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On 24 February 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, I responded to an argument on a friend’s Facebook page that the West should give in to Vladimir Putin’s demands in order to avoid the prospect of World War III and possible global nuclear annihilation.

A few days later, to my great surprise, I was informed that my comment had violated Facebook’s “Community Standards” and my account would be subjected to multiple restrictions, including a ban on posting or commenting for a week, a ban on participating in groups for a month, and having all my posts moved down in Newsfeed for two months.

Facebook operates a system of escalating penalties, and this was not the first time I had fallen foul of their algorithms. I was reminded that “multiple posts from the last year didn’t follow our standards.” They listed three previous violations. One was for “bullying” (I had the temerity to suggest that to describe COVID-19 as “a little headache” when over 800,000 people had died of it in the United States was “stupid and dangerous”) and another was for “nudity” (I posted a picture of the newly published Czech translation of my book Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century, whose cover utilizes a collage by Karel Teige featuring a bare-breasted woman). I can’t track down the third violation because “this content is no longer available.” This is hardly a litany of hate speech.

I checked the box disagreeing with the decision over my latest post. Facebook responded confirming that in their view, my post violated their standards. They told me, however, that I could appeal to Facebook’s (allegedly) independent Oversight Board, “which was created to help Facebook answer some of the most difficult questions around freedom of expression online: what to take down, what to leave up, and why.” There is no guarantee the board will review any particular individual case: “The Oversight Board will define the criteria that will ensure it selects eligible cases that are difficult, significant and globally relevant that can inform future policy.”

While I do not think my personal quarrels with Facebook are of any great importance in themselves, I believe how and in whose interests Facebook and other social media control the flow of information on the internet are among the most pressing political issues of our time.

Here are extracts from my submission to Facebook’s Oversight Board. If I get a response I will post it here. I’m not holding my breath.

Summary of case

I am a professional historian and an acknowledged expert on modern European history. Among other honors and awards, my book Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press, 2013) won the George L. Mosse Prize for 2014, which is awarded annually by the American Historical Association for “an outstanding major work of extraordinary scholarly distinction, creativity, and originality in the intellectual and cultural history of Europe since 1500.”  This book was also chosen as one of the Financial Times History Books of the Year.

The comment Facebook removed read (in full): 

“This is my last territorial demand in Europe” (Adolf Hitler, speaking of the Sudetenland, September 1938).  

The Sudetenland is the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia that the leaders of Britain and France agreed Nazi Germany could annex following the 1938 Munich Agreement in order to achieve “peace for our time” (Neville Chamberlain). It soon became clear that this appeasement policy did not work. Hitler occupied the rest of the Czech Lands in March 1939, and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, triggering World War II.

The context in which I posted this comment was a discussion on a colleague’s timeline of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. People were suggesting that the most prudent course of action was to appease Putin by agreeing to his demands to demilitarize Ukraine and prevent it joining NATO.  My point was that Putin’s behavior toward Ukraine was reminiscent of Hitler’s toward Czechoslovakia in 1938, and to appease him now would likely have the same result. Concessions would encourage further aggression elsewhere. I am far from the only person to have made this case on Facebook or elsewhere.

Nothing in my post can reasonably be construed as praising or endorsing Hitler or Nazism. And my scholarly record of opposition to fascism speaks for itself. This decision is preposterous, and sends out a chilling message for scholarly debate.

Why did I post this comment on Facebook

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is arguably the greatest threat to peace in Europe and global security since World War II.  As a professional historian of modern Europe, I believe I have a right as well as an obligation to bring my knowledge of recent history to bear on current debates on Facebook and elsewhere.  In this case I was drawing attention to the strong parallels between Adolf Hitler’s behavior toward Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Putin’s behavior toward Ukraine in 2022. The quote I chose (“This is my last territorial demand in Europe”) was intended to suggest that Putin’s assurances on Ukraine should be treated with skepticism.  Historians know that appeasement of Hitler at Munich in 1938 did not prevent World War II breaking out a year later.  By using this quote I was implying that appeasing Putin over Ukraine is no more likely to stop him moving into (for example) the Baltic states if he is not resisted now.

Did Facebook misunderstand my reason for posting?

Yes, I do think Facebook misunderstood my reason for posing.  The context of the debate into which I was intervening should have sufficed to make it abundantly clear that I was in no way endorsing Hitler. For example another of my comments in the same exchange read: “If Joe Biden can seize all assets of Bank of Afghanistan in US and give them away to Americans, he can sure as hell do more to sanction Russia and Russians than he has done to date. Same goes for other western leaders. If they don’t, Putin’s troops may well think the road is open to Riga, Tallin and Vilnius … and who knows, Warsaw and Prague.”

Does this case raise issues of wider social importance?

Yes.  It is universally accepted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a grave threat to world peace, and how best to respond has been debated in every western country.  The invasion gave rise to the first emergency UN General Assembly session since 1982 (and only the tenth such session since 1950). It is essential that academics be allowed to bring their professional knowledge to bear in commenting on such issues on Facebook and elsewhere. They cannot do so if mere quotation of Adolf Hitler or similar figures, irrespective of context, is treated by your algorithms or adjudicators of “community standards” as tantamount to endorsement.  If I know this is how Facebook acts, I will self-censor and avoid even mention of possibly controversial topics in order not to get banned from a network that is useful to me for other purposes (keeping up with family and friends across the world). If everyone responds similarly for fear of having their Facebook account disabled, the net effect will be to close down informed debate on important social and political issues – WITHOUT in any way deterring the real, organized, purveyors of hate speech, like white supremacist organizations, who have proved adept at taking advantage of your platform many times in the past.

Can you suggest improvements Facebook can make to avoid this happening?

The simplest measure you could take is not to treat the mere mention or quotation of a historical figure as an endorsement of their views, but to examine to context in which the mention or quotation is made. And, possibly, employ better educated adjudicators.

10 word summary of complaint

Quotation should not be treated as endorsement irrespective of context.

  

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Blackwell issued a 2nd edition of The Great Arch in 1991, six years after the original publication, for which Philip Corrigan and I wrote a postscript discussing new work on English state formation published since 1985, and responding to various reviews of the book.  Both entailed some clarification and extension of its arguments. The 2nd edition had a very small print-run and soon went out of print, so this text is little known.

The excellent cover illustration is from Lyubov Popova’s set for The Earth in Turmoil (1923).  I have posted a downloadable scan of the postscript here for anyone interested.

GA 2d ed cover

 

There was also a Spanish translation of the Introduction and Afterthoughts sections of The Great Arch, in Antropología del Estado: Dominación y prácticas contestatarias en América Latina, ed. María L. Lagos and Pamela Calla, Cuaderno de Futuro Nº 23, La Paz (Bolivia): Hernando Calla, 2007, pp. 39-116.  A pdf can be downloaded free here.

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Benjamin Tallis and Derek Sayer

Czech PM-designate Andrej Babis (left) with Austrian People’s Party leader Sebastian Kurz. Wikimedia commons. 

 

The Iron Curtain may have been drawn back in 1989-1991, but you wouldn’t know it to read much of the commentary on the Czech parliamentary elections – and much recent commentary on ‘Eastern Europe’ more generally.

Much attention has been lavished on comparing Czech politician Andrej Babiš to Viktor Orban, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Donald Trump and, more plausibly, to Silvio Berlusconi, but this has obscured deeper problems in western analyses of the region. Many of the sins laid at the door of central and eastern Europeans are no less prevalent in western countries, but this is too often lost amidst enduring Cold War stereotypes.

In a recent Op-Ed typical of this trend, Jochen Bittner charged that across the Visegrad Group (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia), “leading politicians agitate against the European Union, portraying it as an imposing, undemocratic force.”

This is true. But populist politicians across western Europe portray the EU in exactly the same way. Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands both promised their electorate referendums on EU membership in hopes of emulating Brexit, whose champion was the anti-establishment politician and Donald Trump ally Nigel Farage …

 

Read full article in Open Democracy.

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Brexit is a portmanteau
word borrowed without asking
from the Greek for clusterfuck
like the Elgin Marbles

Brexit is my half-cut father
propping up the public bar
nothing against our colored cousins
so long as they stay where they are

Brexit is not hearing foreign languages on the High Street
Brexit is not hearing foreign languages on the bus
Brexit is not hearing foreign languages

again for ever and ever amen

Brexit is Morrissey
kissing Nigel Farage’s magnificent ass
Brexit is Johnny Rotten remembering he is
white working class

Brexit is the future fucked over
by a red white and blue

but mostly white

dream of the past

Keep Calm and
Carry On Up The Khyber
Pass

 

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This is an Op-Ed piece I wrote for CEE New Perspectives, the companion blog of the academic journal New Perspectives which is published by the Institute of International Relations (IIR) in Prague.  I reproduce it here with permission.

http://ceenewperspectives.iir.cz/2016/01/08/prejudice-hysteria-and-a-failure-of-political-leadership-of-refugees-and-november-17-in-prague/

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The Saskatchewan Star-Phoenix reports that the University of Saskatchewan has hastily reversed parts of its decision to fire Director of the School of Public Health Dr Robert Buckingham for publicly criticizing the administration and given him his tenure (though not his Deanship) back.  This is welcome news.

Serious questions remain.

University of Saskatchewan president Irene Busch-Vishniac has issued a statement complaining that the U of S received “inaccurate and undeserved” criticism from across Canada after Buckingham’s firing.

“The debate that is raging,” she says, “confuses Dr. Buckingham’s former role as executive director of the School of Public Health with the academic freedom associated with of a tenured faculty member. In his role as an administrator at a level that removes him from the faculty association, Dr. Buckingham is not only permitted but encouraged to have opinions that might disagree with those developed by top administrators.  However, once a decision is made at the institutional level, all senior leaders must publicly conform to that decision or resign their leadership role.”

No, Dr Busch-Vishniac, it was you and your cronies who “confused” Professor Buckingham’s roles by depriving him of tenure as a punishment for stepping out of line as an administrator.  And the whole world knows it.  Thanks to social media.

Perhaps you and others in universities tempted to use disciplinary procedures to close down free and open debate over issues of public concern might think twice next time.

 

 

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Update, May 15.  The whistleblowing document “Silence of the Deans” that got Dr Buckingham fired can be found here.  Fuller background, including CAUT reaction, can be found here.

This is a deplorable, almost unbelievable instance of hubris on the part of university management that deserves worldwide publicity and worldwide condemnation. I am reblogging here an article by colleagues at the University of Alberta, where I am a Professor Emeritus.  I am also concerned as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, whose duty as the country’s national academy is to do the utmost to protect academic freedom–including the freedom of deans, heads of department, and others occupying administrative positions to speak their minds on matters of legitimate public concern even when (and perhaps especially when) doing so may bring them into conflict with their own university management.  Academic leadership requires academic integrity and the exercise of judgment, not blind obedience to authority on the model of Leninist party discipline.  What is of concern here is not simply Professor Buckingham’s firing, but the attempted “gag” orders on deans discussing the university’s plans with colleagues, students or the public–that is to say, the main “stakeholders” involved–that he courageously defied.  I would urge other FRSCs to condemn the University of Saskatchewan’s action in the strongest possible terms.  Unfortunately I do not believe such administrative high-handedness or threats to academic freedom are confined to Canada or the University of Saskatchewan. Please publicize as widely as possible.

Arts Squared

When I first saw the letter below circulating on Twitter as of mid-day, seemingly issued on the letterhead of the office of the Provost and VP Academic at the University of Saskatchewan and signed by the current occupant of those positions, Brett Fairbairn, I paused for a moment to question whether it was real. Could any Provost or VP Academic in Canada truly believe that s/he can charge a colleague with “egregious conduct and insubordination” for his or her expression of concern about decisions being taken by administrators at his or her institution, and issue the kind of summary judgment to which this letter speaks?

USask Provost Letter to Dr. Buckingham 14May14The presumption of this letter and the decision taken by the University of Saskatchewan’s Provost and VP Academic is that members of the administration of a public university in Canada are not members of a collegium responsible to the public, but rather members of a secretive corporate elite that is free to require…

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I have known Clay Ellis for years.  Clay and his wife Michelle are what I miss most about living in Alberta.  Their hospitality, their generosity, their grace.  His work, somewhere in a zone of his own between painting, sculpture, and video, abstract and concrete, conceptual and figurative art, conjures up a sense of time and a spirit of place like little else I know.  We have had many drunken conversations about Picasso, country music and the meaning of it all over the years, and I look forward to many more.  He is one of Canada’s greatest living artists.  These are some shots from his most recent exhibition at the stunning new Art Gallery of Grande Prairie.  

The text is from the gallery website.  The photographs were taken by Rob Ganzeveld.

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Clay Ellis: Weaners, Culls and Divvies

January 17, 2014 – April 6, 2014

Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (Alberta, Canada)

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Born and raised on a ranch in Southern Alberta, Clay Ellis explores his connection with the landscape, referring to images, the temperament and gestures of his past.

“I think that the focus behind this exhibition is equal parts of reflecting on the experiences of growing up on the ranch, considering the reality of no longer being a part of it, and pondering what the land means to the individuals that currently live on the property.”

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The transformation of the ranch itself, from homestead to ranching company, marked by the restructuring of out-buildings, the parceling of land, and the move towards automation, has happened in only a few generations.

For most operations, it is no longer necessary or practical to house a workforce, a shift that replaced hired hands and displaced extraneous family members. Usable tack turned to relic, and family members became guests to a property that had once been their home.

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It is from the perspective of guest that Ellis makes his observations. While the works are informed by the changing perspectives of land use and ranching practices from one generation to the next, it has been his yearly visits over a 45 year period that have allowed him to see changes to the landscape that may escape those embedded in the rigors of the day to day.

Ellis neither condones nor prescribes ideology but rather suggests that to assess change we must first see it.

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“Art has much more important things to do than change the world”–Clay Ellis, in one of those aforementioned conversations.

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Though some UK universities are playing by the rules in preparing their submissions for REF 2014 and treating their academic staff with respect and decency, Lancaster seems not to be alone in employing procedures to select staff for its REF submission that satisfy neither HEFCE’s own Guidelines for the REF nor the established norms of academic peer review.

This morning I received an email from Warwick University UCU, informing me of a recent survey of Warwick staff who were being excluded from the REF, and requesting that I publicize their document on my blog.  I am happy to do so.

 

Warwick survey shows REF rules being bypassed and selection guidelines ignored

Much good research excluded; Interdisciplinary research sidelined; Academics left in limbo

Warwick UCU has conducted a survey of all its members to ask if they had received a letter from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor informing them that they were to be excluded from the REF. Forty-four members replied, the largest response we have received to any of our surveys. (We also received responses from some members who had recently been moved to teaching-only contracts who are no longer eligible.)

We wanted to know the grounds on which they were excluded, the process by which the decision had been made and what the implications would be for them and for research within the university going forward. Above all we wanted to see if the guidelines and principles of the national Research Excellence Framework and Warwick’s own Code of Practice are in fact being upheld.

Main findings in brief:

• The majority of respondents are excluded on ‘quality’ grounds, meaning they have enough submissible research but the university judged it to be below some threshold (e.g. for some individuals/departments an ‘average’ of 3*, and for others 3.5*)

• Selection criteria are not transparent, are applied inconsistently and with little regard to inclusivity – in contravention of the stated REF principles.

• A small number of members have been granted a right of appeal on substantive, academic grounds (despite the university having said that it would only hear appeals within the context of Equality Legislation) and been reinstated.

• Research is often excluded on the subjective judgement of heads of department without having been independently appraised by experts external to the university, and in some cases, externals were asked to ‘confirm’ HoDs’ assessments, not to read and assess the work independently.

• Some research is excluded purely on ‘strategic grounds’.

• Interdisciplinary research is being excluded without proper appraisal: it seems to be routinely described as ‘below the standard required in terms of quality’.

• Some academics complain that the university would rather exclude them than ask for their research outputs to be cross-referred to a different REF panel.

• Many members are unclear as to the consequences of exclusion for their careers. They are unsure if they are in good standing or not.

THE FULL WARWICK UCU DOCUMENT CAN BE FOUND HERE.