The Sydney Morning Herald logo

Censorship

Advertisement
Ports in the United Arab Emirates and Oman have been targeted in Iranian retaliatory strikes.

Dubai influencers warned they face jail over war posts

With some of the harshest cybercrime laws in the world, in the UAE any commentary about regional conflict or security can be a criminal offence.

  • Patrick Sawer and Alice Lilley

Latest

Adelaide was to be my first big writers’ festival. Then it all went wrong

The cancellation of the festival was a blow for established writers. But for debut authors like me, it was a nightmare.

  • Olivia De Zilva

It’s a good thing Shakespeare wasn’t invited to Adelaide Writers’ Week

The writers’ festival had to be destroyed to save it. In the future, arts boards will stick to safe programming. But will those events be worth attending?

  • Malcolm Knox
Police patrolling Bondi Beach after the terrorist attack last month.

Social media posts could fall foul of new hate speech laws

Experts argue the omnibus bill goes well beyond what is required to respond to the atrocities at Bondi.

  • Rob Harris
Randa Abdel-Fattah and Peter Singer at Adelaide Writers Week in 2023. This time, her invitation was withdrawn.

Politicians shouldn’t decide who appears at writers’ festivals. It’s a dangerous path

Australia’s best writers festival could collapse within days as international and local writers boycott it in protest at the removal of Randa Abdel-Fattah.

  • Richard Flanagan
War Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon was “proud” of the new policy and would stand by it in the face of a media revolt.

Fox News joins mass rebellion over Pentagon’s ‘unprecedented’ new rules

The conservative network has joined a throng of US media outlets refusing to agree to a new set of rules for reporters covering the Pentagon.

  • Michael Koziol
Advertisement
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr

South Park mocks Trump’s FCC chairman in first episode since Kirk shooting

The biting animated satire lampooned the man whose perceived government overreach is at the centre of the political storm triggered by Disney yanking Jimmy Kimmel off-air for a week.

  • Michael Idato
Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah was one of the first authors to withdraw from the Bednigo Writers Festival.

A bold exploration of media censorship around the Israel-Palestine conflict

Randa Abdel-Fattah, who withdrew from the Bendigo Writers Festival, tackles the very issue she faced in her novel set in the world of mainstream media and academia.

  • Sarah Ayoub
Jimmy Kimmel.

‘Ill-timed, insensitive’: Kimmel back on air after backlash over Charlie Kirk comments

American television network ABC will reinstate the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show after it was suspended over his on-air comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

  • Dawn Chmielewski
Patti Coleman wipes tears from her eyes at a memorial for Charlie Kirk in Phoenix, Arizona.

Reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death highlights hypocrisy of the left

After years of weaponising hate speech laws to censor right-wing opinion, it’s too late now for the left to complain when their ideological enemies return the favour.

  • George Brandis