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Tuesday, May 12
Global Free Speech

Rescuers at Minab school. Photo by: Mehr News Agency, CC BY 4.0 What actually happened when the Minab school in Iran was bombed matters. For a few moments last week I thought the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante had died. She hadn’t. It was fake news, spread on X. Before her death was debunked, thousands had engaged with the “news”. Stories like this (and there have been plenty of other faux celebrity deaths) do so well because of our inherent cognitive bias. We see them, we get very emotional – Ferrante is a beloved author – and in that moment we short-circuit critical thinking and head straight to a response – outrage, upset, even schadenfreude. It’s a similar story with Iran. Israel, the USA, the Iranian regime – all elicit strong emotions, which partly explains why the responses to what happened at the Minab school bombing have been so tense and contradictory. Major public figures, from politicians to comedians, have amplified their version of what they think happened. It’s prompted the New York Times and others to try and decipher, in this incredibly challenging media landscape, just what exactly did take place. Because facts matter. Few would publicly disagree with this principle and yet cognitive bias today is extending to how people approach fact-checkers. For some they’re censorious liberals, intent on silencing right-wing voices. For others they’re essential soldiers fighting for democracy, and indeed free speech, in the age of Russian troll machines. Index has always sought to identify issues with handling mis- and disinformation – false flags and stories that change as new evidence emerges. Ultimately we believe that with advances to artificial intelligence and ample examples of online deception, we need a lot more people investigating, highlighting and contextualising where our information comes from. The Trump administration isn’t with us. Since Donald Trump’s return to power, not only respected journalists and media outlets, but mis- and disinformation researchers have been in his firing line. These researchers have battled federal funding cuts, a surge in abuse, even death threats. In December five people were denied visas to the USA, accused of being part of the “global censorship-industrial complex”. More could fall prey. Plans are afoot for non-citizens working in the space to have their visas revoked or denied and face detention and deportation. The researchers are fighting back. This week the Knight First Amendment Institute and Protect Democracy filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR), challenging the constitutionality of the new immigration policy. The claimants argue that it violates their First Amendment rights and is intended to chill independent research about social media and other internet platforms. “This policy is meant to censor researchers into silence and keep the public in the dark, and that’s exactly what it’s doing,” said Brandi Geurkink, executive director at CITR. We agree. A viral post suggesting Ferrante is dead doesn’t matter hugely. Information on how the war is being conducted in Iran does. Experts who can spot the red flags and contextualise the information we receive aren’t free-speech enemies and branding them as such is a less than subtle way to silence them. READ MORE

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Rescuers at Minab school. Photo by: Mehr News Agency, CC BY 4.0 What actually happened when the Minab school in Iran was bombed matters. For a few moments last week I thought the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante had died. She hadn’t. It was fake news, spread on X. Before her death was debunked, thousands had engaged with the “news”. Stories like this (and there have been plenty of other faux celebrity deaths) do so well because of our inherent cognitive bias. We see them, we get very emotional – Ferrante is a beloved author – and in that moment we short-circuit critical thinking and head straight to a response – outrage, upset, even schadenfreude. It’s a similar story with Iran. Israel, the USA, the Iranian regime – all elicit strong emotions, which partly explains why the responses to what happened at the Minab school bombing have been so tense and contradictory. Major public figures, from politicians to comedians, have amplified their version of what they think happened. It’s prompted the New York Times and others to try and decipher, in this incredibly challenging media landscape, just what exactly did take place. Because facts matter. Few would publicly disagree with this principle and yet cognitive bias today is extending to how people approach fact-checkers. For some they’re censorious liberals, intent on silencing right-wing voices. For others they’re essential soldiers fighting for democracy, and indeed free speech, in the age of Russian troll machines. Index has always sought to identify issues with handling mis- and disinformation – false flags and stories that change as new evidence emerges. Ultimately we believe that with advances to artificial intelligence and ample examples of online deception, we need a lot more people investigating, highlighting and contextualising where our information comes from. The Trump administration isn’t with us. Since Donald Trump’s return to power, not only respected journalists and media outlets, but mis- and disinformation researchers have been in his firing line. These researchers have battled federal funding cuts, a surge in abuse, even death threats. In December five people were denied visas to the USA, accused of being part of the “global censorship-industrial complex”. More could fall prey. Plans are afoot for non-citizens working in the space to have their visas revoked or denied and face detention and deportation. The researchers are fighting back. This week the Knight First Amendment Institute and Protect Democracy filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR), challenging the constitutionality of the new immigration policy. The claimants argue that it violates their First Amendment rights and is intended to chill independent research about social media and other internet platforms. “This policy is meant to censor researchers into silence and keep the public in the dark, and that’s exactly what it’s doing,” said Brandi Geurkink, executive director at CITR. We agree. A viral post suggesting Ferrante is dead doesn’t matter hugely. Information on how the war is being conducted in Iran does. Experts who can spot the red flags and contextualise the information we receive aren’t free-speech enemies and branding them as such is a less than subtle way to silence them. READ MORE

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What actually happened when the Minab school in Iran was bombed matters.

For a few moments last week I thought the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante had died. She hadn’t. It was fake news, spread on X. Before her death was debunked, thousands had engaged with the “news”. Stories like this (and there have been plenty of other faux celebrity deaths) do so well because of our inherent cognitive bias. We see them, we get very emotional – Ferrante is a beloved author – and in that moment we short-circuit critical thinking and head straight to a response – outrage, upset, even schadenfreude.

It’s a similar story with Iran. Israel, the USA, the Iranian regime – all elicit strong emotions, which partly explains why the responses to what happened at the Minab school bombing have been so tense and contradictory. Major public figures, from politicians to comedians, have amplified their version of what they think happened. It’s prompted the New York Times and others to try and decipher, in this incredibly challenging media landscape, just what exactly did take place. Because facts matter.

Few would publicly disagree with this principle and yet cognitive bias today is extending to how people approach fact-checkers. For some they’re censorious liberals, intent on silencing right-wing voices. For others they’re essential soldiers fighting for democracy, and indeed free speech, in the age of Russian troll machines.

Index has always sought to identify issues with handling mis- and disinformation – false flags and stories that change as new evidence emerges. Ultimately we believe that with advances to artificial intelligence and ample examples of online deception, we need a lot more people investigating, highlighting and contextualising where our information comes from.

The Trump administration isn’t with us. Since Donald Trump’s return to power, not only respected journalists and media outlets, but mis- and disinformation researchers have been in his firing line. These researchers have battled federal funding cuts, a surge in abuse, even death threats. In December five people were denied visas to the USA, accused of being part of the “global censorship-industrial complex”. More could fall prey. Plans are afoot for non-citizens working in the space to have their visas revoked or denied and face detention and deportation.

The researchers are fighting back. This week the Knight First Amendment Institute and Protect Democracy filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR), challenging the constitutionality of the new immigration policy. The claimants argue that it violates their First Amendment rights and is intended to chill independent research about social media and other internet platforms.

“This policy is meant to censor researchers into silence and keep the public in the dark, and that’s exactly what it’s doing,” said Brandi Geurkink, executive director at CITR.

We agree. A viral post suggesting Ferrante is dead doesn’t matter hugely. Information on how the war is being conducted in Iran does. Experts who can spot the red flags and contextualise the information we receive aren’t free-speech enemies and branding them as such is a less than subtle way to silence them.

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Global Free Speech

Narges Mohammadi, Iranian human rights defender and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner I pray that when you read this Narges Mohammadi is still alive. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is currently in an Iranian hospital in a critical condition. Her brother, who lives in Oslo, is anticipating terrible news. Mohammadi, 54, is in ill-health and is suspected of having suffered a heart attack in jail. Her move to a hospital is purely tokenistic – she is not in the right place for her condition. If she dies under these conditions, it’s a fate Mohammadi has warned about herself. In 2023 we shared a video made by Iranian filmmaker Vahid Zarezadeh of Mohammadi raising the alarm. When she gave the interview, she had just left hospital because of previous heart complications, following time in an appalling prison renowned for its punishing regime. In the video she said the “system sets up the conditions for the prisoner’s death,” and told people to not be surprised if, in the event she died in jail, the authorities blamed her death on an undiagnosed health problem. Heart attacks are common, they’d claim, downplaying their own role. Today it is even easier for them to downplay their role. The country is still in digital darkness. This Thursday marks day 69. That is 1632 hours of no connection to the global internet. There are some workarounds but they’re hard and risky. The cover of war has also seen an escalation in the execution of political prisoners, including those who took part in January’s protests. To be a dissident in Iran takes guts. To be as dedicated as Mohammadi is frankly awe-inspiring. What has made her so? Mohammadi was born in 1972 into a middle-class family with political persuasions. Following the Islamic revolution, her uncle and two cousins were arrested for activism. She studied nuclear physics at university, and it was there that she met her husband, Taghi Rahmani, who had himself spent 17 years in prison. After university, she worked for newspapers that were part of the reformist movement. In 2003 she joined the Defenders of Human Rights Center, founded by that year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi. By this stage she had already been arrested and spent a year in jail. This became a pattern. According to her foundation, she’s been arrested 13 times and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. A mother of twins — Kiana and Ali – Mohammadi has called the long years of separation from them an indescribable suffering. She has spoken about the fear and anxiety of solitary confinement and once said: “The price of the struggle is not only torture and prison, it is a heart that breaks with every regret and a pain that strikes to the marrow of your bones.” Still, she has continued to campaign for justice. Upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2023 “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”, she said: “I will never stop striving for the realisation of democracy, freedom and equality.” One month later she was on hunger strike to protest the delayed and neglectful medical care for sick prisoners. I’m fascinated by the anatomy of courage, though I’m unsure I’ll ever get to the bottom of it. What I do know is that Narges Mohammadi deserves every accolade and if she dies in the coming days the Iranian authorities are the culprits and not a dodgy heart. READ MORE

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