Required reading from around the web of the best, most interesting, or most though provoking things we’ve read:
Gallagher: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
“Google is planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China that will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest, The Intercept can reveal.
The project – code-named Dragonfly – has been underway since spring of last year, and accelerated following a December 2017 meeting between Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Chinese government official, according to internal Google documents and people familiar with the plans.”
Vadum: How British Jailers Abused Tommy Robinson
“The jailers of newly freed human rights activist Tommy Robinson deliberately subjected him to inhumane treatment behind bars in England, according to independent journalist Ezra Levant of the Canadian news website, TheRebel.media. The goal of the authorities seems to have been to silence Robinson, perhaps permanently. ‘Tommy has endured two months as a genuine political prisoner, and I say that thoughtfully,’ Levant said. ‘I don’t want to throw around the word political prisoner. Britain is still a great liberal democracy, but not in the case of Tommy Robinson, they weren’t.'”
Petrizzo: UW-Madison encourages students to report ‘microaggressions’
“In 2017, several students even filed reports about a Statistics exam question because it presented a hypothetical scenario in which the government was building a wall to prevent kangaroos from jumping over the border. […] According to an ‘Interrupting Bias & Hate’ presentation distributed by the school’s Bias Response Team, ‘microaggressions’ are defined as an ‘everyday slight, put down, indignity, or invalidation directed toward a marginalized group.'”