We Should Be Very Concerned About Censorship

When people as disparate as John Cleese, of Monty Python fame, journalist Piers Morgan, and Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald raise their voices in concern, you know that there’s a problem. A very big problem. Censorship by the giants of media and social media has gotten out of control.

Ted Cruz’s grilling of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has rightly gone viral. Yet the answers given by Dorsey were chilling. To paraphrase, 'Even though we blew it, if the New York Post' – yes, the Post, one of the nation’s leading and historic newspapers – 'wants to access its account again, it must remove the tweet we don’t like.'

In other words, “Play by the rules we make, as uneven and biased as they may be, or we will silence you. And make no mistake about it. We have that power.”

I remember the first time Facebook shut down one of our ministry’s pages and locked me out, along with our page administrator. We had been falsely accused of hate speech, as a result of which we could not post anything to the page or access our account.

Thankfully, I was given the name of someone within Facebook who helped religious organizations, and after reviewing the complaints, Facebook apologized and reinstated our page.

Still, it was a jarring experience.

You work hard for years to cultivate an audience. You spend thousands of hours posting material and interacting with your followers. You build a constituency and they become your co-workers, sharing your material with others.

And then, suddenly, based on false charges by people who themselves are bigoted, you are shut down. Silenced. Cut off from your constituency. Unable to communicate or even explain what has happened. And if you dare cross the line again – so say the ominous warnings you receive the social media gatekeepers – you will be banned for life.

What kind of power is that? It felt like a personal violation.

What, then, should we do?

Shout our messages from the rooftops. Speak out all the more loudly and clearly. Investigate and study and research. Get to the truth and share the truth.

As Paul wrote, “For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth” (2 Corinthians 13:8).

https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2020/10/30/we-should-be-very-concerned-about-censorship-n2579113

Belgian teacher is suspended for showing pupils cartoon of Prophet Mohammed while discussing teacher murdered for showing same image in France

A Brussels district has suspended a teacher who showed a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed while discussing the murder of a French teacher who had used the same image, its spokesman said Friday.

The Belgian teacher, who works in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, showed one of the cartoons previously published by French magazine Charlie Hebdo while explaining Samuel Paty's death.

'Our decision is uniquely based on the fact that these are obscene images. If it had not been of the Prophet we would have done the same thing,' said a spokesman for Molenbeek's mayor.

In the image in question, the subject's genitals are visible as he crouches, nude. The school pupils were aged between 10 to 11. 'Two or three parents complained,' the spokesman said.

The French teacher Paty was killed and beheaded on October 16 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, outside Paris, by a Chechen radical after he was denounced for having shown the cartoons to a class on freedom of expression.

Some Muslims regard any image of the prophet as blasphemous and a caricature as an offence against their faith. French law is strictly secular and religious belief receives no special protection.

The magazine that originally published the images, Charlie Hebdo, was the target of an extremist attack in 2015 that killed 12 people.

Following 47-year-old Paty's murder, French President Emmanuel Macron mounted an impassioned defence of free expression, including a cartoonist's right to lampoon religious figures.

Neighbouring Belgium has, like France, seen a number of attacks in recent years and Molenbeek, which has a large Muslim population, has become notorious as a radical hotbed.

The mayor's spokesman stressed the suspension was not a punishment, but to preserve good order while a disciplinary procedure is carried out, after which the teacher could face administrative measures.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8898599/Belgian-teacher-suspended-showing-pupils-cartoon-Prophet-Mohammed.html

***********************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

*******************************