ResearchBuzz: FirehoseUniversity of Exeter: Legal reforms to stop abusive SLAPPs fail to stop chilling effect of the powerful, study warns . “Measures in the USA, UK and the EU to stop strategic lawsuits against public participation do not address the deep-seated inadequacies in the law which have a chilling effect on journalists and whistleblowers, the research says.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/31/university-of-exeter-legal-reforms-to-stop-abusive-slapps-fail-to-stop-chilling-effect-of-the-powerful-study-warns/
Miguel Afonso Caetano"Chilling effects can be subtle, but today they are everywhere. And it’s not just students who are chilled by Trump administration threats.
Professors are censoring themselves in lectures and rewriting syllabuses. Researchers are stripping grant applications of words that might attract federal scrutiny, or abandoning the topics entirely. Media outlets are modifying their news coverage to avoid Trump lawsuits or sanctions.
Law enforcement and regulatory agencies are refusing to investigate Trump-aligned actors inside or outside government, and major national law firms are declining cases challenging Trump administration policies.
Publishers are “stepping back” from LGBTQ+ books and other progressive subjects. Many in targeted immigrant communities are afraid to leave home to go to work or school.
In most cases, these people and institutions are not being specifically targeted or threatened by Trump. But they are afraid, and their fear is doing the administration’s work for it. They stay silent, avoid attention and confrontation, and look the other way. In other cases, they change their speech and behavior to accommodate or conform to the administration’s worldview.
Of course, there are counterexamples, such as the winter protests in Minneapolis in response to brutality by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the recent “No Kings” rallies. But even here, the broader but less visible trend—chilling effects—is evident.
For instance, in recent reporting on the latest No Kings rallies, many media outlets observed that students were noticeably missing, despite the Trump administration’s unpopularity among younger Americans."
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/chilling-effects.html
#ChillingEffects #USA #Trump #SelfCensorship #Democracy #Authoritarianism
Chilling Effects - Schneier on Security
Younger Americans have soured on the second Donald Trump presidency, but they are not protesting it. Despite an unpopular Iran war and an even more unpopular Trump administration, college campus protests nationwide have gone silent. And at many schools, student activism is virtually nonexistent. This silence comes in the wake of a relentless Trump administration war on campus speech that has involved lawsuits, arrests, deportations and expulsions. Reports cite a range of complicated factors for the restraint, from apathy to technology-induced incapacity. But as ...
Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈Don't ask us, ask the Zionists....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/27/trump-israel-trump-war
#Isreal #UKPol #UKPolitics #Trump #Netanyahu #SelfCensorship #Zionism
Adrian SegarReduce China-style self-censorship by participants at your meetings, by including agreements at the start
#meetings #EventDesign #agreements #covenants #SelfCensorship #eventprofs
WIST Quotations A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1841), “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, No. 2
More about this quote: wist.info/emerson-ralph-waldo/…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #emerson #ralphwaldoemerson #belief #believeinyourself #confidence #creativity #ego #genius #humility #idea #opinion #originality #pride #selfappreciation #selfapproval #selfbetrayal #selfcensorship #selfconfidence #selfconsciousness #selfcriticism #selfdefeating #selfdeprecating #selfeffacing #selfesteem #selfjudgment #selfquestioning #selfreproach #selfsabotage #selftrust #spontaneity #trustyourself
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Essay (1841), "Self-Reliance," Essays: First Series, No. 2 | WIST Quotations
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own…
GANPANTSURA ArchiveUkraine: Its Inner Enemy — Beyond the Front and Beyond Peace
The collapse of empires in the 1920s–30s marked for the Poles the construction of their new national state. However, the problem of the new Polish territories and the people living there quickly arose. The southeastern Polish lands — now western Ukraine — were subjected to a policy of forced assimilation. Any political activity based on the idea of Ukrainian identity, and even more so on the pursuit of autonomy, was prohibited.
綠豆 Green Bean Media#Groundbreaking | Horse-racing, dancing continues, but books look uncertain | Chris Yeung | At Large
📖 Become a paid Patreon member of “Green Bean Media” to receive all full articles by email. You can also read it on our website: IG Story link
▌Extract
Although there is no list of banned books in Hong Kong, fears of breaching the national security and seditious publications laws have worsened self-censorship in the publishing industry and society a...
https://www.instagram.com/p/DWgLZ9xgZfW/
Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦The historian #GarryWills, in an essay on Phillip Knightley’s 1975 book about wartime journalism, “The First Casualty,” wrote, “A #liberaldemocracy submits to #propaganda more readily than a #totalitarian state. #Self‐censorship is always more effective than #bureaucratic #censorship.”
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mhnsb4snj22b
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mhnsb4snj22b
AI Daily PostChina’s home‑grown LLM Qwen suddenly edits its own reply when asked about the nation’s global image. The incident shines a light on AI censorship, political sensitivity, and the ethical tightrope of self‑censoring models. What does this mean for future chatbot development? #AICensorship #Qwen #SelfCensorship #AIethics
🔗 https://aidailypost.com/news/chinese-chatbot-qwen-selfcensors-answer-chinas-international
Research Network Digi-Oek.ch[en] Reconstructing Free Expression
"The Trump administration is engaged in a full-scale assault on First Amendment rights and values, violating laws and using threats to create a climate of fear and self-censorship. Its attacks—often successful—have exposed significant, longstanding weaknesses in the laws, institutions, and norms that underwrite public discourse."
"This initiative will encompass a series of closed convenings with scholars and advocates to generate ideas for legal, institutional, and other reforms ..."
https://knightcolumbia.org/research/reconstructing-free-expression
#freeexpression #firstamendment #usa #selfcensorship #trumpadministration #knightcolumbia #columbia #cornell #universitychicago
