Tag: censorship

  • Censorship, Surveillance; mysterious firewall being installed to block content

    Censorship, Surveillance; mysterious firewall being installed to block content

    Umar Cheema, a senior investigative reporter at The News, has revealed that a national firewall is being installed on different internet service providers (ISPs) to rein in social media. The filters will block unwanted content from reaching a wider audience online.

    The Current also spoke with Shahbaz Rana, a senior journalist at The Tribune, to inquire about the details of the mysterious firewall. He stated, “This is a Chinese technology that the government is importing. It’s a $135 million project out of which some amount has been delivered and the remainder amount will be paid by next year.”

    “It is already bought. Now it is being installed and commissioned,” said sources of The News.

    “The national firewall will serve two purposes: identify the locations from where the propaganda material is being originated and the subsequent blockade or diminished coverage of those accounts”. He added: “But, I think the main focus will remain on locating the source of such propaganda to nip the evil in the bud”.

    According to Cheema, there will be a keyword filtering system to detect content that is undesirable to the state of Pakistan. That type of content will likely be hidden and made invisible to outside users. In other words, dissenting voices will likely be passed through this inspection before they’re visible.

    Preparation is also in progress to prevent the ‘misuse’ of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) as the government can declare it mandatory for citizens to inform the PTA about the VPNs they are using. Anyone failing to do that could land in trouble.

    Previously, the government’s action against VPNs triggered a backlash from the corporate community as VPNs are primarily used by big businesses worldwide to protect their business secrets as their internal communication travels within a private network. It was due to this that action against VPNs was stopped for some time.

    Blocking social media website X (formerly Twitter) has cut the users from 4.5 million to 2.4 million, a government official told The News. It has affected Twitter’s business in Pakistan and unlike in the past, the management of the social media company has also started paying heed to government demands.

    For instance, blockade of an account of the Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society (PESS). Maj (r) Adil Raja was using this account even after he was no longer an office-bearer of the PESS — and refused to return control of the account.
    X (formerly Twitter) wouldn’t respond to requests generated through the PTA for a block on the account. However, it is now blocked on X.

  • USAID contractor resigns, alleging work on Palestine was censored

    Alexander Smith, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), resigned from his private sector position, saying he could no longer perform contract work for the Biden administration after a presentation he was preparing on Gaza’s humanitarian crisis was cancelled.

    Smith claimed that USAID gave him a choice between resigning or dismissal after he attempted to give a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians, says a report published by The Guardian.

    “I cannot do my job in an environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race,” Smith wrote in his resignation letter quoted by The Guardian.

    Smith’s resignation adds to a small but growing list of officials working inside or for the US government who have resigned in protest against the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    On Tuesday, Stacy Gilbert, a career official in the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), told staff she was resigning because she felt the State Department had wrongly concluded that Israel was not preventing the entry of aid into Gaza.

    Earlier this month, Lilly Greenberg Call became the first Jewish-American political official to resign. Call worked in the Department of Interior, but there have been a number of high-profile resignations from officials working on the Middle East and defence.

    Major Harrison Mann tendered his resignation from the Department of Defence Intelligence Agency in May, citing Washington’s support for the war on Gaza.

  • X blocks India election posts after takedown orders

    X blocks India election posts after takedown orders

    Social media platform X has blocked several posts in India containing political speech after authorities ordered their takedown ahead of a six-week general election that starts Friday.

    X, owned by Tesla boss Elon Musk and formerly known as Twitter, said the posts would be withheld from Indian audiences until the election was over despite its disagreement with the order.

    “In compliance with the orders, we have withheld these posts for the remainder of the election period,” X said in a statement posted to the platform late Tuesday.

    “However, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts and political speech in general.”

    The posts by elected politicians, political parties and candidates made unverified claims about the private lives of their opponents, which India’s election commission said violated its code of conduct.

    The platform’s announcement of its compliance with the order came the same day X’s Brazilian office said it would abide by a court direction to block disinformation-spreading users in that country.

    Musk had earlier threated to disregard the Brazilian court’s order.

    The billionaire is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India this month to discuss major investment plans in the country.

    India, the world’s biggest democracy, regularly ranks among the top five countries globally for number of requests made by a government to remove social media content.

    Last year, an Indian court hit X with a $61,000 fine after the platform unsuccessfully challenged orders to remove tweets and accounts critical of Modi’s government.

    Rights groups say freedom of expression is under threat in India, which has fallen 21 spots to 161 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index since Modi took office in 2014.

    Indian authorities have regularly imposed blanket internet shutdowns during periods of unrest.

    That includes a months-long outage in the northeastern state of Manipur last year in the wake of ethnic violence.

    The government says internet cuts curb disinformation by stemming rumours from spreading on social media or mobile messaging applications.

    A total of 968 million people are eligible to cast a ballot in the election, with the final round of voting on June 1 and counting three days later.

  • Meta’s ban on word ‘shaheed’ restricts free expression: Oversight Board

    Meta’s ban on word ‘shaheed’ restricts free expression: Oversight Board

    Meta’s independent Oversight Board urged the company to revise its broad ban on the Arabic word “shaheed,” which translates to “martyr” in English.

    After a year-long review, the board found Meta’s current policy to be overly restrictive, silencing millions of users.

    The board, funded by Meta but operating autonomously, recommends keeping “shaheed” posts only if they directly promote violence or violate existing Meta content guidelines.

    This decision follows mounting criticism, particularly regarding Meta’s handling of content related to the Middle East.

    A 2021 study commissioned by Meta itself revealed a negative impact on the free expression rights of Palestinians and Arabic users.

    Criticism further intensified during the 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict, with accusations of content censorship on Facebook and Instagram.

    The oversight board’s report highlights Meta’s failure to consider the various meanings of “shaheed,” leading to the removal of harmless content.

    Co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt argues that Meta’s heavy reliance on censorship might unintentionally marginalise entire communities without effectively improving safety.

    Currently, Meta removes any post containing “shaheed” if it mentions someone on their “dangerous organisations” list. This includes Islamist groups, drug cartels, white supremacist organisations, and Hamas.

    Meta sought the board’s guidance after failing to reach an internal consensus on revising the policy in 2020. The board noted that “shaheed” was the most frequently removed term across Meta platforms.

    A Meta spokesperson confirmed they would review the recommendations and respond within 60 days.

  • India targeting high-profile journalists with spyware: Amnesty

    India targeting high-profile journalists with spyware: Amnesty

    New Delhi (AFP) – India’s government has recently targeted high-profile journalists with Pegasus spyware, Amnesty International and The Washington Post said in a joint investigation published Thursday.

    Created by Israeli firm NSO Group and sold to governments around the world, Pegasus software can be used to access a phone’s messages and emails, peruse photos, eavesdrop on calls, track locations and even film the owner with the camera.

    Amnesty said journalists Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire and Anand Mangnale of The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project had been targeted with the spyware on their iPhones, with the latest identified case occurring in October.

    “Our latest findings show that increasingly, journalists in India face the threat of unlawful surveillance simply for doing their jobs, alongside other tools of repression including imprisonment under draconian laws, smear campaigns, harassment, and intimidation,” said Donncha O Cearbhaill, Head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab.

    India’s government did not immediately respond, but it denied similar accusations in 2021 that it used Pegasus spyware to surveil political opponents, activists and journalists.

    Indian media reported last month that the country’s cyber security unit was investigating allegations by opposition politicians of attempted phone tapping after they reported receiving Apple iPhone warnings of “state-sponsored attackers”.

    In that case, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the information and technology minister, said the government was “concerned” by the complaints.

  • Oscar winner Olivia Colman among 1,000 artists signing petition slamming institutions for censoring Palestine

    Oscar winner Olivia Colman among 1,000 artists signing petition slamming institutions for censoring Palestine

    British acting giant Olivia Colman and ‘Bridgerton’ and ‘Derry Girls’ star Nicola Coughlan are among the 1000 artists who have signed a petition slamming Western institutions for aiding and abetting the “repressing, silencing and stigmatising of Palestinian voices and perspectives.” The letter includes signatures from ‘Sex Education’ star Aimee Lou Wood and multiple Emmy-award winner Harriet Walter.

    “This includes targeting and threatening the livelihoods of artists and arts workers who express solidarity with Palestinians, as well as cancelling performances, screenings, talks, exhibitions and book launches.”

    The letter shed light on the ongoing genocide of Gaza, where the death toll has crossed 15,000 civilian lives, with members of the Israeli government now openly calling for ethnic cleansing, and using starvation as a war weapon.

    “The wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure, the bombing of hospitals, schools, churches and mosques, the killing of 14,500 people in a matter of weeks, amount to a policy of collective punishment against the Palestinian people. The United Nations and hundreds of legal scholars have called on the international community to prevent genocide.”

    The letter then proceeded to criticise the ongoing censorship and repression of voices, including Susan Sarandon, who was dropped by her agency, and actor Melissa Barrera, who was fired from the ‘Scream’ series for her vocal pro-Palestine posts.

    “As artists and cultural workers,” the petition points out, “we stand in solidarity with those facing threats and intimidation in the workplace. The arts sector must urgently align its actions with its stated values of justice and inclusivity, and to refuse the dehumanisation of Palestinian people.”

    The petition states that for artists to stay silent in the face of mass injustice and humanitarian crisis “would be an abrogation of moral duty”. It also pointed out that more artists are refusing to work with those institutions that are complicit in this heinous act.

    The petition also shared four demands from the signatories which were:

    – Publicly demand a permanent ceasefire.
    – Promote and amplify the voices of Palestinian artists, writers, and thinkers.
    – Stand up for artists and workers who voice their support for Palestinian rights.
    – Refuse collaborations with institutions or bodies that are complicit in severe human rights violations.

  • ‘I’ll go become a carpenter’: Ms Marvel star Saagar Shaikh speaks up on supporting Palestine

    ‘I’ll go become a carpenter’: Ms Marvel star Saagar Shaikh speaks up on supporting Palestine

    Pakistani-American Muslim actor Saagar Shaikh has given a masterclass to other Hollywood actors on how to remain true to your principles, even when it costs you your livelihood.

    The actor was speaking at the ‘Salaam Nerds’ podcast where he spoke about his role as Kamala’s brother, Amir in ‘Ms Marvel’, adding that he was okay with putting his career on the line if it meant speaking up for Palestine.

    “I don’t give a f*** if my job is on the line, because I’ll find another one. I’ll become a carpenter if I have to.”

    Truly an iconic move, and all of X (formerly Twitter) agrees.

    Prominent Hollywood actors are getting dropped by talent agencies or fired from projects for speaking up for Palestine. Hollywood legend Susan Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency after she went viral for attending pro-Palestinian protests, and Jenna Ortega chose to step out of the ‘Scream 7’ franchise after Spyglass Entertainment l fired Melissa Barrera for pro-Palestine posts on social media.

  • Jenna Ortega steps back from ‘Scream 7’, and Twitter users feel the timing was phenomenal

    Jenna Ortega steps back from ‘Scream 7’, and Twitter users feel the timing was phenomenal

    Two queens maximising their joint slay

    Jenna Ortega has stepped back from the upcoming horror franchise ‘Scream 7’, just one day after Variety reported that actor Melissa Barrera was fired from the project because of her pro-Palestine stance. Deadline states that Ortega’s decision had nothing to do with Melissa’s firing, stressing that the departure was pre-planned before the actor’s strike as the actor’s shooting was clashing with Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’.

    Jenna has remained vocal about her pro-Palestinian stance, and in the past few days has kept sharing content spreading awareness about the genocide in Gaza.

    The news comes hot on the heels of Melissa being dropped for posting pro-Palestinian content on her Instagram stories. She released a statement writing that she condemns anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and will not remain silent during a genocide.

    “First and foremost I condemn Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. I condemn hate and prejudice of any kind against any group of people.

    As a latina, a proud Mexicana, I feel the responsibility of having a platform that allows me the privilege of being heard, and therefore I have tried to use it to raise awareness about issues I care about and to lend my voice to those in need.

    Every person on this earth- regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or socio-economic status- deserves equal human rights, dignity, and of course, freedom.

    I believe a group of people are NOT their leadership, and that no governing body should be above criticism.

    I pray day and night for no more deaths, for no more violence, and for peaceful co-existence. I will continue to speak out for those that need it most and continue to advocate for peace and safety, for human rights and freedom.

    Silence is not an option for me.”

    X (formerly Twitter) users applauded Jenna for standing true to her pro-Palestinian stance and remaining a committed ally with her cast member.

  • BBC edits out multiple calls for ceasefire during Scottish BAFTA awards

    BBC edits out multiple calls for ceasefire during Scottish BAFTA awards

    At the Scottish Bafta awards, multiple actors who took the stage to call for a ceasefire were edited out by the BBC, sparking criticism from audiences. An exclusive piece written by The National reveals that the media giant edited out the producers of ‘A Long Winter’ who won the award for Best Short Film And Animation. In their speech, Eilidh Munro and Finlay Pretsell urged audiences to pressure institutions and governments to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

    The speech was shared widely on the livestream produced by BAFTA Scotland, but removed from BBC iPlayer’s edit.

    Egyptian actor Amir El-Masry was also censored in the BBC coverage. Before announcing the nominees for the Best Actress category, he said: “Before I start, I just want to echo the sentiments earlier in saying my heart goes out all women, men and children who are suffering right now in Gaza. Let’s hope and pray that we see peace in the region and an imminent ceasefire.”

    Speaking to The National, Munro revealed he was deeply concerned at how mainstream media censored peaceful protests in this manner

    “It is deeply concerning that the BBC decided to cut the entire segment of our award acceptance speech from their coverage of the Bafta Scotland Awards.

    “October was the deadliest month for Palestinian journalists and filmmakers in the last 30 years and the scale of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the region is horrific.

    “Awards ceremonies have always been a platform to express solidarity and humanity, and we wanted to use this opportunity as filmmakers to call for peace. For the BBC to cut this, as well as actor Amir El-Masry’s appeal to a ceasefire, is simply shocking.

    “It is also somewhat surreal that an event which celebrates artists and filmmakers for using their voices and creating work to speak out against injustice can also be censored.

    “In my opinion, the BBC’s editorial decision to omit these peaceful signs of solidarity is neither neutral nor impartial.

    “As an emerging director creating and celebrating independent documentaries, it’s also disappointing to have this platform taken away from a sector that is already largely underrepresented in mainstream media.”

    The censorship of pro-Palestinian voices by the BBC has caused outrage on social media.

  • ‘Glaring double standards’: Susan Sarandon, Melissa Barrera pay the price for speaking up for Palestine

    ‘Glaring double standards’: Susan Sarandon, Melissa Barrera pay the price for speaking up for Palestine

    Two pro-Palestinian voices in Hollywood had to pay the price for speaking up for the cause. Hollywood legend Susan Sarandon, a vocal supporter of the Palestinian people, was dropped by her talent agency UTA.

    X (formerly Twitter) users were horrified, given Susan’s impressive career as a Hollywood leading lady.

    ‘Scream’ franchise lead actor Mellisa Barerra was fired from the series after she took to Instagram to voice criticism against the genocide of Gaza. The actress had written:

    “I too come from a colonized country. Palestine will be free.”

    witter users pointed out how genocide supporters like Sarah Silverman and Amy Schumer continue to have careers in Hollywood but it takes one pro-Palestine post that gets actors fired from their jobs.