24 Feb 2025 | About Index, Americas, Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Newsletters, Russia, Ukraine, United States
The news this week has been dominated by the growing feud between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which has culminated in possibly irreparable relations between the presidents.
What started with a meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin on the war in Ukraine (from which Zelenskyy was excluded) ended in a stream of disinformation coming from the leader of the world’s largest economy. Trump made several spurious claims chiming with those regularly churned out by Putin’s propaganda machine.
Among these were that Zelenskyy is a “dictator without elections”, that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s 2022 invasion, and that Zelenskyy’s approval rating in Ukraine has plummeted to 4%, all of which closely mirror the Kremlin’s narrative. In response, Zelenskyy said that the US president is “trapped” within a Russian “disinformation bubble”.
Trump’s comments have been debunked by many world leaders, including Keir Starmer, who immediately came out in support of Zelenskyy as a democratically elected leader, and asserted that it is normal for presidential elections to be suspended during wartime (as happened in the UK during World War Two).
This exchange indicates a drastic reshaping in the geopolitical relationship between the USA and Russia, and indeed the USA and its key allies – but it also indicates a worrying affront to access to truthful information, the normalisation of false realities, and an acceptance of the suppression of free speech.
In what is often deemed Putin’s “war on truth”, the autocratic leader’s regime is notorious for crackdowns on journalism and free information. As well as blocking access to almost all social media websites and international news sites in Russia, his government has banned independent news outlets, with media now under government control. In doing so, he has been able to control the narrative of the war for his own citizens.
This is not to say that Ukraine itself has been a bastion of free expression. As reported by Amnesty International, free speech restrictions in the country have increased since 2022, with 2,000 cases of individuals being charged, prosecuted or investigated for crimes such as “justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine”, including those who class themselves as pacifists.
But what Trump’s words do signal is a terrifying new world order where intentional mistruths are prioritised over fair, free and accurate information, not only by dictators, but by leaders who are meant to be upholding the principles of democracy.
Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, former US president Barack Obama delivered a speech at Stanford University about the growing propagation of disinformation, and how it could endanger democracy. Autocratic leaders, such as Putin, have weaponised the power of the internet to obfuscate the truth and confuse the global public, he said. “You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know what to believe.”
Three years later, and we’re seeing this play out in real time, with the help of the current president of the USA. The sewage is spilling across the world, muddying the waters, and it will have global ramifications on what people believe to be undisputed fact.
21 Feb 2025 | News and features, United Kingdom
In a recent article in Byline Times, Neal Lawson the executive director of Compass, a “good society” cross-party campaign group, asked why the UK government couldn’t just ban lying in politics. This followed a recent commitment by the Welsh Senedd to do just that, before elections in 2026.
Whether it’s Donald Trump in the USA, or Reform party candidates in the UK, right-wing and far-right politicians have been responsible for a surging problem of online disinformation that deepens societal divisions and spreads distrust, in service of their political goals. As an academic expert on information warfare and propaganda, whose parliamentary evidence submissions played a central role alongside journalists and whistleblowers in 2018 in exposing the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal, I too would be happy if politicians would just stop lying. But a ban like this is not the solution – below are my five reasons why.
Difficulties of enforcement
A ban on lying would be difficult to enforce, after all, who would decide what exactly “truth” is, or which “untruth” was deliberate? Whoever has this role would hold far too great a power over political speech. Deciding “truth” could rely on public fact-checkers – but while excellent, these are not infallible. Although some researchers are trying, the intent to deceive is notoriously difficult to reliably and consistently infer.
Implications for speech and abuse
Should the UK parliament implement such a ban, then the threat of being removed from office, barred from re-standing, or convicted of a new criminal offence of deception could result in good politicians becoming overly cautious and policing their own speech. Right now, more than ever, the public needs to see brave and bold politicians who speak their minds in the face of authoritarian arguments, lies and corruption. Such sanctions could create a pressure that is similar to the one that makes a well-meaning press fearful of libel laws and SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) – these are weaponised by authoritarians and corrupt oligarchs to silence criticism. Banning lying in parliament could just as easily be abused by any future government in order to censor.
Parliament’s role in public debate
Flawed as it may be, in a democracy we work out our issues through public discourse, with a key role played by the media and an adversarial system of parliamentary politics.
Parliament is a forum in which, through evidence and protected speech, voters not only see political issues and policy debated, but also witness the exposure of deceptive politicians bearing bad policies, who they then have the power to vote out. While politicians frequently fail to live up to this ideal, they still play a key role in exposing and challenging the motives of their opponents.
We might not like politicians lying, but stopping lies in parliament won’t stop them elsewhere. We need wannabe demagogues to be able to lie in parliament – in order for these lies to be demolished in public view, through intelligent and compelling argument. We need leaders who model how people can challenge these arguments. This leads and shapes UK political culture and is surely what democracy needs right now. It shows the public the worst and best of what our politicians represent and the capacity to do this builds trust in democratic processes.
Importantly, it also focuses the media on parliament as the centre of political life and shows that politicians are responding to and explaining their position on debates that – like it or not – voters are seeing anyway in the media they consume.
Do we really want politicians to hide behind rhetoric and sleight of hand in parliament, while lies are fed copiously through the media, online campaigns and influencers? Forcing lies out of parliament would disengage parliament from taking on debates in British communities they need to meet head on. The resulting disengagement could change the role politicians play in wider British political life and increase perceptions of their irrelevance and elitism.
Increased media toxicity and polarisation
While politicians themselves may be neutered in the Commons, this won’t stop them and their parties feeding the toxic online discourse. It is a bad idea to leave the dismantling of political lies to journalists alone, given the current financial threats to journalism and growing dominance of social media as a provider of political information.
If populist politicians lie in parliament and face sanctions, they will embrace the opportunity to portray themselves as “martyrs”, suffering “censorship”. They will exploit this in the manner that we have seen modelled in the USA by President Trump and his supporters. Ironically, this could degrade trust in the very institutions of democracy that policymakers are trying to protect.
The colleagues of sanctioned politicians would join in their rallying cry, referring to banned speech, and indeed opinions of parliamentary censorship could hardly be labelled as disinformation – since censorship of a kind would truthfully have occurred.
This would give substantial power to small populist parties to hijack political debate both within parliament over the issue of censorship and beyond it. “Approved” political debate would be portrayed as “elite controlled”. And the implications for public trust in political process would be profound.
This could drive an even more toxic media and online environment than the one we are already facing. Research shows that most people don’t share falsehoods – this behaviour is a feature of declining trust in political systems, and resonance with underlying identities and belief systems. As the public lose faith in parliament, they would be targeted by alternative outlets and social media influencers branded as “uncensored” who push anti-government conspiracy theories while saying they present “evidence” that reveals democratic institutions as corrupt and the system as “rigged”.
Furthermore, a move of this kind could cause others to drop their guard. Importantly, the easily disprovable outright lies a ban might be narrowly applied to, are not the only or even the main way to mislead and manipulate people in politics. After President Trump’s inauguration, much of the US media were too cowardly to describe what most recognised as a Nazi salute by Elon Musk, with the Washington Post referring instead to a “straight-arm gesture”. As with this example, words can be technically accurate while denying an important truth. Building a misleading sense that parliamentary discourse is now de facto trustworthy among voters could reduce necessary scrutiny, scepticism and critical engagement among some voters.
Potentially, this could reinforce polarisation of British society, as urban, educated, middle class, educated voters’ faith in the system is confirmed, while others retreat further from trust in the political system. It fails to deal with the wider problem of propaganda outside parliament for which governments, politicians and private industries share responsibility. Banning lies is a simplistic solution that will miss the majority of attempts to hoodwink, manipulate and deceive voters with propaganda. It doesn’t address the Big Tech coup against our online environment or problems in journalism.
Banning lies attempts to solve the wrong problem
There is an important flaw underlying the logic of a ban on lying. It rests on the assumption that the problem at hand is simply the presence of falsehoods. Politicians have always lied. What this ban fails to consider is the fact that often people are voting for authoritarians or sharing lies in spite of knowing they are false or misleading. In the USA case, the problem isn’t necessarily that all Trump voters believe everything he says is factual. Some Trump voters like the lying, care more about “authenticity” or feel that, while inaccurate, the “gist” of his claims articulates a deeper cultural truth.
Muting obvious falsehoods within parliament would give the pretence of increased democratic norms and civility, but lies will continue online and it won’t stop the larger cultural narratives within which these lies are implicitly expressed by politicians. Banning lying in parliament would not stop upcoming demagogues deceiving or sharing a brutal, racist, fascist ideology. It will just make it harder for politicians to directly call out and counter the implicit deceptions that remain unspoken within their colleague’s argument.
People reveal their true selves in their deception and the public need to see them do it. Today we are fighting an ideology of fascism, not simply “lies”. This is why we need a bigger discussion about challenging propaganda, fighting fascism and reforming our communication system – not just silencing the most obvious and easily disproven lies expressed within parliament and providing more fuel for the conspiracy machine.
20 Feb 2025 | Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Following the grotesque scenes of Hamas celebrations in Gaza, we pay tribute to the journalist and human rights activist Oded Lifshitz, whose body has been identified by his family.
Although the grandfather was long retired, he was remembered by colleagues around the world as one of the first journalists to report on the notorious 1982 massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon.
Lifshitz worked for many years on the left-wing Israeli daily paper Al HaMishmar, which closed in 1995. Its slogan was “For Zionism, Socialism and Brotherhood Amongst Nations” and was often criticised by the religious right in Israel for its liberal stance.
Lifshitz, aged 83 at the time of his capture, was known as a campaigner for Israel’s Bedouin Arab community and was reported to be responsible for a high court case that returned some of their land. In retirement he worked for the organisation Road to Recovery, which helped Palestinians cross the Erez border from Gaza into Israel to receive medical treatment. He and his wife Yocheved, who was also kidnapped by Hamas but released in October 2023, were lifelong peace activists.
Lifshitz was one of the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz, a village less than seven kilometres from the Gaza border. The kibbutz was destroyed in the attacks of 7 October 2023 and it is thought that nearly half of its 400 residents were kidnapped, killed or injured.
The National Union of Journalists general secretary Laura Davidson today paid tribute: “Our sincere thoughts are with Oded Lifshitz’s family at this difficult time. Like many, we had hoped for the safe release of the journalist committed to peace. Journalists worldwide will no doubt share their deepest condolences with his loved ones today.”
In a statement, the Lifshitz family said: “We received with deep sorrow the official and bitter news confirming the identification of our beloved Oded’s body. 503 agonising days of uncertainty have come to an end.
“We had hoped and prayed so much for a different outcome. Now we can mourn the husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who has been missing from us since October 7.
“Our family’s healing process will begin now and will not end until the last hostage is returned.”
At Index on Censorship, we join in offering our condolences to the family of this exemplary journalist and campaigner. Sadly, he never contributed to Index. Tragically, he never will.
19 Feb 2025 | Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine
Israeli authorities are silencing Palestinian culture and history in a censorship surge that could soon include left-wing Jewish opponents of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, academics have said.
Last week, Israeli police raided the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem, one of the most prominent Palestinian cultural institutions in the occupied territory. Two of its owners, Mahmoud Muna and Ahmad Muna, were arrested on suspicion of “disturbing the public order”, interrogated, detained for 48 hours, then placed under house arrest for five days.
“I assume the next stage will be the Israeli left,” Menachem Klein, an Israeli political scientist and emeritus professor at Bar Ilan University, told Index after this event. “We are on the way to an authoritarian regime during ongoing wartime and it is easy to use emergency rules to silence freedom of expression.”
During the raid, detectives allegedly inspected books using Google Translate and took away ones they deemed to be possible incitement to terrorism because they contained words such as “Palestine” or “Hamas”.
One of the books presented as proof of possible incitement was a children’s colouring book titled From the River to the Sea, which was allegedly found in the store’s warehouse. The phrase, which has proved controversial, is used by some to imply that Israel should be replaced by a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Critics have labelled this confiscation laughable – in a comment piece, Haaretz ridiculed that a children’s colouring book is being “considered a ticking time bomb”. But government supporters have said that the book does constitute incitement.
There has so far been no criticism of the raid from any major Israeli opposition leaders, but a member of the Knesset (MK) for the left-wing Democrats party has allegedly filed a query in parliament questioning the police’s actions. Prominent Israeli authors and cultural personalities have also spoken out about it. However, the absence of broader political opposition means the authorities are unlikely to be deterred in the future from widening their targets on cultural institutions.
“We’ve undergone a change in Israel whereby anyone who incites to terrorism has to pay a price regardless of whether he is Arab or Jewish,” said Shamai Glick, head of the right-wing organisation B’tsalmo, told Index. He argues that authorities did not go far enough and should close the bookstores.
This recent intimidation comes amid crackdowns on Israeli films that are critical of the government, especially those dealing with alleged crimes related to the mass displacement of Palestinians during what Israelis term the 1948 War of Independence and Palestinians term the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.
In December, Israel’s Minister for Culture and Sport Miki Zohar threatened to halt government funding for the Tel Aviv Cinematheque after it showed films deemed to be pro-Palestine at Solidarity Human Rights Film Festival 2024.
One of these films was the previously-censored Lyd, which depicts the 1948 expulsion of that town’s Palestinians and imagines what Lyd would be like if not for the Nakba. Two months prior, the police had banned a screening of Lyd in Jaffa after Zohar said the movie was “inciting and mendacious” and “slanders Israel and Israeli soldiers”.
Cutting government funding to a cultural institution in Israel is a death sentence, as there is little private investment in the arts. In a letter to the Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, Zohar wrote that the Solidarity Festival had shown films that “are against the state of Israel” and which “disparage the soldiers of the Israel Defense Force[s]”, according to the Jewish Independent. Smotrich has set up a committee to determine whether the festival violated funding laws.
Lyd co-director Rami Younis said the recent raid on the bookstore should be seen as an escalation of national cultural censorship. “This is another syndrome of the rise of fascism. Are books the enemy? We’ve seen regimes in the past that declared books and songs the enemy. And they’re all dark regimes and this is where Israel is heading.”
“If it’s not stopped, it will get much worse very soon,” he said.
The government has also started deploying a little-used British Mandate-era law dating back to 1917, which allows the Culture and Sport Ministry to review films before they are shown at cinematheques, thereby stopping screenings of contentious films.
According to Haaretz, the Israeli Culture and Sport Ministry’s Film Review Council warned cinematheques in November not to screen filmmaker Neta Shoshani’s documentary film 1948: Remember, Remember Not, as it had not been granted the council’s approval. The film, compelling and thought-provoking, looks at the War of Independence / Nakba through testimonies and interviews with Israelis and Palestinians. The film lost several screenings as a result, but ultimately was approved by the council.
In response to the request, cinema directors said they had not been asked to clear films with the council previously. Normally, the council sets age ratings rather than undertaking political censorship.
Filmmakers and festival organisers in Israel are now being deterred from showcasing work that is critical of the government. The coalition’s threatening behaviour towards art and culture that raise questions about Israel’s foundation, probe Palestinian displacement or allege violations by the Israel Defense Forces mean that many cultural workers are steering away from controversial topics.
“When they threaten, you don’t feel like taking a chance,” Shoshani recently told The Jewish Independent. “There is a chilling effect,” she said.
“This means that culture in Israel is rapidly becoming non-critical and doesn’t go to [controversial] places simply because there is no one to fund this type of film. If I enter controversial realms, I won’t get funding and at the end of the day, we all have to make a living. So clearly people exercise self-censorship even though they don’t admit it.”
“This is something that happens under every dictatorial regime,” Shoshani added. “In a fascist regime, culture becomes propaganda and not culture. Gradually, Israeli culture is becoming like that.”
In response to criticism that the Israeli government is impinging on free expression, Zohar’s office said: “We will continue to defend freedom of expression but we won’t let extremist and delusional elements incite and harm under the sponsorship of the state of Israel.”
The censorship of Shoshani’s film also demonstrates how the Israeli state is attempting to stop the public from seeing archival footage and important documentation produced by researchers. The public broadcaster Kan (also known as the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation), which funded the film, has not aired it for more than a year, due to what it describes as wartime sensitivities. “It will be screened soon,” a spokesperson said. Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi has allegedly pressed Kan to scrap the film entirely, according to Israeli news website ICE (Information, Communication, Entertainment).
But Benny Morris, a leading Israeli historian who appears in Shoshani’s film and who was born in 1948 himself, told Index that it is the government that is distorting and covering up the real events of the War of Independence.
Cultural censorship is also only the beginning of a wave of restrictions on free expression in Israel. The coalition government is currently pushing through other anti-democratic bills, including one designed to restrict the speech of academics, and another that would effectively reduce the ability of Palestinian citizens of Israel to vote in elections and decrease their Knesset representation.
“Yes, there is a government effort to censor and lie about 1948, about Israeli war crimes in that war and hence influence how Israelis see their history,” said Morris. “Along with other subversions by the government of Israeli democratic norms, they are threatening Israel’s culture and historiography and trying to replace truth with propaganda.”
