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      What We Know About the Protests at Columbia University

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      Demonstrations outside the school gates have added to the upheaval, with protesters who appear unconnected to the university targeting Jewish students.Columbia University is grappling with the fallout from its president’s promise to Congress that she would crack down on unsanctioned protests, and her decision to ask the police to clear an encampment on campus.Demonstrations just outside Columbia’s gates, which are currently closed to the public, took an especially dark tone over the weekend, when protesters who did not appear to be connected to the university were accused of celebrating Hamas and targeting Jewish students.“The decibel of our disagreements has only increased in recent days,” Nemat Shafik, Columbia’s president, said in a statement early Monday. “These tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas. We need a reset.”All classes on Monday would be held virtually, Dr. Shafik said, and university officials urged students to stay away from the campus in Upper Manhattan if they did not live on it.How Columbia got hereSince the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, American college campuses have been hubs of protest and debate. The scene at Columbia has been particularly contentious, with protests drawing hundreds of demonstrators, and some faculty members drawing attention for statements that critics considered to be antisemitic.Columbia administrators, like their counterparts on campuses across the country, have struggled to fine-tune a response that balances discipline, free speech and institutional and national politics. For example, Columbia suspended two pro-Palestinian student groups after a walkout, and it has rewritten its protest policies, suspended some students and moved to cut or reduce ties to some faculty members.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Scottish Hate Crime Law Takes Effect as Critics Warn It Will Stifle Speech

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      The legislation expands protections and creates a new charge of “stirring up hatred.” The “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling criticized the law for omitting women and said it was “wide open to abuse.”A sweeping law targeting hate speech went into effect in Scotland on Monday, promising protection against threats and abuse but drawing criticism that it could have a chilling effect on free speech.The law, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2021, expands protections for marginalized groups and creates a new charge of “stirring up hatred,” which makes it a criminal offense to communicate or behave in a way that “a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting.”A conviction could lead to a fine and a prison sentence of up to seven years.The protected classes as defined in the law include age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity. Racial hatred was omitted because it is already covered by a law from 1986. The new law also does not include women among the protected groups; a government task force has recommended that misogyny be addressed in separate legislation.J.K. Rowling, the “Harry Potter” author who has been criticized as transphobic for her comments on gender identity, said the law was “wide open to abuse by activists,” and took issue with its omission of women.Ms. Rowling, who lives in Edinburgh, said in a lengthy social media post on Monday that Scotland’s Parliament had placed “higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls.”“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offense under the terms of the new act,” she added, “I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Government Bans on Social Media Endanger Speech Rights

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      My entire life I’ve seen a similar pattern. Older generations reflect on the deficiencies of “kids these days,” and they find something new to blame. The latest technology and new forms of entertainment are always bewitching our children. In my time, I’ve witnessed several distinct public panics over television, video games and music. They’ve all been overblown.This time, however, I’m persuaded — not that smartphones are the sole cause of increasing mental health problems in American kids, but rather that they’re a prime mover in teen mental health in a way that television, games and music are not. No one has done more to convince me than Jonathan Haidt. He’s been writing about the dangers of smartphones and social media for years, and his latest Atlantic story masterfully marshals the evidence for smartphones’ negative influence on teenage life.At the same time, however, I’m wary of government intervention to suppress social media or smartphone access for children. The people best positioned to respond to their children’s online life are parents, not regulators, and it is parents who should take the lead in responding to smartphones. Otherwise, we risk a legal remedy that undermines essential constitutional doctrines that protect both children and adults.I don’t want to minimize the case against phones. Haidt’s thesis is sobering:Once young people began carrying the entire internet in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and developmental pathways across the board. Friendship, dating, sexuality, exercise, sleep, academics, politics, family dynamics, identity — all were affected.The consequences, Haidt argues, have been dire. Children — especially teenagers — are suffering from greater rates of anxiety and depression, and suicide rates have gone up; and they spend less time hanging out with friends, while loneliness and friendlessness are surging.Neither smartphones nor social media are solely responsible for declining teen mental health. The rise of smartphones correlates with a transformation of parenting strategies, away from permitting free play and in favor of highly managed schedules and copious amounts of organized sports and other activities. The rise of smartphones also correlates with the fraying of our social fabric. Even there, however, the phones have their roles to play. They provide a cheap substitute for in-person interaction, and the constant stream of news can heighten our anxiety.I’m so convinced that smartphones have a significant negative effect on children that I’m now much more interested in the debate over remedies. What should be done?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Long Lines of Russian Voters Signal Discontent With Vladimir Putin’s Rule

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      Many appeared to be heeding a call by the opposition to express frustration by showing up en masse at midday. “We don’t have any other options,” said one woman.Long lines of voters formed outside polling stations in major Russian cities during the presidential election on Sunday, in what opposition figures portrayed as a striking protest against a rubber-stamp process that is certain to keep Vladimir V. Putin in power.Before he died last month, the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny had called on supporters to go to polling stations at midday on Sunday, the last day of the three-day vote, to express dissatisfaction with Mr. Putin, who is set to win his fifth presidential term in a vote that lacks real competition.Mr. Navalny’s team, which is continuing his work, and other opposition movements reiterated calls for the protest in the weeks leading up to the vote. Simply appearing at the polling station, for an initiative known as Noon Against Putin, they said, was the only safe way to express discontent in a country that has drastically escalated repression since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.The opposition leaders said showing solidarity with like-minded citizens by mere presence was more important than what the voters chose to do with their ballots, because the election lacked real choice.“This is our protest — we don’t have any other options,” said Lena, 61, who came to a polling station in central Moscow before noon with the intention of spoiling her ballot. “All of us decent people are hostages here.” Like other voters interviewed, she declined to provide her last name, for fear of reprisal.Alissa, 25, said she came because she is against the war. “It is so important to see people who think like you, who don’t agree with what is happening,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      House Passes Bill to Force TikTok Sale From Chinese Owner or Ban the App

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      The legislation received wide bipartisan support, with both Republicans and Democrats showing an eagerness to appear tough on China.The House on Wednesday passed a bill with broad bipartisan support that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in the United States. The move escalates a showdown between Beijing and Washington over the control of technologies that could affect national security, free speech and the social media industry.Republican leaders fast-tracked the bill through the House with limited debate, and it passed on a lopsided vote of 352-65, reflecting widespread backing for legislation that would take direct aim at China in an election year. The action came despite TikTok’s efforts to mobilize its 170 million U.S. users against the measure, and amid the Biden administration’s push to persuade lawmakers that Chinese ownership of the platform poses grave national security risks to the United States.The result was a bipartisan coalition behind the measure that included Republicans, who defied former President Donald J. Trump in supporting it, and Democrats, who also fell in line behind a bill that President Biden has said he would sign.The bill faces a difficult road to passage in the Senate, where Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has been noncommittal about bringing it to the floor for a vote and where some lawmakers have vowed to fight it.TikTok has been under threat since 2020, with lawmakers increasingly arguing that Beijing’s relationship with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, raises national security risks. The bill is aimed at getting ByteDance to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners within six months. The president would sign off on the sale if it resolved national security concerns. If that sale did not happen, the app would be banned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Guernica Magazine Retracts Essay by Israeli as Staffers Quit

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      An Israeli writer’s essay about seeking common ground with Palestinians led to the resignation of at least 10 staff members at Guernica.Guernica, a small but prestigious online literary magazine, was thrown into turmoil in recent days after publishing — and then retracting — a personal essay about coexistence and war in the Middle East by an Israeli writer, leading to multiple resignations by its volunteer staff members, who said that they objected to its publication.In an essay titled “From the Edges of a Broken World,” Joanna Chen, a translator of Hebrew and Arabic poetry and prose, had written about her experiences trying to bridge the divide with Palestinians, including by volunteering to drive Palestinian children from the West Bank to receive care at Israeli hospitals, and how her efforts to find common ground faltered after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent attacks on Gaza.It was replaced on Guernica’s webpage with a note, attributed to “admin,” stating: “Guernica regrets having published this piece, and has retracted it,” and promising further explanation. Since the essay was published, at least 10 members of the magazine’s all-volunteer staff have resigned, including its former co-publisher, Madhuri Sastry, who on social media wrote that the essay “attempts to soften the violence of colonialism and genocide” and called for a cultural boycott of Israeli institutions.Chen said in an email that she believed her critics had misunderstood “the meaning of my essay, which is about holding on to empathy when there is no human decency in sight.”“It is about the willingness to listen,” she said, “and the idea that remaining deaf to voices other than your own won’t bring the solution.”Michael Archer, the founder of Guernica, said that the magazine would publish a response in the coming days. “The time we are taking to draft this statement reflects both our understanding of the seriousness of the concerns raised and our commitment to engaging with them meaningfully,” he wrote in a text.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Online Speech Law Could Chill Political Humor in Sri Lanka

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      A sweeping new law on online speech threatens the political humor that has helped the island nation get through tough stretches.Even in the darkest of times, Sri Lankans held on to their humor.In 2022, when the island nation’s economy collapsed and the government announced a QR code system to ration gasoline, a meme spread online: “Scanning Fuel QR Code Now Makes You Forget Last Three Months.”And when public anger forced the strongman president to flee his palace, with protesters venturing inside to fry snacks in his kitchen and jump into his pool, another meme captured the mood upon their departure: “We Are Leaving. The Key Is Under the Flower Pot.”It is this kind of online expression, which helped fuel the largest citizens’ movement in Sri Lanka in decades, that activists and rights groups fear is now endangered.They are concerned about a new law, the Online Safety Act, that gives the government wide-ranging powers to deem speech on social media to be “prohibited statements.” Under the law, a committee appointed by the president will rule on what is prohibited, and violations could bring penalties ranging from fines of hundreds of dollars to years in prison.The public security minister, Tiran Alles, told Parliament that the legislation would protect against online fraud, the spread of false information and the abuse of women and children. But he also made clear its potential political applications, saying it could be used against those who insult members of Parliament on social media.Sri Lanka is taking a page from other countries in the region that are increasingly policing what people say online, most notoriously Bangladesh, where a 2018 law known as the Digital Security Act has led to the imprisonment of activists and opposition leaders.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More