Britain’s Womad World Music Festival Was Hurt By Visa Issues. Is This The Brexit Future?

“Do we really want a white-breaded, Brexited flatland? A country that is losing the will to welcome the world? The ‘hostile environment’ took its toll at Womad … a number of events were seriously affected by visa refusals. By definition, a festival of world music requires visas for many bands. What on Earth is the Home Office doing refusing them? Is music the new enemy?”

Antonio Dias, 74, Artist Who Battled Brazil’s Military Dictators

“In the mid-1960s Mr. Dias emerged as the leading figure of Nova Figuração, or ‘New Figuration,’ a movement in Brazilian painting that used bold, graphic imagery to contest Brazil’s junta, which took power in 1964. … [In 1968,] he moved to Milan, where he abandoned his graphic and immediate paintings for an art of cool conceptualism, though his political engagement never wavered.”

Why The Social Media Platforms Are Going To Lose Their InfoWars Battles

The battle over InfoWars illustrates how what was once these tech giants’ greatest strength has become their greatest weakness. For years, Facebook and YouTube spent so much time defending anyone’s right to say almost anything on their platforms, they forgot to remind users that it wasn’t really a question of rights at all. Only the government can violate a person’s First Amendment rights, however wrong or hateful that person may be.

Are You Ready For The Information Wars?

We discuss counter-messaging, treating this as a problem of false stories rather than as an attack on our information ecosystem. We find ourselves in the midst of an arms race, in which responsibility for the integrity of public discourse is largely the hands of private social platforms, and determined adversaries continually find new ways to manipulate features and circumvent security measures. Addressing computational propaganda and disinformation is not about arbitrating truth. It’s about responding to information warfare.

Artists Builds Le Corbusier Replica, Then Sinks It In Fjord

There’s a sizable chunk of French Modernism sitting at the bottom of a Danish fjord. “Flooded Modernity” is a faithful 1:1 mock-up of a corner of the French architect-idealist Le Corbusier’s 1927 modernist masterpiece, Villa Savoye. Conceived by Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsenfor the Vejle Art Museum’s Floating Art Festival, Havsteen-Mikkelsen says his work is a commentary on his disillusionment with the current political climate

Six Reasons Some Genuinely Gifted Dancers Never Make It Professionally

“You need so many factors, and some of these are out of your hands,” says the founder of Youth America Grand Prix. “The process of becoming a professional is different than being a professional,” points out the director of NUVO Dance Convention. Here are half a dozen problems and pitfalls involved in that transition – and suggestions for getting through them.

Egyptian Orchestra Of Blind Women Plays On

The Light and Hope Orchestra has performed in public hundreds of times. Its success has taken it on foreign tours all around the world, and earned it countless awards. Al Nour Wal Amal is Arabic for ‘Light and Hope’  and the orchestra is part of a non-profit association that gives blind women educational opportunities and professional training.

The Cognitive Biases We All Have That Lead Us Astray

When people hear the word bias, many if not most will think of either racial prejudice or news organizations that slant their coverage to favor one political position over another. Present bias, by contrast, is an example of cognitive bias—the collection of faulty ways of thinking that is apparently hardwired into the human brain. The collection is large.

Sure, Cheer Alex Jones’ Legal Woes. But Be Careful How This Will Change Free Speech Laws

For the most part, this push and pull between internet and legal norms is a good thing—as long as it continues to evolve. “We adjusted the law to deal with the mass market media era of television and newspapers. It’s clear that First Amendment doctrine needs to evolve, not to undo freedom of speech, but to ensure the values of public debate and of democratic self-government continue in a digital environment. That might mean adjusting what it means to be a public figure, so victims of tragedy don’t feel unable to express their feelings on social media.