Not only did censors perceive nuances of hidden meaning, but they also understood the way published texts reverberated in the public. Their sophistication should not be surprising in the case of the GDR, because they included authors, scholars, and critics. Eminent authors also functioned as censors in eighteenth-century France, and the surveillance of vernacular literatures in India was carried out by learned librarians as well as district officers with a keen eye for the folkways of the “natives.” To dismiss censorship as crude repression by ignorant bureaucrats is to get it wrong. Although it varied enormously, it usually was a complex process that required talent and training and that extended deep into the social order.
.. he denounced censorship, after quoting Voltaire, in the language of natural rights:
For the truth can only be reached by a dialogue of free opinions enjoying equal rights. Any interference with freedom of thought and word, however discreet the mechanics and terminology of such censorship, is a scandal in this century, a chain entangling the limbs of our national literature as it tries to bound forward.
.. He could not simply refuse to negotiate, because the writers wanted their manifesto to be published and to reinforce the public’s resistance to Stalinism. He won some points and lost others, insisting all the while on “the absurdity of censoring a text that protested against all censorship.” In the end, he managed to save nearly everything that he had written. But when he left the meeting, he was miserable. “Why did I knuckle under?” he complained to Hamsik. “I let them make a complete idiot of me….Every compromise is a dirty compromise.” Soon afterward, the Party Central Committee phoned to say that it could not accept the compromise after all. The proceedings were never published. And Kundera was enormously relieved.
Everyone Is Getting Turkey’s Twitter Block Wrong
During the rally, Erdogan also talked about the threat social media, including Facebook and YouTube, poses to family values. He talked about its disruption of privacy, and how these foreign companies do not obey Turkish court orders but obey US and European courts.
In other words, Erdogan’s strategy is to demonize social media.
And Turkey’s not the the first country in the world where this has been tried. Scholarly work by Katy Pearce and Sarah Kendzior on Azerbaijan provides a great example of another country that’s done just that: social media has been subjected to such a fear-mongering campaign that ordinary people stay off because they see it as a threat to their well-being.
.. Erdogan likely still has enough supporters to win elections, but to continue to win, he needs to keep them off social media. His game is to scare them about all that comes from social media. He knows they’ll hear of the corruption tapes. But they are now associated with the same source that maligns housewives as porn-stars.
Social Media Hasn’t Weakened Censorship in China
Are all criticisms of the government then prohibited? Not exactly. Despite Beijing’s willingness to devote considerable resources to controlling internet content, the government simply cannot ensure that all objectionable content is removed all the time. So they prioritize. Researchers at Harvard found, in a study published earlier this year, that Beijing tolerates some criticism but not calls for collective action. Complain about government corruption? No problem. Attempt to organize a protest on Sina Weibo? No way.
.. In effect, China has two parallel levels of censorship. The first is the relatively free-wheeling atmosphere of sites like Sina Weibo, where the government uses paid advocates — prisoners, for example, can get their sentences reduced by writing pro-Beijing content online — and selective censorship to prevent objectionable content from gathering momentum.