Category: Censorship Free Speech

Google has partnered with the United Nations, World Health Organisation and others in a new global censorship tool that was introduced last Monday, according to LaToya Drake, head of Google News Lab. Below are the short descriptions from GNI’s ‘About’ page.  The titles are misleading.  For example, following the ‘Our partners’ hyperlink contained in the words “learn more” does not lead to a list or overview of its partners.  It leads to ‘Case Studies’: Some “stories” about “how news organisations around the…

The Justice Department and FBI have used “vague threats and pressure tactics” in an attempt to gain compliance with journalists, reporter James Ball said, citing his own experience being pressured by government officials. Ball briefly worked and lived with Assange, who is imprisoned in the UK and faces the possibility of extradition to the United States for allegedly violating the Espionage Act. In 2013, Ball published an article critical of WikiLeaks, its handling of US State Department cables, and its…

ORLANDO, Fla. — Students in a Florida school district will be reading only excerpts from William Shakespeare’s plays for class rather than the full texts under redesigned curriculum guides developed, in part, to take into consideration the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” laws. The changes to the Hillsborough County Public Schools’ curriculum guides were made with Florida’s new laws prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in mind. Other reasons included revised state standards and an effort to get…

Canadian news industry groups have asked the country’s antitrust regulator to investigate Meta Platforms’ decision to block news on its platforms in the country, accusing the Facebook parent of abusing its dominant position. Meta started blocking news on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for all users in Canada last week in response to a law requiring internet giants to pay for news articles. Canada’s Online News Act, part of a global trend to make tech firms pay for news, became…

Students rights are limited on school grounds. But they don’t cease to exist. And what they do off-campus is subject to even fewer limitations. These are long-held facts backed by years of court precedent, the most famous of which is the Supreme Court’s 1969 Tinker decision. This is the baseline for school-student interactions when it comes to constitutional rights, as written by Justice Abe Fortas: It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to…

Following are details of the cases against former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was arrested on Saturday after a court sentenced him to three years in prison for illegally selling state gifts. Khan has denied wrongdoing. An Islamabad court issued the arrest warrant after convicting the cricket star-turned-politician, who remains the leading opposition figure despite his removal. Police moved quickly to take Khan from his home in the eastern city of Lahore to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. It is…

Some observers who have long watched and carefully documented US government involvement in major social media platforms as well as Wikipedia itself have commented, “the CIA Is running Wikipedia, Wow, what a shocker. Sanger asserted during Greenwald’s show, “We do have evidence that, as early as 2008, that CIA and FBI computers were used to edit Wikipedia,” before posing: “Do you think that they stopped doing that back then?” Getty Images Sanger explained that the intelligence agencies “pay off the…

Intellexa (AKA Intellexa Anonymi Etaireia), an alliance of digital intelligence firms in Greece run by an ex-Israeli intel officer, and Cytrox AD (AKA Sytrox), which produces their Predator spyware, added to U.S. ‘entity list’ which already includes Israel’s NSO and Candiru. Late last year, Citizen Lab uncovered the hacking of an Egyptian dissident’s phone. The affected device was host to two forms of malware, one created by NSO Group and the other by Cytrox. According to the Citizen Lab investigation, these infections were…

“The US Department of State has finally turned into the ‘Ministry of Truth’ predicted by George Orwell and actually dictates to the American media what exactly they should write and say. In June, the Department of State issued instructions to major telecommunications holdings such as AT&T, Comcast Corporation, Graham Media Group, Nash Holdings, Newsweek Publishing, and The New York Times Company to misrepresent events in and around Russia,” the SVR said in a statement, adding that the goal is to…

Last week, in a significant victory for free speech, a federal court stepped in to curb potential overreach by the Biden administration in its collaboration with social media platforms to suppress online content. The court ruling, issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana on Tuesday caused critics to complain that it hinders the administration’s efforts to counter online conspiracy theories and “disinformation.” But in the usual doublespeak in an interview with MSNBC, the former head of the government’s controversial Disinformation Governance…

This July 3 marks the 10th anniversary of Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah Sisi’s violent seizure of power in Cairo. The first democratically elected leader in 5000 years of Egyptian history, Mohamed Morsi, was swept from office, his supporters were massacred by the hundreds, and he ultimately died in prison. With US and UK support, Sisi quickly reversed any tentative democratic gains made during the country’s brief, difficult transition from the rule of longtime Western-backed autocrat Hosni Mubarak. In…

Dr. Jordan Peterson, the ex-University of Toronto psychology professor who gained fame for his vigorous defense of free speech, has been subjected to what is perceived as a systemic censorship effort by YouTube. A popular figure in media circles, Peterson’s prolific online presence took a hit when the video-sharing platform decided to censor his account, a move the professor lamented on social media. On Wednesday, the professor shared on Twitter a copy of the email he received from YouTube justifying…

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Minister Delegate for the Digital Transition and Telecommunications Jean-Noel Barrot reportedly warned platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter of their responsibility and asked for support identifying users involved in committing offenses. France has been gripped by unrest since June 27, when a 17-year-old boy was shot dead by a police officer for failing to stop his car when ordered to do so in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. The officer who pulled the trigger on Nahel M. has been taken into custody for voluntary manslaughter, but that has not deterred the protesters.

Steve Li Kwai-wah, Hong Kong’s national security department superintendent, speaks during a press conference to issue arrest warrants for eight activists, in Hong Kong on Monday. Joyce Zhou/Reuters TAIPEI, Taiwan — Hong Kong has issued arrest warrants for eight exiled activists and lawyers, accusing them of violating China’s national security law — and offering a hefty bounty for their capture. Among the eight people Hong Kong’s national security police say are wanted for “collusion with foreign forces” are activist and…

The Canadian Senate passed Bill C-18 Thursday, the second part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s three-phase censorship legislation. In the process, the Conservative Party’s chief critic of the legislation was censured on Wednesday and was unable to attack the bill from the floor of the House of Commons. C-18 will force social media companies to pay Canadian media to post news stories. In protest of the bill, Meta has already put Canada on notice that it will cease providing Canadian…