Updike’s Panther: Rabbit Redux at Fifty
“Say what you see.” That was Roy Walker’s advice to contestants on the UK quiz show Catchphrase. We are attracted to other people’s observations—it is one of the reasons we…
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Posts by tag
Censorship
21 posts
What My Soviet Life Has Taught Me About Censorship and Why It Makes Us Dumb
A few years into my American life, I took a class on western thought. The only philosopher on the syllabus familiar to me was Karl Marx, and he wasn’t why…
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Safeguarding Freedom of Speech Will Require an Active Approach
Without freedom of speech, true liberty is not possible. In a tyranny, those in control of the state wield absolute power: power that is opaque, not subject to checks and…
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Naming the Unnameable: Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and the Defence of Free Speech
We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books;…
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Would Hunter S. Thompson Be Cancelled Today?
It’s a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.—Hunter S. Thompson, Generation of Swine. The father of gonzo journalism was known for his uncompromising but…
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Why Can’t the Right Be Cancelled?
On 10 February 2021, Gina Carano—a former MMA fighter best known for her role in the Stars Wars spin-off The Mandalorian—was dealt what looked like a death blow to her…
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De Jure and De Facto Censorship: Why We Need to Be Concerned About Both
The last few weeks have seen dustups over the decision by the foundation overseeing Dr. Seuss’s works (i.e. Dr. Seuss Enterprises) to cease publication of six books deemed problematic, as…
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The Infrastructure of Deplatforming: Loomer versus Twitter
What can be studied is always a relationship or an infinite regress of relationships. Never a ‘thing.’—Gregory Bateson, 1978 In 1984, sociologists Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker published a paper…
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The Soft Mob: Intolerance and the New Definition of “Harm”
In the festival of non-sequiturs that was the reaction to the Harper’s letter, two equally specious rebuttals rose to the fore: the first, that freedom of expression has become a…
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I’m a Nobody. The Harper’s Letter was for Me.
I’m terrified to write this—and that’s the problem. In the wake of the Harper’s letter, I’ve witnessed flabbergasting displays of casuistry. Critics have attacked the motives and character of certain…
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Google’s Threat to Ban “The Federalist”
Yesterday, NBC News published a piece claiming that Google had “banned” conservative websites the Federalist and ZeroHedge for “pushing unsubstantiated claims about the Black Lives Matter movement.” Google’s ban came…
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The Death of Comedy
Sanitation departments aren’t usually controversial. New York City’s sanitation department’s Twitter account is full of zero-waste tips, charity work, and employees rescuing kittens. What does it take to make a…
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Threats to Free Speech at University, and How to Deal with Them—Part 2
Part 1 of this essay outlined six major threats to free speech at university, focusing on institutions in the UK and US: first, speech codes, speech guidelines and free speech…
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Threats to Free Speech at University, and How to Deal with Them—Part 1
Free speech is arguably the most important value for universities to uphold. As Steven Pinker points out in an essay aptly tilted Why Free Speech is Fundamental, “the very thing…
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Saving Socialist Realist Art in San Francisco
(A Self-Portrait by the Artist) In 2018, San Francisco removed the 124-year-old Early Days sculpture from Civic Center Plaza because it showed a Plains Indian sitting at the feet…
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Censorship on Facebook and YouTube
Facebook is a private company: therefore, it can enforce its rules without having to ask anyone for permission. Changes in policies do enrage a few users, but, overall, Facebook has…
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Zuckerberg: The Digital Gutenberg
On Thursday the second of May Facebook drew a line in the sand, banning from their platforms people who purvey ideas they deem dangerous. Being purged from Facebook and Instagram…
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The Internet Is Making You Less Free
Our current age is defined by the internet. The internet—a technology that allows the decentralized, globalized dissemination of information—has become so thoroughly entrenched in human life that access is now…
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