triggerhappymedia

Index on Censorship is Britain’s leading organization promoting freedom of expression. Founded in 1972 by a group of writers, journalists, and artists, Index publishes a quarterly magazine and maintains an excellent website dedicated to censorship issues.

In 2003, I interviewed then editor Judith Vidal-Hall. Our conversation has only become more relevant with the passage of time. Last week Obama advanced new arguments in defense of the warrantless wiretaping program authorized by Bush days after September 11th.

Jenny Montasir: How did Index on Censorship change after the fall of communism?

Judith Vidal-Hall: The magazine went off the market for a brief period after the wall came down and communism collapsed. And people said you’ve done a fantastic job, we don’t need you any more. Money was withdrawn and the magazine went off the market for a time. What we really did was re-think the word “censorship.” There was a perception that censorship was something that happened “out there” and that it was something done by the communist state. But while the generals had gone in South America, the dictators had not in South Africa. So there was still the old-fashioned censorship. Ideologically, communism was no longer the great enemy. There was a huge sort of freedom of access, but suddenly economics became a problem.

JM: Like the ownership of the papers?

JVH: Precisely- those who were there to buy the papers. So you basically get the old apparatus are the only ones who’ve got the money. Or you get the mafia, or you get foreign owners. Like Bertelsmann in Germany who is now the biggest media group in Europe, or Robert Maxwell who bought a lot of papers in the Czech Republic and Beirut and indeed in Israel. So money and the ownership and the particular perspective of an owner could be a problem. We really thought that censorship was about any silence- any voice that could not break through the silence to get out. So we’ve done issues on madness, we’ve done issues on migration. We published the literature of small migrant groups and minorities in [the United Kingdom] because for them to find a publisher, for their voice to be heard, is extremely rare and difficult. We’ve done an issue on the Roma or the gypsies of Europe because they again are very much abused.

JM: So instead of just banned writing Index began to give a platform to people who would not otherwise be heard?

JVH: I think its very much that. It’s giving a voice to minorities, to groups or to people for whom access to media is denied for whatever reason. I also want to say to you that though it’s true that we had this watershed in 1991, I think 9/11/01- ten years later- I’m coming to realize personally more and more, that in a sense is another watershed. And what do I mean by that? I mean that I find freedom of expression, freedom of any kind has always had a certain relative quality. But I suppose we take as the gold-standard the First Amendment of the United States as an institution which is absolutely, categorically establishing freedom of speech and excluding interference. The next best thing to that would be Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights where the person has the right to give and to receive information free of hindrance. So if you take those as the gold-standards, then I think at the moment we’re hearing arguments that should cause concern. Yes, Article 19- BUT- and the but seems to be things like would you allow Al-Jazeera to say all these things it wants to say? Would you want to allow all these Arab-Americans to go free to write what they like in their e-mail and say what they like on their telephones? So I think to some extent- though I don’t think there’s a rigid line- I’m getting the feeling very strongly that even on the side of the angels, the free expression line, people are temporizing more. Yes, of course the First Amendment- BUT. And what it’s doing is targeting much more than before certain people under the disguise of terrorism. Things are being allowed to happen: access to e-mail, listening in on telephones, general surveillance. It has been happening with much more frequency. So I think in a way, post-9/11 is another period like post-1991 where we have to watch very carefully and guard what we have.

JM: Who reads Index on Censorship?

JVH: I’m afraid the audience is relatively old, relatively wealthy- sort of the higher catacombs. But I comfort myself by the fact that the issues which are distributed free go to Eastern Europe, and to academic institutions. In Africa, they go much more to schools, libraries, so that every copy that goes, you will have maybe ten, twenty people reading it. Obviously the language means that our audiences on the whole will be smaller. And again I comfort myself by saying, well, I wish it could be glossaries, but these are the people who will effect more, who will eventually be in teaching, in government, in universities. These are the guys, these are the women who are going to have the jobs that are influential in terms of the next generation.

JM: How do you judge the effectiveness of your magazine?

JVH: I don’t know. I think that is the most difficult thing. You can do your reader surveys- which we have done- but your reader surveys will only in the end tell you what the people who respond think. What effect this has on law and policy and the way individuals think, I truly don’t know. And I want to be honest with you, I don’t know any way we can measure that. I haven’t noticed a huge liberalization in the attitudes in our own country. I think it’s very hard to measure, and it’s a long game. I mean, you plug away and plug away and plug away.

JM: What of your work are you most proud of?

JVH: I’m not proud of myself. I love what I do. I actually think I’m quite lucky at 65 to have this to do. I love it, and I’ve been a journalist for a long time. I suppose I am most proud when I have an issue and my hand and it is good.

JM: And by good you mean?

JVH: When I have the issue in my hand and it turned out what we wanted it to be. Then I am proud, knowing that others are reading this work. And with the subscription program, it’s the people in these countries who normally Index wouldn’t reach. Does it have an effect for them? I suppose if they are reading something that they wouldn’t normally have access to, then we were effective.

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Trigger: Index on Censorship

OUTLAW - Shot in the Dark
A DROME magazine and Lomography Photo Competition

Have you ever walked down a dark ally with your beloved LC-A in hand? Have you ever seen a vandalized building and couldn’t help but to admire that urban art covering the walls? Share this rawness from the streets with us! In this collaboration with Lomography, we are looking for your best images of stencils, posters, stickers, graffiti or any other form or “illegal expression” that you can find on the streets…

The winners will receive a Staple Colorsplash camera and a feature spot in DROME magazine. One important rule: Lomography will only accept photos taken with analogue cameras. None of the following would qualify, but it was a nice excuse to take a look back.

Banksy. London, 2004

Orgasmo Roma. Rome, 2004

CCTV. Milan, 2007

Milan, 2007

 Brooklyn, 2008

Godless America. San Francisco, 2009

NYC, 2008

Freak What You Feel! Brooklyn, 2008

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Trigger: Shot in the Dark details and entry form here

The following advertisement is part of Amnesty International’s Unsubscribe project. The campaign addresses inhumane interrogation techniques like those used in Guantanamo Bay.

Words can only do so much to describe torture: the stress position, forced nudity, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding. Images show just how these practices violate human rights.

The spots can be found online, and they will also be previewed in UK cinemas starting in May. This makes sense because it is a UK-based project. But considering that American intelligence are the main purveyors of this kind of abuse, shouldn’t these ads run with the highest visibility in the US?

Show your support by unsubscribing at the link below.

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Trigger: Unsubscribe

Awhile back, I wrote about a potential flaw in the Truth Isn’t Sexy campaign: men who pay for sex might not be concerned with the large-scale effects of their behavior (slavery, abuse, etc).

From The Guardian’s lead article on the increased incidence of sex trafficking into Britain:

“In a recent study by the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University, researchers asked men arrested for kerbcrawling to pick from a list of factors which might deter them from buying sex. While some agreed that large fines or being publicly shamed would do so, none cited knowing that a woman was forced into prostitution.”

The British government hopes that harsher laws against clients will be the key to stalling the growing sex trade.

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Trigger: “Men who buy sex could face prosecution” by Tania Branigan
Site: Guardian Unlimited

“Without demand there would be no market for trafficked women and children.” These words come from The Truth Isn’t Sexy Campaign, a London-based initiative to raise awareness of the connection between prostitution and sexual slavery.

One way they’re spreading the message is by placing the above posters in pub toilets. Granted, a man considering paying for sex might not think of the abuse and exploitation he is helping to support. But the creative is strong and will undoubtedly draw much needed attention to this issue.

To find out how to put together a campaign in your city, click below.

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Trigger: Get involved: The truth isn’t sexy

Oh, how we loathe change! When The Guardian decided to redesign their website, they received some praise…and many requests to change it back.

The difference-

Spacing. Less text equals a cleaner appearance. Instead of using blurbs below the headlines, most stories get a one line hotlink. The use of curtains instead of captioning saves space around the pictures.

Positioning. The site now reads side to side instead of up and down. The old horizontal design was made for short attention spans, while the new version encourages the eyes to dart around the page. The full articles, however, remain in the long and streamlined format.

Focus on freshness. Notice the prominence of the strap “Last updated one minute ago” on the new site. Obviously the idea that The Guardian is a hub for the latest news and features was at the heart of the redesign. The interactive blog pages are also listed front and center with the option to see how many comments a posting has received.

What do you think of the new look?

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Trigger: Guardian Unlimited online

Whether you’re still into or over Banksy, you must admit you were impressed the first time you glimpsed one of his stencils.

I remember riding the old Routemasters up London’s Rosebery Avenue and scanning the walls of Clerkenwell for Banksy’s rats. My favorite little guy was waiting by a cashpoint holding a briefcase and umbrella.

There were also the larger pieces, like the one that used to be right outside of the Old Street Tube station. I say used to because it’s been painted over.

Apparently after over two years, London Transport realized that the Pulp Fiction image of John Travolta and Sam Jackson holding bananas instead of guns was a sign of “social decay”. I’d say that Banky’s work was one of few things that brought a little light into an otherwise dreary area of town.

When asked why the work of such a well-known street artist was destroyed, a spokesman for London Transport said, “our graffiti removal teams are staffed by professional cleaners, not professional art critics.”

What else is there to say when a piece of art worth £300,000+ has just been ruined without reason? So sad.
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Trigger: ‘Iconic Banksy image painted over’

YouTube started out as a quirky UGC site that’s become a worldwide phenomenon. But it’s not all treadmill choreography. Videos can be passed around anonymously and with ease: the perfect tool for a bully.

Today the UK’s education secretary, Alan Johnson, announced growing concern over cyber-bullies- students who post videos to harass and humiliate their teachers.

YouTube, along with RateMyTeachers, was singled out as the reason why teachers are leaving their jobs. Johnson argued that videos showing abuse against teachers should be removed, much like the filtering of pornographic content.

But is it the site’s responsibility to monitor bad students? Some argue that the schools need to tackle the problem head-on. This would involve restricting the use of mobile phones and recording devices, and punishing bullies with greater impunity.

For now the burden will fall on YouTube to offer protection against cyber-bullies. Simply imposing more rules doesn’t seem too promising a solution. Kids will always find ways to bully, especially as technology allows for sneakier and crueler ways to do it.

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Trigger: ‘YouTube urged to get tough with cyber-bullies‘ by Jane Hoskyn

Geography 101 just got sexier. Worldmapper, an innovation of the University of Sheffield’s Social and Spatial Inequalities research group, abandons the pastel colors and bland design of your average political map in favor of something more vibrant.

Worldmapper keeps the basic boundary lines of the world intact. The twist is that the sizes of individual countries are inflated or compressed according to a value assigned to each map.

For example:

The Total Population map illustrates how India, China, and Japan hold a relatively large proportion of the world’s population…

…while the Net Immigration map shows how North America, Western Europe, and the Middle East are the recipients of 79.5% of the world’s immigrants. The United States receives 37.1% of the net total.

Worldmapper covers a diverse list of categories from goods and services to health and education. More map categories (pollution, depletion, communication) will be added to further extend the ambition of the Worldmapper project: to take complex statistical information and make it easily understood through illustration.

Visual learners take note.
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Trigger: Worldmapper