This comes from a Guardian email this morning. I am unapologetic for sharing it in full:
Journalism faces greater danger than at any point in the last decade, according to a report that finds 78 journalists were killed in 2017 while doing their job. Data from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows 2018 is likely to be no better — the number of journalists murdered as opposed to killed in war, on dangerous assignments or other incidents is on the rise. Jamal Khashoggi, killed by Saudi security forces in Istanbul in October, has been one of 31 journalists murdered so far this year. The rise of authoritarian governments and the threat of internet censorship has redoubled pressures on reporters globally, according to the human rights organisation Article 19, which found 326 journalists were imprisoned for their work during 2017, a substantial increase on the previous year. More than half of those behind bars were held in Turkey, China, and Egypt, often on charges of opposing the state.
Worry.
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Unfortunately I feel it follows from the pervasive and lazy argument: “[I] don’t care about privacy because [I] have nothing to hide.”
This sort of terrible logic means that a large swathe of people apply this potentially malign apathy to journalism too: I don’t care about a free press because I have nothing to write.
This is profoundly damaging to so-called free and open societies.
The situation has long been much worse than this. We might have to go back to 19th century USA for glimmers of a free press. The internet could do the business but clearly does not. The problems might be clumped as these:
1. government tendencies to tyranny – but remembering government also secures freedoms from the absurdities of libertarianism
2. mass engagement in trivia, gossip and violent threat
3. psychopaths and Snollygosters
4. false accusations made to inflict gossip pain
5. existing laws, educational discipline practices that put us in kow-tow
6. lack of truthful history across all societies
7. hardly any understanding of language and that we can’t spot liars better than a toss of a coin
8. only easy argument is made with ready-to-hand “evidence” …
Sadly, the list goes on,
True
The report by Article 19 is very important in the sense of how the censorship of independent journalism is accelerating. Not just through state ordered imprisonment but with corporate collusion.
There are numerous facebook/twitter sites which have been wiped this year, there are many which are ‘demoted’ in google search. There are a whole lot of anti ‘fake-news’, state sponsored groups engaged in not just a propaganda war but in censoring individuals. I wish Article 19 had found some space for these ‘disappeared’ without trial.
Saudi activist Omar Abdulaziz filed a lawsuit against Israeli cyber warfare company NSO Group in Tel Aviv on Sunday, on the basis that the company’s malware intercepted conversations between the activist and slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/friend-khashoggi-sues-israeli-spyware-company