The latest book by linguist Steven Pinker, When everyone knows that everyone knows...Published in Spanish by Paidós, this book deals with common knowledge, the cognitive system that allows us to be aware of what others know. That is, what we know everyone knows. These are the kinds of mental faculties that allow us to navigate life as couples, families, in society, and as citizens. Without an awareness of what we think and what we know others think, it is impossible to share a common space, impossible to live with others. It is necessary to establish tacit consensus, norms we follow even before they are codified in law. This is why common knowledge becomes an essential vector of freedom of expression, academic freedom, and freedom of thought.

A cartoon that appeared in the Russian press shows a billboard with a caricature of Vladimir Putin and the text "He brought us back from the 90s." At its base, a man asks another, "Where did you get that? Does he look for people?" His interlocutor replies, "I'll show you on the map," and unfolds a huge map of Moscow. Walking through the Russian capital these days is like stepping back in time and, at the same time, contemplating a science fiction set. On March 5, the authorities blocked mobile internet in the city's central districts, and more than a week later, the network is still failing. The Kremlin justifies this action as being for "security reasons," but activists warn that this is just one more step toward Russia's inevitable disconnection from the global internet.

On Monday, in the evening edition of Telediario on La 1, the correspondent in Jerusalem, Marc Campdelacreu, explained how the warlike conflict was affecting how journalists reported: “Israel and Iran have been monitoring what we film and what we report from day one. And not only for the impact on public opinion or their populations, but also to avoid showing their weaknesses to rivals”. In a subsequent report, he explained how this battle for the narrative affected the press: he revealed that on February 28, international journalists in the area received mobile messages from the Israeli military censorship department, detailing the limits of what they could report. Campdelacreu explained how those conditions affected, for example, what the camera could show at that exact moment. He then specified some of these limitations, which had to do with the impact of missiles, the buildings that could be shown, and the identification of anti-aircraft batteries. The correspondent explained that there is even an official department that could review their footage, and pointed out the consequences of not respecting the rules: the army could withdraw their accreditation to work, cancel their visas, and even expel them from the country. Furthermore, he explained that in Iran they always had to work accompanied by a professional, a fixer, authorized by the Iranian regime. And this implied a loss of freedom when moving around, the impossibility of broadcasting live from the street, and the requirement to only show demonstrations that supported the regime.This journalistic context is relevant for understanding the working conditions of correspondents and, above all, to remind us that this situation forces us, as spectators, to read the reports that reach us from there more attentively and between the lines.Last week, however, we noted that sometimes information control can be exercised in another way. In the regrettable program Horizonte, on Cuatro, hosted by Iker Jiménez, they connected with Mediaset correspondent Laura de Chiclana, who explained how in some neighborhoods of Haifa not all the population had access to shelters, especially Arab citizens. It was not the first time a media outlet had reported on this reality, but nevertheless, something unusual happened. The co-presenter, Carmen Porter, discredited the correspondent live and corrected her, saying she had just received a correction on her mobile “from the Jewish community” denying what the journalist had explained and calling her report rumor and disinformation. The program even removed Laura de Chiclana's report from its digital platform. It is one thing to want to guarantee the veracity of information or to verify it, and another is to appeal on the fly to anonymous and very undefined sources to belittle the version of a journalist who was working on the ground and relying on testimonies.

Gabriel Janer Manila He has reached the age of 85 with a brand new book fresh off the press, Gallery of Solitudes (New Moll Publishing House, 2025), and several projects in mind. The career of the Mallorcan writer, born in Algaida on November 1, 1940, has been one of the most prolific and recognized of his generation, and he has received awards such as the Josep Pla Prize (in 1971 with The alicorns), the San Juan (The rivers of Babylon, 1984), Charlemagne (The Burned Gardens, 1997) and Ramon Llull (Tigers, 2007).

"To those corporations, advertisers, universities, and law firms who still think kowtowing to Trump will save them, I have one thing to say: Fuck you!" The late show with Stephen Colbert, a decision announced a week ago. As if their position wasn't clear enough, a gospel heartbeat kept repeating "Fuck us!" The comedians and talk show hosts late shows They have been at war with Trump for some time, but Paramount's yielding to the US president's judicial pressure has raised the temperature. The Daily ShowStewart's show, "Colbert," airs on Comedy Central, which is owned by the very media group currently under fire. "This is not the time to give in. I'm not giving in. I'm not going anywhere... I think!" the comedian concluded, raising the question of whether Colbert's show is just the first of many to succumb to Trumpist harassment.

I was educated successively in a school run by nuns, one run by priests, and one run by the Opus Dei. In other words, I was educated in the principles of the Catholic religion. The result of so many years of Catholic education was a self-possessed atheism that revealed itself in me while I was still sharing a desk at the school run by the "work of God." And I remain so more than 50 years later.

Power doesn't usually like uncomfortable questions or being challenged. From the moment writing was born, works have been censored, banned, or condemned to the stake. This isn't just a legacy of the past. In 2024, more than 10,000 books were banned from public libraries and academies in the United States. We've compiled a selection of books that have been banned, stretching from Ancient Greece to the 21st century. Naturally, this is just a very small sample of the books that have been ostracized for political, ideological, or moral reasons.

Last Tuesday, Rumeysa Otzurk, a Turkish student, was detained on the street by plainclothes U.S. federal agents, who handcuffed her on the spot and put her in an unmarked police car. Her "crime" was co-authoring an article critical of Israel in the university newspaper.

In a very short time, we have witnessed the controversies generated on social networks by the transsexual actress Karla García Gascón and by the writer JK Rowling (referring, precisely, to political issues related to transsexuality). This is not the subject of this article, however. Following these two cases, I would like to explore a problematic and even uncomfortable point, which is the possibility of information control in a technological context such as the current one and within the framework of a democratic society. The social standardization of new technologies is not serving, in general terms, to strengthen the democratic project, but quite the opposite. Pseudoscientific ideas or political proposals openly hostile to democratic principles are in full swing. With a simple mobile phone in hand, anyone can spread large-scale nonsense that will reach millions of people instantly. What is the underlying problem? The democratic system is unviable in the long term with the growing expansion of ideas and attitudes such as those described, but it is also unviable with the sustained control of opinion, that is, with what has always been called censorship. Some believe that the only way to neutralize this risk is to update censorship, that is, to readjust the repressive mechanisms of the state to the new technological scenario. In my opinion, this is going back a long way and, furthermore, it is contradictory: restricting democracy in the name of democracy does not seem like a good idea.