#freedom of information

[amarriageoftrueminds]

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KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) wants to do something like this on a national level

AMERICANS, CALL YOUR REPS

[sleepy-bebby]

R.I.P z-lib, you were there in my darkest hour.

However, if you use TOR, you can still access it. And if you don’t use TOR, you can follow these instructions to access it.

Backup of instructions

Instructions in jpeg format

[useless-catalanfacts]

November 9th, 2023:

Journalists from Catalonia protest Israel's killing of Palestinian journalists and Israel's information blockade

The major Catalan journalist unions (Sindicat de Periodistes de Catalunya, Sindicat de la Imatge UPIFC, CGT, Comunicadores Feministes, European Network of Women Journalists, and Solidaritat i Comunicació SICOM) have called for a demonstration where they have raised the names of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire. They set notebooks, microphones, vests and identification armbands piled on the ground to signify Israel's massacre of journalists and its attempt to silence information about Israel's war crimes in Gaza, with an attempt to stop journalists sharing the proof of what's happening in Gaza with the rest of the world.

As the Catalan journalists' manifesto said, Israel's attacks "don't respect schools nor hospitals and deliberately seeks to destroy media headquarters and journalists' homes". The protestors demand protection for journalists in Gaza and also for the foreign journalists so that they can enter and work freely. As of now, Israel forbids international media from entering Gaza.

In the 4 weeks since the Israel-Hamas war started, more than 10,000 people have been killed in Gaza. At least 41 journalists have been killed. Every day, at least one journalist has died. According to Reporters Without Borders (RWB), this has already been the deadliest start of a war for journalists in this century. A reflection of the magnitude of this massacre against life in Gaza.

The huge majority of media professionals who have died in this Israel-Hamas war —36 out of the 41 identified— are Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli attacks. RWB states that they're being "eliminated, one after the other" and that the ones who survive "are at imminent risk of death". At least 10 of the dead journalists were killed when they were "clearly working", according to RWB.

In the last month, Israel has destroyed —totally or partially— 50 media headquarters, including Al Jazeera's office building, Ain Media, and other local press, as well as the news agency France-Press (AFP).

RWB has filed a lawsuit against Israel for war crimes against Palestinian journalists in the International Criminal Court. In fact, it's the 3rd time that RWB does this in the last 5 years.

Protection of Palestinian and international journalists is vital. As is a ceasefire and prosecution for war crimes.

Sources: La Directa and Beteve.

[igottatho]

[tomorrowusa]

NEXTA is a news aggregator staffed primarily by journalists from Belarus who are in exile because of the repressive pro-Putin régime in their native country.

In the tweet posted above they show how Putin’s bots are taking advantage of Elon Musk’s mismanagement of Twitter.

It’s doubtful that Musk cares about NEXTA’s problem, he has sporadically parroted the Kremlin’s line about the invasion of Ukraine. He probably is happy that Putin is able to squelch opposition voices.

Rather than wait in vain for Musk to do something (sorry NEXTA, he won’t), legit news organizations should form a consortium and launch a new microblogging platform which concentrates on news and current affairs and is bot resistant. Only member news organizations could post though visitors could repost on other platforms or forward stories to friends. This would effectively become a news feed to replace ones on Facebook and other platforms. 

Twitter will only continue to deteriorate under Musk. It’s time to work on something new before Twitter becomes totally unusable.

@nexta_tv – perhaps you should consider posting at Tumblr. 😎

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Nova Scotia Justice Minister Brad Johns has launched a review of the province's information and privacy legislation, a process Premier Tim Houston criticized when the former Liberal government proposed something similar. In a news release Thursday, Johns said an internal working group would look at the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, as well as the Privacy Review Officer Act, the Personal Information International Disclosure Act and Part 20 of the Municipal Government Act. The last major update of the FOIPOP Act was in 1999. "Our access to information and privacy laws in Nova Scotia have not been updated in many years," Johns said in the news release.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[audreyhalessaviour]

I'm unsure of the watermark in this image because I feel like it ruined the sleek design I made with this one. I figured I need to build my following more so it watermarking and advertising is important but if I get more followers I may release it without one.

[chimaeraonwards]

After 21 years, The Guardian has decided to remove the full text of bin Laden's "letter to the American people" after it went viral on TikTok.

Source: The Guardian

The document seems to be taken down after going viral on TikTok.

Make whatever conclusions you want about the letter, who am I to tell you what conclusions to draw?

I will not stand for the blatant silencing of information. I do not care which side you are on, everyone needs to have context and information to make informed decisions on what stance to take.

Where is the freedom of information? What about the freedom for people to make their own decisions?

Shame on you The Guardian. You cannot remove information and just expect everyone to be okay with it.

Read the full text here on this archived The Guardian page that was captured in 2013.

[ruegracieuse]

Pluto Press have a great list of open-access books on socialist politics, history, society and culture here.

[doodle-devil]

Fuck the privatization of information

[useless-catalanfacts]

Spain’s Ministry of Defence caught deleting information from Wikipedia

This 2022, the Catalan film Alcarràs has been selected to go to the Oscars nominations for foreign films. The film is named after the town where it takes place, the little Alcarràs in the rural West of Catalonia.

In the same day that the nomination was made public, the Wikipedia page for the town of Alcarràs was altered to eliminate the reference to the Spanish police’s violent attacks on voters on the day of the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain (October 1st, 2017).

Since Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia, everyone can edit it, but the editor’s IP address is recorded. Thanks to this, we can know that this was edited from the seat of Spain’s Ministry of Defence.

In fact, this IP first went to edit the Spanish-language Wikipedia page for Alcarràs, but since it already didn’t have any reference to the Spanish police’s brutality, it only changed one comma. Then, it went to the Catalan language version of Wikipedia, which did have that reference, and deleted it. It also added that the referendum was “illegal”.

For those who don’t know what happened, Catalonia has been trying to get independence from Spain for a long time. After many years of trying to reach an agreement with the government of Spain to win a bigger amount of autonomy inside of Spain or an independence referendum, Spain always refused any concessions. In 2017, an independence referendum was organized, but Spain declared it illegal and sent the military police to steal the ballot boxes and voting papers before the day of the referendum. Catalonia became the most militarized place in Europe because of all the Spanish military police sent here. The materials had to be sneaked in in secret and distributed to all the towns and cities without being discovered. Printing places, newspapers, businesses and even people’s houses were searched by the police, but all the country was organized and managed to have the ballot boxes and papers in every voting centre.

On the day of the referendum (October 1st 2017), the Spanish police showed up to the voting centres, violently attacked the schools, beat up the voters, and stole the ballot boxes full of votes when they could. People protected the votes with their bodies, and more than 1,000 people had to be attended by emergency healthcare services as a result of the injuries caused by the brutality of the Spanish police. Still, there wasn’t enough police for the whole country, and most places could vote.

At the end of the day, slightly more than half of the population elegible to vote in Catalonia had voted, but since some of the votes were stolen by the Spanish police, the votes that could be counted amounted to the 43% of the population. 90.18% of the votes were “yes to independence”, 7.89% were “no”, 1.98% were blank, and 0.86% were null (source).

Alcarràs is a small town, where about 5,000 people were elegible to vote. More than 80 military policemen arrived to Alcarràs to stop the voting from taking place. They reached the voting centre, where they found over 500 people peacefully protecting it with their bodies, stopping the police from entering it. Then, the police brutally attacked them, leaving 20 people injured.

But at this moment, I want to remember the people of Alcarràs with a video of the people protecting the voting centre against the police. You can see how people are pressed together and don’t let the police push forward, while they shout “no passareu” (you shall not pass), “fora” (out!), and “votarem” (we will vote).

Full clip (11 minutes) here. October 1st 2017, Alcarràs.

Don’t let them erase it. Remember what happened and the power that an organized people have.

(Sources in English: CatalanNews, Vilaweb)

[walks-the-ages]

During the Pandemic (2020 to 2024, ongoing) did your local Public Librar(ies) shut down at any point?

[islib]

one of the tiny details that angers me the most about the internet archive court case decision

is that one of the judge's arguments for his verdict is that the 'alleged benefit' is outweighed by market loss to the publishers.

it's literally just capitalism is more important than accessible information

it's like burning books

it's education control

it's soft censorship

the internet archive was the legal way to access information, but if the law isn't going to let us do that, then we're just gonna have to go around it. yarrr me mateys.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Grancel Fitz Untitled c. 1932

* * * *

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." [Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the Voice of America; Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, February 26, 1962]” ― John F. Kennedy