Still Not Shutting Up

Pexels - CC0 license

Like many writers, I am active on Facebook writing groups, where I post links to my blog posts about writing resources. Yesterday, Facebook suddenly deleted every one of the links to my blog. I was thrown in Facebook jail.

I believed it was some kind of glitch, a change in their algorithms. Much to my surprise, it turns out my confinement was not due to some automated Facebook glitch, but to someone reporting my blog as "harmful."

I have to say I find myself incredulous. My blog is completely innocuous. It's about publishing, and how to get published. My posts are not political, not controversial. And I am certainly not famous. Why would anyone report me? But in the blog's description at the top of the page, I have included a statement that in the interests of protecting the First Amendment - which, as a writer, I take very seriously - I did not vote for Trump, who is notoriously anti-free press.

Of course, on my personal Facebook page, I am intensely political. I'm not a big fan of Nazis or the KKK, or of anyone they support. Any movement towards an autocracy or, in this case, a kleptocracy, is something I vigorously oppose. I have always been critical of both political parties, and of our presidents. I reserve my fandom for the Constitution.

A brief stint in Facebook jail is not a big thing. It's just a temporary hitch. But the fact that someone would go out of their way to target my blog - something so small, so innocent, so inconsequential - is an indication of the mentality driving this climate of authoritarianism.

I say this as a writer and as a responsible citizen: Harassment of individuals simply because they are critical of the government, no matter who is currently in power, should not be tolerated. It is a slippery slope, and one that only leads to the bottom. 

I am not going to remove that simple sentence - that short declaration of support for the First Amendment - from my blog description. In spite of more than a few comments ranging from insults ("You are a stupid bitch") to outright threats, that statement will stay right where it is. And no amount of harassment will induce me to remove it. To do so would be a surrender, if only a very small one, to the very forces that are diminishing the principles that lie at the heart of a representative democracy.

UPDATE: This blog continues to be reported once or twice a week for "abusive content." It is ironic that censorship should be a consequence of supporting free speech, but there you have it.

PEN Condemns Murders of Charlie Hebdo Journalists

PEN, PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 7, 2015

As writers, editors, and artists we stand together today in solidarity and outrage at the murder of our colleagues at Charlie Hebdo in Paris. This attack on cartoonists, writers, and editors is an attack on free expression worldwide. It is an attempt to terrorize and intimidate all of us in order to inhibit the free flow of ideas.

Peaceful coexistence within diverse communities requires a climate of tolerance and an open exchange of views that includes criticism, humor, and hyperbole. The right to satirize, to question, to expose, to mock, even when offensive to some, is a bulwark of a free society. Today’s bloody retribution for the drawing and publishing of cartoons represents a terrifying challenge to these values of tolerance.

We call upon all governments, religious leaders, and civil society institutions to join us in condemnation of this vicious attack. We ask them to insist that however offensive speech may be to some, it is never a justification for violence.

We call upon responsible authorities and institutions to redouble their efforts to protect those working on the front lines of free expression worldwide who put themselves at personal risk to voice controversial viewpoints.  Today’s effort to silence criticism by murdering the artists and writers who voice it must be met with a far wider movement to defend the right to dissent, which forms the spine of free expression.

Peter Godwin, President, PEN American Center
Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director, PEN American Center
Woody Allen
John Ashbery
Margaret Atwood
Carl Bernstein
T.C. Boyle
Peter Carey
Michael Chabon
Ron Chernow
J.M. Coetzee
Teju Cole
Martha Cooley
Lydia Davis
Junot Díaz
E.L. Doctorow
Jennifer Egan
Louise Erdrich
Richard Ford
Neil Gaiman
William Gass
Masha Gessen
Malcolm Gladwell
Barbara Goldsmith
Daniel Handler
Tom Healy
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
Paul Karasik
Garrison Keillor
Sam Lipsyte
D.T. Max
Colum McCann
Jay McInerney
Paul Muldoon
John Oakes
Joyce Carol Oates
Orhan Pamuk
Francine Prose
Zia Haider Rahman
Theresa Rebeck
Marilynne Robinson
Salman Rushdie
James Salter
George Saunders
Said Sayrafiezadeh
Simon Schama
Raja Shehadeh
David Simon
Jane Smiley
Andrew Solomon
Art Spiegelman
Rob Spillman
Janne Teller
Fred Tomaselli
Anne Tyler
Ayelet Waldman
Lawrence Weiner
G. Willow Wilson
Lauren Wolchik
Tobias Wolf

... and many more

Self-Censorship in Reporting the News

This post appeared last fall on the Author's Guild site. The investigation, sponsored by PEN, and conducted by the FDR Group makes for some interesting reading.

If journalists are self-censoring with the anticipation that writing about, or even talking about, certain subjects will land them in trouble, then our version of reality is tinted by rose-colored glasses. By not talking about the Middle East or Northern Africa, or military affairs, or certain languages (which ones?) these topics essentially cease to exist.

In many ways, self-censorship is worse than overt institutional censorship. There is nobody to challenge, and nobody to sue, because those who censor themselves have chosen not to exercise their Constitutional right to free speech.

If you don't use it, you lose it.

___________________________________________

The Big Chill: Authors Avoid Controversial Topics in Wake of NSA Revelations, PEN Survey Says

Author's Guild, November 13, 2013

Fear of government intrusion is influencing how some American authors and journalists do their jobs, causing them to avoid researching, writing about and even privately discussing many of the most newsworthy topics, according to a report by the PEN American Center, Chilling Effects: NSA Surveillance Drives U.S. Writers to Self-Censor:

“Writers reported self-censoring on subjects including military affairs, the Middle East North Africa region, mass incarceration, drug policies, pornography, the Occupy movement, the study of certain languages, and criticism of the U.S. government. The fear of surveillance—and doubt over the way in which the government intends to use the data it gathers—has prompted PEN writers to change their behavior in numerous ways that curtail their freedom of expression and restrict the free flow of information."

The report, based on a survey of PEN members, measured how writers had changed their behavior because they thought the government was monitoring their communications. Among the findings:

• 16% have avoided writing or speaking on a particular topic, 11% have seriously considered it.

• 28% have curtailed or avoided social media activities, 12% have seriously considered it.

• 24% have avoided certain topics in phone or email conversations, 9% have seriously considered it.

• 16% have refrained from conducting Internet researches or visiting websites on topics that may be considered controversial or suspicious, 12% have seriously considered it.

• 13% have taken extra steps to disguise or cover their digital footprints, 11% have seriously considered it.

• 3% have declined opportunities to meet (in person or electronically) people who might be deemed security threats by the government, 4% have seriously considered it.

Conducted in October with the help of research firm FDR Group, the survey tracked the responses of 528 PEN members. Questions touched on the experiences, concerns and attitudes of writers in the wake of revelations about National Security Agency surveillance that began with documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

In follow-up conversations, some writers talked about dropping projects out of fear of becoming surveillance target. Others said they’re already a target:

“‘Selected’ for a special security search returning to the United States from Mexico twice last summer, I learned I was on a U.S. Government list. I was searched for ‘cocaine’ and explosives. I suspect … that I must have been put on the government list because of an essay I wrote … in which I describe finding a poem on a Libyan Jihad site, and ultimately express some sympathy for young men on the other side of the world who are tempted into jihad … one can see how [the poem] might be a comfort to jihadists.”

The survey found 85% are worried about government surveillance of Americans, while 73% say they’ve never been as concerned about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are now.

Survey results showing a high level of concern about being compelled to reveal sources are especially timely as the Senate considers federal shield law legislation. PEN doesn’t mention the legislation by name, but it does call on on the government to enact limits on surveillance and improve transparency, reforms similar to those found in the Free Flow of Information Act.

One particularly intriguing aspect of the report is how it reveals writers to be much less tolerant of having their communications monitored than Americans overall. Asked their opinion of “the government’s collection of telephone and Internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts,” only 12% of PEN members said they approve, compared with half of respondents in an earlier survey of the general public.

As the PEN report concludes, the cost of government surveillance is largely hidden.

“Part of what makes self-censorship so troubling is the impossibility of knowing precisely what is lost to society because of it. We will never know what books or articles may have been written that would have shaped the world’s thinking on a particular topic if that are not written because potential authors are afraid that their work would invite retribution.”

Booksellers, Publishers Strip to Protest Banning of Children's Book

This is downright inspiring!

A prominent conservative French politician wants to censor the nude picture book, but publishers and booksellers have defended the book by authors Claire Frank and Marc Daniau.

Booksellers bare all to protest censorship attempt of ‘Everybody Gets Naked’ children’s book

By Michael Walsh, New York Daily News, Thursday, February 20, 2014

Book lovers would rather be stripped of their clothes than their right to read freely.

A group of French booksellers and publishers took off their clothes Wednesday to protest conservative politician Jean-François Copé's call to censor a children's book from 2011 called "Everybody Gets Naked" (Tous à Poil), the Local reported.

The storybook shows that everyone takes off their clothes sometimes to calm children's fears about their own bodies, according to authors Claire Franek and Marc Daniau.

They wanted to present real bodies in natural situations "to counter the numerous images of bodies, often undressed, altered by Photoshop or plastic surgery, that are shown in ads or on the covers of magazines," according to Melville House Books.

Read the rest of this article HERE.