As leading scientists question the use and abuse of freedom of information, Index looks at the data wars and the limits of scientific debate.
Dark matter: Is transparency bad for science?
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CATEGORY: Magazine
Drug study secrecy puts lives at risk
Studies to test the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices are too often never made public, putting lives at risk. Deborah Cohen reports
Secrecy in science – an argument for open access
A fresh round of climate science emails were hacked and released to the public last week. Fred Pearce enters the debate over secrecy in science to make the argument for open access
Web filtering: Keeping it clean?
David Cameron has announced plans to block access to pornography online, with providers offering the choice to turn on a filter.
Seth Finkelstein examines how indiscriminate blocking systems censor not just pornography, but feminist, gay rights and education material
A singular voice: Anish Kapoor on why artists have a duty to stand for freedom of expression
The Art Issue: The arrest and detention of Ai Weiwei, China’s most famous artist and Index contributor, caused an international outcry. In an exclusive interview celebrated sculptor Anish Kapoor explains why artists must take a stand for free expression
From the Index archive: “Self regulation and the Calcutt report”
As steps are taken to examine standards in British journalism, Index on Censorship looks back over 20 years, when politicians and the public were making very similar demands. David McKie‘s account of public revulsion and political outrage shows just how little things have changed.
The art issue
[vc_row][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="90659" img_size="full" onclick="custom_link" link="https://shop.exacteditions.com/gb/index-on-censorship"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]Full digital access to The art issue...
Privacy is dead!
In this issue, Index explores whether privacy is the friend or foe of free speech, as it is now one of the central issues of the digital communications age.
Joshua Rozenberg talks to Mr Justice Eady on balancing acts
The British press loves to hate high court judge Sir David Eady for his judgments in privacy cases. He talks to
Joshua Rozenberg about balancing rights
Prime cuts
UK authorities have announced an outright ban on The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence). But how do censors make these decisions? Murray Perkins is a film examiner who classifies hard-core porn. He spoke to Index about what it takes to make the grade
A quarterly journal set up in 1972, Index on Censorship magazine has published oppressed writers and refused to be silenced across hundreds of issues.
The brainchild of the poet Stephen Spender, and translator Michael Scammell, the magazine’s very first issue included a never-before-published poem, written while serving a sentence in a labour camp, by the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who went on to win a Nobel prize later that year.
The magazine continued to be a thorn in the side of Soviet censors, but its scope was far wider. From the beginning, Index declared its mission to stand up for free expression as a fundamental human right for people everywhere – it was particularly vocal in its coverage of the oppressive military regimes of southern Europe and Latin America but was also clear that freedom of expression was not only a problem in faraway dictatorships. The winter 1979 issue, for example, reported on a controversy in the United States in which the Public Broadcasting Service had heavily edited a documentary about racism in Britain and then gone to court attempting to prevent screenings of the original version. Learn more.