Category Archives: Censorship

Mozambique expels British journalist covering insurgency

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Tom Bowker tweets that he has been banned from country for 10 years over alleged irregularities

A British journalist covering an insurgency in northern Mozambique has been expelled from the country, he tweeted on Tuesday, days after his accreditation was revoked over alleged irregularities.

Tom Bowker, the co-founder of the anglophone Mozambican news website Zitamar News, had his foreign correspondent card withdrawn on 29 January – a move he has said was politically motivated.

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Clubhouse app: what is it and how do you get an invite to the audio app Elon Musk uses?

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The exclusive invitation-only social networking app is a hybrid of conference calls, talkback radio and Houseparty

Part talkback radio, part conference call, part Houseparty, Clubhouse is a social networking app based on audio-chat. Users can listen in to conversations, interviews and discussions between interesting people on various topics – it is just like tuning in to a podcast but live and with an added layer of exclusivity.

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Amazon Prime drama agrees to changes after Hindu nationalist pressure

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Director of Tandav agrees to remove scenes deemed to insult Hindu gods and office of Indian prime minister

An Indian political drama on Amazon Prime has been forced to edit out scenes that were accused of being an “insult to Hindu gods”, the first time that streaming platforms have been subjected to Indian government censorship.

Tandav, a gritty political drama made by Amazon Prime, one of the world’s largest streaming platforms, had faced growing controversy since it launched last week over allegations it had “hurt Hindu religious sentiments” and insulted the office of the prime minister.

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Hungary orders LGBT publisher to print disclaimers on children’s book

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Fairytale anthology Wonderland Is for Everyone must now carry warning that its stories contain ‘behaviour inconsistent with traditional gender roles’

Hungary’s government, which has made hostility to LGBT people a central part of its rightwing agenda, on Tuesday ordered a publisher to print disclaimers identifying books containing “behaviour inconsistent with traditional gender roles”.

The government said the action was needed to protect consumers, after Labrisz, an association for lesbian, bisexual and trans women, published a fairytale anthology titled Wonderland Is for Everyone, which included some stories with LGBT themes.

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Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

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Following Trump’s Twitter ban, Polish government wants to protect posts that do not break nation’s laws

Polish government officials have denounced the deactivation of Donald Trump’s social media accounts, and said a draft law being readied in Poland will make it illegal for tech companies to take similar actions there.

“Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not,” wrote the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, on Facebook earlier this week, without directly mentioning Trump. “There can be no consent to censorship.”

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Iranian teenager who posted distorted pictures of herself is jailed for 10 years

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Instagram star Sahar Tabar says she is still hoping for a pardon after conviction for corrupting young people

An Iranian woman who posted heavily distorted images of herself online has been sentenced to 10 years in jail, her lawyer has said, a year after she was arrested over her social media activities.

Sahar Tabar, 19, whose real name is Fatemeh Khishvand, came to prominence after posting images of herself with a gaunt, zombie-like face. At one point she had 486,000 followers on Instagram.

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Concern over French bill that cracks down on photos identifying police

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Journalists call for removal of clause that would ban footage disseminated ‘with intent to harm’ officers

A proposed bill in France that would make it illegal to disseminate photographs or videos identifying police and gendarmes “with intent to harm” is a danger to press freedom, critics have warned.

The measure comes amid growing concern about allegations of police violence in the country. It is outlined in draft global security legislation to be presented to the Assemblée Nationale next week.

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Art as resistance: exiled Kurdish artist’s daring Istanbul show

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Zehra Doğan spent nearly three years in Turkish jails and smuggled out her works as dirty laundry

An exiled artist who spent almost three years in jail in Turkey is shining a light on Kurdish feminism with a daring exhibition of works she created while behind bars.

Zehra Doğan was among the thousands of people who have been caught up in arrests and detentions in Turkey since the 2016 attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. Those detained are accused of either supporting the Gülenist movement, blamed for the failed putsch, or the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a militant group, both of which are outlawed.

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Instagram row over plus-size model forces change to nudity policy

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Facebook amends code after deletion of black users’ photos sparks outrage

As campaigning victories go, forcing Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire to admit a discriminatory flaw in its policy is no small feat.

But following a campaign launched in this paper, the Observer can exclusively reveal that Instagram and its parent company Facebook will be updating its policy on nudity in order to help end discrimination of plus-size black women on its platforms and ensure all body types are treated fairly.

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Russian journalist sets herself on fire after police search property

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Irina Slavina dies following self-immolation she blamed on Russian Federation

A Russian journalist has died after setting herself on fire in front of the local branch of the interior ministry in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, a day after her apartment was searched by police.

Prior to her self-immolation, Irina Slavina wrote on her Facebook page: “I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death.”

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China’s Great Firewall descends on Hong Kong internet users

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Residents rush to erase digital footprints as law gives police powers over online activity

At midnight on Tuesday, the Great Firewall of China, the vast apparatus that limits the country’s internet, appeared to descend on Hong Kong.

Unveiling expanded police powers as part of a contentious new national security law, the Hong Kong government enabled police to censor online speech and force internet service providers to hand over user information and shut down platforms.

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Rowling, Rushdie and Atwood warn against ‘intolerance’ in open letter

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Harper’s letter asserts way to ‘defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion’, but critics accuse authors of censorious mentality

JK Rowling, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood are among the signatories to a controversial open letter warning that the spread of “censoriousness” is leading to “an intolerance of opposing views” and “a vogue for public shaming and ostracism”.

Rowling, whose beliefs on transgender rights have recently seen scores of Harry Potter fans distance themselves from her, said she was “proud to sign this letter in defence of a foundational principle of a liberal society: open debate and freedom of thought and speech”.

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Apple removes two podcast apps from China store after censorship demands

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Pocket Casts says it refuses to restrict its content at request of Chinese authorities

Apple has removed two podcast apps from its Chinese app store, following government pressure to censor content.

Pocket Casts and Castro were both pulled from distribution in China after the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) demanded that the apps stop allowing content that breached the country’s restrictive speech laws.

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Voice of defiance: the Mexican radio journalist who refused to be silenced

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Carmen Arestegui’s battle to stay on the airwaves is the subject of a film highlighting the risks of exposing corruption and crime

When Mexican news anchor Carmen Aristegui was fired from a popular radio show after revealing a presidential scandal on air, it sparked an outpouring of anger and protests.

For millions of listeners Aristegui is a trusted voice cutting through government spin and corruption, and her absence left a void.

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Trump expected to sign executive order in bid to target Twitter and Facebook

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  • Move could erode legal protections for social media platforms
  • Twitter placed warning on Trump tweets that spread falsehoods

Donald Trump is preparing to sign an executive order that could erode legal protections for social media companies for content posted on their platforms, potentially opening them to liability claims over controversial content.

Related: Trump focuses on possible social media regulation as US coronavirus death toll passes milestone – live

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UK scientists condemn ‘Stalinist’ attempt to censor Covid-19 advice

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Exclusive: report criticising government lockdown proposals heavily redacted before release

Government scientific advisers are furious at what they see as an attempt to censor their advice on government proposals during the Covid-19 lockdown by heavily redacting an official report before it was released to the public, the Guardian can reveal.

The report was one of a series of documents published by the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) this week to mollify growing criticism about the lack of transparency over the advice given to ministers responding to the coronavirus.

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List of world’s worst ‘digital predators’ stretches from India and Brazil to US

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Freedom of expression group names and shames alleged offenders on online censorship and orchestrated repression

A freedom of expression group has launched a list of “digital predators”, ranking what it says are 20 of the world’s worst offenders for cyber-censorship and orchestrated online repression.

Published on Thursday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to coincide with World Day Against Cyber-Censorship, the list names and shames entities around the globe whose activities it regards as “tantamount to preying on journalism”.

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As Hay festival opens in the UAE, authors condemn free speech abuses

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Stephen Fry, Noam Chomsky and more than 40 NGOs say the country’s support for the event is at odds with its record on human rights

As bestselling authors from Jung Chang to Bernardine Evaristo prepare to gather in Abu Dhabi for the first Hay festival in the United Arab Emirates, leading figures have spoken out against the country’s compromised free speech. Stephen Fry - the festival’s president – has joined more than 40 public figures and organisations castigating its government for “promoting a platform for freedom of expression, while keeping behind bars Emirati citizens and residents who shared their own views and opinions”.

An open letter signed by Fry, Noam Chomsky, and a coalition of more than 40 NGOs including Amnesty and PEN International, is calling on the UAE to use the launch of the festival’s Abu Dhabi branch – which opens on Tuesday – to “demonstrate their respect for the right to freedom of expression by freeing all human rights defenders imprisoned for expressing themselves peacefully online”.

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‘No debate, no democracy’: journalists in Nepal fight new threat to press freedom

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Bills introduced by ruling Communist party will bring in heavy fines and the threat of jail to stifle debate, say critics

Jail terms of up to five years could be imposed on people in Nepal who post “offensive” comment on social media sites, including Facebook and Instagram in the latest move by the government to crack down on dissent.

The information technology bill, introduced at the end of December, imposes fines of up to 1.5m rupees (about $13,000) for anyone posting content deemed to promote hate crime or ridicule. It would apply to all social networking sites.

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‘I’m the last censor in the western world’: New Zealand’s David Shanks tackles the c-word

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The word is loaded with connotations of state suppression but NZ’s chief censor takes a different view

When David Shanks presents himself at international conferences, his peers recoil slightly.

“I’d introduce myself as, ‘Hi, I’m David from New Zealand. New Zealand’s chief censor,’” he says. “And basically these people would take an involuntary step backwards, almost, on many occasions.”

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