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Keywords: Censorship

  • AUSTRALIA

    Dictators, democrats, and Egypt after Morsi

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 24 June 2019
    2 Comments

    Egypt's first and thus far only democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi died in court while being tried for espionage following a lengthy period in prison. He is described as an 'Islamist' but never as a democrat. It's as if the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. Must they be? Was he any less democratic than his predecessors?

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    'Climate emergency' endangers democracy

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 21 June 2019
    7 Comments

    Historically, a declaration of emergency, whether in response to war, civil unrest or natural disaster, allows the state to suppress debate to enable a militarised response to an urgent problem. You can see why that might appeal as a solution to the environmental crisis. But addressing climate change requires more democracy, not less.

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  • MEDIA

    Sense and censorship in social media crackdown

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 03 April 2019
    5 Comments

    The thrust of the Morrison government's changes is one of heavy handed and forced deferral, outsourcing government policing by vesting it in social media platforms. Israel's Cyber Unit, by way of contrast, has been seeking the same object via more subtle means, collaborating with Facebook and YouTube to remove errant posts and content.

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  • MEDIA

    Good news stories from the age of outrage

    • Amy Thunig
    • 14 February 2019
    4 Comments

    There are those who say we live in an era of outrage, but the outrageous and inhumane was always there; it's just that we are finally addressing it. It was demonstrated by the passing of the Medivac Bill, and the safe return of Hakeem Al-Araibi, that the voices of Australia, rather than the powerful few, are finally being heard.

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  • EDUCATION

    Research funding regime gets personal

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 01 November 2018
    2 Comments

    Birmingham's intervention, and Tehan's consolidation of that ill-exercised discretion, suggests Australian Research Council funding will be politicised by executive veto. Expertise will be subordinated to the whimsy of the education minister of the day; researchers will be pondering how to shape their applications accordingly.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Fronts of distortion in the Khashoggi affair

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 19 October 2018
    4 Comments

    Trump finds facts distasteful and prefers to avoid engaging them; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia finds them in need of censorship, possibly of the most extreme type; and Turkey, with one of the world's most sullied records in treating journalists, retains a reserve discordant with its own findings.

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  • RELIGION

    New horizons for justice and solidarity

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 September 2018

    As leaders like Gough Whitlam and Patrick Dodson have attested, if we are to imagine and strive towards New Horizons for Justice and Solidarity, we need conviction, perseverance, capacity for compromise, relationships of trust, humour.

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  • MEDIA

    How fake news stifles democracy in Asia

    • Lika Posamari
    • 24 August 2018
    1 Comment

    In the Philippines and elsewhere, the spread of disinformation appealing to fear and hatred has helped create what Rappler CEO Maria Ressa describes as a 'spiral of silence that has had an incredibly negative impact on our democracy'. Social media platforms are far from blameless.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    21st century protest from Cairo to Don Dale

    • Marta Skrabacz
    • 04 December 2017
    4 Comments

    There’s no reason to judge the success of a protest by whether it achieved its desired outcome: the adage ‘it’s a marathon, not a sprint’ rings true. Effective change is a matter of increment; it has to happen at every strata of society. Protests bear the brunt of proving success, when the burden for change actually exists with the system they’re opposing.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Inside Catalonia's cypherpunk referendum

    • Marta Poblet Balcell
    • 06 October 2017
    3 Comments

    Activism advocating widespread use of encryption and privacy-enhancing technologies to bring political change in Catalonia is perhaps a sign of emerging trends on the internet: the horizontal, decentralised internet that Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, inventors of its core technologies, initially envisioned and are currently demanding.

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  • MEDIA

    'Both sides' journalism betrays the public interest

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 21 September 2017
    15 Comments

    In a liberal democracy, the media's most essential function is to serve the public interest. This includes providing information so that the public can make informed decisions. In order to do so, journalists must decide what is in the public interest and why. 'Balanced' coverage of, for example, damaging aspects of the marriage equality No campaign does not fit these criteria.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Men's rights activists need to take a chill pill

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 27 October 2016
    24 Comments

    The 'men's rights' documentary The Red Pill has been pulled from Melbourne's Palace Kino cinema, sparking debate over censorship and what constitutes partisan reporting. The men's rights movement holds that 'feminism has gone too far', to the point that men are discriminated against. Since the internet and the third wave of feminism, the majority of MRA groups seem to be little more than a veil for misogynists to legitimise their sexism. It's a shame, because there are some MRA groups who raise real issues.

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