Tag - censorship

 
 

CENSORSHIP

People use their phones in a garden in Moscow on June 22. Many Russians have turned to the private messaging service Telegram as the government bans Western social media platforms.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 1, 2025
Russian influencers are thriving on Telegram
Since 2021, Telegram’s monthly active users in Russia have risen to 120 million, more than 90% of the country’s internet users.
John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. U.S. President Donald Trump kicked off a wide-ranging immigration crackdown after taking office in January.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 28, 2025
Trump administration moves to tighten duration of visas for students and media
The proposed regulation is part of U.S. President Donald Trump's broader crackdown on legal immigration.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks next to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Terry Cole, Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), during the signing of executive orders by U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Monday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 26, 2025
U.S. weighing sanctions on EU officials implementing Digital Services Act
The law aims to make the online environment safer, in part by compelling tech giants to tackle illegal content such as hate speech and child sexual abuse material.
A girl uses her smartphone as she walks her dog in Moscow on July 30.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 21, 2025
Online behavior under scrutiny as Russia hunts 'extremists'
Internet users who search for web pages, books, artwork or music albums that the authorities deem extremist will be fined under new legislation.
A prison van believed to be carrying Jimmy Lai arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts building for the closing submissions in the national security collusion trial of Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, in Hong Kong on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 18, 2025
Hong Kong democrat Jimmy Lai given heart monitor for final stretch of marathon trial
Lai's lawyer told the court last Friday that Lai had some episodes where he felt that he was collapsing and had heart "palpitations."
Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 14, 2025
Hong Kong court to hear closing arguments in mogul Jimmy Lai's trial
The 77-year-old founder of the Apple Daily newspaper is charged with foreign collusion under Hong Kong's national security law.
The Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center has removed materials about Beijing's treatment of ethnic minorities and Hong Kong from an exhibit on authoritarian governments.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 9, 2025
Thai gallery removes China-focused artworks after 'pressure' from Beijing  
In what artists called the latest attempt by Beijing to silence critics overseas, the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center changed multiple works by artists in exile.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Elon Musk in Washington on Feb. 13.
WORLD
Aug 7, 2025
Musk vs. Modi: Inside the battle over India's internet censorship
X argues India's internet-policing actions are illegal.
A person visits the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 26.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 4, 2025
AI search pushing an already weakened media ecosystem to the brink
A recent study has revealed that AI-generated summaries now appearing in Google searches discourage users from clicking through to source articles.
The impeachment exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington
WORLD / Politics
Aug 3, 2025
U.S. museum says Trump administration did not compel impeachment display removal
The placard was meant to be temporary and "did not meet the museum's standards in appearance, location, timeline and overall presentation," the Smithsonian said.
An activist holds a portrait of Josef Stalin during a rally in Moscow on April 22, 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 23, 2025
Stalin makes a comeback in Putin’s wartime crackdown on dissent
The Kremlin is reviving Soviet-era practices of censorship and prison sentences to suppress dissent and present Russian society as united behind Putin and the war.
Russian lawmakers advanced a bill on July 17 that would make it an offense to browse and search for "extremist" content online, a proposal critics say would sharply stifle internet freedom.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 23, 2025
Russia passes law punishing searches for 'extremist' content
The Ministry of Justice's list of what it deems to be extremist materials stretches to more than 500 pages.
A Beijing store selling merchandise based on the "boys’ love" genre of graphic novels on June 16
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Jul 10, 2025
China detains female writers of 'boys' love' content in porn crackdown
The detentions since March have triggered debate on social media about the limits of free speech and the apparent sexist nature of the crackdown.
Speculation about Xi Jinping losing his grip on power misreads China’s digital authoritarianism, which uses algorithmic control and emotional scripting to absorb dissent and reinforce the Chinese Communist Party’s power in the information age.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2025
Online dissent in China doesn’t mean Xi is on his way out
Don’t be fooled by viral posts. The CCP allows and even encourages certain forms of online dissent — all part of its digital authoritarianism.
Children play video games on their mobile phones at an internet cafe in Demoso township in Myanmar's eastern Karenni state.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jul 5, 2025
Making connections in Myanmar's fractured state
Four years of civil war between Myanmar's military and its myriad opponents have shattered communications networks.
Kari Lake, senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, said the Voice of America staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of U.S. President Donald Trump's agenda to cut staffing at the agency and Voice of America to a statutory minimum.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 21, 2025
Voice of America parent terminates over 600 more staff in likely death knell
The move likely marks an end to the broadcasting network that was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda.
Harvard University’s crest is displayed on banners from the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library on campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last month.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 21, 2025
U.S. judge blocks Trump ban on foreign students at Harvard
A federal judge has indefinitely paused Donald Trump's bid to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students as the U.S. president said a "deal" with the school was in the works.
Social activists and artists remove graffiti from the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles on June 10, after days of protests against federal immigration sweeps.
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2025
Japanese American museum criticizes Trump order
U.S. authorities issued orders to put up notices for exhibitions, movies and others that are deemed to disparage U.S. history.
The Trump administration's decision to ban The Associated Press from the White House press pool over a style guide dispute is part of a long and troubling history of presidents retaliating against journalists who displease them.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2025
Presidents have been treating journalists badly since Lincoln
Indeed, long before there existed a White House press corps, presidential peevishness led to the punishment of newspapers.
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to the press aboard Air Force One on the way to Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, on Friday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 7, 2025
Trump can bar AP from some White House events for now, U.S. appeals court says
The Associated Press in a statement said it was disappointed by the decision and weighing its options.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past