Pakistan Demands Google Take Down Petition For Academic Freedom... Saying It Represents Hate Speech

from the hate-speech-used-for-censorship dept

While it's understandable (these days especially) that some are concerned about what they refer to as "hate speech," it's worth reminding people (as we've done for years) that laws against hate speech are almost universally used by governments to punish people they don't like, rather than to protect those who most people normally consider the targets of hate speech.

Take this latest example, highlighted by FIRE, concerning an attempt by Pakistan to censor an online petition for academic freedom, claiming that it was hate speech.

The request came from the Pakistan Telecom Authority, which cited Section 11 and Section 37 — which lay out restrictions on “hate speech” and “unlawful online content” — of Pakistan’s 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act

11. Hate speech—Whoever prepares or disseminates information, through any information system or device that advances or is likely to advance interfaith, sectarian or racial hatred shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years or with fine or with both.

[ . . . ]

37. Unlawful on-line content—l) The Authority shall have the power to remove or block or issue directions for removal or blocking of access to an information through any information system if it considers it necessary in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court or commission of or incitement to an offence under this Act.

So what is this horrible hate speech? It's a letter about academic freedom and free speech on campus signed by a bunch of Pakistani and American academics. The letter documents a few examples in Pakistan of attacks on academic freedom:

As faculty members and teachers, we are extremely concerned about the events that have taken place over the last few days at universities across Pakistan, which signal a closure of intellectual space within the country. Between April 12th and 13th four separate but related instances of repression took place on university campuses in different parts of the country.

In the first instance, an event entitled ‘Ethnic Rights, New Social Movements, and the State of the Federation in Pakistan,’ which was supposed to be held at Habib University in Karachi on April 13th was forcibly cancelled only an hour before the event was due to be held after a visit from state functionaries. This event was intended as a teach-in and panel discussion in which various new social movements emerging across the country would be analyzed and discussed by experts from the field. Not only was the event abruptly cancelled, one of the guest speakers was forced off campus by the university security despite the fact that it was the university that had invited him in the first place.

In the second instance, an event that was planned to be held at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, also on April 13th, which was a commemoration of the student who was brutally murdered by a mob one year ago at Abdul Wali Khan University, Mashal Khan, was also forcibly cancelled on the same day the event was due to be held. This event was planned in order for students to come together and mourn the loss of a fellow student who dedicated his short life to raising his voice in the struggle for peace and justice.

That doesn't seem to be hate speech, now, does it? So, once again, we have "hate speech" rules being used in an attempt to punish people the government doesn't like.

This, of course, is not a defense of "hate speech," but this pattern is undeniable. The nature of hate speech is such that it is frequently used by the powerful against marginalized groups. And, by definition, marginalized groups are rarely in power in the government, so it frequently does little to actually protect such groups. However, when there is no real definition of "hate speech" and it is quickly turned into "anything we don't like," it enables powerful governments to silence and punish anyone.

Filed Under: free speech, hate speech, pakistan, takedowns
Companies: google

Vietnamese Government Whines Facebook Isn't Helping It Censor Critics Quickly Enough

from the get-bent-fellow-UN-member dept

The censorship arm of the Vietnamese government is at it again, complaining that it's not getting enough censorship accomplished. The target of its complaints is, oddly enough, a former enabler of its dissent-stifling efforts, Facebook.

To help it snuff out criticism and dissent, the government granted itself expansive new powers with a cybersecurity law that went into effect at the beginning of this year. When a law is clearly written to target government critics, it appears that it can be applied a lot more broadly, especially when the definition of "cybersecurity" includes all of this:

According to the ABEI [Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information], Facebook had violated Vietnamese laws in three major areas of managing information content, online advertising and tax liability.

Facebook had not reportedly responded to a request to remove fanpages provoking activities against the State at the request of authorities.

Facebook had also allowed content from personal accounts to post slanderous content, anti-government sentiment and libel and defamation of individuals, organisations and State agencies. This content had been found to seriously violate Viet Nam’s Law on Cyber Security, Government’s Decree 72/2013, on the management, provision and use of internet services and online information and the MIC’s Circular 38 detailing the provision of public information across the border.

Just like that, criticism of the government becomes an cybersecurity threat, as does libel, defamation, and, um, providing public information across borders. Vietnam censors are angry Facebook hasn't responded to multiple emails demanding the removal of "distorted or misleading" content. However, Facebook has responded, telling the Vietnamese government these posts don't violate "community standards."

Apparently, the Vietnamese government is going to tax Facebook into submission.

According to ANTS market research company, in 2018, spending on online advertising in Viet Nam was estimated at US$550 million, of which advertising spent on Facebook and Google were $235 million and $152.1 million respectively. However, the two have reportedly ignored their tax obligations in Viet Nam.

The fact that foreign businesses such as Facebook do not pay taxes had caused the state to lose money and float the online advertising market, said the ABEI.

If this doesn't work (and it won't), the government is going to do other vague things ("necessary economic and technical measures") to hurt Facebook and "ensure a clean and healthy network environment." One "necessary economic measure" is somehow blocking Facebook from collecting money for "hatred advertising," whatever the hell that is.

What the government really wants is direct control. The Financial Times reports the government is demanding Facebook physically set up shop in Vietnam as the new law requires. Having a local office makes it that much easier for men with guns to follow up on ignored content removal requests. For exactly this reason, Facebook should never create a Vietnam office, unless it's going to do it patent troll-style and rent out an empty office and tell the Vietnamese government all content removal requests must be mailed to the nearest strip mall with a Mailboxes, Etc.

The Vietnamese government doesn't have much leverage as it loves having access to Facebook to deliver its version of events, as well as give its 10,000 full-time internet monitors something to look at. So, it's not going to kick Facebook out. It's just going to keep demanding fees it can't collect while claiming anything anti-government is a threat to the nation's safety.

Filed Under: censorship, cybersecurity, free speech, vietnam
Companies: facebook

Appeals Court: First Amendment Violation To Ban Members Of The Public From Gov't Officials' Facebook Pages

from the seems-obvious-but-let's-keep-stacking-up-the-caselaw dept

Late last spring, a federal court in New York made it clear Trump's blocking of Twitter users violated those users' First Amendment rights. As the court reasoned then, Twitter may be a private company, but the use of it by government official to engage with the public makes it a limited public forum -- limited to Trump's account and Twitter users' interaction with it. Twitter remains free to moderate as it pleases. The ruling did not say Twitter itself was a public forum, just government officials' use of the platform via official accounts.

When Trump's account blocked people he didn't like, he violated the First Amendment.

Here, the individual plaintiffs were indisputably blocked as a result of viewpoint discrimination. The record establishes that "[s]hortly after the Individual Plaintiffs posted the tweets . . . in which they criticized the President or his policies, the President blocked each of the Individual Plaintiffs," ... and defendants do "not contest Plaintiffs' allegation that the Individual Plaintiffs were blocked from the President's Twitter account because the Individual Plaintiffs posted tweets that criticized the President or his policies." ... The continued exclusion of the individual plaintiffs based on viewpoint is, therefore, impermissible under the First Amendment.

Nearly a year later, another lawsuit involving government officials and their social media accounts has reached the appellate level. And the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has come to the same conclusion. The stakes may be smaller -- shrinking from the President and his millions of followers to a Virginia county board member -- but the outcome is the same. From the decision [PDF]:

The Chair's Facebook Page also is "compatib[le] with expressive activity." Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 802. "Congress [has] recognized the internet and interactive computer services as offering 'a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity.'" Zeran v. Am. Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327, 330 (4th Cir. 1997) (quoting 47 U.S.C. § 230(a)(3)); cf. Bland, 730 F.3d at 386 (finding post to campaign Facebook page "constituted pure speech"). And the Supreme Court recently analogized social media sites, like the Chair's Facebook Page, to "traditional" public forums, characterizing the internet as "the most important place[] (in a spacial sense) for the exchange of views." Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730, 1735 (2017). An "exchange of views" is precisely what Randall sought—and what in fact transpired—when she expressly invited "ANY Loudoun citizen" to visit the page and comment "on ANY issues," and received numerous such posts and comments.

But Chairperson Phyllis Randall didn't like Brian Davison's comments on any issues, especially those related to ethics and school board spending. So she banned Davison from posting comments to her page -- the same page she declared to be her "county Facebook page." The court's description of the page leaves little doubt it was being used as an official tool of communication by Phyllis Randall.

Randall created and administered the Chair's Facebook Page to further her duties as a municipal official. She used the Chair's Facebook Page "as a tool of governance," id. at 713: through the Chair's Facebook Page, Randall provides information to the public about her and the Loudoun Board's official activities and solicits input from the public on policy issues she and the Loudoun Board confront.

If a government official is going to use a social media account in this fashion, they can't ban others from accessing it or posting comments without violating the First Amendment. Randall's arguments about how "public" this "public forum" was -- what with a private company providing the communications platform -- don't budge the needle at all. As the court points out, any interpretation still leads to First Amendment violations.

Upon concluding that interactive component of the Chair's Facebook Page amounts to a public forum, we would normally need to determine whether it constitutes a traditional public forum or designated or limited public forum. In the present case, however, we need not decide that question because Randall's ban of Davison amounted to "viewpoint discrimination," which is "prohibited in all forums."

This really shouldn't be up for discussion but it will be as long as politicians think they can enjoy the advantages of third-party social media platforms with none of the downside. Talking to the public is always going to result in comments and questions government officials don't want to hear. But that's part of job. Being a public servant means dealing with the public, which can often be far from pleasant. Banning people on platforms is an easy way to silence critics, but it's almost always going to be a violation of their rights.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th circuit, free speech, politicians, public forum, social media
Companies: facebook

LinkedIn Is Helping The Chinese Government Silence Critics

from the maybe-people-will-start-paying-attention-to-their-notifications-NOW dept

The social networks of the world aren't doing much to make the world a better place. Facilitating communications across borders is great -- a definite net gain for the world's citizens. But these platforms insist on distributing globally while thinking locally, making their operations subject to censorial governments in the countries where they do business.

Facebook's refusal to stand up to various authoritarian governments arguably made it an accessory to the fact in genocide. Twitter tends to sit back and let Turkey's government vanish away criticism of President Erdogan and his actions. Google appears to be one of the few companies responsive to the Chinese government's demands for content deletion, which is probably due to its ability to get past the country's Great Firewall as well as its temporarily suspended construction of a Chinese government-controlled search engine.

One social network rarely appears in these discussions, most likely because few people actually see it as a social network. LinkedIn -- the de facto adult in the world of social networking -- is also giving China what it wants when it wants it.

LinkedIn censored the profile and activities of a vocal critic of the Chinese government for users in China, in another apparent response to a censorship request from the government.

Corporate fraud investigator Peter Humphrey, who is British and lives in the UK, was informed by LinkedIn in December that his profile had been censored in China, but after being asked about it by BuzzFeed News this week, LinkedIn restored the page and said it had only been blocked in error.

It comes days after LinkedIn censored the page of a pro-democracy activist in China before also later restoring it after a wave of negative publicity.

LinkedIn is one of the only American social media services to be warmly welcomed on the other side of the Great Firewall. Consequently, this means it actually has something to report about China and its demands for content removal in its transparency reports. So far, the censorship plan is working... with an assist from LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is trying to have it both ways. It's complying with China's demands and saying things about having to follow the laws of the country it's doing business in, as it did in a message to Peter Humphrey about his account suspension. (Screenshot at this link.)

While we strongly support freedom of expression, we recognized when we launched that we would need to adhere to the requirements of the Chinese government in order to operate in China.

Then, when the heat comes down, LinkedIn is trying to pretend its proxy censorship was just a mistake.

Asked why Humphrey's profile had been removed in China, Nicole Leverich, a spokesperson for LinkedIn, said an internal review found the profile was “blocked in error.” It has now been restored for users in China, she said.

“Our Trust and Safety team is updating our internal processes to help prevent an error like this from happening again,” she added.

Swell, if that is what's actually going to happen going forward. But China is batting 9-for-9 in takedowns so far, which seems to indicate the review process kicks in only after people start complaining, rather than when LinkedIn receives requests from the Chinese government.

While it makes things easier to abide by local laws when offering services in other countries, companies shouldn't be in any hurry to indulge censorship just because locals laws enable the silencing of criticism and dissent.

Filed Under: censorship, china, free speech, social media
Companies: linkedin, microsoft

Chinese Police Now Performing Door-To-Door Twitter Censorship

from the have-you-heard-the-good-news-about-shutting-the-fuck-up? dept

The Chinese government doesn't have much interest in utilizing social media companies' online portals to target content it doesn't like. And there's plenty of content the government doesn't like. Between the Great Firewall and its obsessive tracking of citizens through pervasive surveillance tech and "Citizen Scores," there's really not much left for American social media companies to do.

The data contained in social media company transparency reports appears to indicate the Chinese government is capable of censoring content without outside assistance. Only Google's shows a significant amount of requests from the Chinese government. Facebook hasn't seen anything in years. And Twitter's report sports a gaudy "N/A" when it comes to content takedown requests from the Chinese government.

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

The 50-year-old software engineer was tapping away at his computer in November when state security officials filed into his office on mainland China.

They had an unusual - and nonnegotiable - request.

Delete these tweets, they said.

The agents handed over a printout of 60 posts the engineer had fired off to his 48,000 followers. The topics ranged from U.S.-China trade relations to the plight of underground Christians in his coastal province in southeast China.

When the engineer didn't comply after 24 hours, he discovered that someone had hacked into his Twitter account - @hesuoge - and deleted its entire history of 11,000 tweets.

Facebook and Twitter are banned in China, but that isn't stopping Chinese citizens from using these services. The crackdown on Twitter, however, does far more to silence dissent than targeting other American social media services. Twitter has been a key outlet in many authoritarian countries where internet censorship is the norm, and even though only a very small percentage of Chinese internet users utilize Twitter, it seems to pose more of a threat to the Chinese government than other platforms with hundreds of millions of users.

The best way to make a point about not angering your government is to make it in person. The article says more than 40 in-person visits involving demands for tweet deletion have been reported, which is likely only a very small percentage of the number that have actually taken place. And, as this report shows, compliance is appreciated but not necessary.

He Jiangbing, a financial commentator, said police came to his Beijing living room to warn about his tweets.

Days earlier, officials visited the Guangzhou home of Ye Du, a well-known writer and supporter of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, to hand him a printout of 802 tweets he needed to delete, Ye said in an interview.

Meanwhile, all 30,000 tweets from the account of Wu Gan, an activist serving an eight-year prison sentence, were deleted in November, which suggested a government hack, said Yaxue Cao, a Washington-based activist.

And, lest we pretend this sort of behavior is confined to nations with long histories of oppressing their own people, UK police have recently ramped up their in-person visits to request removal of offending tweets. The high road shouldn't be ceded so quickly by countries claiming to be at the forefront of personal liberty, not when the low road is clogged with so many nations already.

Filed Under: censorship, china, door to door, free speech, hacking
Companies: twitter

Producers Of Movie About Falling In Love With Nazis Using DMCA To Silence Criticism

from the dmca-for-censorship dept

Apparently the producers of the movie "Where Hands Touch," which is being widely panned as terrible (NY Times calls it a "gut-wrenching misfire" and notes "by the end of the movie, my jaw felt unhinged from dropping so often."), aren't responding well to the criticism. While some of the criticism is about the "plodding" storyline, much of it is about the main plot, which is about a black woman in Nazi Germany -- who appears to support the Nazi cause -- falling in love with a Hitler Youth.

The film got little attention in its theatrical release, but became available online recently, and apparently the producers decided that people tweeting negative things about it deserve to be hit with DMCA takedowns. It seems to have started with Haaniyah Angus who live tweeted watching the film. Reading the entire thread is a treat (seriously, go read it), here are just a couple of clips from her live tweeting:

Anyway, there's a lot more like that. In short, the film is getting mocked widely. Angus' thread was so good and so thorough that Vulture published a conversation with her about just how bad the film is (another clip, but go read the whole thing):

Oh God, there are so many scenes that made me physically cringe. But I think the worst is when her little white brother (whose existence is never explained) says that her father was black “head to toe.” I don’t know why, but that piece of dialogue just made me want to curl up in a ball and scream. Other than that, I think the scene where a Hitler Youth rally takes place in front of Leyna’s apartment and for some reason her first logical thought is, Oh, I’ll go hang with the li’l Nazis. As most would guess, they aren’t happy to see a black girl, and then proceed to call her a nigga. It’s just so much at once ...

At one point in her thread, Angus uses a very short clip from the film to show how the film uses the awful romcom "rush to the airport, and see each other through a crowd of moving people" trope... except in a Nazi labor camp. You can guess what happened next: the producer of the film, Charles Hanson, filed a DMCA takedown notice:

Charlie Lyne saw this and wrote a good thread pointing out, why this use of the DMCA to censor negative criticism was clearly bullshit.

Lyne explains in detail what happened -- even using the same short clip -- to criticize the filmmakers for censoring criticism. You'll surely guess what happens next. Yup! They send a DMCA notice about his thread too:

As Lyne points out, this is not really about the use of a very short clip (with commentary, which is clearly fair use), since the filmmakers seem to be leaving up tweets that show clips that are positive about the film:

Though, to be fair, it appears that after Lyne pointed out this bit of hypocrisy, then Hanson decided to send a takedown for that clip too.

Lyne and Angus weren't the only ones to receive such takedown notices. Another Twitter user received a similar DMCA notice:

She says the "video" was "literally just me and my friend laughing over the ridiculousness of one of the scenes" using her smartphone.

The producer of the film, who appears to be manually sending these DMCA notices himself, responded to Gizmodo with a bunch of utter bullshit about how he's only doing this to protect the copyright:

Charlie Hanson, the producer of the film, told Gizmodo in an email that they “do not have the power to stifle criticism of the film. Everyone has been free to comment positively and negatively whether they have seen the film or not.” He argued that the film is only released in the U.S. at the moment, and that Where Hands Touch Ltd. “has only issued DMCA notices regarding breaches of copyright in cases where unauthorised clips of the film have been copied and posted online.”

This is wrong for a variety of reasons. The fact that he admits the film is only available in the US highlights how these short clips -- all used with comment and/or criticism of the film are obviously fair use. The clip that Angus and Lyne both posted was literally 14 seconds out of a movie. That's not impacting the market. The criticism of his shit film might be impacting the market, but the clips are not. It appears that Hanson's Twitter account is the aptly named @CharlieTantrum, which seems to accurately reflect his childish tantrum to criticism of his film. His Twitter feed is ignoring this entire controversy, but is merely reposting gushing tweets about the film instead.

Every so often some "copyright scholar" or "think tanker" will insist that copyright can't be used for censorship and insist that it's actually the engine for free speech. Those people are lying to you. And this is yet another example. Copyright is regularly used for censorship, though in this case, all its really served to do is make it much more widely known why no one should ever bother watching this awful movie.

Filed Under: charles hanson, charlie lyne, copyright, copyright as censorship, dmca, fair use, haaniyah angus, takedowns, where hands touch
Companies: twitter

Federal Court Says Oregon's Unconstitutional Licensing Law Can't Keep Local Engineer From Calling Himself An Engineer

from the state-spent-a-year-fighting-over-$500 dept

Oregon resident Matt Jarlstrom didn't agree with the state's traffic safety assessment, spurred on by his wife receiving a ticket from a red light camera. Using his background in engineering and his real-world experience with automatic cameras, he did some math and tried to present it to government officials. The government didn't respond well. It fined Jarlstrom $500 for practicing engineering without a license. In the state of Oregon, certification is needed to call yourself an engineer, even if you're not actually performing any engineering work. At least, that's the way the state read the law when it chose to punish Jarlstrom for questioning its timing of yellow lights.

Naturally, this stupid decision resulted in a lawsuit. Pointing out the unconstitutionality of using a licensing law to suppress protected speech, Jarlstrom sued the state in April 2017. A couple of months later, the state licensing board graciously agreed to temporarily stop violating Jarlstrom's First Amendment rights.

Six months later, the state board finally conceded defeat. It agreed it had misused the statute to punish Jarlstrom for engaging in protected speech and said he could call himself an "engineer" even without the state's prize piece of paper as it was clear he wasn't soliciting engineering work when offering up his critique of traffic light timing patterns.

Thanks to a federal court, the licensing board's admission of wrongdoing has been transformed into First Amendment precedent. As it points out in its opinion [PDF], it's nice the state licensing board has offered an apology, but that's no guarantee it won't enforce the law this way in the future and harm the free speech rights of Jarlstrom or someone else found equally irritating by state officials.

Although the Board has disavowed future enforcement and enacted new regulations, these commitments do not diminish the credibility of Plaintiff’s concerns in light of the plain meaning of the text and context of Or. Rev. Stat. § 672.007(1)(a)-(b), and especially in light of the Board’s history of overzealous enforcement actions.

The court notes the licensing statute clearly regulates speech. But it does so without narrow crafting or addressing a government concern in the least intrusive way possible. The term it addresses -- "engineer" -- is far from specific, which turns the law into a vehicle for Constitutional violations, even some that may be unintentional.

Here, calling oneself an “engineer” is “not an unverifiable opinion of the ultimate quality of a[n] [engineer’s] work or a promise of success, but is simply a fact[.]” Id. Further, a term cannot become inherently misleading simply because a state deems it so.

[...]

The Board argues that courts have upheld similar restrictions on professional titles in other fields. (Def.’s Mot. Summ. J. at 27.) The word “engineer,” however, is different than the other title restrictions courts have upheld in the past.10 Unlike “M.D.” or “certified public accountant,” there is no fixed meaning to the title “engineer.” On the contrary, there are many different types of engineers. Courts have long recognized that the term “engineer” has a generic meaning separate from “professional engineer,” and that the term has enjoyed “widespread usage in job titles in our society to describe positions which require no professional training.” [...] Indeed, many job descriptions contain the word “engineer” even though they do not require any professional engineering expertise or licensure.

To sum up:

The regulation of the title “engineer” is more burdensome than necessary to protect the public from the unlicensed practice of engineering.

The final call by the court? The law is unconstitutional. The state has earned itself a permanent injunction from enforcing it against Jarlstrom. This also means it can't enforce it this way against others it might want to fine into silence, since any other victims of state-level judgment calls like this one have both a federal court decision and the state's admission of wrongdoing to cite in their litigation.

Filed Under: engineer, free speech, matt jarlstrom, oregon, traffic camera

New York Times Moves To Dismiss Joe Arpaio's Defamation Lawsuit By Pointing Out It's Impossible To Defame Him

from the shitheel-informed-of-issue-with-his-chosen-footwear dept

Last month, ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio sued three publications, claiming their unflattering articles had done $300 million in damage to his reputation. There's money in politicking, Arpaio figured, stating these publications had made it all but impossible for him and his sterling reputation to secure a Senate seat and move on towards securing his rightfully-owed $300 million.

The New York Times has filed its motion to dismiss [PDF] and it is an entertaining read. It points out the statements it made were substantially true, and if Arpaio doesn't like his villainous misdeeds characterized as villainous, perhaps he should have spent more of his law enforcement career not acting like a villain. (h/t Zoe Tillman)

While Arpaio asserts that the column harmed his “distinguished 55-year law enforcement and political career” and “severely damaged” his reputation with “the Republican establishment” and with “law enforcement,” Compl. ¶¶ 18-19, such an assertion is implausible on its face. The column broke no new factual ground about Arpaio or, as many Arizona officials have described it, his long “reign of terror” as a senior law enforcement official. The column merely summarized the extensive public record regarding Arpaio’s tenure as Sheriff and offered opinions about his political career. In short, the statements in the column about Arpaio are not only true, but the column also constitutes core political speech protected by the First Amendment.

Here's what the New York Times said about the former sheriff in an article suggesting it's a good thing Arizona voters found other candidates they preferred in the recent Senate elections.

His 24-year reign of terror was medieval in its brutality. In addition to conducting racial profiling on a mass scale and terrorizing immigrant neighborhoods with gratuitous raids and traffic stops and detentions, he oversaw a jail where mistreatment of inmates was the stuff of legend. Abuses ranged from the humiliating to the lethal. He brought back chain gangs. He forced prisoners to wear pink underwear. He set up an outdoor “tent city,” which he once referred to as a “concentration camp,” to hold the overflow of prisoners. Inmates were beaten, fed rancid food, denied medical care (this included pregnant women) and, in at least one case, left battered on the floor to die.

Indeed, many prisoners died in Mr. Arpaio’s jail—at an alarming clip. The number of inmates who hanged themselves in his facilities was far higher than in jails elsewhere in the country. More disturbing still, nearly half of all inmate deaths on his watch were never explained. Over the years, the county paid out tens of millions in wrongful death and injury settlements.

At the same time, Mr. Arpaio’s department could not be bothered to uphold the laws in which it had little interest. From 2005 through 2007, the sheriff and his deputies failed to properly investigate, or in some cases to investigate at all, more than 400 sex-crime cases, including those involving the rape of young children.

This is the reputation being damaged to the tune of $150 million (the NYT share) by the Time's recounting of his brutal treatment of prisoners and his lack of zeal when it came to serving and protecting those harmed by the criminals he couldn't be bothered to catch.

Arpaio's career as a (lol) public servant have made him defamation-proof, the New York Times argues, citing plenty of other authorities (including governmental authorities) who have found Arpaio's tactics abusive and repugnant.

While Arpaio has billed his approach to law enforcement as “tough,” numerous critics have alleged that he implemented nothing short of a “reign of terror” through his official position in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (“MCSO”), under which individual rights were trampled and mistreatment of inmates was rife. Arpaio’s tactics have been the subject of federal enforcement actions and literally thousands of civil lawsuits. Maricopa County has paid tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments, settlements, and costs arising out of MCSO abuses during Arpaio’s tenure—including an estimated $120 million for racial profiling cases alone.

Then it offers a litany of stunning quotes -- some of which emanate from the sentient trash heap currently suing over an allegedly-bruised reputation.

The Sheriff admitted knowing about, and in fact intentionally designing, some conditions at Tent City that created a substantial risk of inmate violence: i.e., the lack of individual security and inmate control inherent in a tent facility; the small number of guards; a mixed inmate population subject to overcrowding, extreme heat, and lack of amenities. . . .

[...]

“Sheriff [Arpaio] acknowledged that he had said that he may spend more to feed his dogs than it costs to feed inmates.”

[...]

“Arpaio has boasted in the past of the food being rotten; green bologna is a specialty.”

[...]

Courts held that Arpaio repeatedly attempted to prevent pregnant detainees from obtaining abortion medical services. Indeed, Arpaio denied elective abortion procedures to pregnant detainees until enjoined from doing so by the federal courts…

[...]

Surveillance video shown at trial revealed that, in custody, MCSO officers handcuffed him, placed a hood over his head, strapped him into a restraining chair, and forced his head between his legs, leading to asphyxiation and death…

[...]

He bragged that “I take the credit” for implementing the chain gang and “it will be here as long as I’m the sheriff.”

[...]

The MCSO reportedly confirmed that from 2005 to 2007 its special victims unit failed to investigate 432 alleged sex crimes and that detectives improperly closed more than 200 of those investigations as solved, when they were not.

[...]

The court also found that MCSO engaged in “special operations” against Latino areas without any concrete allegation of criminal activity and that MCSO officers circulated emails with racist jokes about Mexicans.

[...]

After 21 days of evidentiary hearings, the District Court found that Arpaio “intentionally failed to implement the Court’s preliminary injunction in this case, failed to disclose thousands of relevant items of requested discovery . . . deliberately violated court orders” and that Arpaio “made multiple intentional misstatements of fact while under oath.”

Monster Commits Monstrous Deeds For Two Decades; Is Shocked People Believe He's A Monster

What could possibly be worse than the truth? Even if the NYT had gotten a fact or two wrong (Arpaio alleges other defendants' statements he was convicted of a felony, rather than misdemeanor, is defamation per se), the body of Arpaio's "work" has made him pretty much impervious to reputational damage. You can't get much lower -- not after you made a career out of sewer-dwelling.

This is how you write a motion to dismiss. If a terrible person wants to claim they've suffered reputational damage, you can very publicly remind them of their unapologetic embrace of dehumanizing not only prisoners, but everyone Arpaio felt was too Hispanic to be in this country legally. When you've burdened constituents with millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements and legal expenses, you can't pretend your tattered sheriff's hat is a halo when you get out of the law enforcement business.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, arizona, defamation, defamation proof, free speech, joe arpaio, reputation, truth
Companies: ny times

Saudi Arabia Discovers The Streisand Effect; Gets Netflix To Take Down Hasan Minhaj's Show About MBS's Atrocities

from the bad-ideas-all-around dept

Back in October, comedian Hasan Minhaj's show Patriot Act on Netflix did a pretty thorough critique of Saudi Arabia and its leader Mohammad bin Salman, often referred to as MBS. Go watch it here:

It covers a lot of ground, from the death of Jamal Khashoggi to MBS's arresting of a bunch of his cousins to the catastrophic situation in Yemen... and the complicity of the US government and much of Silicon Valley who has taken Saudi money.

Not surprisingly, the Saudi government was not thrilled with this episode, or the fact that it was available via Netflix in the country. So, as first reported by the Financial Times (behind a paywall), and since reported in tons of other places, Netflix has agreed to pull that episode in Saudi Arabia in response to a "legal request."

Apparently, the "legal request" referenced a cybercrime law that says "production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers" is a crime that can lead to imprisonment and fines. Cyber lese majeste, basically.

Not surprisingly, the move by Netflix is leading to tons of criticism directed at both Netflix and Saudi Arabia (but mostly at Netflix for caving).

Of course, this has also generated a lot more interest in that particular episode -- which, again, Netflix has left up on YouTube (and which, it appears, is still available via YouTube in Saudi Arabia). It is the Streisand Effect in action -- and, one might argue that Netflix knew that this was the likely outcome. As such, it not only gets to "avoid" whatever criminal punishment was being threatened by Saudi Arabia, but also gets more attention to this particular pointed criticism of MBS... and, as a side benefit, gets a lot more attention for its Patriot Act show.

Filed Under: censorship, hasan minhaj, mbs, mohammad bin salman, patriot act, saudi arabia, silicon valley, streisand effect, yemen
Companies: netflix

'Fake News' Results In Real Jail Time For Ohio Woman

from the never-mind-the-Constitution dept

It appears fake news is a crime in the United States -- at least in Ohio. Jacob Sullum at Reason reports an Ohio woman has just been jailed for repeating an unfounded rumor about a gun being found on school grounds.

Last week Barberton Municipal Judge David Fish sentenced Erin Croghan to three days in jail, a month of house arrest, and a year without social media for "inducing panic" by using Facebook to repeat an unfounded rumor about a pellet gun found at a local school. It could have been worse. Inducing panic is a first-degree misdemeanor in Ohio, meaning it is punishable by a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to six months in jail.

As Sullum points out, this sentencing appears to ignore the First Amendment, which allows for the spreading of stupidity, even if the stupidity could conceivably provoke reactions from those who come across it.

The school claims the repeating of the unfounded rumor -- months after the alleged event had happened -- disrupted school administration. Apparently, the principal of Coventry Middle School "spent the entire day" answering phone calls from parents who had read Croghan's post. Croghan's post -- referencing a rumor she had heard from her daughter the previous November -- hit Facebook shortly after the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The impact of her post certainly was felt by the school, but did it really meet the "serious public inconvenience or alarm" standard needed to convict Croghan? That seems unlikely. As her defense pointed out, the school didn't alert parents, go into lockdown mode, or do anything else that would signal it believed the unfounded rumor to be true.

Croghan either believed the rumor was true or deliberately inflamed the rumor to… well, that question remains unanswered. Even the judge handing down the sentence seemed at a loss for words.

Barberton Municipal Judge David Fish also put Erin Croghan on probation for one year and ordered that she refrain from using social media during that time.

“I wish I understood why you conflated this story about a pellet gun in a locker that school officials say never happened,” Fish said. “That may remain an eternal mystery.”

Therein lies the other problem with the sentence: prior restraint. Just because the incident Croghan was sentenced for occurred on Facebook doesn't justify the revocation of this privilege for an entire year. This is in addition to a sentence of 180 days in jail (with 147 suspended and 30 days of house arrest) -- all over the spread of info Croghan may have sincerely believed to be true.

The school claims Croghan knew the rumor was false, offering up perhaps the most unbelievable justification for this claim:

Coventry schools officials say what Croghan posted wasn’t true and that she knew it because they told her.

Right. No one has ever lied about anything. Except Croghan. Apparently.

The end result is a ruling that will be used to punish more people for spreading rumors on social media. Ohio needs to start pouring money into their jail system if this is the way these cases are going to be handled, as Croghan's lawyer points out:

"If we're going to charge every person who puts misinformation on Facebook," [Jeff ]Laybourne told the jury, "this place will be inundated."

The sentence is being appealed. This will likely be followed by a lawsuit, especially if the sentence is overturned. The application of the state law in this fashion criminalizes ignorance. And, in this case, it comes with additional Constitutional violations (prior restraint) that make it litigation bait. Handing out jail time in response to "fake news" is the worst way to handle careless -- but protected -- speech. Sooner or later, Ohio taxpayers are going to be paying real dollars to settle cases stemming from "fake news" arrests.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, erin croghan, fake news, free speech, ohio, rumors, social media