https://arab.news/y6ssa
LONDON: The Coalition to Defend Freedom of Expression in Lebanon denounced on Wednesday the instances over the past two weeks in which authorities had summoned journalists for investigation.
The media watchdog believes the moves aim to stifle freedom of expression, according to a statement published by Amnesty International, a member of the coalition.
The Council of the Beirut Bar Association, as per the statement, issued on March 3 a decision to amend Articles 39 to 42 of Chapter Six of the Lawyers’ Code of Ethics.
The amendments seek to regulate lawyers’ relationship with media outlets, requiring the former to obtain permission from the head of the Bar Association to participate in legal seminars, conferences, interviews, discussions with media outlets, social media platforms, websites, and groups.
Nizar Saghieh, the executive director of The Legal Agenda, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, was summoned in the wake of the decision by the Bar Association to a hearing without being informed of the reasons.
Head of the Beirut Bar Association Nader Gaspard said during a media-focused seminar on March 31 that the rising number of social media platforms had created “chaos and confusion” about “which court has jurisdiction to look into cases of defamation, libel, slander, insults and fake news, the Court of Publications or the Criminal Court.”
He announced the formation of an in-house Media Committee “to examine draft laws appropriate for the current developments and technologies,” the statement read, and called for the introduction of new legislation defining what constitutes a social media outlet, types of platforms and their function, and the conditions of their use.
The coalition said in its statement: “This new and troubling trend pursued by the Bar Association to restrict the freedoms of registered lawyers coincides with another trend that the groups of the coalition have been documenting for years, and which the authorities recently escalated, to restrict the freedom of the press.”
The coalition pointed out in its statement that powerful Lebanese political and judicial figures had in the past week resorted to criminal defamation laws “to silence criticism,” highlighting that “public prosecutors also summoned journalists for interrogation at security agencies, in violation of the Publications Law.”
Among those summoned was editor-in-chief of the Public Source website, Lara Bitar, who was the target of a complaint by the Lebanese Forces over an article about toxic waste.
The co-founder of Megaphone, Jean Kassir, was called to questioning on March 30, a day before Bitar’s summoning, without being informed of the reasons, an act described by Amnesty International as “an intimidation tactic.”
Megaphone linked the summons to an article it published earlier in March, headlined “Lebanon ruled by fugitives from justice.” The piece named Ghassan Oueidat, the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, among several officials accused of “various crimes ranging from looting public money and illegal enrichment to obstructing the law.”
The Coalition to Defend Freedom of Expression said: “We are alarmed and worried about the direction that the Bar Association has recently taken and about the summons targeting journalists, as such actions increase the restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the midst of an escalation in the use of criminal defamation provisions, violating international standards.”
The coalition called on the Lebanese authorities and the Bar Association to “respect the protections guaranteed in the constitution and international covenants, including Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”
It urged the Council of the Beirut Bar Association to “reverse its decision issued on March 3, 2023,” explaining that it restricts “lawyers’ freedom of expression and subjects it to prior censorship,” harming “the community’s right to be informed of legal and judicial affairs.”
The coalition also called on the Public Prosecution Office and Lebanon’s security agencies “to stop summoning journalists for investigations… for exercising their right to free speech and exposing corruption.”
It asked Parliament to amend Lebanese laws to meet international standards, including “decriminalizing defamation and insults such that they become civil offenses that do not carry any prison sentences, prohibiting government institutions, including the army and security agencies, from bringing defamation suits,” and “providing that truth will be a complete defense to defamation, regardless of whom the defamation is directed at.”
It added: “In matters of public interest, the defendant should only be required to have acted with due diligence to ascertain the truth.”
The coalition stressed that “reforms will not be achieved in Lebanon so long as no laws are enacted to protect journalists and others who act as a watchdog, monitoring the conduct of public officials, recording their violations, and exposing their unlawful practices.
“People have the right to monitor authorities and expose their violations in order to uphold justice. The act of monitoring should not be manipulated as a means of repression by individuals with power and influence.”
ISLAMABAD: A women-run radio station in northeastern Afghanistan has resumed its broadcasts, after officials shut it down for a week for playing music during the holy month of Ramadan, a Taliban official and the head of the station said Friday.
Sadai Banowan, which means “women’s voice” in Dari, was launched 10 years ago in Badakhshan province and is Afghanistan’s only women-run radio station. Six of its eight staff members are women.
Moezuddin Ahmadi, the director for Information and Culture in Badakhshan, said the station was allowed to resume activities on Thursday after it had obeyed the “laws and regulations of the Islamic Emirate” and agreed to stop broadcasting any kind of music.
Station head Najia Sorosh said after the station “gave a commitment to officials at the information and culture department, they unlocked the door of the station,” and they started broadcasting again.
The Afghan Journalist Safety Committee, an Afghan watchdog organization that promotes the safety of journalists and press freedom and which was involved in mediation for the station’s reopening, welcomed the resumption of broadcasts.
“Following AJSC’s advocacy efforts, Sadai Banowan radio resumed its broadcasts,” it said in a tweet.
Representatives from the Ministry of Information and Culture and the Vice and Virtue Directorate had shut down the station a week earlier.
Many journalists lost their jobs after the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Media outlets closed over a lack of funds or because staff left the country, according to the Afghan Independent Journalists Association.
The Taliban have barred women from most forms of employment and education beyond the sixth grade, including university. There is no official ban on music. During their previous rule in the late 1990s, the Taliban barred most television, radio and newspapers in the country.
DUBAI: Vice Media Group has launched the first edition of its “The State of Arab Youth” report.
The regional edition builds on the global document published by Vice Media in 2022 and is based on interviews conducted by the company’s employees, as well as an online survey.
The report’s insights can be put into four key areas: identity, expression, connectivity, and ambition.
Some 52 percent of youth in the Middle East and North Africa region said that personality was the main driver of their identity, while 49 percent attributed it to family, 47 percent to education, and 37 percent to friends.
These markers of identity were found to be stronger in the region than traditional ones globally, such as age and gender.
Julie Arbit, global senior vice president of Insights at Vice Media Group, told Arab News: “Young people in the Middle East are defining themselves by who they are, which is their personality, versus more traditional identity markers of age and gender.”
A total of 57 percent said they expressed their identity through their thoughts and opinions, followed by their appearance (44 percent) and language (40 percent).
Arbit added: “As that concept of identity is becoming more important to young people in the region, they are creating new avenues of expression and remaking culture in the process.”
Their identity is driven by personality (52 percent), family (49 percent), education (47 percent), and friends (37 percent).
Some 57 percent express their identity through their thoughts and opinions, followed by their appearance (44 percent) and their language (40 percent).
More than 52 percent use fashion to celebrate their cultural heritage.
Some 55 percent use beauty and grooming products to showcase their creativity.
One in three gamers turn to gaming as a place for self-expression.
Some 57 percent are excited to explore the metaverse.
A total of 69 percent are always looking for ways to use technology to enhance their lives.
Some 54 percent agree that sometimes they need to take a break from technology.
A total of 50 percent say their financial health is good or excellent.
More than 52 percent of Arab youth use fashion to celebrate their cultural heritage, which is 19 percentage points higher than the global average, while 55 percent use beauty and grooming products to showcase their creativity.
Arbit said: “This expression is not limited to the real world; we’re seeing expression flourish in virtual worlds too, with gaming really becoming a place for Arab youth to express themselves.”
One in three gamers in the MENA region, for example, turn to gaming as a place for self-expression, and 57 percent are excited to explore the metaverse.
Technology also plays a huge role in the lives of Arab youth for both connection and expression, with 69 percent saying they are always looking for ways to use technology to enhance their lives.
Some 30 percent in the MENA region — 14 percentage points higher than the global average — said they “need a lot more” technology to live a happy and healthy life.
The prevalence of technology and social media in the lives of people, especially children and young adults, has led to global concerns around online safety and mental health.
The US called on TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to appear recently before a bipartisan committee where he was asked about the platform’s adverse impact on children and teenagers, among other things.
Arbit said: “I’d be remiss to say that we don’t recognize the downsides of technology and media. However, what we’ve seen in other studies that we’ve done is that technology can actually improve young people’s mental health.”
She added that another Vice Media study had revealed that gaming in particular works to improve the mental health of young people, who feel it provides a place to escape and relax, as well as connect with other people.
Dima Alsharfi, senior strategist at Vice Media’s agency Virtue, said that today’s youth are mindful of the potential dangers of technology and social media, and know how to deal with the issue.
In fact, 54 percent of the MENA youth agree that sometimes they need to take a break from technology, she added.
The youngsters have also acknowledged that in order to lead a happy and healthy life they need resources other than technology, such as money (53 percent), knowledge and education (47 percent), exercise and physical activity (42 percent), and creativity (41 percent), among others.
Some 54 percent of youth said their style is “heavily influenced by what they see on social media,” and 53 percent said they look for new beauty and grooming ideas from their peers on social media.
However, Alsharfi said, the influence of social media is not necessarily a bad thing, adding: “We are being influenced by what we see, but at the same time we’re setting the stage.”
For young people in the Arab world, social media is a tool that inspires, influences and connects.
In Saudi Arabia, 70 percent of the population are under 30. As the Kingdom undergoes a massive transformation, Saudi youth are making a very “unapologetic point” about who they are, Alsharfi said.
“They see that the change that they want is actually coming to life,” she added.
This is evident in the report, which says that 40 percent of Saudi youth are optimistic about the future of their country, compared to 21 percent globally.
Youth in the region are also more confident about their personal finances than anywhere else in the world, with 50 percent saying their financial health is good or excellent — 14 percentage points higher than the global average.
Alsharfi said: “The Saudi youth are really excited about their financial futures and feel like it’s either good or excellent.”
She found the “most exciting” finding to be the level of optimism among Arab youth.
Some 35 percent of Gen Z audiences in MENA are more likely to be very optimistic about the world — 11 percentage points higher than the global average — and 45 percent are more likely to be very optimistic about their country, 15 percentage points higher than the global average.
Alsharfi added: “The optimism shows that there’s so much more growth and positive change that’s going to happen. There’s a lot of opportunity and that’s the most exciting part.”
BEIJING: Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok parent company ByteDance, saw his personal fortune fall by $17 billion last year, according to a new Chinese ranking published Thursday.
The reasons for the losses are unknown, but Zhang is still the second-richest entrepreneur in the world under the age of 40, with wealth valued at $37 billion, according to statistics published by the Chinese firm Hurun.
Ahead of him is Mark Zuckerberg, boss of US tech giant Meta — the owner of Facebook and Instagram — whose fortune was estimated by Hurun at $68 billion.
According to the ranking, Zuckerberg also lost money last year to the tune of $8 billion.
Zhang co-founded ByteDance in Beijing in 2012, but resigned from the group in 2021 in the midst of regulatory tightening on China’s tech industry.
A Chinese citizen, Zhang is now based in Singapore.
ByteDance’s success in China’s highly competitive Internet sector has been largely thanks to its popular short video app Douyin.
The app is the most valuable start-up globally, with a market capitalization of $200 billion, according to Hurun.
Its international version, TikTok, is wildly popular with teenagers around the world, but concerns over national security have left its future uncertain in many countries.
Critics say TikTok allows Chinese authorities access to global user data — allegations the firm has vehemently denied.
Still, the US, Canadian, British and Australian governments, as well as the European Commission, have recently banned their officials from installing TikTok on work phones.
And Washington has threatened the app with a total ban, with TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew hauled before a US congressional hearing recently to defend it.
On Tuesday, TikTok was fined 12.7 million pounds ($15.8 billion) by the British digital regulator over its use of the personal data of children.
WASHINGTON: Rep. Jeff Jackson of North Carolina has used it to explain the complex fight over raising the debt limit. Rep. Robert Garcia of California has used it to engage with members of the LGBTQ+ community. And Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania has used it to give an overview of Election Day results.
As pressure against TikTok mounts in Washington, the more than two dozen members of Congress — all Democrats — who are active on the social media platform are being pushed by their colleagues to stop using it. Many defend their presence on the platform, saying they have a responsibility as public officials to meet Americans where they are — and more than 150 million are on TikTok.
“I’m sensitive to the ban and recognize some of the security implications. But there is no more robust and expeditious way to reach young people in the United States of America than TikTok,” Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota told The Associated Press.
Yet the lawmakers active on TikTok remain a distinct minority. Most in Congress are in favor of limiting the app, forcing a sale to remove connections to China or even banning it outright. The US armed forces and more than half of US states have already banned the app from official devices, as has the federal government. Similar bans have been imposed in Denmark, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand, as well as the European Union.
Criticism of TikTok reached a new level last week as CEO Shou Zi Chew testified for more than six hours at a contentious hearing in the House. Lawmakers grilled Chew about the implications of the app for America’s national security and the effect on the mental health of its users. And the tough questions came from both sides of the aisle, as Republicans and Democrats alike pressed Chew about TikTok’s content moderation practices, its ability to shield American data from Beijing and its spying on journalists.
“I’ve got to hand it to you,” said Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, as members questioned Chew over data security and harmful content. “You’ve actually done something that in the last three to four years has not happened except for the exception of maybe (Russian President) Vladimir Putin. You have unified Republicans and Democrats.”
While the hearing made plain that lawmakers view TikTok as a threat, their lack of first-hand experience with the app was apparent at times. Some made inaccurate and head-scratching comments, seemingly not understanding how TikTok connects to a home Wi-Fi router or how it moderates illicit content.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, who is active on the app and opposes a nationwide ban, called the hearing “cringeworthy.”
“It was just so painful to watch,” he told the AP on Friday. “And it just shows the real problem is Congress doesn’t have a lot of expertise, whether it be social media or, for that matter, more importantly, technology.”
Garcia, who said he uses TikTok more as a consumer, said most of his colleagues who are proposing a nationwide ban told him they had never used the app. “It gets hard to understand if you’re not actually on it,” the freshman Democrat said. “And at the end of the day, a lot of TikTok is harmless people dancing and funny videos.”
“It’s also incredibly rich educational content, and learning how to bake and learning about the political process,” he said.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., who has more than 180,000 followers on the app, held a news conference with TikTok influencers before the hearing. He accused Republicans of pushing a ban on TikTok for political reasons.
“There are 150 million people on TikTok and we are more connected to them than Republicans are,” Bowman said. “So for them, it’s all about fear-mongering and power. It’s not TikTok, because, again, we’ve looked the other way and allowed Facebook and other platforms to do similar things.”
Critics of TikTok in Congress say their opposition is rooted in national security, not politics. TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd., which appoints its executives. They worry Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over TikTok data on American users, effectively turning the app into a data-mining operation for a foreign power. The company insists it is taking steps to make sure that can never happen.
“The basic approach that we’re following is to make it physically impossible for any government, including the Chinese government, to get access to US user data,” general counsel Erich Andersen said during an interview with the AP on Friday at a cybersecurity conference in California.
TikTok has been emphasizing a $1.5 billion proposal to store all US user data on servers owned and maintained by the software giant Oracle. Access to US data would be managed by US employees through a separate entity run independently of ByteDance and monitored by outside observers.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina took the unusual step of releasing a public statement urging all members of Congress to stop using TikTok, including from his home state — seemingly a jab at Jackson, who is one of the more active members with more than 1.8 million followers.
“I was just saying if we’re having a discussion about TikTok then I think we ought to at least reduce the pull factor by elected officials who can simply come off of it,” Tillis said this week, when asked about his statement. “I don’t have a TikTok account. So that was an easy separation for me.”
Loud warnings about TikTok have also been coming from President Joe Biden’s administration. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and FBI Director Christopher Wray have told Congress in recent weeks that TikTok is a national security threat. Blinken told lawmakers the threat “should be ended one way or another.”
But some members are unconvinced.
“It’s like turning your cell phone off on an airplane. You’re supposed to do. And if it was super dangerous, I don’t think we will be allowed to have the phone on the plane,” Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, said Wednesday, “So if it was super dangerous for members of Congress to have this app on their phone, you have to imagine the administration or our government would say absolutely not.”
He added, “You can’t have it on a government phone, and that’s good.”
Concerns about what kind of content Americans encounter online, or how their data is collected by technology companies, also aren’t new. Congress has been wanting to curtail the amount of data tech companies collect on consumers through a national privacy law, but those efforts have stalled repeatedly over the years.
Supporters of TikTok on Capitol Hill are urging their colleagues to educate themselves about social media as a whole so Congress can pass legislation that deals with broader issues of data privacy, instead of hyper-focusing on a ban of TikTok, which could risk political backlash and a court fight over the reach of the First Amendment.
“We are uninformed and misinformed. We don’t even understand how social media works. We don’t know anything about data brokers and how data brokers sell our data to foreign countries and foreign companies right now,” Bowman said. “So ban TikTok tomorrow, this stuff is still going to be happening.”
LONDON: Adil Ray, the host of ITV’s breakfast show Good Morning Britain, has called out the racism he faced on social media following comments made by UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman about British Pakistani men.
Appearing on Sky TV’s “Sophy Ridge on Sunday” show, Braverman singled out British Pakistani men while speaking about the government’s efforts to protect children from sexual abuse.
She said there was a “predominance of certain ethnic groups — and I say British Pakistani males — who hold cultural values totally at odds with British values, who see women in a demeaned and illegitimate way and pursue an outdated and frankly heinous approach in terms of the way they behave.”
Discussing the government’s new refugee policy on GMB on Thursday, Ray said he had “suffered, since last Sunday, since Suella Braverman going onto breakfast television and labeling British Pakistani men — with no caveats, no kindness, no compassion — simply labeling British Pakistani men (as having) an issue when it comes to English white girls.
“I have suffered nothing but racism for the last seven days.”
The presenter said that such comments were causing rifts in society.
“We had another divide this week … with her comments about the community that I belong to, the British Pakistani community,” he said, adding that what “needs to be really looked at in this country right now, that we are divided.”
Citing his 2011 documentary about grooming by Pakistani men, Ray said: “Yes, there is an issue. But statistics now have proven, the Home Office’s own report has proven, that they’re not overrepresented.
“It’s still white majority people who are responsible for sex abuse.”
Braverman also said during the interview: “What we’ve seen is a practice whereby vulnerable white English girls — sometimes in care, sometimes who are in challenging circumstances — being pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British Pakistani men who’ve worked in child abuse rings or networks.
“We’ve seen institutions and state agencies, whether it’s social workers, teachers, the police, turn a blind eye to these signs of abuse out of political correctness, out of fear of being called racist, out of fear of being called bigoted.”
The home secretary, who was reappointed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after being sacked from Liz Truss’s government for a security breach, was accused of “dog whistle” politics, according to The Independent.
Braverman’s rhetoric against migrants has on several occasions caused outrage. In November, after she described asylum-seekers entering the UK as an “invasion,” government lawyers warned that her inflammatory rhetoric could potentially inspire a far-right terror attack.