#censorship

#censorship

In the early morning hours of Saturday, January 3, the roar of bombs dropping from the sky announced the US military attack on Venezuela, waking the sleeping residents of La Carlota, in Caracas, a neighborhood adjacent to the air base that was a target of Operation Absolute Resolve. Marina G.'s first thought, as the floors, walls, and windows of her second-story apartment shook, was that it was an earthquake.

Repression cannot go unanswered, said Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, on Thursday. The paramilitary organisation has played a significant role in suppressing demonstrations in Iran. Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise, she wrote on X. Hannah Neumann, chair of the European parliament's delegation for relations with Iran, said the IRGC listing was a long-overdue political signal that massive violence and transnational repression will no longer go unanswered.

An AI-manipulated photo of two pandas showing same-sex behavior has led to two Chinese men being detained by local authorities. The 29-year-old and 33-year-old were arrested for "maliciously" associating queerness with certain Chinese cities, according to The Washington Post. The men allegedly shared the AI-manipulated image of pandas at the "panda capital" of Chengdu, which is in the country's southwest region.

Is it surprising the Trump administration didn't like my commentary and wanted to make sure that I was not allowed to speak?

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in Western China and the country's fourth largest city, has for years been referred to as "Gaydu" by Chinese millennials wise to the cosmopolitan city's reputation as China's "gay capital". Recent detentions are evidence that the government's tolerance for Chengdu's notoriety as a gay hub is fraying. Two Chinese men who allegedly produced and shared an AI-manipulated photo of two "gay pandas" from Chengdu - known as China's "panda capital", as well - have been detained

Elegy, part of a series the artist began in 2015, is a ritual lament. In each version that is performed, seven operatically trained woman singers sing and sustain a B note for an hour. They line up behind a dais, begin the note and as their breath runs out, they pass the note on to the next person. Goliath tells The Art Newspaper that performances are a tribute to and commemoration of "women, femme and non-gender-conforming individuals from South Africa, who have been subject to fatal acts of sexualised and gendered violence".

To be clear: the Bondi attack was horrific. It has left people shaken, grieving and afraid, particularly in communities already living with heightened vulnerability. That fear is real and it deserves empathy and compassion, and the board may well have believed it was acting in good faith. But fear also has a way of reducing our moral and intellectual horizons.

The bill, modeled on Russia's ban on LGBTQ+ speech, included fines and jail time for people found to have spread pro-LGBTQ+ messages in the media (including education and advertising materials) or on social media. The bill bans "the use of media, literature, entertainment, and other events that promote non-traditional sexual relations and pedophilia," linking LGBTQ+ identities with child sex abuse, an old negative stereotype used to drum up support for homophobia.

It's worth stressing this now, especially in light of the controversy surrounding its release on Vimeo a few months ago, where it was given the coveted Staff Picks badge (guaranteeing it thousands more views), then quickly taken down two days later for fear of its graphic content by Vimeo's Legal and Trust & Safety team for being inappropriate for younger viewers. Luckily (or not, depending on the circumstances), YouTube has very few safeguards against content.

Major American news outlets were informed of the Trump administration's plan to bombard Venezuela and abduct its president ahead of the operation early Saturday morning, but withheld their reporting on the operation to protect the military, Semafor reports. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post knew about the raid before President Donald Trump approved it on Friday night at 10:46 pm, Semafor reported over the weekend.

Should we ban Brigitte Bardot?

Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the five people targeted with visa bans who include former European Commissioner Thierry Breton have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose. These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states in each case targeting American speakers and American companies, Rubio said in an announcement.

Getty Images The US State Department said it would deny visas to five people, including a former EU commissioner, for seeking to "coerce" American social media platforms into suppressing viewpoints they oppose. "These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states - in each case targeting American speakers and American companies," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

In 1941, during the German occupation of France, the then relatively unknown writers Jean Bruller and Pierre de Lescure came together to edit, publish and distribute a book called Le Silence de la mer (The Silence of the Sea). The story centred on two family members who refuse to speak to the officer occupying their house - their way of maintaining control of a tense dynamic and a rejoinder to the Nazi propaganda campaigns and newspaper censorship widespread in France at the time.