This is an audio transcript of the Unhedged podcast episode: ‘Federal Reserve puts on enormous party hat’

Katie Martin
A great moment in history has arrived. Rob Armstrong was right about something. Quite against the run of play — shush, Rob — quite against the run of play, the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates — hurrah — from the highest level in decades, and for the first time since the pandemic. And what’s more, it went large, cutting by half-a-point, precisely as my esteemed colleague had predicted.

What kind of voodoo is this? Does the Fed know something horrible we don’t? Cutting by half-a-point is normally a crisis measure, a cry for help. Should we panic about a recession? And really, Rob was right. End times.

Today on the show, we’re going to explain how come investors are ignoring the usual script and taking this bumper cut as a good thing. This is Unhedged, the markets and finance podcast from the Financial Times and Pushkin. I’m Katie Martin, a markets columnist here at FT Towers in London. And listeners, I must tell you, the saddest of things has happened. I’m joined by Rob Armstrong, lord of the Unhedged newsletter. But the sad thing is he’s dialling in from his sickbed. Rob, I’m sorry, you’re poorly.

Robert Armstrong
I am poorly. It’s terrible. But on a 50-basis-point day, the dead shall rise from their graves. The angels shall sing. And we all . . . we’re all gonna talk about it.

Katie Martin
Yes. Good, strong Barry White vibes I’m getting from this voice you’re busting out today. So, as you say, half a percentage point from the Fed; that’s 50 basis points in market money. Normally central banks love being super boring and they normally move by quarter-point increments. So, I mean, was it the shock of being right about the 50-basis-point thing that pushed you over the edge into sickness?

Robert Armstrong
It could have been. I’m so accustomed to getting this wrong now that it was really paralysing. However, I think, you know, you mentioned earlier, why is the market kind of taking this in stride and seeing this as a good thing? And I think it’s a bit of a communications success by the Fed in that they told the story about this, that they’re not doing this because they have to, because it’s an emergency. They’re doing it because they can.

Katie Martin
So gangster.

Robert Armstrong
And the reason they can is because they’ve kind of beaten inflation. Right?

Katie Martin
So for people who, unlike us, have a life and don’t sit around watching central bank press conferences, the way this works is they do the decision, they say, here you are, here’s your 25 or 50 whatever basis points, or we’re on hold. This time around, it was 50 basis points.

And then just a little while later, there’s a press conference where the chairman, Jay Powell, gets up in front of like all of the kind of most pointy headed Fed journalists in the world and fields whatever questions. There’s a statement, and then he field whatever questions they want to throw at him. And this for him was the point of highest danger, because the risk of giving the impression somehow that . . . 

Robert Armstrong
Yes.

Katie Martin
Yeah, we’re really worried. That’s why we’ve done 50. That was a serious risk, right? But instead, what happened?

Robert Armstrong
Well, right from the press release announcing the 50 basis cut, they tweaked the language in the press release so that it was more affirmative and strong on the topic of inflation. We’re really pleased how it’s going on inflation.

Katie Martin
Right, right.

Robert Armstrong
And then in the press release, I mean in the press conference, he just reinforced that point again and again. The line he repeated was the labour market is fine, it’s healthy. It is at a good level. We don’t need it to get any better. We’re not trying to improve it, but we have the freedom to make sure it stays as good as it is.

And that message seems to have gone through. Markets didn’t move yesterday afternoon. And as a very, you know, opening minutes of trading this morning, stocks are up. So that message seems to have gotten through.

Katie Martin
Yeah. That is skills, actually. You know, I will hand it to them. Because, you know, it’s . . . we’ve said this before on this podcast. Like, it’s so easy to like throw stones and peanuts at the Fed or the European Central Bank, the Bank of England or whatever and say they messed this up. But, like, this stuff is hard. Getting the markets to come away with that sort of impression is not to be taken for granted.

Robert Armstrong
It’s not to be taken for granted. I agree. However, I will note any time you’re trying to spin a narrative and you want people to believe it, one thing that really helps is if the narrative is true. And in this case, I think it broadly is.

I think inflation really does look like it’s whipped. It’s really either at or very close to 2 per cent. And look, with an unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent and basically no increase in lay-offs and the economy is still adding jobs, I think the economy is pretty good. So it’s not like he had to spin a magical tale of unicorns and wizards here. He just had to, you know, make a case based on the facts.

Katie Martin
Yeah. And and that kind of goes back to the fact that the Fed is not quite like all the central banks in that it has to look after inflation, but it also has to look after the jobs market. And so, you know, again, the risk is that you come away from a decision like this and think, well, you know, those little cracks that we’ve seen in the jobs market, maybe they’re the start of something really big and hairy and awful, but he seems to have massaged this one away.

Robert Armstrong
Indeed. Impressive performance.

Katie Martin
And so the other thing they do in this press conference is they give the general public and sad nerds like us a little bit of a taster about what’s coming next from the Fed, right. So they’re always, like, central bankers are at pains to say none of this stuff is a promise. This is just our kind of best current understanding of the state of the universe. But so, then you end up with this thing called — drumroll — the dot.

Robert Armstrong
The dot plot.

Katie Martin
The dot plot. Explain for normal people what the dot plot is.

Robert Armstrong
OK. So it’s kind of a grid. And along the bottom are the years 2024 through 2027, and then another column for the infinite future. And then there’s a range of interest rates going up and down on the side. And every member of the monetary policy committee puts a little dot in each year column where they think the rate is gonna be in that year. Cue much speculation about what all this means, how they’ve changed their mind since the last dot plot and, you know, the implications of all of this.

Katie Martin
Whose dot is whose? We’ll never know.

Robert Armstrong
They don’t reveal whose dot is whose. That’s an important point. And by the way, Katie, according to everything we hear out of the Fed, having invented this device, which was supposed to increase clarity and make everyone’s life easier, everyone in the Fed now hates it and wishes it would go away . . . 

Katie Martin
Damn you, dot plot!

Robert Armstrong
Because it just causes endless, idiotic little niggling questions from people like me and you. But once you’ve invented something like this, if you take it away, people get upset.

Katie Martin
So you look at the dots and you look at what Jay Powell was saying at the press conference and what does it all add up to? Does it mean that, like, OK, they’ve started with 50 basis points, so like 50 is the new 25? Get used to it, boys and girls?

Robert Armstrong
If you look at the dot plot and their kind of aggregate expectations of where rates are gonna go, it is not that 50 is the new 25. The implication is that the rate of cuts is going to be very measured — or might I say stately, from here until they reach their target.

Katie Martin
Right, right.

Robert Armstrong
And, you know, another point to mention here is where they think they need to go is very important. That’s the kind of last part of the dot plot is, like, where should interest rates be when everything is normal again?

Katie Martin
Because that will happen one day. And . . . 

Robert Armstrong
Yeah, that will happen. They think it’s gonna happen sometime around 2026, 27. We’ll get to where it’s about normal and they’re looking for about 3 per cent rates in the long run and that . . . so that’s where we’re going to. Just to set the context, we cut from 5.5 per cent to 5 per cent yesterday. And the map of the dot plot shows us moving towards a little under 3 per cent over time. And it’s a matter of how quickly are we going to get there, and along the way, are we going to change our mind and decide we have to go somewhere else?

Katie Martin
Yeah. So is there a kind of joyful hope that maybe the Fed could be, like, boring again and it can just sort of do 25 basis points here and there and just take this kind of glide path lowering rates that doesn’t get people excited any more?

Robert Armstrong
Well, this is the problem about the future is that it is hard to predict and particularly hard to predict with interest rates. The issue is that the economy, the structure of the economy has changed a lot in the last couple of years because of the pandemic and for other reasons. So that final destination point I talked about, which economists call the neutral rate, which is the just normal, everything is boring and steady rate of interest in the economy where everyone has a job, there’s no inflation, everything’s cool, the neutral rate. We don’t know what that number is.

And Jay Powell has this line about it. We know it by its works. And what that means, stated less calmly, is we know it when we screw it up. In other words, we hit it, we go past it. We push interest rates above the neutral rate and stocks have a big puke and the economy starts to slow down and people get fired or we travel too far below it and inflation starts again. So like the Fed over the next couple of years is like walking down this passage in the complete dark and it knows it can’t touch the wall on its left or the wall on its right. Right? But it doesn’t know the shape of the passageway, what direction it’s supposed to go. So it’s just like, well, I sure hope we’re going this way. Dee-dee-dee. And hope it doesn’t hit too low or too high along the way.

Katie Martin
Hope it doesn’t just walk into a wall.

Robert Armstrong
The history of interest rates is history of feeling your way along in the dark.

Katie Martin
Rob, that’s the most lyrical thing I’ve ever heard you say.

Robert Armstrong
Isn’t it? It’s poetry. It’s because I’m so ill. These could be the final words of a dying man.

Katie Martin
What meds are you on for this cold you’ve got?

Robert Armstrong
This could be my legacy, Katie. (Laughter)

Katie Martin
I feel like we should kind of wrap up quite soon before you just like expire during the recording.

Robert Armstrong
I do. As much as I like you, I’d like to have a few words with my wife before I shove off.

Katie Martin
But I will ask you, are we ever going back to like zero interest rates, do you think? Or are we gonna look back on that…

Robert Armstrong
I feel like I’ve been asking a lot of questions. This is a great question, Katie, but let me push it back on you. We had this wild period in the last decade where there was like a gajillion dollars of sovereign bonds issued at a negative interest rate.

Katie Martin
I think that was something like $18tn or something.

Robert Armstrong
Money was free. It was bonkers. And it was like the Fed funds rate was up against zero. Money was free. We were all in Silicon Valley inventing start-ups whatever, doing our thing. Do you think we’re going back to that? Like once this incident, the pandemic and everything after is over, are we going back?

Katie Martin
I mean, I can’t see it. I buy the narratives that are kicking around about inflation now being structurally higher, right? There’s a climate emergency. There’s a global defence emergency. There is all sorts of things that governments need to spend lots of money on, borrow lots of money for, all things being equal. And then there’s the whole supply chain thing after COVID and with geopolitics yada-yada.

Robert Armstrong
And the world is getting older, right? And so when old people create demand for savings, that drives interest rates up, right?

Katie Martin
Ah, old people. Yeah.

Robert Armstrong
Old people.

Katie Martin
But I think also before we wrap up, we should note that although you were right, about 50 basis points, I was right about the timing. I said on this here very podcast back in, I think it was June 2023, the . . . Not 24. 23. That the Fed is not gonna cut rates till the third quarter this year. So what I’m saying is I’m the genius here. You’re just like a (overlapping speech) took a coin flip.

Robert Armstrong
You’re basically Cassandra. Doomed to see the future and not be believed.

Katie Martin
I’m going to . . . 

Robert Armstrong
Do I have the right mythological figure there? I think that was Cassandra.

Katie Martin
Absolutely no idea. But I’m going to set up a hedge fund called like hunch capital where I can invest your money for two and 20. (Laughter) Based on nothing but pure hunches. Do you want in? Because like my hunch on that, your hunch on the other. I think we’re going to make good money.

Robert Armstrong
We could. We could be rich people, Katie. But I will answer your question seriously. I think interest rates are higher now. We’re not going back to zero. I will end on that serious point.

Katie Martin
Yeah, yeah.

Robert Armstrong
Governments are spending too much. They have to spend too much. There’s loads of old people. There’s the green stuff has to be funded. Productivity might be rising possibly because of AI. We are going into a higher interest rate world. And by the way, the Fed thinks that. If you look at the history of the Fed’s view of what the long term normal interest rate is, that has been steadily ticking higher over the last year and a half or so.

Katie Martin
So rates have come down already pretty hard, but don’t get yourself carried away with thinking that we’re going back to zero, because ain’t . . . I mean.

Robert Armstrong
No. Ain’t gonna happen. Nope.

Katie Martin
Ain’t gonna happen.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

On that bombshell, we’re going to be back in a sec with Long/Short.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

OK, now it’s time for Long/Short, that part of the show where we go long a thing we love, short a thing we hate. Rob, I feel like you should go first before you completely lose your voice. (Laughter)

Robert Armstrong
Well, I’m going to go short wellbeing. And I say this not because my wellbeing is poor right now, but because of an article our colleague Joshua Franklin, wrote in the Financial Times yesterday that says, I’m quoting here, JPMorgan Chase has tasked one of its bankers with overseeing the company’s junior banker program, a response to renewed concerns about working conditions for young employees. And it goes on that this poor person is gonna have to make sure all these young investment bankers are happy and have work-life balance. I think investment bankers owe it to the rest of us to be miserable.

Katie Martin
Right.

Robert Armstrong
They make a lot of money. They are the lords of the universe. They should not be happy. Their wellbeing should be awful. And that’s what you’re getting paid for. So I think JPMorgan Chase is doing the wrong thing here. And they need to appoint a banker to oversee the what’s the opposite of wellbeing. Unwell being of their junior bankers.

Katie Martin
You’re a very, very mean person and you just want everyone to be sad like you.

Robert Armstrong
No, if you want to be happy, become a journalist and make no money. If you want to be rich, become a banker and like get divorced and have your kids hate you. It’s just the normal way of life. (Laughter)

Katie Martin
Well, I am long European banking merger drama. So if you’ve missed it, the German government is, like, quite scratchy and unhappy about a potential takeover of Commerzbank by Italy’s UniCredit. It’s the talk of the town. Everyone is kind of, you know, huddled around in bars in the city asking like, how the hell did UniCredit manage to amass like a nine per cent stake in this thing? Like that doesn’t seem like a good strategic move. There’s a lot of excitement over the motives. My interest here is that this is just like the good old days of European banking mergers with like very important European bankers wearing gilets under their jackets going around in like big fast cars and, you know, chatting away on their mobile phones and being masters of the universe.

Robert Armstrong
I just wish they would get along with it. As far as I know, in continental Europe, there’s actually more banks than people.

Katie Martin
Yeah, it’s like sheep in New Zealand. You’ve just got . . . (Laughter)

Robert Armstrong
They just need. I mean, as long as I’ve been in finance, people have been rattling on about how banking in Europe was going to consolidate. The industry was finally going to make some. They just need . . . I mean, as long as I’ve been in finance, people have been rattling on about how banking in Europe was going to consolidate. The industry was finally going to make some money and it was going be able to compete with the US. And then it’s like, you know, some Germans get mad at some Italians, it never happens and the cycle turns again.

Katie Martin
Yeah, it’s like we want consolidation, but no, no, no, no, no. Not like that.

Robert Armstrong
Not like that.

Katie Martin
Anything but that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And I am here for the drama is all I’m saying.

Robert Armstrong
Right on. I love it.

Katie Martin
OK, listeners, we are going to be back in your feed on Tuesday if Rob makes it that long, but listen up anyway, wherever you get your podcasts.

Unhedged is produced by Jake Harper and edited by Bryant Urstadt. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. We had additional help from Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. Special thanks to Laura Clarke, Alastair Mackie, Gretta Cohn and Natalie Sadler. FT premium subscribers can get the Unhedged newsletter for free. A 30-day free trial is available to everyone else. Just go to FT.com/unhedgedoffer. I’m Katie Martin. Thanks for listening.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Republicans in North Carolina and nationally are assessing the potential fallout for former President Donald Trump from a bombshell report alleging that Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the party’s gubernatorial nominee, posted disturbing and inflammatory statements on a forum of a pornographic website.

CNN reported Thursday that Robinson, behind an anonymous username he allegedly used elsewhere, made the comments more than a decade ago, including supporting slavery, calling himself a “black NAZI” and recalling memories of him “peeping” on women in the shower as a 14-year-old.

ABC News has not independently verified the comments were made by Robinson, and he insisted in a video posted to X prior to the story’s publication that “those are not the words of Mark Robinson.”

But Robinson, a Donald Trump ally, already has a history of incendiary remarks about Jews, gay people and others, and elections in North Carolina, one of the nation’s marquee swing states, rest on a knife’s edge, raising questions of how much the latest news will impact his race and other Republicans on the ballot with him — including the former president.

“I think this only heightens the level of toxicity that the Robinson campaign has, and the real question becomes, what’s the radioactive fallout at the top of the ticket along with down the ballot for Republicans here in North Carolina?” asked Michael Bitzer, the Politics Department chair at Catawba College.

“This cannot be something that the voters aren’t going to recognize and probably play more into softening the Republican support. Is it isolated only to Robinson’s campaign, or does it start to impact Trump? Does it impact other statewide executive Republicans as well? We’ll just have to wait and see, but this feels like a pretty significant event in North Carolina politics.”

MORE: Republicans step up effort to change Nebraska’s electoral vote process to benefit Trump

Robinson, who casts himself as a conservative family man and is running for North Carolina’s open governorship against Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein, is already behind in the polls.

While he holds statewide office and has broad name recognition, Robinson boasts a highly controversial record, including calling the Holocaust “hogwash” and homosexuality “filth,” and he drew claims of hypocrisy when he admitted this year that he had paid for his wife to get an abortion, seemingly in contrast with his stated opposition to the procedure, which he’d previously likened to “murder” and “genocide.”

North Carolina’s gubernatorial race is still considered competitive given the state’s tight partisan divide, but Republicans in the state told ABC News they had already viewed him as trailing, and that Thursday’s report won’t help.

“He’s already got a lengthy history of publishing comments like that on the internet. These are perhaps a little more graphic. In terms of does this by itself serve as a guillotine, I don’t know. But it feels like the cumulative weight is starting to add up now,” said one North Carolina GOP strategist. “It flies in the face of everything he presents of himself publicly. So, cumulatively plus the hypocrisy of this, it’s obviously hurtful to him.”

Republicans were more divided on what it means beyond Robinson’s own candidacy.

North Carolina is a must-win state for Trump, and losing it would impose significant pressure on him to perform in other swing states.

Trump is already running ahead of Robinson — while polls show Robinson trailing, they also show a neck-and-neck race in the state between the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris. The main question now is whether the news depresses Republican turnout in a state where even a small nudge in turnout one way or the other can make decide the victor.

“[Robinson] was already toast. The question is if it hurts Trump, something the campaign is very worried about,” said Doug Heye, a veteran GOP strategist with experience working in North Carolina. “It doesn’t directly cost him voters, but his endorsed pick continues to be a big distraction and has no money to drive out the vote.”

“He’s a baby blue anchor around Trump’s chances in the Tar Heel State,” added Trump donor Dan Eberhart. “This is not good news for Trump’s campaign at all.”

Democrats are already seizing on the news to try to connect Robinson to Trump, who has repeatedly praised him, even calling him at one point “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Kamala HQ, an X page that serves as one of the Harris campaign’s rapid response tools, posted a slate of videos featuring Trump speaking positively about Robinson.

“His campaign was toast before this story, so the real impact is on all of the Republicans who have endorsed and campaigned alongside him,” said Bruce Thompson, a North Carolina Democratic fundraiser.

However, Trump has been able to navigate his own headwinds, including felony convictions in New York, questioning Harris’ race and more to remain the leader of his party and a viable presidential candidate, leading some Republicans to doubt that Robinson’s struggles will impact the presidential campaign.

MORE: Uncommitted movement declines to endorse Harris, but encourages against Trump, third-party votes

“Doubt it impacts at all down-ballot,” said Dave Carney, a GOP strategist who chairs a pro-Trump super PAC.

“I don’t think it helps, but it won’t hurt,” added Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary.

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt sounded a confident note, saying in a statement that the former president’s team would “not take our eye off the ball.”

“President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving this country. North Carolina is a vital part of that plan. We are confident that as voters compare the Trump record of a strong economy, low inflation, a secure border, and safe streets, with the failures of Biden-Harris, then President Trump will win the Tarheel State once again,” she said.”

Still, sources familiar with the matter said the Trump campaign was bracing for a story to come out about Robinson and is planning on putting more distance between the former president and the embattled nominee Robinson — but initially did not have plans to call on him to drop out.

“He seems to not be impacted by what’s going on down-ballot underneath him,” the North Carolina Republican strategist said of Trump. “There’s no way it helps him. But does it hurt him? I don’t know, I think that’s an open question.”

Republicans assess potential fallout for Trump from North Carolina bombshell originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

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By Robin Andersen, Nolan Higdon, and Steve Macek

According to a 2022 report by Article 19, an international organization that documents and champions freedom of expression, 80 percent of the world’s population lives with less freedom of expression today than did ten years ago. The eradication of basic freedoms and rights is partly due to the pervasive normalization of censorship. Across media platforms, news outlets, schools, universities, libraries, museums, and public and private spaces, governments, powerful corporations, and influential pressure groups are suppressing freedom of expression and censoring viewpoints deemed to be unpopular or dangerous. Unfortunately, physical assaults, legal restrictions, and retaliation against journalists, students, and faculty alike have become all too common, resulting in the suppression of dissenting voices and, more broadly, the muffling and disappearance of critical information, controversial topics, and alternative narratives from public discourse.

We collaborated with an accomplished group of international scholars and journalists to document this disturbing trend in Censorship, Digital Media and the Global Crackdown on Freedom of Expression (Peter Lang 2024). Our collective work analyzed contemporary and historical methods of censorship and anti-democratic impulses that threaten civil society, human rights, and freedoms of information and expression around the world today. The collection explains how a rising tide of political tyranny coupled with the expansion of corporate power is stifling dissent, online expression, news reporting, political debate, and academic freedom from the United States and Europe to the Global South.

The Assault on Press Freedom

Our volume reveals an epidemic of censorship and attacks on journalists and free speech around the globe. Although completed prior to the horrifying atrocities of October 7, 2023, in Israel, the text provides context for understanding that Israeli violence against Palestinians since October 7, including the murder of journalists, has been decades in the making. This strategy initially took hold with the assassination of the veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American, as she documented Israel’s occupation of Jenin. The world has now witnessed the full flowering of the Israeli-state aggression against Palestinians that led to her murder. To date, Israel has killed more than 100 media workers in Gaza, raising the concern and outrage of numerous press freedom organizations and seventy UN member states that have now called for international investigations into each one of the murders. As the International Federation of Journalists reported, “Killing journalists is a war crime that undermines the most basic human rights.”

Journalists around the globe are repeatedly targeted because their profession, which is protected constitutionally in many nations, exists to draw attention to abuses of power. Thus, it is no surprise that the rise in global censorship has entailed the targeting of journalists with violence, imprisonment, and harassment. In Russia, journalists are jailed and die in custody, as they do in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, and Hong Kong. In Mexico, there are “silenced zones,” controlled by a deadly collaboration between drug gangs and government corruption, where journalists are routinely killed. In 2022, Mexico was the most dangerous country for journalists outside of a war zone.

The assault on press freedom has also been normalized in self-proclaimed democracies such as the United Kingdom, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been imprisoned for more than five years, and in the United States, which has targeted Assange with espionage charges simply for promoting freedom of information. Although US presidents and other national figures often refer to the United States as “the leader of the free world,” the United States now ranks 55th in the world on the Reporters without Borders 2024 World Press Freedom Index.

Repression of Artists and Academics

News outlets and their workers are not the only targets of the current wave of repression. Hollywood has long been shaped—and censored—by government and corporate power. For example, our book includes a chapter on the Pentagon’s long-standing influence on Hollywood, which has resulted in the film industry abandoning production of hundreds of films deemed unacceptable by the military.

In addition to media, educators and academics are increasingly subject to repressive measures that muzzle freedom of information and expression. Scholars and institutions of higher education sometimes produce research that challenges the myths and propaganda perpetuated by those in power. And even when they don’t, autonomy from micromanagement by government authorities and private funders is a prerequisite for the integrity of scholarly research and teaching, which tends to make elites exceedingly nervous. This is why universities and academic freedom are increasingly under siege by autocratic regimes and right-wing activists from Hungary to Brazil and from India to Florida.

Alarmingly, the latest Academic Freedom Index found that more than 45 percent of the world’s population now lives in countries with an almost complete lack of academic freedom (more than at any time since the 1970s). In Brazil, the government of right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro attempted to ban education about gender and sexuality,  slashed budgets for the country’s universities, and threatened to defund the disciplines of philosophy and sociology. In 2018, Hungary’s conservative Fidesz government shut down graduate programs in gender studies, forced the country’s most prestigious university, the Central European University, to relocate to Austria, and sparked months of protests at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest by making unpopular changes to the school’s board of trustees. Something similar happened in Turkey, where, since 2016, the ruling regime has suspended thousands of professors and administrators from their university posts for alleged ties to the outlawed Gülen movement and shut down upwards of 3,000 schools and universities. Meanwhile, in the United States, several Republican-controlled state legislatures have enacted draconian laws prohibiting or severely limiting teaching about race, sexuality, and gender in college classrooms. Under the influence of its arch-conservative governor, Ron DeSantis, Florida eliminated sociology as a core general education course at all of its public universities.

Big Tech Censorship

Censorship is nothing new, but the pervasive influence of the internet and the development of so-called artificial intelligence (AI) have created new, more nefarious opportunities to crack down on freedoms around the globe. So-called smart platforms and tools have created new forms of Big Tech control and content moderation, such as shadowbanning and algorithmic bias. Regimes have set up a form of quid pro quo with tech companies, demanding certain concessions such as removing unfavorable content in exchange for government access to otherwise private information about tech platforms’ users. For example, in the United States, tech companies depend on large government contracts and, as a result, often work with government officials directly and indirectly to censor content. Nor do they block only false or misleading content. Social media platforms have also been found to censor perfectly valid scientific speculation about the possible origin of COVID-19 and instances of obvious political satire.

These restrictive practices are at odds with Big Tech PR campaigns that trumpet the platforms’ capacity to empower users. Despite this hype, critical examination reveals that privately controlled platforms seldom function as spaces where genuine freedom of information and intellectual exchange flourish. In reality, Big Tech works with numerous national regimes to extend existing forms of control over citizens’ behaviors and expression into the digital realm. People are not ignorant of these abuses and have taken action to promote freedom across the globe. However, they have largely been met by more censorship. For example, as social media users took to TikTok to challenge US and Israeli messaging on Gaza, the US government took steps to ban the platform. Relatedly, Israel raided Al Jazeera’s office in East Jerusalem, confiscated its equipment, shuttered its office, and closed down its website.

Our book also details the complex history and structures of censorship in Myanmar, Uganda, and the Philippines, and popular resistance to this oppression. To this catalog of examples, we can add India’s periodic internet shutdowns aimed at stifling protests by farmers, the blocking of websites in Egypt, and the right-wing strongman Jair Bolsonaro’s persecution of journalists in Brazil. Each of these cases is best understood as a direct result of a rise in faux populist, right-wing authoritarian politicians and political movements, whose popularity has been fostered by reactionary responses to decades of neo-liberal rule.

What Is to Be Done? 

Censorship is being driven not only by governments but also by an array of political and corporate actors across the ideological spectrum, from right-wing autocrats and MAGA activists to Big Tech oligarchs and self-professed liberals. Indeed, when it comes to censorship, a focus on any one country’s ideology, set of practices, or justifications for restricting expression risks missing the forest for the trees. The global community is best served when we collectively reject all attempts to suppress basic freedoms, regardless of where they emerge or how they are implemented.

To counter increasing restrictions on public discourse and the muzzling of activists, journalists, artists, and scholars, we need global agreements that protect press freedom, the right to protest, and accountability for attacks on journalists. Protection of freedom of expression and the press should be a central plank of US foreign policy. We need aggressive antitrust enforcement to break up giant media companies that today wield the power to unilaterally control what the public sees, hears, and reads. We also need to create awareness and public knowledge to help pass legislation, such as the PRESS Act, that will guarantee journalists’ right to protect their sources’ confidentiality and prevent authorities from collecting information about their activities from third parties like phone companies and internet service providers.

Moreover, widespread surveillance by social media platforms and search engines, supposedly necessary to improve efficiency and convenience, ought to be abandoned. All of us should have the right to control any non-newsworthy personal data that websites and apps have gathered about us and to ask that such data be deleted, a right that Californians will enjoy starting in 2026.

In addition, we should all support the efforts of organizations such as the American Association of University Professors, Article 19, and many others to fight back against encroachments on academic and intellectual freedom.

Supporters of free expression should also vigilantly oppose the ideologically motivated content moderation schemes Big Tech companies so often impose on their users.

Rather than trusting Big Tech to curate our news feeds, or putting faith in laws that would attempt to criminalize misinformation, we need greater investment in media literacy education, including education about the central importance of expressive rights and vigorous, open debate to a functioning democracy. The era of the internet and AI demonstrates the urgent need for education and fundamental knowledge in critical media literacy to ensure that everyone has the necessary skills to act as digital citizens, capable of understanding and evaluating the media we consume.

Steven Everts makes numerous important and laudable points on the need for the EU to seriously recalibrate both its capacities and posture in foreign policy (Opinion, September 12).

It’s worth adding that in a foreign policy area on the bloc’s very borders, the EU has led the west into a dead end of failure, in which official pronouncements have never been more at variance with the on-the-ground reality.

The western Balkans is the only region in which the US consistently defers to a democratic partner’s leadership — that of the EU.

Nowhere else does the west, if united, wield greater leverage or have a wider array of policy instruments. Yet for far too long, the EU has addressed the region almost solely through its enlargement process, neglecting its foreign policy commitments — including a deterrent force in Bosnia and Herzegovina mandated by the Dayton Peace Agreement and authorised under Chapter 7 by the UN Security Council.

This force remains well below the brigade-strength required to pose a credible deterrent to threats to the peace and territorial integrity. In addition, the EU states it will support local authorities, who have primary responsibility to maintain a secure environment — defying the reason the mandate exists to begin with: namely to thwart attempts by local authorities to upend the peace.

The desire to maintain the fiction that the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue is still alive compels the EU into all sorts

of contortions which in effect reward Serbia, despite allegations of Serbian involvement in recent violence, and periodic (and ongoing) threats of invasion. By straying from its original declared purpose to achieve mutual recognition between Serbia and Kosovo, as well as serving as a shield for Serbia’s authoritarian president, Aleksandar Vučić, the dialogue serves as a diversion from genuine problem- solving.

Incoming EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has demonstrated leadership and vision for Europe and the wider west as Estonia’s prime minister, particularly with regard to the response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

One hopes she will undertake the overdue task of making the policies of the EU and the wider west more consistent with the values of democracy and human dignity we proclaim to hold dear. She can begin by leading the west to a restoration of credible deterrence in the Balkans, and start to counter the backsliding of democracy long visible there.

Kurt Bassuener
Co-Founder and Senior Associate, Democratization Policy Council, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

It’s early summer in Moldova, and the cherries are already ripe. Fellow journalist Marian Männi and I pick and pop them into our mouths as we follow our chosen tour guide up a hill. We are exploring Old Orhei, a famous Moldovan landmark and archaeological site. It consists of three villages: Trebujeni to the north, Butuceni to the west and Morovaia to the east. The area is built on a green field, and the Răut River runs through it.

Following the guide’s lead, we climb a hill to find one of many cave monasteries. This one is rather hidden, so most tourists miss it entirely. 

My guide showcases a cave monastery above the Răut River, where tourists rarely find their way. Author’s photo.

A picture from the inside of the cave looking out. Author’s photo.

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The surrounding area is an unusual sight. The sloping bank of the Răut River emerges from a perfectly flat field, looking almost man-made. However, it is a natural reminder of how landscapes evolve. You can find perfect seashells on the limestone bank in a country with no coastline, much like on a sandy beach. Millions of years ago, the Răut River was part of the ancient Sarmatian Sea, just like the lands of today’s Moldova.

Scenic views of Old Orhei. One can barely see the river under the hill. Author’s photo.

My guide, Professor Sergiu Musteață, knows this site incredibly well. He is a renowned historian from Moldova and a professor at the Faculty of Philology and History at “Ion Creangă” State Pedagogical University. He has worked to educate locals about the history of Old Orhei and how to develop tourism businesses. He has also guided them in creating guesthouses and writing proposals for funding to build flushing toilets in their homes.

Old Orhei has been one of the main subjects of his research since 1996. “I know everyone in Orheiul Vechi [the Romanian version of the name]!” he laughs. He also knows all of the approximately 300 caves in the area and has personally researched many of them.

Professor Sergiu Musteață says that people working in Moldovan tourism need to understand that the basis of it is history and heritage. Author’s photo.

A scenic journey through unknown sites

Musteață leads us along a hidden path lined with cherry trees from an old student’s base. Researchers have been excavating this area for decades, as the unique landscape reveals layers of settlements dating back to prehistoric times.

“When we come here with students, we usually clean the neighborhood and cut the grass first,” Musteață says, pushing branches away from the path. If only tourists knew about this shortcut hidden in nature.

Professor Musteață peers through a rustic gate. Author’s photo.

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“We have organized 20 years of summer camps for the locals during the excavations, including summer schools for local kids. Lots of students, both locals and internationals, participated!” he states emphatically.

Despite many efforts, only a few locals have made a name for themselves in the tourism sector. “I don’t know why. There is not so much interest. It should be the most prominent place among tourists,” Musteață comments.

Unlike other visitors, we walk past the Peștera cave monastery, the main tourist attraction of Old Orhei. The current underground tunnels date back to 1820. However, the caves in these limestone hills have existed since the 14th century. Orthodox monks found solitude and a place for spiritual retreat in this isolation.

“There is another cave monastery here. Locals know about it, but only a few tourists will visit it,” says Musteață. This is where we are heading.

We walk past the Peștera cave monastery and head off-road to find another lesser-known monastery. Author’s photo.

We walk on the bank, passing through the Church of Ascension of St. Mary. The view of the valley and fields is breathtaking. Turning left, the professor leads us onto an almost unrecognizable road downhill from the bank. Our slippers aren’t ideal footwear for this leg of the journey, but nevertheless, we climb down the limestone bank to a land of grazing cows.

Musteață guides us onto a new path, leading down the limestone bank. Author’s photo.

After walking, we climb again to another obscure cave monastery of Old Orhei, built above the Răut’s waters. There isn’t a single soul up here now, but historically, monks isolated themselves in this cave. As a result, the monastery is covered in signs of human habitation.

The church’s facade is engraved with Slavonian writing: “This church was built by the slave of Bosie, pircalab (Chief Magistrate) of Orhei, together with his wife and his children, to cherish God, to forgive his sins.”

The professor shows us around. We see where the monks would sleep and where they built their fireplace. All the caves are in remarkably good shape, with few signs of dripping rocks.

We view the monastery’s exterior, which has endured for centuries. Author’s photo.

This structure often goes unexplored by tourists. “It’s a bit too far and difficult to access. That’s why people don’t know much about it and wouldn’t end up here,” Musteață explains.

Musteață teaches us about the monastery. Author’s photo.

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On the whole, Old Orhei is a fascinating, history site. And its antiquity is richer than one might expect.

Mankind has loved this region since ancient times

The surroundings have been populated since the Paleolithic era due to good location — the river protects Old Orhei from three sides. The land is suitable for agriculture and flowing water is nearby.

Archaeological findings suggest that the Getians built some fortresses and settlements in this region during the 4th to 3rd centuries BCE, taking advantage of the natural fortifications provided by the rocky outcroppings and riverbanks.

In the 14th century CE, Old Orhei became part of the medieval state of Moldova (Țara Moldovei) after the collapse of the Golden Horde, a Mongol-Tatar state that controlled this territory as well.

After the Tatar period in the 12th to 14th centuries, an Orthodox Christian community developed during medieval times. Political stability and the protective embrace of nature made Old Orhei an important center. Moldovan hero and ruler Stephen the Great, whose rule lasted from 1457 to 1504, appointed his uncle, Peter III Aaron, to rule there. The area was fortified with strong defensive walls and towers.

Life in Old Orhei slowly faded in the 17th century. The administration moved to neighboring New Orhei, and gradually, the monastic community began to disappear. The last monks are believed to have left Old Orhei at the beginning of the 19th century. By this time, many monastic communities in the region faced significant challenges due to political changes, invasions and pressures from the expanding Ottoman Empire. The decline in monastic life at Old Orhei was part of a broader trend affecting many religious sites in the region.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new Virgin Mary Church was built atop the bank near a cave monastery to revitalize the area’s spiritual significance. It serves as a symbol of Old Orhei’s continued religious heritage, even after the original monastic community dispersed.

Though the region’s religiosity remains, Old Orhei’s authenticity, unfortunately, has recently declined.

The loss of authenticity in a historic land

Many historical sites in Old Orhei face the problem of random preservation efforts, which are not concerned with preserving the site’s authentic look.

In 2023, the road from Butuceni village in the Cultural-Natural Reserve was asphalted, which led to an investigation by the Ministry of Culture. It ruined the village’s authenticity but gave locals more logistical freedom.

Climbing on the bank, we notice a brand-new red-roofed dwelling that, from a logical viewpoint, should not have been built in the reserve. But there it is, like the newly constructed path to the Peștera cave monastery and the asphalted road in Butuceni village.

This modern tampering is one thing preventing Moldova from having its first United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

“There is too much industrialization in a place where authenticity is worshiped,” Musteață laments. The Old Orhei Reserve has been on the UNESCO tentative list for years but is not moving forward any time soon. “I don’t think there is much hope at the moment,” Musteață admits honestly.

The situation saddens him. He and other researchers have worked for years to put this site on the world map as a part of humanity’s historical cradle, to no avail.

“The landscape and the density of settlements since prehistory is special. You can see the changes in this part of the world, moving from East to West. The Golden Horde, the Islamic period, Christians — there is a huge variety of artifacts describing how people lived in this area,” Musteață explains.

Life has moved on from this relic. The Orthodox Church still holds significant power in the small country of Moldova, but only traces of the glory the church once had in Old Orhei remain. In the 1940s, the Soviet Union started excavations in the region, which also disrupted the old sites; they built a new road through the Golden Horde citadel and cut it in half.

“A historic road should go around the citadel. It’s completely doable,” Musteață says.

The professor feels that many of Moldova’s stories remain untold, even that of such a landmark as Old Orhei. “It is frustrating. We need to tell our story!” Musteață suggests.

He thinks the country itself should put Orhei at the top of the list of tourist destinations in Moldova. After all, it’s the most important tourist site in the country. “It should be declared a state priority, a national strategy,” he says. “People working in this field in Moldova need to understand that the basis of tourism is history and heritage.”

That is another reason why Moldova’s Old Orhei is not on the UNESCO list. “Our country overall is underrepresented,” Musteață believes.

According to UNESCO, the organization is not in a position to comment on what is missing for Old Orhei to receive its World Heritage Site title. Moldova first proposed the area as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 but withdrew its nomination the following year.

In September 2015, Moldova submitted a new version of the nomination dossier as “Orheiul Vechi Archaeological Landscape,” a cultural site. Following the evaluation process and a recommendation by the International Council on Monuments and Sites, Moldova withdrew the nomination again.

Luckily, Moldova appears on the UNESCO list as part of a group of countries with the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of survey triangulations spanning ten countries and over 2,820 kilometers. This chain reaches from the world’s northernmost city — Hammerfest, Norway — to the Black Sea. The listed site includes 34 points across all ten countries, one of which is in Moldova. The country is eager to earn its very own World Heritage Site title, even if it isn’t Old Orhei.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.