14 Apr 20 | Covid 19 and freedom of expression, News and features, Volume 49.01 Spring 2020
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The legacy of the coronavirus in the country where it all began is likely to continue long after the virus itself has been dealt with. The Chinese government may have seen some pushback from its citizens on how it initially managed information surrounding the outbreak, but at the end of the crisis it might find itself with even more control over how information is disseminated within its borders.
“Beijing is trying to balance a tightening of social control in the interest of public health, and a loosening of social control to promote economic growth. Loosening social control means encouraging companies and people to go back to work,” said William Callahan, a professor of international relations at LSE.
“However, China is unlikely to loosen its control over censorship – even for international companies like Apple – to promote economic activity.
“From what we’ve seen, Beijing is using the coronavirus crisis to build and enforce a more intense surveillance and control regime. This goes beyond censorship to produce and promote ‘positive news’ about China’s efforts to fight the pandemic, alongside ‘negative news’ that criticises how Italy, the USA and other countries deal with it.”
Aynne Kokos, assistant professor at the department of media studies, University of Virginia, said: “I think there will be a slight loosening of inbound investment restrictions to support economic recovery. However, all indications suggest that the information environment will actually be more tightly controlled.”
“Whether or not the coronavirus dents China’s image depends on how successfully other countries respond as well as what happens when people in China return to work,” she said
Christina Maags, lecturer in Chinese politics at SOAS, University of London, said:
“While the Chinese economy is suffering losses, it is also multi-national companies like Apple who are eager to find a quick solution so as to stop the delay in production and resulting negative impact on supply chains worldwide. Therefore, I think Xi and multinational companies both have interests in “reviving” the Chinese economy.”
The world can only wait to see whether China will be more desperate to encourage economic activity after the coronavirus outbreak, or things stay the same. However, the importance that the authorities have placed on managing the message has led to dozens of prominent brands issuing public apologies in China over recent years, a sign of how powerful the Chinese government has become. Household names incurring the wrath of the Chinese authorities range from Disney, for featuring a Tibetan monk in an animation (the screenwriter later changed the character to a white woman after acknowledging the company “risked alienating a billion people” who did not recognise Tibet as a place), to gaming group Red Candle, which included artwork comparing President Xi Jinping with Winnie the Pooh in one of its games (Xi is known to take offence to such comparisons). Meanwhile, catwalk brands Versace and Givenchy felt the need to say sorry for recognising Taiwan as a country.
China’s influence over foreign companies seeking access to its consumer market has been growing over the past few years. But those who trade freedom for profit risk reputational damage among consumers who care about the consequences of reneging on free speech.
“The Chinese government has become more aggressive in getting foreign companies to comply with whatever foreign demands they have and silencing people,” said Yaqiu Wang, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “By caving into the Chinese demands you are putting your values [aside] – social responsibility, freedom. It is really corrosive. You are affecting the global freedom of speech.”
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Companies that comply with Chinese demands risk setting dangerous precedents and they make it easier for other national leaders to exact similar demands. Apple, which has come under fire for supporting the Chinese government during the Hong Kong protests, has recently been criticised in India after censoring its local Apple TV programmes, just as freedom of speech and assembly is being threatened under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
During the coronavirus outbreak China has been doubling down on its censorship of online forums as it seeks to control narratives around the disease. On 31 December, a day after doctors tried to warn the public about the then unknown virus, YY, a live-streaming platform, added 45 words to its blacklist, according to Citizen Lab. WeChat, a messaging app with a billion users, also censored coronavirus-related content.
Censored material included references to Li Wenliang, a doctor who had been silenced by police for trying to warn about theoutbreak, and neutral references to efforts on handling the outbreak.
The death of Li started a digital uprising (#WeWantFreedomOfSpeech), with people calling for online censorship to be lifted.
Kevin Latham, senior lecturer in social anthropology at the SOAS, University of London, China Institute, said: “The narrative on censorship has shifted over the weeks a bit. At the beginning it was clear they were much more open and quicker to act publicly than with Sars in the past – they appeared to have learned that lesson.
“However, once the story about the death of Li Wenliang came out, that narrative was undermined to some degree.”
There is little reason to expect things to change, in other words.
What’s the story so far? Apple blocks more than 370 apps in China, according to Chinese security experts Great Fire, including the virtual proxy networks that allow people to vault over firewalls. The company has failed to lift restrictions despite renewed pressure arising during the pandemic. Its decision to block a map app used by protesters in Hong Kong, taken a few months before, was also called out by critics.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook has defended the decision as borne of legal necessity.
“We would obviously rather not remove the apps but, like we do in other countries, we follow the law wherever we do business,” he said in 2017. “We strongly believe participating in markets and bringing benefits to customers is in the best interest of the folks there and in other countries as well.”
Wang said: “They say they are simply complying with local laws when we all know what they really care about is market access.”
Apple is not the only tech company criticised for capitulation. Last year, Google tried to build its own filtered search engine for China but the idea was scrapped following an outcry from its employees.
Jeremy Daum, a senior research scholar at Yale Law School, says that while strict laws do exist, many statutes are written in a vague and sweeping manner, so it can be hard to know what the legal obligations really are. “In some cases it can be as vague as not publishing content that harms the nation’s interests,” he said.
Daum highlights the importance of distinguishing between enforced censorship and corporate acquiescence.
“Complicity sounds like they share a common goal of censorship, [but] the companies’ goals are profit, so they are not complicit in motive – It’s acquiescence,” he said.
The challenges to the power dynamic will centre on China’s influence to change content coming from beyond its borders. Apple TV has already issued guidelines to its programme makers to avoid criticism of China.
Ultimately, harming freedom of expression hits society’s most vulnerable, and those with the weakest voices, the most.
“Censorship isn’t just about politics,” said Karen Reilly, a community director at GreatFire.org, which tracks censorship in China.
“Censorship blocks people from reaching their communities and this is especially harmful to marginalised and young people. Online spaces are sources of support. If you grow up with censorship, your connection to your own culture may be cut off.”
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Additional research by Orna Herr and Adam Aiken
Charlotte Middlehurst is a London-based journalist specialising in Chinese current affairs. She tweets at @charmiddle
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The piece is part of the 2020 spring issue of Index on Censorship magazine. Buy a copy or subscribe here.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Why and when we chose to censor ourselves and give away our privacy” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left”][vc_column_text]The spring 2020 Index on Censorship magazine looks at how we are sometimes complicit in our own censorship[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”112723″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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30 Mar 20 | Magazine, Magazine Contents, Volume 49.01 Spring 2020
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”With contributions from Ak Welsapar, Julian Baggini, Alison Flood, Jean-Paul Marthoz and Victoria Pavlova”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The Spring 2020 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at our own role in free speech violations. In this issue we talk to Swedish people who are willingly having microchips inserted under their skin. Noelle Mateer writes about living in China as her neighbours, and her landlord, embraced video surveillance cameras. The historian Tom Holland highlights the best examples from the past of people willing to self-censor. Jemimah Steinfeld discusses holding back from difficult conversations at the dinner table, alongside interviewing Helen Lewis on one of the most heated conversations of today. And Steven Borowiec asks why a North Korean is protesting against the current South Korean government. Plus Mark Frary tests the popular apps to see how much data you are knowingly – or unknowingly – giving away.
In our In Focus section, we sit down with different generations of people from Turkey and China and discuss with them what they can and cannot talk about today compared to the past. We also look at how as world demand for cocaine grows, journalists in Colombia are increasingly under threat. Finally, is internet browsing biased against LBGTQ stories? A special Index investigation.
Our culture section contains an exclusive short story from Libyan writer Najwa Bin Shatwan about an author changing her story to people please, as well as stories from Argentina and Bangladesh.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special Report”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Willingly watched by Noelle Mateer: Chinese people are installing their own video cameras as they believe losing privacy is a price they are willing to pay for enhanced safety
The big deal by Jean-Paul Marthoz: French journalists past and present have felt pressure to conform to the view of the tribe in their reporting
Don’t let them call the tune by Jeffrey Wasserstrom: A professor debates the moral questions about speaking at events sponsored by an organisation with links to the Chinese government
Chipping away at our privacy by Nathalie Rothschild: Swedes are having microchips inserted under their skin. What does that mean for their privacy?
There’s nothing wrong with being scared by Kirsten Han: As a journalist from Singapore grows up, her views on those who have self-censored change
How to ruin a good dinner party by Jemimah Steinfeld: We’re told not to discuss sex, politics and religion at the dinner table, but what happens to our free speech when we give in to that rule?
Sshh… No speaking out by Alison Flood: Historians Tom Holland, Mary Fulbrook, Serhii Plokhy and Daniel Beer discuss the people from the past who were guilty of complicity
Making foes out of friends by Steven Borowiec: North Korea’s grave human rights record is off the negotiation table in talks with South Korea. Why?
Nothing in life is free by Mark Frary: An investigation into how much information and privacy we are giving away on our phones
Not my turf by Jemimah Steinfeld: Helen Lewis argues that vitriol around the trans debate means only extreme voices are being heard
Stripsearch by Martin Rowson: You’ve just signed away your freedom to dream in private
Driven towards the exit by Victoria Pavlova: As Bulgarian media is bought up by those with ties to the government, journalists are being forced out of the industry
Shadowing the golden age of Soviet censorship by Ak Welsapar: The Turkmen author discusses those who got in bed with the old regime, and what’s happening now
Silent majority by Stefano Pozzebon: A culture of fear has taken over Venezuela, where people are facing prison for being critical
Academically challenged by Kaya Genç: A Turkish academic who worried about publicly criticising the government hit a tipping point once her name was faked on a petition
Unhealthy market by Charlotte Middlehurst: As coronavirus affects China’s economy, will a weaker market mean international companies have more power to stand up for freedom of expression?
When silence is not enough by Julian Baggini: The philosopher ponders the dilemma of when you have to speak out and when it is OK not to[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”In Focus”][vc_column_text]Generations apart by Kaya Genç and Karoline Kan: We sat down with Turkish and Chinese families to hear whether things really are that different between the generations when it comes to free speech
Crossing the line by Stephen Woodman: Cartels trading in cocaine are taking violent action to stop journalists reporting on them
A slap in the face by Alessio Perrone: Meet the Italian journalist who has had to fight over 126 lawsuits all aimed at silencing her
Con (census) by Jessica Ní Mhainín: Turns out national censuses are controversial, especially in the countries where information is most tightly controlled
The documentary Bolsonaro doesn’t want made by Rachael Jolley: Brazil’s president has pulled the plug on funding for the TV series Transversais. Why? We speak to the director and publish extracts from its pitch
Queer erasure by Andy Lee Roth and April Anderson: Internet browsing can be biased against LGBTQ people, new exclusive research shows[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture”][vc_column_text]Up in smoke by Félix Bruzzone: A semi-autobiographical story from the son of two of Argentina’s disappeared
Between the gavel and the anvil by Najwa Bin Shatwan: A new short story about a Libyan author who starts changing her story to please neighbours
We could all disappear by Neamat Imam: The Bangladesh novelist on why his next book is about a famous writer who disappeared in the 1970s[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Index around the world”][vc_column_text]Demand points of view by Orna Herr: A new Index initiative has allowed people to debate about all of the issues we’re otherwise avoiding[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Endnote”][vc_column_text]Ticking the boxes by Jemimah Steinfeld: Voter turnout has never felt more important and has led to many new organisations setting out to encourage this. But they face many obstacles[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe”][vc_column_text]In print, online, in your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Read”][vc_column_text]The playwright Arthur Miller wrote an essay for Index in 1978 entitled The Sin of Power. We reproduce it for the first time on our website and theatre director Nicholas Hytner responds to it in the magazine
READ HERE[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen”][vc_column_text]In the Index on Censorship autumn 2019 podcast, we focus on how travel restrictions at borders are limiting the flow of free thought and ideas. Lewis Jennings and Sally Gimson talk to trans woman and activist Peppermint; San Diego photojournalist Ariana Drehsler and Index’s South Korean correspondent Steven Borowiec
LISTEN HERE[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
13 Feb 20 | News and features, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”105876″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]14 February 2020 – Valentine’s Day – marks my last day at Index on Censorship after nearly six years at the helm. It feels apt, then, to share how passionate I am about – free speech and the organisation that has spent nearly 50 years defending it.
Let’s start with freedom of speech. When I started at Index, I have to confess I was an armchair enthusiast. I believed in freedom of speech, of course I did – or so I thought. After all, I was a journalist. I’d worked in countries like South Africa and Ireland that had experienced – in differing forms – decades of formal censorship and centuries of informal silencing.
But what I came to realise very quickly is that while support for free speech is easy in theory, in practice it is much, much harder.
What I love about Index is we never pretend otherwise. For us, the work we do is not about defending free speech in principle, but demonstrating how and why it is so important in reality. We don’t pretend we have all the answers instantly. In a world that expects immediate responses, the pressure to provide the answer at once is huge. But we have learned that sometimes we need to say: “Hmmm, we need to think about that one.”
We have wrestled with questions that stretched from whether or not social media platforms should show beheading videos to the question of the Northern Irish bakery asked to ice a cake with words with which they disagreed. We debated the point at which hateful speech amounts to incitement to violence. We tried to address the notion of words that cause harm.
Being thoughtful doesn’t always win you headlines but it’s crucial if you want to convince those who doubt your arguments. I love that Index thinks.
I love that Index has courage. We believe passionately that everyone should have the right to speak freely – and that includes defending the rights of those with whom we profoundly disagree – or whom others find shocking, disturbing and offensive. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would find myself defending the right of a Scottish YouTuber to teach his girlfriend’s dog to do a Nazi salute. Thankfully, we were not alone.
Sadly, those who defend freedom of expression often are. It was something we fought to counter when we spoke out in defence of Charlie Hebdo – and that experience – of sticking our heads above the parapet when many others would not was a formative experience for me as a relatively new Index CEO.
We are not the courageous ones, though. The courageous ones are those who speak out in the knowledge that they could face dire consequences for doing so.
Free speech is the Turkish playwright Meltem Arikan voicing the pain of exile and the delights of creating a new home in a new language. Free speech is artist Luis Manuel Alcantara, inviting repeated arrest for refusing to make government-sanctioned art in Cuba. Free speech is Zimbabwean activist Evan Mawarire calling for a compassionate government that protects its people. Free speech is journalists like Carole Cadwalladr, Caroline Muscat and Maria Ressa defying attempts to silence them. Free speech is Nabeel Rajab exposing torture in Bahrain’s jails – speech for which he himself was jailed. Free speech is a young Saudi woman appealing for asylum and finding her cause taken up by thousands around the world. Free speech is every one of our brilliant Index on Censorship fellows.
It is also speech that hurts. It is speech that is raw, shocking, offensive – that demeans and diminishes others. In my time at Index we have had to defend words and viewpoints that I abhor. In so doing we have been accused of sharing and condoning those views – of allowing them to become mainstream.
Defending that line is hard. But we do so because none of the examples we have seen of government bans or social media restrictions ends up achieving the outcome desired – one in which we are more tolerant of one another’s differences.
We believe there is an alternative to censorship. I am hugely proud that last year I was finally able to get off the ground a project close to my heart: our Free Speech Is For Me programme, which brought together activists in Britain and the United States to debate the value of free speech. Along the way, participants learned how better to listen to one another’s ideas. Some even changed their minds. One Brexit supporter told us they had even started reading The Guardian …
Words matter to us. I love that Index continues to produce a magazine that takes a global and long-term look at the issues we face and which publishes original work by leading writers. Where else could you read interviews with legends like Margaret Atwood or Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, writing by the likes of Elif Shafak, Xinran, or Ariel Dorfman?
I love that for an organisation with an impressive back catalogue, we nevertheless look forward. We are grappling with the thorny questions of regulating online speech and tough questions on hate speech and free speech in the workplace. I haven’t always got that right – but we have tried to learn how we can better be the change we want to see in the world.
Index is a small outfit, battling for funds against a million and one other worthy causes. When I started, someone told me we would never be able to compete against those raising money for life-saving healthcare. I don’t want to compete. But I believe more than ever – as we have seen with events recently in China – that life-saving healthcare depends on freedom of speech.
That is why I love this cause. And why I know Index will continue to defend it without fear or favour. And why your heartfelt Valentine vow should be to support it too.
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05 Feb 20 | Art and the Law, Art and the Law Case Studies, Artistic Freedom Case Studies, Campaigns, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, United States
In September 2019, London-based photographer Yumna Al-Arashi announced that one of her photographs, showing women in a hammam, had been taken down by Instagram because, according to the platform, it fell foul of the community’s standards on adult nudity.
Name of Artwork: Shedding Skin
Artist: Yumna Al-Arashi
Date: September 2019
Brief description of the artwork
According to the artist, the work is a play on Orientalism, and specifically the way Arab women’s bodies are represented by white men. Made by a woman and taking a woman’s point of view, the work counters all the images of bodies that are supposed to represent women like the artist herself, but have nothing to do with her lived experience. The hammam, which Orientalism exoticises and eroticizes, is, in fact, a space where women can come together without judging each others’ bodies. It is the opposite of an eroticized environment. There is something healing and unifying that Al-Arashi sees in the all-women hammam, which she wants to convey to the audience through this staged image.
What triggered the takedown?
Shedding Skin fell foul Instagram’s Community Standards on Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity, which restrict photographic representations of nudity “because some people in [the Instagram] community may be sensitive to this type of content.”
The Instagram community comprises over one billion people globally, raising the question of whether it is at all possible to cater to the sensitivities of such a broad range of ‘community’ members.
Nudity, by the company’s definition, includes “uncovered female nipples” though there are exceptions for nipples represented in the “context of breastfeeding, birth-giving and after-birth moments, health-related situations (for example, post-mastectomy, breast cancer awareness or gender confirmation surgery) or an act of protest”. Male nipples are permitted while transgender nipples are banned or allowed depending on how the platform’s algorithms interpret the gender of the model. Painting and sculptural representations of nudes are exempt from restrictions, but photography is not. Algorithms occasionally mistake a painting or sculpture for a photograph and remove it, as happened with the Venus of Willendorf, or as it regularly happens with Betty Tomkins’ work, or with Courbet’s painting Origin of the World, which led to an eight year court case.
What action did Al-Arashi take?
Al-Arashi censored her own image, by concealing all visible nipples (see the figure second from right) and reposted it with a direct appeal to Instagram.
Al-Arashi’s second Instagram post
Next day, after it received over 6,000 likes, the image was removed and Al-Arashi, now considered a repeat offender, was blocked (according to Instagram parent Facebook, temporarily) from using Instagram’s branded content tools. It seems that the algorithms analyzing the image still saw too much nudity in it. Al-Arashi appealed the decision, but got no response: the situation many artists find themselves in.
Al-Arashi reposted the censored image in order to stay within Instagram’s terms of service “but I felt necessary to include the open letter [to Instagram] when I did. The censored image remains on view.
Al-Arashi contacted Index on Censorship who put her in touch with Svetlana Mintcheva, programme director at the US based National Coalition Against Censorship, currently running a campaign called #wethenipple.
Mintcheva brought the original image to the attention of the Facebook policy team as an example of valuable artistic expression that the company’s current guidelines do not allow on its platforms.
It was one among the works brought up in the discussion with Facebook and Instagram resulting from the #wethenipple campaign. As part of ongoing discussions, Facebook and Instagram held a meeting between artists and artistic freedom activists and Instagram tech and policy representatives. The goal was to discuss company content standards and enforcement with artists working with the human body and hear their concerns and to look for solutions. The meeting was held at Facebook’s HQ in NYC where, ironically, another work by Al-Arashi was on show for a period of time.
Yumna Al-Arashi’s work from Northern Yemen (centre) displayed at Facebook HQ in NYC
Facebook’s concerns about photographic nudity were:
- sensitivities of some viewers
- the difficulty of age verification
- confirming the subject of the photographs has given consent.
In addition, a question was raised around the perennial challenge of drawing a clear line between art and pornography as well as between art and photography that is not artistic. Indeed, a member of the Facebook policy team questioned how Al-Arashi’s work can be distinguished — as art — from a mere photograph of a hammam.
Possible solutions relating to Al-Arashi’s case
Creating artist verified accounts
This is problematic as it creates a hierarchy and raises questions about who is an artist and who can be verified as such. Nevertheless, it could allow a lot more content to be posted and go some way towards destigmatising the nude body.
Greater user control
If a user does not want to see a nude, there should be an option of filtering out content along the same lines as Facebook and Instagram offer regarding violent content. Once the filter is in place, you would need to click to remove the blocking filter to see the image.
Guidance on appeals
As content is regularly taken down by algorithms even though it conforms to guidelines, guidance will give individual artists instructions on how to appeal take-downs.
#MissingVoices
In line with Article 19’s campaign calling on “social media platforms to provide a human-rights centred process that guarantees notice, the right to appeal and transparent reporting when content is blocked and accounts removed”. This is very similar to the clarification of guidelines above.
Facebook’s response
The policy team said they were considering changes to policy, especially where clarification of guidelines and user controls are concerned.
Personal reflection by Yumna Al-Arashi
“Shedding Skin is an important piece of work for me, made in direct response to [President Donald] Trump’s Muslim ban. It had been up since 2018 and I felt that it had got over the takedown hurdle, and was appreciated for its artistic value. I feel that this is a strike against me, and that if I strike back I risk having my account deleted which would really damage my career.”
“When Instagram takes your privileges away and censors your work it is potentially so damaging. The message is that your account is pornographic or sexual in nature and you are barred from participating in our economy. I can still post – but it makes me not want to. It feels like I am on some kind of list, and if I appeal another takedown I might lose everything. Even though I don’t currently use Instagram’s branded content tools, it doesn’t mean to say that I won’t use them in the future.”
Personal reflection by Svetlana Mintcheva
“Facebook and Instagram are not going to make changes because they believe in artist rights or any other rights. The work, as originally conceived, still violates community standards, as does any other work containing photographic nudity, no matter how artistically valuable and important it may be. And unfortunately, Yumna’s hope that her work had remained up so long due to its artistic merit is unfounded; the nudity had simply not been noticed.”
“As private companies, social media platforms don’t have to conform to First Amendment protections in the United States and can decide to censor specific content. Free speech may be celebrated by Mark Zuckerberg in his public speeches, but free speech is only valuable to Facebook and Instagram as long as it works in harmony with their business model. And their business model is based on engagement: Facebook and Instagram want to satisfy the needs and desires of the largest number of people so to engage more users more actively and collect the largest amount of data.”
“Some critics say Facebook is prudish. It is not prudery that guides the company, it is their business model. Which is also true in general for any actor competing in a capitalist economy. The problem is Facebook and Instagram have a de-facto monopoly on the sharing of visual content widely — other artist friendly sites exist, but the audiences they reach are very small by comparison. As a result Instagram has the power to determine what art can circulate to global audiences. If a similarly broad platform for sharing images existed, public pressure would have more leverage in demanding art-friendly content guidelines. Perhaps it is time to think of an alternative platform, a non-profit platform that is based on a different business model and built in view of the public interest. This could be underpinned by a set of social media best practices endorsed by artists and museums. However, I wouldn’t be too optimistic; creating unity among artists on the issues is a challenge in itself. And questions about consent and age verification are hard to resolve and require resources — a public platform may be similarly reluctant to arbitrate between pornography and art.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
