Censor Watch

Rapid changes in technology, viewing habits and the emergence of global media giants have brought new challenges for UK broadcasters. More people are watching programmes on their phones, laptops, tablets, games consoles and on smart TVs. Competition for viewers and advertising revenue has intensified.

According to Ofcom, the share of total viewing for 'linear' TV channels such as ITV and the BBC fell by more than ten per cent between 2017 and 2020. The share for subscription video-on-demand services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video rose from 6% to 19% over the same period.

Proposals include measures to protect audiences from a wider range of harmful material - such as unchallenged health claims - while watching programmes on video-on-demand services (VoDs). These services will be brought under UK jurisdiction and subject to a Video-on-Demand Code similar to the Broadcasting Code, enforced by Ofcom. Fines for breaches could be up to £250,000 or five per cent of annual turnover.

Requiring it to continue to meet the obligations placed on PSBs, the government will move ahead with plans to move Channel 4 out of public ownership to become a privately-owned public service broadcaster like ITV and Channel 5.

The government intends to legislate as soon as the parliamentary timetable allows.

Regulation of video-on-demand services

Ofcom estimates three in four UK households use a subscription video-on-demand (VoD) service. But services like Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video are not regulated in the UK to the same extent as UK linear TV channels. Netflix and Apple TV+ are not regulated in the UK at all.

Except for BBC iPlayer, on-demand services are not subject to Ofcom's Broadcasting Code which sets standards for content including harmful or offensive material, accuracy, fairness and privacy. There are some protections for under-18s but minimal rules exist to protect audiences from, for example, misleading health advice or pseudoscience documentaries.

The government will give Ofcom powers to draft and enforce a new Video-on-Demand Code, similar to the Broadcasting Code and in line with its standards, to make sure VoD services, which target and profit from UK audiences, are subject to stricter rules protecting UK audiences from harmful material. This will primarily be aimed at larger 'TV-like' video-on-demand services such as Netflix, ITV Hub and NOW TV and level the rules between VoD services and traditional broadcasters.

UK viewers will be given new powers to complain to Ofcom if they see something concerning and will be better protected from harmful material. Ofcom will be given a strengthened duty to assess on-demand providers' audience protection measures such as age ratings and viewer guidance, with powers to force changes if necessary.

The maximum fine for regulated VoD services will be £250,000 or an amount up to five per cent of an organisation's revenue, whichever is higher.

Offsite comment: We don't need to be protected from Netflix

30th April 2022. See article from spiked-online.com by Matthew Lesh

Courts and legislatures around the globe are hotly debating to what degree online intermediaries--the chain of entities that facilitate or support speech on the internet--are liable for the content they help publish. One thing they should not be doing is holding social media users legally responsible for comments posted by others to their social media feeds, EFF and Media Defence told the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

Before the court is the case Sanchez v. France , in which a politician argued that his right to freedom of expression was violated when he was subjected to a criminal fine for not promptly deleting hateful comments posted on the "wall" of his Facebook account by others. The ECtHR's Chamber, a judicial body that hears most of its cases, found there was no violation of freedom of expression, extending its rules for online intermediaries to social media users. The politician is seeking review of this decision by ECtHR's Grand Chamber, which only hears its most serious cases.

EFF and Media Defence, in an amicus brief submitted to the Grand Chamber, asked it to revisit the Chamber's expansive interpretation of how intermediary liability rules should apply to social media users. Imposing liability on them for third-party content will discourage social media users, especially journalists, human rights defenders, civil society actors, and political figures, from using social media platforms, as they are often targeted by governments seeking to suppress speech. Subjecting these users to liability would make them vulnerable to coordinated attacks on their sites and pages meant to trigger liability and removal of speech, we told the court.

Further, ECtHR's current case law does not support and should not apply to social media users who act as intermediaries, we said. The ECtHR laid out its intermediary liability rules in Delfi A.S. v. Estonia , which concerned the failure of a commercial news media organization to monitor and promptly delete "clearly unlawful" comments online. The ECtHR rules consider whether the third-party commenters can be identified, and whether they have any control over their comments once they submit them.

In stark contrast, Sanchez concerns the liability of an individual internet user engaged in non-commercial activity. The politician was charged with incitement to hatred or violence against a group of people or an individual on account of their religion based on comments others posted on his Facebook wall. The people who posted the comments were convicted of the same criminal offence, and one of them later deleted the allegedly unlawful comments.

What's more, the decision about what online content is "clearly unlawful" is not always straightforward, and generally courts are best placed to assess the lawfulness of the online content. While social media users may be held responsible for failing or refusing to comply with a court order compelling them to remove or block information, they should not be required to monitor content on their accounts to avoid liability, nor should they be held liable simply when they get notified of allegedly unlawful speech on their social media feeds by any method other than a court order. Imposing liability on an individual user, without a court order, to remove the allegedly unlawful content in question will be disproportionate, we argued.

Finally, the Grand Chamber should decide whether imposing criminal liability for third party content violates the right to freedom of expression, given the peculiar circumstances in this case. Both the applicant and the commenters were convicted of the same offence a decade ago. EFF and Media Defence asked the Grand Chamber to assess the quality of the decades-old laws--one dating back to 1881--under which the politician was convicted, saying criminal laws should be adapted to meet new circumstances, but these changes must be precise and unambiguous to enable someone to foresee what conduct would violate the law.

Subjecting social media users to criminal responsibility for third-party content will lead to over-censorship and prior restraint. The Grand Chamber should limit online intermediary liability, and not chill social media users' right to free expression and access to information online.

You can read our amicus brief here:
https://www.eff.org/document/sanchez-v-france-eff-media-defence-ecthr-brief

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has agreed terms to buy teh social media platform Twitter. He has outlined a change of direction from the usual social media censorship saying that he favours a more free speech approach. He explained:

Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.

Musk has made free speech the main focal point of his Twitter takeover bid. In his initial offer, Musk described free speech as a societal imperative for a functioning democracy and said Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company because it won't serve this societal imperative in its current form.

In interviews, Musk has hinted that some of the Twitter changes he wants to make include having timeouts instead of permanent bans, making the boosting and suppression of tweets transparent to users, and open-sourcing the algorithm. He's also vowed to defeat the spam bots or die trying! He said furerth:

My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I don't care about the economics at all.

I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a 2022 USA action Sci-Fi horror by Sam Raimi
Starring Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams and Benedict Cumberbatch

Banned in Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia in April 2022

Middle East film censors have banned the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness over the inclusion of an openly gay character.  Although the censors have not provided any reasons for banning the film's release, it's the latest Marvel movie to fall victim to state-sponsored censorship to constrain certain civil liberties and human rights norms, including the expression of a LGBTQIA+ lifestyle. By including an openly LGBTQ+ character in its film , America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), the Marvel film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has been banned in Saudi Arabia, as well as Qatar and Kuwait .

Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange 2 introduce's a gay character, America Chavez. America was the first lesbian Latina in Marvel Comics, debuting in 2011's Vengeance #1.

It is reported that the America Chavez character plays a major role in the film and it seems unlikely that the Middle East release can be aved via cuts,

Summary Notes

After the events of Avengers: Endgame, Dr. Stephen Strange continues his research on the Time Stone. But an old friend turned enemy seeks to destroy every sorcerer on Earth, messing with Strange's plan and also causing him to unleash an unspeakable evil.

  Carry On Loving is a 1970 UK comedy romance by Gerald Thomas
Starring Sidney James, Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey    

BBFC cuts were required for an 'A' rated cinema release in 1970. The same cut version was released on home video with a PG rating.

Summary Notes

The Wedded Bliss computer dating agency aims to bring together the lonely hearts of Much Snogging on-the-Green. Its owner, Sidney Bliss, has enough complications in his own love life, but still produces a pamphlet called "The Wit to Woo". The strange collection of hopefuls lead to some outlandish matches, and jealousies are bound to lead to trouble.

Versions

category cuts run: 89:39s pal: 86:04s

UK: The cut cinems version was passed PG uncut: 2003 Carlton/ITV (R2) DVD at UK Amazon 1987 Futurevision VHS UK: Passed A (PG) after BBFC category cuts 1970 cinema release Thanks to Vince. The BBFC cuts list required the removal of the dialogue lines "You can't do much with your little finger" (from an exchange between Sid and Terry) "You know, putting it in, the meat" (which lost the last two words from Jenny's description of her job as a sausage packer to Sally). "You can't do much with your little finger." cry of "I can feel it.""I can feel it."

So what will porn users do should their favourite porn site succumb to age verification. Will they decide to use a VPN, or else try Tor, or perhaps exchange porn with their friends, or perhaps their will be an opportunity for a black market to spring up. Another option would be to seek out lesser known foreign porn sites that van fly under the radar.

All of these options seem more likely than users dangerously handing over identity documents to any porn website that asks.

According to a new survey from YouGov, 78% of the 2,000 adults surveyed would not be willing to verify their age to access adult websites by uploading a document linked to their identity such as a driver's license, passport or other ID card.

Of the participants who believe that visiting adult websites can be part of a healthy sexual lifestyle, just 17% are willing to upload their ID.

The main reasons for their decisions were analysed. 64% just don't trust the companies to keep their data safe while 63% are scared their information could end up in the wrong hands. 49% are concerned about adult websites suffering data breaches which could expose their personal information.

Director of the privacy campaigner Open Rights Group, Jim Killock explained in a press release that those who want to access adult websites anonymously will just use a VPN if the UK's Online Safety legislation passes, saying:

The government assumes that people will actually upload their ID to access adult content. The data shows that this is a naive assumption. Instead, adults will simply use a VPN (as many already do) to avoid the step, or they'll go to smaller, unmoderated sites which exist outside the law. Smaller adult sites tend to be harder to regulate and could potentially expose users204including minors204to more extreme or illegal content.

RimWorld is a 2018 Canadian building simulation game by Ludeon Studios.

It was banned by the Australian 'Classification' Board on 28th February 2022. It has now been unbanned and passed R18+ after a successful appeal to the Classification Review Board on 20th April 2022. The appeal board explains:

A four-member panel of the Classification Renew Board has unanimously determined that the computer game, RimWorld is classified R (Reseicted) with Ihe consumer advice: High impact themes and drug use.

In the Classification Renew Board's opinion RimWorld warrants an R18+ classification because the themes and drug use have a high impact The overall impact of the classifiable elements in the game was high. The Review Board also considered the appeal of the game to be skewed to an adult audience

The game includes fantasy drug use, but in the Renew Board's opinion, the game mechanic ultimately provides disincentives related to drug taking behaviour, to the point where regular drug use leads to negative consequences such as overdose, addiction, and withdrawal. Players may choose for colonist pawns to consume drugs in certain scenarios, but this greatly hinders player progress, as characters succumb to addiction and must deal with long-term negative impacts of their drug use The drug use is depicted at a distance through a top-down perspective, in a highly stylised simplified, form The game also contains high impact themes that are Justified by context of surviving in an inhospitable fantasy world.

The European Union is nearing a conclusion to internet censorship legislation that would force Facebook, YouTube and other internet services to censor 'misinformation', disclose how their services algorithms and stop targeting online ads based on a person's ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

The law, called the Digital Services Act, is intended to more aggressively police social media platforms for content deemed unacceptable or risk billions of dollars in fines. Tech companies would be compelled to set up new policies and procedures to remove flagged hate speech, terrorist propaganda and other material defined as illegal by countries within the European Union.

The Digital Services Act is part of a one-two punch by the European Union to address the societal and economic effects of the tech giants. Last month, the 27-nation bloc agreed to a different sweeping law, the Digital Markets Act, to counter what regulators see as anticompetitive behavior by the biggest tech firms, including their grip over app stores, online advertising and internet shopping.

The new law is ambitious but the EU is noted for producing crap legislation that doesn't work in practice. Lack of enforcement of the European Union's data privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation, or G.D.P.R., has cast a shadow over the new law. Like the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, G.D.P.R. was hailed as landmark legislation. But since it took effect in 2018, there has been little action against Facebook, Google and others over their data-collection practices. Many have sidestepped the rules by bombarding users with consent windows on their websites.

A man who made a video of a model of Grenfell Tower being burned and said That's what happens when you don't pay the rent has ended up with a suspended jail sentence.

Paul Bussetti pleaded guilty to one count of sending a grossly offensive video when he appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring said he was 'horrified' when he saw the film, and sentenced Bussetti to 10 weeks in jail, suspended for two years. He said:

It was disgusting, it was disrespectful, it was abhorrent and it was - by the nature of the charge - grossly offensive.

What struck me was not one person at that party seemed remotely upset or outraged or embarrassed by the racist remarks.

Bussetti was previously found not guilty after a two-day trial but the acquittal was quashed by the High Court.

He filmed the footage at an annual bonfire party hosted by a friend in November 2018. He didn't post the video himself but shared it in WhatsApp groups.

 

Offsite Comment: The Grenfell effigy and the fall of liberal Britain

See article from spiked-online.com by Tom Slater

In 21st-century Britain, offensive jokes can land you in prison.

Apple is set to roll out a snooping feature that scans messages for nudity to UK iPhones.

The feature uses AI technology to scan incoming and outgoing messages.

For the moment it is otional and allows parents to turn on warnings for their children's iPhones. When enabled, all photos sent or received by the child using the Messages app will be scanned for nudity.

If nudity is found in photos received by a child with the setting turned on, the photo will be blurred, and the child will be warned that it may contain sensitive content and nudged towards resources from child safety groups. If nudity is found in photos sent by a child, similar protections kick in, and the child is encouraged not to send the images, and given an option to Message a Grown-Up.

All the scanning is carried out on-device, meaning that the images are analysed by the iPhone itself, and Apple never sees either the photos being analysed or the results of the analysis, it said.

As originally announced in summer 2021, the communication safety in Messages and the search warnings were part of a trio of features that proved extremely contentious, and Apple delayed the launch of all three while it negotiated with privacy and child safety groups.

Of course having implemented the feature as an option it won't be long before it becomes an option that can be turned on by law enforcement in the name of seeking out terrorists, racists, anti-vaxers etc

Two weeks prior to the French presidential election, President Emanuel Macron reopened the debate on ending online anonymity. The president is open to the idea of dismantling foreign platforms if they do not require users to verify their identity before they can post. Macron told Le Point last week:

In a democratic society, there should be no anonymity. You can't walk around in the street wearing a hood. On the Internet, people allow themselves, because they are hooded behind a pseudonym, to say the worst abjections.

Macron began his campaign against online anonymity in January 2019, saying it was time to move towards a gradual lifting of all forms of anonymity.

In the latest interview, Macron attacked US Big Tech platforms, claiming:

They come to use our ancient or post-revolutionary freedoms to divert from their essence.

We need to create a public order, like in the street. This is not the state of nature. On social media networks, you can kill reputations, spread false news, drive people to suicide.

Macron hopes that the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act will be a solution to the problem of online anonymity and Big Tech antitrust practices.

Scraping is a term used to describe the automated use of the html page data which is downloaded by a browser and then used to diplay a web page. Perhaps the most obvious example is to select a section of text on a web page and use copy and paste to insert the text into another place.

The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals may have set an important precedent in the tech world. The court has essentially concluded that Data Scraping is not hacking. Hence, it might not be illegal to scrape data from websites, and social media platforms, unless there are defensive technologies in place.

After listening to the arguments in a case that involved Microsoft-owned LinkedIn and competitor hiQ Labs, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that scraping publicly available data does not constitute a federal crime. The case dates back to 2017 which LinkedIn had filed against hiQ Labs. The social media platform for professionals had objected to its data being scraped.

LinkedIn essentially wanted hiQ Labs to immediately cease scraping public data from the social networking site. During the first trial, the court sided with hiQ Labs, noting that LinkedIn couldn't invoke federal hacking laws to stop the practice. The court opinioned that hiQ Labs' behavior didn't seem to violate any laws, and hence, the company's actions could not be classified as a crime.

A defining feature of public websites is that their publicly available sections lack limitations on access; instead those sections are open to anyone with a web browser. In other words, applying the gates analogy to a computer hosting publicly available webpages, that computer has erected no gates to lift or lower in the first place. Simply put, had LinkedIn deployed mechanisms to prevent data from being scraped, hiQ Labs would have been in the wrong. However, since there were no restrictions, LinkedIn's insistence that hiQ Labs must cease its practice doesn't have any merit.

Repressive new censorship laws return to Parliament for their second reading this week.

Online censorship legislation will be debated in the Commons Comes as new plans to support some people and fight  deemed falsities online are launched Funding boost will help people's critical thinking online through a new expert Media Literacy Taskforce alongside proposals to pay for training for teachers and library workers

Parliamentarians will debate the government's groundbreaking Online Censorship Bill which requires social media platforms, search engines and other apps and websites allowing people to post content to censor 'wrong think' content.

Ofcom, the official state censor, will have the power to fine companies failing to comply with the laws up to ten per cent of their annual global turnover, force them to improve their practices and block non-compliant sites. Crucially, the laws have strong measures to safeguard children from harmful content such as pornography and child sexual abuse.

There is a scene in Censor (2021) where the protagonist is able to talk the stereotypical owner of a sleazy video shop into selling her a banned, under the counter horror video with the word cannibal in the title, all during the space of one visit to the shop. This is beyond idiotic, as well as laughably inaccurate to anyone who lived through that period. The reality is that the Video Nasty furore had left an atmosphere of fear and distrust among those who kept the outlawed material around.

...Read the full article from gavcrimson.blogspot.com

Note that Facebook totally blocked this link from being included in a Facbook post citing some ludicrously overwrought claims of omething along the lines of 'moral turpitude'.

Benedetta is a 2021 France/Belgium/Netherlands historical romance by Paul Verhoeven
Starring Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling and Daphne Patakia  

A 17th-century nun in Italy suffers from disturbing religious and erotic visions. She is assisted by a companion, and the relationship between the two women develops into a romantic love affair.

A lesbian nun thriller that features a sex scene that has been slammed by Catholic groups who have claimed it as appalling and blasphemous. The film was released on Good Friday,

The film, Benedetta, directed by Paul Verhoeven, is based upon a real-life story of a 17th century nun called Benedetta Carlini who is suffering from from disturbing religious and erotic visions.

A scene which features a statue of Virgin Mary being used as a sex toy has been particularly slammed by Catholics. A spokesman for the Irish Society for Christian Civilisation, Damien Murphy said:

This movie is a fraud and nothing more than a blatant attack on the Catholic faith. There is no way that a director would depict Mohammed acting in a sexual manner. There is not one director in Hollywood or Europe who would dare mock Mohammed or the Jewish faith -- it just wouldn't happen.

The Irish Society for Christian Civilisation have launched a petition calling for the film not to be released, which has drawn more than 13,000 petitions. The petition reads:

I strongly oppose and condemn your distribution and promotion of Paul Verhoeven's film Benedetta. It offends God, and countless Catholics all over the world. This immoral film blasphemously features several Jesus-on-nun intense 'make outs', a statuette of Mary Most Holy used as a sex-toy and voyeuristic lesbian nuns pornography.

The Irish Film Classification Office rated the film 18 uncut for strong sex and violence including scenes of torture and sexual assault.

The film is being release MPA Unrated in the US.

Meanwhile the BBFC has also rated the film 18 uncut, but for sexual violence, strong sex, nudity, bloody violence:

• 2022 MUBI R0 4K Blu-ray at UK Amazon #ad released on 1st August 2022
• 2022 MUBI (RB) Blu-ray at UK Amazon released on 1st August 2022
• 2022 MUBI R0 DVD at UK Amazon #ad released on 1st August 2022

The BBFC have additionally commented:

There are scenes of strong sex, including cunnilingus, masturbation and implied penetration with a wooden sex toy. Such scenes also contain sexualised breast, buttock and genital nudity. In one sequence, a woman masturbates in front of her lover, who is reluctant to engage in sexual acts, ultimately refusing to touch her. sexual violence and sexual threat

A woman is tortured using genital mutilation; it is implied that a device is used to penetrate her, but this is not shown in strong detail. In another sequence, a man attempts to rape a woman while she is restrained by others, but violence puts an end to the sexual threat.

Ultreia is a 2021 adventure puzzle game by Olivier De Rop

A little robot becomes a pilgrim and crosses a wild post-apocalyptic world to find the meaning of life.

Australia's game censors have banned another video game. The game was 'refused classification' by the censors random rating generator known as the IARC, so could well be overturned oncr the human censors take over.

The censors have offered no explanation for the ban.

The game seems to have fallen foul of the censors over a release on Nintendo Switch.

Mary Ellen Cuzela is a mother of three from Katy, a suburb of Houston, Texas. She has hit the headlines over her campaign to complain about gay themed books available in local school libraries.

She started after reading Lawn Boy , by Jonathan Evison, which was available at her children's high school. She said. The book, which traces the story of a Mexican American character's journey to understanding his own sexuality and ethnic identity, was filled with vulgarity, Cuzela said, including dozens of four-letter words, explicit sexual references and a description of oral sex between fourth-grade boys during a church youth group meeting.

Cuzela shared her views with some like-minded parents, and together they set out to get such books banned, and so the campaign was launched.

Another book that caught her attention was Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) , by L.C. Rosen. This was noted for references to anal and oral sex and a detailed description of male genitalia and advice on how to give oral sex.

The campaign received world attention including a report from the BBC. Books complained about for "pervasive vulgarity" include:

• Lawn Boy , by Jonathan Evison
• Losing the Girl by MariNaomi
• Me Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
• Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
• The Nerdy and the Dirty by B.T. Gottfred
• Forever for a Year by B.T. Gottfred
• Jack of Hearts (and other parts) by L.C. Rosen
• All Boys Aren't Blue by George Johnson
• The Handsome Girl and Her Beautiful Boy by B.T. Gottfred
• A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
• Drama: A Graphic Novel by Raina Telgemeier
• Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen Vol 2, Official Movie Adaptation by Simon Furman
• The Breakaways by Cathy G. Johnson

Banned! The Mary Whitehouse Story is a 2022 UK TV documentary

In 1963, armed with just a typewriter, a Midlands housewife began a 30-year battle against the permissive society. But how successful was the original cancel culture warrior?

Offsite Review: The BBC's faint praise for Mary Whitehouse

A new documentary claims to be even-handed but can't quite manage it

See article from unherd.com by Charlie Bentley-Astor

Banned! is a new BBC documentary that dubs the 1960s teacher-cum-morality campaigner, Mary Whitehouse, the original cancel culture warrior. A flawed but vindicated woman is the headline. But was she a reactionary or a revolutionary? Was she right in her conviction that Britain was in a media-driven moral decline?

Javed Iqbal: The Untold Story of A Serial Killer is a 2022 Pakistan crime thriller by Abu Aleeha
Starring Kaleem Ghori, Yasir Hussain and Rabya Kulsoom

The story of serial killer Javed Iqbal, who sexually abused and killed more than 100 children in Lahore between 1998 and 1999.

The movie Javed Iqbal: The Untold Story of A Serial Killer was eagerly awaited in its native Pakistan but after a preview screening in Karachi it was abruptly pulled by the government's Central Bureau of Film Censors, despite it initially receiving censor approval. The decision was met with widespread condemnation by the film community and those who had been involved in the Javed Iqbal investigation.

A high court case is currently ongoing in a bid to retract the decision.

The film is based on writer-director Abu Aleeha's own novel Kukri . UK Asian Film Festival Founder and Director, Dr Pushpinder Chowdhry commented:

It brings to light an issue -- the abuse and mass murder of young boys -- that is of the utmost importance and yet rarely discussed. It has always been far too convenient for South Asian societies to brush such issues under the carpet but only by creating safe spaces in which to confront these issues and their root causes can we begin to create the meaningful social change we need. In that way we all owe a debt of gratitude to the creators of this film.