User:CensorshipStudent123!/sandbox

Supreme Court case law
After Beauharnais v. Illinois, the Supreme Court developed a free speech jurisprudence that loosened most aspects of the free speech doctrine.[3] In 1942, Justice Frank Murphy summarized the case law: "There are certain well-defined and limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise a Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous and the insulting or 'fighting' words – those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."[4]

The quote here is attributed to the right source, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, but the structure of the paragraph is misleading and makes it appear as though the case law being referred to is Beauharnais v. Illinois.

I therefore would amend this to read as:

The issue of group defamation was first most explicitly brought up in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), which surrounded the issue of a Jehovah's Witness, Walter Chaplinsky, who attacked a marshall verbally for restricting his use of a public sidewalk to protest organized religion. About a decade later in 1952, in Beauharnais v. Illinois the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state of Illinois's hate speech laws. The defendant was charged for distributing a leaflet that rallied white people in Chicago “to halt the further encroachment, harassment and invasion of white people, their property, neighborhoods and persons, by the Negro." Going off Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the court ruled that since "libelous utterances [are not] within the area of constitutionally protected speech," it did not matter that the speech did not incite any serious harm. After Beauharnais v. Illinois, the Supreme Court developed a free speech jurisprudence that loosened most aspects of the free speech doctrine.

Societal Implementation
In the 1980s and 1990s, more than 350 public universities adopted "speech codes" regulating discriminatory speech by faculty and students.[11] These codes have not fared well in the courts, where they are frequently overturned as violations of the First Amendment.[12] Debate over restriction of "hate speech" in public universities has resurfaced with the adoption of anti-harassment codes covering discriminatory speech.[13]

''The speech that Hostile Work Environment Harassment Law can prohibit varies case by case and is continually under scrutiny by the courts. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) states that, “Harassment is a form of employment discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, (ADEA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, (ADA). Harassment is unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.” For example, in Brown Transport Corp. v. Commonwealth, the state of Pensylvania stated that it was religious harassment to put religious pieces in their employee newsletter and Christian-themed verses on their paychecks. In Olivant v. Department of Environmental Protection, the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law found jokes e-mailed to a workplace department and the judge ruled the jokes to “defame and dishonor men and women based upon their gender, sexual preference, religion, skin pigmentation and national and ethnic origin,” thereby making them illegal.''

Merger with Penguin
In October 2012, Bertelsmann entered into talks with rival conglomerate Pearson plc, over the possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Random House and Penguin Group. The merger was completed on 1 July 2013 and the new company is Penguin Random House.[18] Bertelsmann owns 53% of the joint venture while Pearson owns 47%.[19] At the time of the acquisition the combined companies controlled 25% of the book business with more than 10,000 employees and 250 independent publishing imprints and with about $3.9 billion in annual revenues.[19] The move to consolidate was to provide leverage against Amazon.com and battle the shrinking state of bookstores.[19]

This information is not up to date.

I would therefore like to add:

''In October of 2018, Penguin Random House merged two of its most known publishing lines, Random House and the Crown Publishing Group. According to Madeline McIntosh, chief executive of Penguin Random House U.S., the two lines “will retain their distinct editorial identities.” McIntosh explained some of the motivation behind the merger in a memo to employees, writing, “Book discovery and buying patterns continue to shift, resulting in growth opportunities in the nonfiction categories in which Crown in particular already has a strong foothold: food, lifestyle, health, wellness, business, and Christian.” We must invest even more aggressively in title-level and scaled marketing programs, capabilities and partnerships,” she added. Detailing additional growth strategies, McIntosh explained of the merger, “We will need to do two things simultaneously. First, we must expand and strengthen the expert publishing teams who are specialized in and dedicated to each category. Second, we must invest even more aggressively in title-level and scaled marketing programs, capabilities, and partnerships. This will ensure that we not only maximize the sales for each individual book but also keep pace with consumer trends.”''

Also, as book publishing is becoming thought of as increasingly out of date in the age of technology, kindle, and Amazon, I think a section that explicitly addresses this is missing content from the current entry.

I would therefore like to add a section:

Challenges with technology
''Publishing companies are increasingly trying to adapt to the challenges that technology presents in putting their business models out of practice. They are trying to focus more on online retail and marketing. The international book and music retailer, Borders Group, shut down in 2011. As of 2012, Barclays Capital reported that Amazon sells around 65% of American e-books. An Amazon spokesperson said that their US and worldwide Kindle book sales grew in 2017 and 2018.''

Technology has also made self-publishing a much more accessible medium. Even some highly respected works have been noticed through self-publishing, such as the The Martian, which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film. Self-publishing is also incentivizing to some authors because it allows them to retain full control over their work, from writing to editing, and copywriting. Of course, the author also has to bear the financial risks all on his/her own.

(this is just scratch work where I keep track of my progress).

Week 2: create account and complete trainings.

Week 3: Evaluate an Article


 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Hicks
 * Evaluation
 * I choose this article intentionally because I am interested in politics and wanted to see how the highly contentious political landscape of today is portrayed on Wikipedia. This article is quite short, though Hope Hicks is relatively young and very new to the political scene. I was struck by the lack of information about her personal life, given the nature of our society's deep inquiries into political figure’s intimate details. In evaluating whether this was a positive or negative, I was struck by a moral dilemma, in that I wondered whether this would be a place to focus my attention on if I were to work on the article. On the one hand, Wikipedia is meant to serve as a information dissemination platform and if it maintains a neutral tone, is there anything wrong with revealing personal information? On the other hand, would the content under this section actually be informative in considering what is essential for the public to know about a White House official? The overall tone of the entry seemed quite neutral, though the use of the word, “allegedly” (“Hicks allegedly dated Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski while he was still married to Alison Hardy.[40][41][42] She later began dating former White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter, while he was caught up in a scandal for allegedly beating his two ex-wives”) seemed to suggest some right political leanings to me. The sources seemed to be almost exclusively media outlets (including ABC, CNN, New York Times), which are all legitimate, known, reliable names and, given the nature of the subject matter (a living person who only entered the public eye a couple years ago), there is not likely to be any references to Hope Hicks found in other texts or academic journals.

Reflection submitted via email.

Week 4: Chose topics. Reflection submitted via email.

Week 5: Finalizing Topics and Finding Sources


 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall
 * Evaluation
 * In looking at the content of this article, there is nothing that immediately strikes me as distracting or irrelevant, though there does seem to be gaps in content. One place I believe more information could be added is the section noting kinds of “Censored Content,” which currently only lists about eight categories. For example, common US based social media platforms, like Instagram, are part of China’s internet censorship regime, but are not listed in this section. Additionally, the “Effectiveness and Impact” section seems sparse as well. I’d be curious to know how the Great Firewall has impacted the kinds of popular culture in China, for example, which is not mentioned at all in this section. At first read, the tone of the entry seemed fairly neutral, though in making this judgement I had to be hyper aware of my own subliminal biases. One portion of the article did write when explaining one of the motivations behind internet censorship, “Sensitive Content: To control information about the government in China as well as its dark history,” but dark history was not elaborated upon here. Using such a bold term without further elaboration could be taken as a biased point of view against China’s historical legacy. Additionally, the talk page includes commentary about the lack of neutrality through use of words like “suspicion” and “purportedly.” The commentary in the talk page also importantly noted a fundamental paradox to this entry --that this article is about censorship, but those being censored, who have some of the most important insights to contribute, are inherently platformless. Also in that vein, the most problematic part of this Wiki entry, which I hope to work upon, is the lack of citations and distinct places where it is noted that a citation is needed (I counted at least seven). The sources also seem somewhat dated and could be complemented by information from more recent events.
 * Sources (WIP)
 * https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/01/asia/internet-freedom-china-censorship-intl/index.html
 * https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-01/climbing-over-the-great-firewall-of-china/10445724
 * https://www.comparitech.com/privacy-security-tools/blockedinchina/
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/technology/tech-infowars-china-great-firewall.html


 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_States
 * Evaluation
 * I picked this article not only because of its relation to the course, especially the content covered in the third class on freedom of expression, but also because I was surprised at how brief the entry was, given its contentious nature. There is also almost no discussion in its talk page. Specifically, I feel the section on “Societal Implementation” could be expanded upon, including cases of regulations in the workplace. I’d also want to include information on the way in which law enforcement is directed to confront hate speech, as well as cases where arrests or lack thereof have been made in violation of the Constitution. The entry’s tone seems fairly neutral, though I whether the previous author(s)’s point of views may have contributed to the clear sparseness of information (i.e. how does bias contribute to what we don’t see). Additionally, because the constitutionality of hate speech requires intimate knowledge that likely would be coming from an academic source, the references may appear more neutral on the surface but might actually harbor their own leanings based on the elitism of the “ivory tower.” The sources listed thus far do all seem fairly academic or are coming from past Supreme Court cases, and I wonder if there is a way to bring in contributions from non-academic references (i.e. reliable media outlets), especially for the societal implementation section, while still maintaining a neutral tone.
 * Sources (WIP)
 * http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/hate
 * https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3246&context=journal_articles
 * https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/840886.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ae200e31aab2a1947f87f4ccf00d10214
 * https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/07/no-theres-no-hate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment/?utm_term=.eb3288e3c3a9
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_House
 * Evaluation
 * The biggest critique I have of this article is that it does not include information on the October 2018 merger of Penguin Random House (Random House merged with Penguin Group in July 2013)’s two publishing lines, Random House and Crown Publishing Group. Of course, this is a very recent merger, but is definitely something I would like to add to the article. Additionally, the talk page mentions, “The article needs a bit more history, particularly with respect to the (relatively) recent reorganization which put all of Bertelsmann's English-language publishing under the Random House umbrella,” so I would be interested in organizing the structure of the history section to fit these ends. Additionally, there is very little content on how the operations of the group have changed since the 2013 merger, let alone the 2018 merger. This seems to be the most neutral toned of all the articles I am engaging with.


 * Sources (WIP)
 * https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/78369-random-house-crown-merge.html
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/books/penguin-random-house-merges-two-of-its-successful-publishing-lines.html
 * https://www.mhpbooks.com/random-house-and-crown-merge-under-prhs-continued-consolidation-efforts/

Exercise: add a citation


 * I added a citation to the following entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_States. I added the citation to the line, “Effectively, the Supreme Court unanimously reaffirms that there is no 'hate speech' exception to the First Amendment.[ citation needed].” The citation I added was: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1293_1o13.pdf . This is a Supreme Court case, which reaffirmed on the first and second page in writing, “Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.”

(From previous week, when I misunderstood assignment)

Draft list of article topics to work on:

Charles Ludlam

Isadora Duncan

Shilin Night Market

Theatre of the Ridiculous

The Terminal

Focus on articles that had less information, we're considered best work by Wikipedia, steered clear of controversial topics, and includes a mix of people, places, and concepts.