FreeSpeech and Censorship: Thread

[grarpamp]

Always funny when the political censors, who swear they
aren't censoring you, censor themselves...



Watch: Bizarre Moment White House Cut Taiwanese Official's Video Feed Over Map

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/curious-case-map-disappearing-taiwan-minister-us-democracy-summit-2021-12-12/
https://thehill.com/policy/international/585493-white-house-cut-taiwanese-officials-video-feed-over-map-report
https://twitter.com/PezntJournalist/status/1470478201243766797
https://nypost.com/2021/12/13/wh-cut-video-feed-of-taiwanese-minister-at-biden-summit-report/


It's been revealed that at last week's Summit for Democracy the Biden
administration was so afraid of offending China that it temporarily
shut off the video feed of a Taiwanese minister at the moment a map
was featured on the screen depicting Taiwan as independent of China.

Reuters first reported that in this "curious" case - which the White
House is now disputing that it had awareness of - the video of
Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang was abruptly pulled after the
official showed the controversial map for about a minute on Friday.
Map presented in the feed before the video was abruptly cut off.
Source: The Summit for Democracy

In place of the cut video, there appeared words on the screen that
said: "Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those
of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
United States government."

The intervention came despite that China wasn't even invited to the
democracy summit in the first place, and was not represented at the
virtual forum. Beijing was further angered that Taiwan was invited,
despite not being a globally recognized country, as China claims it as
its own.

The Hill summarized specifics of the map as follows:

    The video was replaced with an audio-only feed at the White
House's request, the news wire reported. The presentation showed a
color-coded map that ranked global openness to civil rights. Taiwan
was labeled as green, or "open," while other countries in Asia were
marked as "closed," "repressed," "obstructed" or "narrowed.

The Reuters report, based on its sources, indicated the video feed was
cut was on deliberate orders from the White House given Tang's
presentation and map were in direct contradiction of the US official
"one China" policy, further coming at a sensitive moment for US-China
relations, which remain at a historic low point.

Watch what every nation's officials logged into the summit saw, as the
moderator quickly clamped down on Tang's presentation, trying to
explain it away as part of the summit's "diversity" of opinions:

    Irony @ The Summit for Democracy 12/10

    1. Taiwan minister's map shows Taiwan separate from China
    2. Video feed is cut when it comes back to her
    3. "Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those
of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views US gov't"
pic.twitter.com/WYwSGhzFQ4
    — Peznt Journalist (@PezntJournalist) December 13, 2021

The State Department, however, is claiming it was an "honest mistake"
due to "confusion" and that the video feed was not supposed to have
been cut off for any length of time.

However, emails also seen by Reuters directly contradict the
administration's rebuttal, as NY Post summarizes:

    According to Reuters, Tang’s map sparked a flurry of emails
between US officials, and the National Security Council reached out to
the State Department to complain that the slide had not been included
in "dry-run" versions of the presentation before the summit.

    "They choked," one source told Reuters of the White House reaction.

    “It was clearly policy concerns,” a second source told Reuters,
adding: "This was completely an internal overreaction."

Ironically this act of "internal overreaction" which literally led to
aggressive on-the-spot censorship of the Taiwan official's speech, was
done at Biden's democracy summit which has been billed as an attempt
to "tackle the greatest threats faced by democracies today through
collective action." Though clearly Taiwan's delegation experienced
something very different.