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A Response to ‘Cultural Relativism’

The World Cup starts today. The festivities have been overshadowed by the fact that host-country Qatar has an appalling human rights record. It abuses its migrant workers and homosexuality is criminalised.

In a controversial press conference, FIFA President Gianni Infantino defended Qatar and accused critics of hypocrisy.

Who are we in the West to lecture others on what values are appropriate for their societies? The universality (or not) of human rights and other values is a topic that I have often considered on this blog. It’s also an issue I had the opportunity to study recently as part of my LLM at the University of Law. Below is an excerpt from an assessment essay I wrote for the International Human Rights Law module. (It was graded ‘as a ’Distinction’ don’t ya know!)

Continue reading “A Response to ‘Cultural Relativism’”
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Peak Podcast and the Purpose of Online Publishing

Quiet Mics Live On Air
‘On air’ lamp in a studio at BBC New Broadcasting House

Much hilarity on social media about this New York Times article about an aspiring writer who set up a lacklustre podcast.

Each week, the friends, neither of whom had professional experience dispensing advice, met in a free room at the local library and recorded themselves chatting with an iPhone 5.  “We assumed we’d be huge, have affiliate marketing deals and advertisements,” Ms. Mandriota said.

We’ve hit ‘peak podcast,’ apparently and everyone is getting in on the podcasting game – especially anyone who wants to be considered an ‘expert’ in some field or other. Continue reading “Peak Podcast and the Purpose of Online Publishing”

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Online Harms: A Few Times When The Algorithms Chilled Freedom of Expression

The consultation to the British government’s Online Harms White Paper closed this week. English PEN and Scottish PEN made a submission, arguing that the government rethink its approach.
The government proposal is that a new ‘duty of care’ is placed upon online platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to protect their users. If they expose users to harmful content—ranging from terrorist propaganda and child porn, to hazily defined problems like ‘trolling’ — then a new regulator could sanction them.
This sounds sensible, but it presents a problem for freedom of expression. If the online platforms are threatened with large fines, and their senior management are held personally responsible for the ‘duty of care’ then it’s likely that the online platforms will take a precautionary approach to content moderation. Whenever in doubt, whenever it’s borderline, whenever there is a grey area… the platforms will find it expeditious to remove whatever has been posted. When that happens, it is unlikely that the platforms will offer much of an appeals process, and certainly not one that abides by international free speech standards. A situation will arise where perfectly legal content cannot be posted online. A two tier system for speech. Continue reading “Online Harms: A Few Times When The Algorithms Chilled Freedom of Expression”

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Discussing the UK visa system in The Bookseller

Nick Barley, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, has warned that the UK visa system alienates cultural visitors and is in dire need of an overhaul. In recent years, participants in the EIBF and other major UK festivals have had trouble getting permission to enter the UK – a huge freedom of expression issue for them, and for British audiences who have a right to hear them speak.
I’m also quoted in the piece, noting the many ways in which the UK visa system conspires to discourage cultural visitors.

“Here, I’ve noticed that the issue with visa refusals is not just the culture of ‘suspicion’ which leads to some authors and writers, usually young and usually from countries that are poor or which have security or human rights issues, being refused. The visa application system itself is too complex and it’s too easy to make a mistake or to provide incomplete information, which can also lead to a refusal. And the Home Office never provides any opportunity for the applicant to clarify or amend an application.”
He added: “The system is a combination of hostility and complexity that turns people off as well as turns people away. That this is a case is absolutely a political choice – yet another way in which antipathy towards immigration hurts British culture.”

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Something Eternally Lost

Following a catastrophic fire on 2nd September, the extent of the cultural loss at Brazil’s National Museum is becoming clear:

Folks, there’s nothing left from the Linguistics division. We lost all the indigenous languages collection: the recordings since 1958, the chants in all the languages for which there are no native speakers alive anymore, the Curt Niemuendaju archives: papers, photos, negatives, the original ethnic-historic-linguistic map localizing all the ethnic groups in Brazil, the only record that we had from 1945. The ethnological and archeological references of all ethnic groups in Brazil since the 16th century… An irreparable loss of our historic memory. It just hurts so much to see all in ashes.

—Cinda Gonda, translated by Diogo Almeida, about the fire at Brazil’s National Museum.
This is a very particular kind of loss. An entirely different thing from the death of a person, this is the death of the memory that entire groups of people even existed. Continue reading “Something Eternally Lost”