17 Dec 2024 | News and features
What do rainbow-coloured hair extensions, Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science and Sex Addiction: A Survival Guide have in common? They have all allegedly been swept up in broad censorship measures by retail giant Amazon, according to a new report by The Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the University of Toronto.
The Citizen Lab, which studies openness and transparency on the internet, analysed the US storefront Amazon.com to uncover restrictions on certain products being ordered from specific regions. They found that the most common product category that is restricted is books, often with themes of LGBTQ+ lives, the occult, erotica, Christianity or health and wellness. These are censored in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, as well as Brunei Darussalam, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles and Zambia.
But it isn’t just products actually banned in these countries that are restricted. The Citizen Lab uncovered a raft of “collateral censorship” where items were miscategorised (for example, because they contained the word “gay” in their title or description), hence the banning of rainbow-coloured hair extensions due to the word “rainbow”.
When potential consumers from these regions try to purchase various products from Amazon.com, they are given various error messages, such as an announcement that a product is out of stock. But, according to The Citizen Lab’s methodology, these items are not out of stock. The organisation’s research can distinguish between products being genuinely unavailable for delivery in a region, and being restricted.
Noura Al-Jizawi, senior researcher at The Citizen Lab and co-author of the report, told Index that this sheds light on a potential broader strategy around censorship.
“Rather than taking responsibility or openly acknowledging its role in restricting certain content, Amazon masks these decisions as stock or availability issues,” she said. “This tactic allows the company to evade accountability and makes it difficult for stakeholders — customers, authors and publishers — to challenge or appeal such practices.”
She claimed that this helps Amazon to maintain its reputation and avoid accusations of censorship, as restrictions are framed as logistical problems rather than deliberate decisions. But transparency, she explained, is crucial.
“If a book has been miscategorised or unfairly censored, users have the right to appeal such decisions,” she said. “Similarly, authors and publishers deserve the opportunity to request Amazon to reconsider its decision to restrict their work. Without transparency, these stakeholders are left in the dark, unable to understand or address the reasons behind such restrictions.”
Jeffrey Knockel, senior research associate at The Citizen Lab and another of the report’s co-authors, told Index that his organisation had previously identified censorship on the Saudi Arabia and UAE Amazon storefronts, and were trying to systematically measure which products were blocked when they realised that the same censorship existed on Amazon.com.
The Citizen Lab has written to Amazon to inquire about the pressure the conglomerate might be under from various governments. They have also made recommendations, including that Amazon should “provide transparent and accurate notifications to customers when products are unavailable due to legal restrictions of the destination region” along with details on the relevant law and a mechanism for customers to flag improperly classified items. At the time of publishing, Amazon has not replied to The Citizen Lab.
Yuri Guaiana, senior campaigns manager at All Out, a global movement campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights, spoke to Index in response to the report. He believes Amazon should implement The Citizen Lab’s recommendations as a first step, but should then go even further.
“As a global leader, Amazon has the power to influence norms. It should take a stand against oppressive laws that force censorship, actively working with human rights organisations to advocate for change in restrictive regions,” he said.
All Out has launched a petition demanding that Amazon stops censoring LGBTQ+ books. “For businesses like Amazon, complying with oppressive local demands may seem like a pragmatic choice, but it risks reinforcing systemic discrimination,” he said.
He echoes The Citizen Lab’s concerns around lack of transparency around censorship, which he says shields “both Amazon and oppressive governments from scrutiny”.
If there was better transparency, he explained, customers and human rights campaigners would be more equipped to push back against unjust restrictions and oppressive laws.
He also shared concerns about the issue of “collateral censorship”. “We’ve seen this pattern escalate in places like Russia,” he said. “After Putin’s regime implemented laws censoring so-called ‘LGBT+ propaganda’, enforcement spiralled beyond media and literature. People have been arrested for as little as wearing rainbow [earrings], showing how quickly such policies can expand into every facet of life,” he said.
Index approached Amazon for a right of reply but Amazon did not respond to Index’s request for comment.
8 Nov 2024 | Azerbaijan, Mozambique, News and features, Newsletters, United States
Apologies for another newsletter hitting your inbox that opens on the US election results, but it feels remiss not to talk about something that could have large implications for global free expression. Donald Trump is not a free speech hero. As I wrote on Wednesday here his attacks will start with the media. Where they will stop is anyone’s guess. To say we are unnerved by the prospect of another four years of Trump is to understate. With him at the helm the USA could become a hybrid regime, a country merging autocratic features with democratic ones.
While our concerns are first for the people in the USA, we are also worried about what this means globally. Who will criticise China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the like for their gross attacks to free expression with the same clout as the USA? What terrible things will happen while we are all distracted by the clown in the White House?
But on the note of distraction, I want to end there in terms of Trump and instead talk about other things of import from the world of free expression this week.
First up, Cop29. It starts on Monday and it is keeping to tradition, namely being held in a country that thrives on both oil and the suppression of human rights – in this case Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan government has long engaged in a crackdown on civil society, which has only heightened over the last few years. Azerbaijan authorities claim they are “ensuring everyone’s voices are heard” at Cop29. This is a lie. Prominent activists, journalists and government critics have recently been jailed, including key voices on the climate crisis. In April, for example, they arrested prominent climate justice activist Anar Mammadli and placed him in pre-trial detention, where he remains.
Such harassment has forced many local activists to leave Azerbaijan. Those who remain risk prosecution and retaliation if they dare voice criticism during Cop29. One person who is not deterred is Danish artist Jens Galschiøt (the artist behind the Tiananmen Pillar of Shame). He and his team are currently transporting three sculptures to Baku to highlight climate injustice. We will be watching closely what happens next.
Beyond Baku, we were disturbed to read this week of a Papuan news outlet, Jujur Bicara (also known as Jubi), which was attacked with a bomb. The bomb damaged two cars before staff at the paper were able to put out the fire. Jubi editor Victor Mambor said that he’s been the victim of a string of attacks, which he believes relate to his work.
As we approach the year’s end we’re reflecting on just what a brutal year it has been for media freedom. Ditto protest rights. Those protesting Mozambique’s election last month can attest to this – at least 18 have been killed since the 9 October vote, with police firing tear gas at protesters this week in the capital Maputo, while in Belarus around 50 people were recently detained, all of whom were connected to peaceful protests around the 2020 elections.
Finally, a good news story, of sorts. The Satanic Verses is no longer banned in India. A court in the country overruled a decades-long import ban on the book. I say good news of sorts because lifting the ban seems to be down to an administrative error. A petition was filed in 2019 on the grounds that the ban violated constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression. The man who filed the petition, Sandipan Khan, requested a copy of the notification that banned the import of the book back in 1988. When he was informed that the document could not be located, the Delhi High Court ruled that it had “no other option except to presume that no such notification exists”. It’s not every day we get wins in the free speech world so we’ll take this one.
On the note of Salman Rushdie, who was our 2023 Trustees Award winner at our annual Freedom of Expression Awards, we’ve just announced the shortlist for our 2024 awards. Click here to see the amazing individuals and organisations who are holding the line on free expression today. And if you value free expression and you have been rattled by the events of this week please do consider donating to Index. We’re a small charity with big ambitions and a lot of that is down to the support of people like you.
Thank you and take care.
6 Nov 2024 | News and features, United States
Waking up to today’s news that Donald Trump has been re-elected as president of the USA is deeply troubling. Despite what he claims, Trump is no poster boy for free speech. We at Index have many grave concerns about what another four years under him could mean for the USA and the world.
The first of these concerns is media freedom. His record on this is worrying. During his last term as president, Trump constantly appeared on our website and in our magazine. David E. McCraw, the New York Times deputy general counsel, spoke to us about the physical violence journalists were facing in the USA as a result of Trump; the great-granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Nina Khrushcheva, wrote about his lashing out at various mainstream media with labels like “enemy of the people” and even said life in the Soviet Union was better in this regard:
“Once a Soviet citizen, I’ve been checking my surroundings. Am I living in cosmopolitan New York? Am I back in a homogeneous Moscow reading the Pravda headlines about the drummed-up victories of the communist state and the denunciations of the enemies who plot to take it down? In fact, when I was growing up in the 1970s, not even Pravda used such ominous language for Kremlin critics.”
Alas if Trump is to be taken at his word, his first four years in power were simply the dress rehearsal before the real show. Project 25, the Republican Party’s 900-page policy wish-list, includes plans to seize journalists’ emails and phones, while campaign-trail Trump frequently railed against the media, threatening to arrest those who disparage him and to strip television networks of their broadcast licenses. This might partly explain why Jeff Bezos crushed the Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. Self-censorship is after all self-preservation.
This Sunday Trump said he wouldn’t have minded if journalists had been shot during his assassination attempt.
Such language incites. Reporters have spoken about feeling very unsafe at Trump rallies. Such language is also not limited to the media. His desire to throw people in jail extends to his detractors more broadly and is often personal. His campaign team claims his “firing squad” comment towards former US Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney has been taken out of context. Perhaps. Still there is no denying that he launched a vicious attack, solely because she was on Team Kamala.
This leads onto our broader concerns for freedom of expression in the USA. Minority voices will be further marginalised. So too will the voices of those who simply wish to criticise Trump or pull up his administration when it falls short. Even the best administrations fall short. Never mind ones staffed with conspiracists and liars. The implications are terrifying.
All the while Trump’s particular style of “noisy” leadership feels structurally built to erode USA democracy. In Umberto Eco’s essay Censorship and Silence, the Italian twentieth century scholar argued that too much information was an intentional tactic. Noise becomes an instrument of censorship and a tool of totalitarianism. It drowns out what we should be hearing. Trump likely knows this; his constant chatter is, many believe, done on purpose, the chaos it creates aimed at frustrating and distracting the public.
This does not just concern people in the USA. It concerns all of us, especially anyone living under dictatorships. Autocrats benefit from our distraction. Is it any surprise that, with our attention fixed on Israel-Palestine and indeed the USA, Saudi Arabia has carried out the highest number of executions this year since 1990 and that few have spoken about this?
Moving forward our fears deepen for those who live in totalitarian states and we fear too for people in Ukraine, the Baltics and in the Middle East given Trump’s allegiances in those regions.
Trump was voted in – but concerns have been raised about how fair the election was, starting with accusations once again of Russian meddling, the fact that one of Trump’s biggest supporters (Elon Musk) runs a highly influential social media platform and offered money to people voting in swing states, and stories of ballot boxes being set on fire. But in the grand scheme of elections, where countries like North Korea don’t hold any, it is undeniable that the USA’s 2024 ones were closer to free and fair.
That his election was democratic provides no solace, however. The world is not short on examples of autocrats who received a popular vote at the start. Victor Orban. Narendra Modi. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A vote is only one function of a democratic system and it is all too often imperfect.
As newspaper columnists address what led to this moment we pledge to work tirelessly to hold Trump to account on free speech.
When Index was launched in the early 1970s our mission was always to look at censorship everywhere and to not assume that we in the so-called West will have freedoms tomorrow just because we have them today. In the decades since we have tirelessly reported on and promoted free expression. We’ve successfully campaigned to change laws, to free prisoners of conscience, to get people off death row. We will continue to work in this way and we will report on every violation to free speech that Donald Trump and those in his government make. We will do our best to ensure the right to free expression does not bear the brunt of his presidency.
We know we need to make the case for free speech even stronger too. It is simply not good enough that the loudest voices talking about free speech are the very voices that want to dismantle it.
Today is a day of despair. It is also a day for collective action, for those of us who genuinely care about free speech to come together to protect and promote it. Please join us.
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19 Aug 2024 | Burkina Faso, Canada, China, Germany, India, Iran, Magazine Contents, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Volume 53.02 Summer 2024
Contents
