wikileaks also disclosed that some reporters, including a New York Times staffer, requested quote approval from the Clinton campaign before submitting articles.

The collusion is further evidenced by a Daily Caller report by Peter Hasson that revealed that a Washington Post columnist “appears to have asked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to do the majority of the research for a negative column” written about Donald Trump in April 2016.

Abuses, both within the U.S. and abroad, are not new.  But there is a clear paradigm shift in the growing acceptance of acts against free speech and honest reporting by the media, and acts by the White House that seek to get around First Amendment protections by surrendering control of the vital internet sphere to international bodies that have no commitment to the concept of an open press.

Categories
Quick Analysis

Government Restraints on the Internet

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government presents a two-part review

of state censorship of the internet. 

The global condition of the internet is increasingly worrisome.

President Obama has fulfilled his goal of transferring control of the internet from U.S. to an international body. Unfortunately, that body contains a number of states that practice censorship and rigid control of this most important asset to the principal of freedom of speech.

As Human Rights Watch notes, “In international law, access to information and free expression are two sides of the same coin, and both have found tremendous accelerators in the Internet and other forms of digital communication.  At the same time, efforts to control speech and information are also accelerating, by both governments and private actors in the form of censorship, restrictions on access, and violent acts directed against those whose views or queries are seen as somehow dangerous or wrong.”

The German publishing organization Deutsche Welle  lists China, Iran, Syria, Ethiopia and Cuba as the nations with the least internet freedom. Privacy Online News notes that 17 nations, including Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burundi, China, Cuba, Republic of Congo, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam practice internet censorship.
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The publication notes that “Completely shutting off access to the internet is heinous as it is; however, we need to make sure that we don’t settle into a mindset where we believe it is OK for the government to shut off access to only certain parts of the Internet. Freedom of expression needs to be absolute or it doesn’t exist. Even broad bans, for instance on pornography, for moral or religious reasons, can lead to inappropriate takedowns of widely used sites. Take the story of Tumblr, for instance. Tumblr has previously fallen under blocks by Qatar, UAE, Yemen, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and China. In some of those instances, the country’s government was enacting these bans at the behest of third party companies that would create lists to fit “morality filters.” Even without the pretext of religious offense, there exist examples of secular governments blocking access to everyday sites under the guise of stopping terrorism.”

The problem is getting worse. Reporters Without Borders found that “that there has been a deep and disturbing decline in respect for media freedom at both the global and regional levels. Ever since the 2013 index, Reporters Without Borders has been calculating indicators of the overall level of media freedom violations in each of the world’s regions and worldwide. The higher the figure, the worse the situation. The global indicator has gone from 3719 points last year to 3857 points this year, a 3.71% deterioration. The decline since 2013 is 13.6%…All of the Index’s indicators show a decline from 2013 to 2016. This is especially the case for infrastructure. Some governments do not hesitate to suspend access to the Internet or even to destroy the premises, broadcast equipment or printing presses of media outlets they dislike. The infrastructure indicator fell 16% from 2013 to 2016.”

Actions by these governments do not reflect the will of their citizens. Pew Research  surveyed 38 nations, and found that “Majorities in 32 of 38 countries surveyed by Pew Research Center in 2015 believe that allowing people to use the internet without government censorship is important. And in 20 countries, at least 80% hold this view. Moreover, across the nations polled, a median of 50% say freedom on the internet is very important…”

As Deutsche Welle found, Russia, China, Cuba and Iran are among the worst offenders. Reporters Without Borders  considers the Cuban situation among the worst—an issue that President Obama did not make a priority in his recent reopening of relations with Havana. “Cuba is among the worst nations in the world for Internet Access…less than five percent of households in Cuba have Internet access, which ranks 115th out of 133 countries. American aid worker Alan Gross, spent five years in a Cuban prison for working on a project to help provide Cuban citizens better internet access.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

Categories
Quick Analysis

Internet Censorship on the Rise

Free speech on the internet continues to take a pounding on several key fronts.

Under pressure from heavy handed governments abroad and threats of lawsuits and left wing agitation in the U.S., the wide-open, free-wheeling character of the internet may see its days numbered.

Twitter, the source for very short comments and observations, is the latest battleground. The Daily Signal reports that a so-called “Trust and Safety Council,” containing left-wing groups with a history of endorsing political correctness and opposing free speech, is preparing to decide how to police what is allowed to be on and what will be forbidden on Twitter.

Self-censorship by internet forums is the new wave for blocking freedom of expression in cyberspace.

Breitbart reports that the German government is demanding that Google, Facebook and Twitter remove what it considers anti-immigrant “hate speech.” Of course, there was no precise definition of hate speech, leaving almost all comments opposed to the governments’ policies subject to censorship—exactly the result Berlin wanted.

The internet giants caved in, agreeing to delete any objected-to material within a day after a request to do so was delivered.

“The German government’s demand that social media giants Google, Facebook and Twitter remove what it calls anti-migrant ‘hate speech’ is having its first real test in the wake of the sickening sex attacks in Cologne over New Year’s Eve.”

Breitbart notes that The outlets agreed to apply domestic laws, rather than their own corporate policies, to reviews of posts, and already users in Germany are expressing disgust at the policy which came straight from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office.”

Organizations such as the Gatestone Institute, which reports extensively on immigration issues, may be particularly hard hit.

“With Gatestone’s commitment to educating readers about what the media do not want them to know, however unpleasant these events may sound to would-be censors, we are concerned that if we disagree with policies that Facebook believes politically correct, it may decide to censor Gatestone, or even ban it.

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“it just so happens to turn out that, lo and behold, this idea of “racist” speech appears to include anything critical of the EU’s current catastrophic immigration policy. … In lieu of violence, speech is one of the best ways for people to vent their feelings…Just last week, reports from the Netherlands told of Dutch citizens being visited by the police and warned about posting anti-mass-immigration sentiments on Twitter and other social media.”

In the U.S., there is a legal gray area when it comes to censorship by a private corporation, as opposed to a government agency.

The First Amendment Center notes that “The Bill of Rights provides protection for individual liberty from actions by government officials. This is called the state-action doctrine. Private property is not government-owned. Restrictions on individuals’ free-speech rights on private property do not involve state action.

“However, a few states have interpreted their own state constitutions to provide even greater free-speech protection than the federal Constitution offers. For example, the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that individuals have free-speech rights at privately owned shopping malls. Most state supreme courts that have examined the issue have disagreed. In April 2002, the Iowa Supreme Court refused to extend its definition of public property to include large, privately owned shopping malls.”

Internet sites such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter are private, and not necessarily bound by the First Amendment. But what if the censorship on those sites is the result of government action or pressure? That is a legal dispute that needs resolution. Outside of the United States, where there are, of course, no First Amendment protections, the ability of even relatively open regimes to take action is not as restrained as it is within America.

Within the U.S., key censorship pressure comes from pressure groups.  When applied to internet sites, this could result in a fracturing of sites, with progressive/left wing groups patronizing self-censored sites, and the rest of the nation clicking onto sites that may be formed to continue the tradition of free speech in cyberspace.

More overtly heavy-handed internet censorship comes from Russia, China, and some Moslem nations. North Korea is noted for almost total lack of internet access by the general population.

Organizations such as George Soros’ “Open Society Foundation” are at the forefront of pressuring governments to engage in censorship. It is their contention that free speech rights are subject to restrictions if they offend religious or ethnic groups.  Frequently, their interpretation of “offensive” is less than convincing.

With the scheduled handoff of internet control from the U.S. to an international body, in accordance with President Obama’s policy, the prospects for freedom of speech in cyberspace appear deeply troubled.