Censor Watch

The Fast & the Furious is a 2001 USA / Germany action crime thriller by Rob Cohen.
Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez.

The film was cut in the US for an MPAA PG-13 rating and this cut version is the only one ever released. The film was originally rated 15 uncut in the UK for cinema and home video. The film was passed 12A for 2020 cinema release.

See further cuts details at Melon Farmers Film Cuts: The Fast and the Furious

Summary Notes

Los Angeles street racer Dominic Toretto falls under the suspicion of the LAPD as a string of high-speed electronics truck robberies rocks the area. Brian O'Connor, an officer of the LAPD, joins the ranks of Toretto's highly skilled racing crew undercover to convict Toretto. However, O'Connor finds himself both enamored with this new world and in love with Toretto's sister, Mia. As a rival racing crew gains strength, O'Connor must decide where his loyalty really lies.

106:30s

UK: Passed 12A uncut for infrequent strong language, moderate violence, sex references: 2020 cinema release

An ad for tampons has been banned in Ireland for supposedly causing widespread offence.

The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) has advised that Tampax's Tampons and Tea ad should not air again in the same format, after receiving 84 complaints.

The ad saw a TV presenter in a chat show set-up asking the audience: Tell me, how many of you ever feel your tampon? After her guest raises her hand, she says: You shouldn't. It might mean your tampon isn't in far enough. You've gotta get 'em up there, girls.

A number of complainants argued that the ad was demeaning to women because it suggested that women did not know how to use the tampons or read the instructions. Complaints of sexual innuendo argued that the phrase get 'em up there, girls had sexual connotations and that the Tampax ad was sexualising the wearing of tampons, while other complaints claimed the ad was over-descriptive, inappropriately expressed and with excessive detail.

The ASAI did not uphold complaints that the ad demeaned women, contained sexual innuendo or was unsuitable for children.  However, they did uphold the complaints of general offence.

The Department of Commerce, as directed by President Donald J. Trump's Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship, filed a petition to clarify the scope of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The petition requests that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) clarify that Section 230 does not permit social media companies that alter or editorialize users' speech to escape civil liability.

The petition also requests that the FCC clarify when an online platform curates content in good faith, and requests transparency requirements on their moderation practices, similar to requirements imposed on broadband service providers under Title I of the Communications Act. President Trump will continue to fight back against unfair, un-American, and politically biased censorship of Americans online.

More censorship legislation is needed to protect people online after social media giants' failure to tackle hate speech on their websites, claims the Labour Party.

Jo Stevens, shadow secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, claimed the UK desperately needed legislation forcing platforms to act because self-regulation isn't working.

The Labour party is accusing the Government of delaying the introduction of an online harms bill to protect Internet users. It comes after politicians and campaigners condemned Twitter for being too slow to remove anti-Semitic tweets by rapper Wiley.

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he has written to Instagram and Twitter to make it clear that they need to act immediately to remove social media posts that Labour does not like.

China's new censorship laws effectively ban film content that portrays the life of Jesus Christ.

The broad new guidelines to make films fit the Communist party line include 20 categories that will now be outlawed. The categories include any content that promotes contentious history -- and film-makers believe this includes the life of Jesus . Other banned categories include the depiction of sacred relics and demonic possessions and content showing miracles and healing.

A Chinese film-maker said:

The guidelines almost entirely ban such content. If we film the life of Jesus, avoiding the content banned by the guidelines, we will only be presenting Jesus as an ordinary person. This is unacceptable to Christians.

Of course it may not be wise for Christians make too much of a fuss lest the government decides that religious re-education may be in order for Christians as well as Muslims.

Australia's competition regulator has launched court proceedings against Alphabet's Google for allegedly misleading consumers about the expanded use of personal data for targeted advertising.

The case by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in Federal Court said Google did not explicitly get consent nor properly inform consumers about a 2016 move to combine personal information in Google accounts with activities on non-Google websites that use its technology.

The regulator said this practice allowed the Alphabet Inc unit to link the names and other ways to identify consumers with their behaviour elsewhere on the internet .

A public consultation has closed on changes to Scotland's hate crime laws that will diminish free speech even further.

The plans to make it a criminal offence to stir up hatred, criticise or insult anyone based on their age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

The bill will massively step up the definitions of what people are not allowed to stay lest it be considered insulting to easily offended identity groups, particularly sensitive religions. The bill also extends from people's words into the possession of material that might be considered critical of sensitive identity groups.

The disgraceful bill has been opposed by many particularly the most effected, like newspapers.

Opposition to the bill has united the Catholic Church and the National Secular Society in opposition to the plans - along with academics, playwrights and newspaper columnists who all say they fear the proposed legislation will pose a threat to their freedom of speech. For example comedians could become too frightened to dare make a joke about a Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman walking into a bar.

The public were invited to make their views known to the Scottish parliament's justice committee before midnight on 24 July.

Amanda Millar, president of the Law Society of Scotland, said:

It was right that laws provide a clear message that hatred should have no place in our society. However, we have significant reservations regarding a number of the bill's provisions and the lack of clarity, which could in effect lead to restrictions in freedom of expression, one of the foundations of a democratic society. We have real concerns that certain behaviour, views expressed or even an actor's performance, which might well be deemed insulting or offensive, could result in a criminal conviction under the terms of the bill as currently drafted.

Scottish Labour criticised the offence of stirring up hatred and accused ministers of failing to learn the lessons of the repealed Offensive Behaviour at Football Act. The party's justice spokesman James Kelly said:

There is a significant divergence from similar law in England and Wales where intent is required for a person to be criminalised for behaviour which another finds insulting. Under the current proposals, the law here would not require this intent to be present - which sets an alarming legal precedent and could result in the criminalisation of expressions of religious views.

In its submission to Holyrood's Justice Committee, the Scottish Newspaper Society warned that it contained highly dangerous measures which pose a serious threat to freedom of expression in its broadest sense. The organisation's director, John McLellan, said it had the potential to provoke a string of vexatious complaints against journalists and columnists, which could then lead to police investigations. He raised further concerns about provisions against communicating insulting material:

It would also be an offence to distribute it, which potentially could see newspaper delivery boys and girls, or shops, fall foul of the law.

Allowing courts to direct the destruction of material had echoes of darker times and could lead to the banning of books or censorship of the internet, he warned.

He added that JK Rowling, who has recently faced a deluge of criticism from transgender rights activists after she expressed her views online, would almost certainly have seen her subjected to a police investigation had the proposed law been in force.

Twitter's threat to shadowban accounts and hashtags linked to the pro-Trump QAnon movement has merely validated followers' fears that they are being controlled by a liberal elite.

The US conspiracy theory (really an ecosystem of interlinked conspiracy theories) is centered around the cryptic disclosures of a supposedly high-ranking government employee going by the moniker Q.

The supporters believe that the eponymous Q is posting coded messages online to inform Trump's supporters about a secret war against the right, and preparing them for an imminent event in which the president overthrows the evil cabal and imprisons its members.

Generally they believe that Donald Trump is fighting against a secretive and evil global cabal, members of which include former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros, who both have been hate figures for the American political right for many years.

Twitter's thread vowing to take further action on QAnon activity across the service induced a collective persecution-complex orgasm across the Q community, who mostly interpreted the deplatforming threat as an admission that QAnon was every bit the threat to the ruling power structure they've always believed they were.

The company warned some 150,000 accounts will be affected by the new rule, implying that sharing QAnon content is behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. Tellingly, they didn't cite any specific incidents, and mainstream media that have reported on the ban don't seem to care what harm has in fact resulted from the fevered speculation over cryptic Q breadcrumbs.

The Latvian TV censor has banned the Russian propaganda channel RT (formerly named Russia Today). The channel was also recently banned in Lithuania.

Latvia's National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) on July 21 banned RT claiming incitement to hatred. It was prompted by a 60 minute broadcast on July 10, in which remarks on Ukraine are described as hate speech. Ivars Abolins, head of the NEPLP, said:

We believe it is an incitement to hatred against Ukraine, against the Ukrainian people. We are absolutely convinced that the European Commission will also agree with our view, and if a second infringement is detected within a year, Rossija RTR can be banned on the territory of Latvia.

RT responded citing a statement from the Association for International Broadcasting which strongly criticised the Latvian media regulator. A letter from AIB commented:

We wish to protest in the strongest terms on what appears, on the face of it, to be a political decision that has no regulatory legitimacy.

The banning of the RT channels appears to flow from the misinterpretation by the Council of the ownership structure of RT and the alleged control of RT by Dmitry Kiselyov who is sanctioned by the European Union.

We draw to your attention that RT disputes the reason for the Council's ban on its licensed channels and that it has not been granted the right to present evidence of the ownership and control of the company. This is an extraordinary omission by a media regulator in a western democracy.

New Ofcom groups to lead industry policy and engagement Ofcom

Kevin Bakhurst will continue to lead Ofcom's media regulation as Group Director of Broadcasting and Online Content. This group combines our work on broadcasting - including standards, licensing and policy work - as well as new duties to regulate video sharing platforms. The Broadcasting and Online Content group will lead Ofcom's regulatory regimes in these sectors, and manage relationships with its stakeholders.

A parliamentary committee looking into supposed 'fake news' is calling for more internet censorship. It writes:

The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee calls for Government to appoint new Online Harms Regulator now.

Online misinformation about Covid-19 was allowed to spread virulently across social media without the protections offered by legislation, promised by the Government 15 months ago.

The Misinformation in the COVID-19 Infodemic Report details evidence on a range of harms from dangerous hoax treatments to conspiracy theories that led to attacks on 5G engineers.

The Online Harms White Paper, published in April 2019, proposed a duty of care on tech companies and an independent Online Harms Regulator, both key recommendations from the predecessor DCMS Committee.

MPs voice new concerns that the delayed legislation will not address the harms caused by misinformation and disinformation 203 a serious omission that would ignore the lessons of the Covid crisis.

The Report finds that tech companies use business models that disincentivise action against misinformation while affording opportunities to bad actors to monetise misleading content. As a result the public is reliant on the good will of tech companies or the bad press they attract to compel them to act.

The DCMS Committee calls for the Government to make a final decision on the appointment of the regulator now.

The report summary reads:

In February, the World Health Organisation warned that, alongside the outbreak of COVID-19, the world faced an infodemic, an unprecedented overabundance of information204both accurate and false204that prevented people from accessing authoritative, reliable guidance about the virus. The infodemic has allowed for harmful misinformation, disinformation, scams and cybercrime to spread. False narratives have resulted in people harming themselves by resorting to dangerous hoax cures or forgoing medical treatment altogether. There have been attacks on frontline workers and critical national infrastructure as a result of alarmist conspiracy theories.

The UK Government is currently developing proposals for online harms legislation that would impose a duty of care on tech companies. Whilst not a silver bullet in addressing harmful content, this legislation is expected to give a new online harms regulator the power to investigate and sanction tech companies. Even so, legislation has been delayed. As yet, the Government has not produced the final response to its consultation (which closed over a year ago), voluntary interim codes of practice, or a media literacy strategy. Moreover, there are concerns that the proposed legislation will not address the harms caused by misinformation and disinformation and will not contain necessary sanctions for tech companies who fail in their duty of care

We have conducted an inquiry into the impact of misinformation about COVID-19, and the efforts of tech companies and relevant public sector bodies to tackle it. This has presented an opportunity to scrutinise how online harms proposals might work in practice. Whilst tech companies have introduced new ways of tackling misinformation through the introduction of warning labels and tools to correct the record, these innovations have been applied inconsistently, particularly in the case of high-profile accounts. Platform policies have been also been too slow to adapt, while automated content moderation at the expense of human review and user reporting has had limited effectiveness. The business models of tech companies themselves disincentivise action against misinformation while affording opportunities to bad actors to monetise misleading content. At least until well-drafted, robust legislation is brought forward, the public is reliant on the goodwill of tech companies, or the bad press they attract, to compel them to act.

During the crisis the public have turned to public service broadcasting as the main and most trusted source of information. Beyond broadcasting, public service broadcasters (PSBs) have contributed through fact-checking and media literacy initiatives and through engagement with tech companies. The Government has also acted against misinformation by reforming its Counter Disinformation Unit to co-ordinate its response and tasked its Rapid Response Unit with refuting seventy pieces of misinformation a week. We have raised concerns, however, that the Government has been duplicating the efforts of other organisations in this field and could have taken a more active role in resourcing an offline, digital literacy-focused response. Finally, we have considered the work of Ofcom, as the Government's current preferred candidate for online harms regulator, as part of our discussion of online harms proposals. We call on the Government to make a final decision now on the online harms regulator to begin laying the groundwork for legislation to come into effect.

A book that recounts life in the Chinese city of Wuhan while under a strict coronavirus lockdown has been effectively banned in China, its author said in a recent written interview with Kyodo News.

Chinese critics have been trying to thwart publication of the book titled Wuhan Diary , whose English version has received international recognition, although the country's authorities have not officially prohibited it, said the novelist known as Fang Fang.

The book is a collection of 60 posts from her account on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, regarding daily life during the so-called world's harshest coronavirus lockdown as well as, what she described as, the dark side of the authorities.

A publisher had prepared to distribute the book domestically but shied away from doing so out of fear of getting pressure from critics, she said.

Turkey's Radio and Television Supreme Council, or RTÜK, recently confirmed that they had requested Netflix remove a gay character from the Turkish teen drama Ask 101 (Love 101) -- and that Netflix had complied.

Main character Osman, played by Selahattin Pasali, had been originally conceived of as gay, but it appears that any scenes which actually say so have now been cut.

An anonymous RTÜK official said the problem about that character has been removed.

Update: Gay culture cancelled

20th July 2020. See article from reclaimthenet.org

On July 18, reports from Turkish media indicated that Netflix was canceling the popular drama Ask 101 (Love 101). RTUK, the country's broadcasting regulator, demanded that the streaming platform should censor the character in the series.

The director of the series, Ece Yörenç, told Fasikül, a Turkish entertainment website, that it was "very scary" that the production of series can be halted because of a gay character. The director argued that RTUK was unreasonable because no gay intimacy even takes place in the show.

Netflix is yet to release an official statement regarding Love 101 or whether they will continue their service in Turkey despite the increasingly strict censorship laws.

A coalition of age verification companies have won the first round of their legal action against the Government in a bid to force ministers to introduce a shelved internet porn censorship scheme that would provide the companies with an income.The companies launched an appeal last year, saying they developed software that was never used.

A judge ruled that age verification companies, backed by children's charities, have an arguable case that the Culture Secretary exceeded her powers by deciding not to implement the ban, which had been voted for by Parliament .

The ruling means the claimants can now take the case to a judicial review, which could overturn the Government's decision.

Plans to introduce an age verification scheme were shelved in October last year, perhaps because the law did not provide any provision for keep very dangerous ID and porn browsing data private and safe. At the time, ministers said the age verification scheme as defined in the Digital Economy Act 2017 would be superceded by forthcoming Duty of Care legislation.

In court, the Government argued that ministers had not exceeded their powers and that circumstances had radically altered since the porn ban legislation was originally passed.

It is a long running tradition that the BBFC Annual Report entertains its readers with a list of the most complained about films of the year. In the Annual Report covering 2019, the BBFC writes:

In 2019 we received 149 complaints covering 70 films, fewer than half the number of complaints received in 2018.

20 people wrote to us regarding Joker , objecting to the 15 classification. Several stated that we should have classified the film 18 because of violence and the film's tone. A small number felt that the film should be banned. There are scenes of strong violence in the film that include stabbings and shootings, with accompanying bloody injury detail. They do not, however, dwell on the infliction of pain or injury in a manner that requires an 18.

12 people wrote to us about The Favourite . The complaints related to language, sex references and sex. The very strong language in The Favourite is often used in a comic context and never aggressively. The sexual activity and sex references are unremarkable at 15, although their appearance in the costume drama may have surprised a minority of viewers.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum generated nine complaints, all focusing on violence.

Five people wrote to us complaining about the violence and infrequent strong language in Alita: Battle Angel .

Fighting with My Family received five complaints focusing on language and sex references.

The Queen's Corgi received five complaints about sexual references and animal cruelty.

We received four complaints regarding language and violence in Bumblebee .

Holmes and Watson received four complaints focusing on language and sex references.

Shazam ! generated four complaints regarding bad language and scenes of horror.

T he BBFC has released its annual report, which shows a steady growth in both online and film classifications throughout 2019.

In 2019, the BBFC rated 6,506 pieces of content for online distribution, which is a 13% increase from 2018. Compared to just five years ago, online classifications have increased by a staggering 462% (1,158 in 2014).

The most popular age rating for online content is 15, with the BBFC rating 2,976 pieces of content with the classification.

Although content for Video on Demand (VoD) platforms remains the majority of the content classified by the BBFC, film classification has also seen an increase of 6% in the last year, up to 1,103. This marks a 99% increase over the last decade (555 in 2009).

The most popular age rating for film remains 15, with the BBFC rating 368 films for UK cinema goers with the classification.

David Austin, Chief Executive of the BBFC, said:

It's clear that online platforms continue to thrive in the current media climate, and that they are increasingly using well-understood and trusted BBFC age ratings. Our mission is to help everybody choose content well, whenever, wherever, and however they view it, and people continue to tell us that they benefit from having age ratings and ratings in place, including online.

Over the last year we've continued to keep our finger on the pulse of what people really think, and we continue to make sure our age ratings are where people need them. Our innovative partnership with Netflix saw the streaming platform begin to rate its own content to produce BBFC ratings using a tagging system and algorithms that match the standards British families expect and want to see. We continue to look at new ways we can work with platforms to get families the information we know they need, and want.

Every film classified by the BBFC comes with long ratings info, available on the BBFC website and free app, so families can choose content well.

No Country For Young Women
BBC Sounds, 30 June 2020 16 July 2020

Summary of complaint

We received some complaints about the content of the podcast, No Country For Young Women, and a BBC social media post which promoted it.

Our response

The comments which prompted a reaction were not part of the podcast, and featured only in a short social media clip, which we've removed. The podcast episode itself is an in-depth and broad discussion on racism, class, feminism and stereotypes.

No Country For Young Women is a long running podcast series which predominantly explores the experiences of young black and Asian women in the UK. It features in-depth discussions with a wide variety of guests, who share views on important and complex topics in a way that is relevant to the conversations of many young people.

Some listeners felt that opposing views should have been included in the same discussion in the interest of balance, but this isn't required as a matter of course. Due impartiality takes into account the context of the series. It allows for a range of input to be heard over a period of time too, rather than within each and every edition. With No Country For Young Women, each topic is handled through the lens of the hosts, Sadia Azmat & Monty Onanuga, and their guests' experiences and backgrounds. Some of these themes have had very recent developments and the discussion is sure to evolve -- we may return to similar topics at a later date.

365 Days (365 DNI) is a 2020 Poland drama by Barbara Bialowas.
Starring Michele Morrone, Anna Maria Sieklucka and Bronislaw Wroclawski.

Massimo Torricelli, a young and handsome boss of a Sicilian Mafia family, has no other option but to takeover after his father has been assassinated. Laura Biel is a sales director in a luxurious hotel. She has a successful career, but her private life lacks passion. She is taking one last shot to save her relationship. Together with her partner and friends, she takes a trip to Sicily. Laura does not expect that Massimo, the most dangerous man on the island, will get in her way, kidnap her, hold her captive and give her 365 days... to fall in love with him. "365 dni" is the first Polish erotic film. It is based on the best-selling novel of the same name from author Blanka Lipinksa.

A British singer named Duffy is asking Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to remove the sexy film 365 Days claiming that it glorifies rape and sex trafficking.

365 Days is an erotic thriller from Poland that has been likened to Fifty Shades of Grey . It is quite sexy for Netflix and has become the services's biggest movie of the summer. The film is is about a mobster who kidnaps a woman he's been stalking, holding her captive for an entire year so that she'll fall in love with him. Naturally, she eventually does fall for her hunky captor and has a lot of sex with him, in various positions filmed from many angles.

The films detractors have organised a petition against the film which has been signed by about 54,000 people.

Now Duffy has weighed in against the film citing her own experience with being drugged in a restaurant and being abducted. She found the premise of 365 Days was just a little too familiar to the singer, so she wrote an open letter calling Netflix irresponsible for airing the film.

Update: Noted by the New Zealand film censor

7th July 2020. See article from rnz.co.nz

 When it was first launched in New Zealand, 365 Days carried a rating of R16, but that was bumped up after Chief Censor David Shanks got involved. Shanks said:

We felt that age rating was inadequate, we thought that this was more at the 18-plus level. We also wrote to Netflix and advised that they should warn for sexual violence as well as potentially highly impactful content in this film that viewers should be warned about.

Shanks said it was frustrating that the legislation his office operated under was from 1993, and therefore did not cover streaming services. But there was a bill before parliament which if passed, would change that and allow for Netflix to rate films more in line with New Zealand standards.

 

Update: A petition to ban 365 Days

16th July 2020. See article from standard.co.uk

A petition to ban the Polish Netflix film has gained about 70,000 signatures.

The Change.org petition's author, fitness influencer Mikayla Zazon, wrote:

Netflix clearly stands on the side of the abusers by having a movie that glorifies, romanticizes, and condones sexual assault trending on their top 10 recommended movies to watch around the globe.

As a social media public figure and a victim of these crimes, I am outraged and heartbroken that this movie shows up on teens' 'watch next' recommendation.

By taking down this movie on Netflix, we can protect sexual violence in adolescent women and adult women. And we can prevent boys from seeing such horrific behaviour as permission to sexual assault and rape women.

Upset Hindus have urged Anheuser-Busch InBev, largest brewer in the world, to change the name of its popular Brahma beer, claiming it to be highly inappropriate. The perennial hindu whinger Rajan Zed said:

Creator god Lord Brahma was highly revered in Hinduism, and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be misused as a toasting tool or selling beer for mercantile greed.

Anheuser-Busch InBev should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege, and ridiculing entire communities. Inappropriate usage of sacred Hindu deities or concepts or symbols or icons for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.

Rajan Zed added that Hollywood celebrities Megan Fox and Jennifer Lopez have reportedly acted in Brahma beer commercials.

Brahma was created by Swiss immigrant Joseph Villager in Brazil in 1888. The company is known throughout Brazil as beer number 1.

Update: Wrong Brahma

16th July 2020. See article from patheos.com

Beers sold under the Brahma name include a lager, a double malt, a wheat beer and a chocolate stout, all named after a smart English geezer called Joseph Bramah, who invented the draft pump valve. But the unnamed and ooh-so-touchy interfaith coalition is convinced that the name belongs exclusively to Lord Brahma, Hinduism's four-headed god of creation, and wants the brewer to find a new name for the product.

Lucas Rossi, Head of Communications for Anheuser-Busch InBev's Latin America subsidiary, appears not be be intimidated. He said:

After explaining that the spelling was changed from Bramah to Brahma to make the name work better in the Portuguese language, and that the Brahma brand s very important to the culture of Brazil which has a tiny minority of Hindus.

Hamilton is a 2020 USA musical music film by Thomas Kail.
Starring Jonathan Groff, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The real life of one of America's foremost founding fathers and first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. Filmed live on Broadway from the Richard Rodgers Theatre with the original Broadway cast.

The original stage show contained three uses of the word 'fuck' but these were reduced to one so as to obtain an MPA PG-13 rating as required to make it suitable for Disney. See details from polygon.com

Comment: PTC to Disney: Zero F-Bombs when Hamilton Streams on Disney+

14th July 2020. See article from parentstv.org

The Parents TV Council (PTC) is a US TV morality campaign. The group writes:

The Parents Television Council is calling on Disney+ to reevaluate allowing even one f-word in the forthcoming PG-13-rated Hamilton. Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda confirmed that two of three f-words were dropped from the streaming version in order to reach the broadest audience. The Motion Picture Association allows one f-word to be used in PG-13-rated films

PTC President Tim Winter said:

We applaud Lin-Manuel Miranda for wanting to reach the broadest possible audience for the film version of his epic and brilliant Broadway musical, Hamilton , and for allowing the removal of harsh profanity in order to do so. But Disney's decision to allow even one 'f-word' to be heard on its Disney+ platform is shameful. Even with the stated permission from the program's creator to remove them, Disney is choosing to keep an f-bomb in the film.

The MPA's own rating system that enables one 'f-word' must be reevaluated. Most families consider any usage of that word greater than zero to be vile and totally off-limits. And Disney needs to recall its swarm of lobbyists who are crawling all over Capitol Hill, working to prevent a legislative update to the Family Movie Act, and preventing parents from using content filtering technology to block explicit material that they find harmful or offensive.

Heartbreak Ridge is a 1986 USA action war comedy by Clint Eastwood.
Starring Clint Eastwood, Marsha Mason and Everett McGill.

1983. Tom Highway is a well-decorated career military man in the United States Marine Corps, he who has seen action in Korea and Vietnam. His current rank is Gunnery Sergeant. His experiences have led him to become an opinionated, no nonsense man, who is prone to bursts of violence, especially when he's drunk, if the situation does not suit him, regardless of the specifics or people involved. Because of these actions, he has spent his fair share of overnighters behind bars. Close to retirement, one of his last assignments, one he requested, is back at his old unit at Cherry Point, North Carolina, from where he was transferred for insubordination. He is to train a reconnaissance platoon. His superior officer, the much younger and combat inexperienced Major Malcolm Powers, sees Highway as a relic of an old styled military.

BBFC category cuts were required for 15 rated cinema and VHS releases in 1986 and 1987. Uncut on DVD since 2001. Uncut and MPAA R rated in the US.

The 1986 BBFC cuts list was:

Reel 1

• [opening scene with Eastwood and a bald man] In prison scene after credits, reduce coarseness of dialogue by removing the following: "If you want to pop that puppy's can, you don't have to grease him that hard, jawhead.", "Ain't gonna be so smart with your balls stuffed in your mouth."
• In song improvised by black singer on coach, remove the words "She used my face as a bicycle seat..."

A group of Thai academics and experts told a Parliament committee that crackdowns on arts deemed inappropriate to Buddhism is a danger to Thailand's creativity.

In a meeting with the House Committee of Religions, Arts and Culture, Chulalongkorn University political scientist Bundit Chanrochanakit and fellow panelists advised the government to back off from regulating artistic expression. The meeting was held in the wake of a recent order to erase a temple mural denounced by local officials as blasphemy.

Bundit  pointed to the pressure to remove mural figures at a temple in Uthai Thani that appears to show Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha and his deputy, Prawit Wongsuwan, drowning with demons who attempted to stop Lord Buddha from attaining enlightenment.

The figures were eventually painted over after local officials paid a visit and demanded the censorship.

Bundit cited another case of controversy over artists' interpretation of religious topics: the Ultraman Buddha painting by an art student in September. The artist was forced to apologize after hardline Buddhist officials accused her of disrespect to their religion by depicting Buddha as a Japanese superhero, Ultraman.

Google is changing its default settings to automatically delete some of the data it collects about users.

Web and app activity, including a log of website searches and pages visited, as well as location data, will now be wiped after 18 months.

YouTube histories - including which clips were watched and for how long - will be erased after 36 months.

The changes apply to new accounts only but existing users will soon be shown new prompts to adjust their settings.

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion204which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won't defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn't expect the public or the state to defend it for us.

See signatures from harpers.org which include JK Rowling and Salman Rushdie

Offsite Comment: The spectre of censorship and intolerance stalks today's left

12th July 2020. See article from theguardian.com   by Nick Cohen

The attacks on the signatories of a letter fearing the future of free speech proved the letter's point

One of the Philippines' largest broadcasters, ABS-CBN, has been refused a new licence after being forced off air in May.

Government critics say the refusal is directly connected to the channel's criticism of President Rodrigo Duterte. In particular the broadcaster had refused to broadcast Duterte's campaign ads in 2016.

On Friday, an overwhelming majority of a parliamentary committee rejected as undeserving ABS-CBN's request for a 25-year extension of its franchise.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, commented:

This is a black day for media freedom in a country previously regarded as a bastion of press freedom and democracy in the region, Today's vote to deny the franchise renewal is an astounding display of obsequious behaviour by Congressional representatives, kowtowing to Duterte by agreeing to seriously limit media freedom in the Philippines.

Although a commercial operation, ABS-CBN is very similar to the BBC. With more than 70 years of TV and radio history, it has shaped the Filipino psyche with entertainment and news programmes for all of the family. But like the BBC, its critics say it represents the rich and powerful, as an old, mainstream media offering, is out of touch with the will of social media users here

The French parliament has agreed a new law requiring age verification on pornographic websites to prevent access by children under 18. The censorship law has the support of President Emmanuel Macron, who called for such a measure in January.

The French law gives sites discretion to decide how to perform that age verification.

The law gives French regulators the power to create a blacklist for overseas sites that don't comply with the new rules. If a site doesn't respond to a warning from French officials, they can ask the Paris Court of Justice to send an order to telecom operators to block the access to these sites from France.

A major sticking point in the UK's failed age verification law was privacy. Critics pointed out that it wasn't a great idea to force adult consumers to turn over their credit card numbers to porn sites that might not have the strongest privacy protections. It's not clear what privacy protections will be offered to consumers under the French law.

In order to enforce the law, the French audiovisual regulator CSA will be granted new powers to audit and sanction companies that do not comply -- sanctions could go as far as blocking access to the websites in France with a court order.

The Senate has already voted on the bill. Following an agreement between senators and lawmakers from the lower house National Assembly, a final vote will be held again in the Senate where the bill is expected to pass.

Instagram will block the promotion of conversion therapy, which tries to change a person's sexuality or gender identity.

Campaigners are urging the government to act now on a two-year-old promise to make the practice illegal. This year, 200,000 people have signed an online petition calling for action.

In 2018, the government announced that gay conversion therapies were to be banned as part of a government plan to improve the lives of gay and transgender people, but activists note that such a ban has not been initiated. The government has since said it will consider all options for ending the practice.

Speaking exclusively to the BBC, Tara Hopkins, EMEA public policy director, Instagram, said the company is changing the way it handles conversion therapy content:

We don't allow attacks against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity and are updating our policies to ban the promotion of conversion therapy services. We are always reviewing our policies and will continue to consult with experts and people with personal experiences to inform our approach.

Earlier this year, Instagram banned the promotion of conversion therapy in ads. From Friday, any content linked to it will now be banned across the platform.

Last week the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico approved reforms to copyright law, which have the potential to severely damage freedom of expression. Now they are now proposing a new law that could make memes illegal.

Nayeli Salvatori, federal deputy of the Social Encounter Party (PES) revealed on her social networks that she will present an initiative to modify the Federal Penal Code. This with the aim of punishing people who modify images, videos or audios and unsubscribe the social media account of who originally shared it.

In publications that he shared on his social networks, Salvatori denied that the proposed censorship law called the Antimemes Law is to censor. Its claim is that it will only punish when it is verified that the edited material damaged the image or dignity of a person.

The initiative of the federal deputy of the PES has not yet been presented to the Permanent Commission of the Congress of the Union. It will be next week when it will be registered in the Parliamentary Gazette.

Lithuania's TV censor says it has banned the broadcasts of the state-controlled Russian television channel RT, effective Thursday, following a similar decision made in Baltic neighbor Latvia last week.

The Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania said the decision follows recommendations of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry to close the channel, saying the Russian who allegedly controls RT, Dmitry Kiselev, is currently blacklisted by the European Union. This decision is motivated not by violations but the fact that Mr. Kiselev is on the list of persons under the EU sanctions. The same decision was taken in Latvia and now in Lithuania said Mantas Martisius, chairman of the Lithuanian commission.

The ban covers five different RT channels: RT, RT HD, RT Spanish, RT Documentary and RT Documentary HD.

The German Government seems to have been inspired by a fair number of companies that find that the day to day posts of their users do not conform to the cleansed dreamworld Utopia that they would like to see as the backlot to their advertising. The advertisers are boycotting Facebook so as to try and force the social media companies to censor their users to make them fit for advertising.

Well it seems that this corporate censorship ideal is chiming with the authoritarians in the German government. reclaimthenet.org is reporting that the German Government is meeting to discuss ideas to require Facebook to apply even more automatic censorship to what their users are allowed to post:

The German government has indicated again that it wants to increase the regulation of Facebook content, and say that the tactics applied by the social network are not enough to prevent the spread of so-called hate speech.

Possible actions by the German government are being decided upon as a response to a campaign against Facebook originated by activist movements in the United States.

These movements, united under names such as Stop Hate for Profit, say that the social network has not contributed much in the fight against hate speech, so they urge the platform's advertisers to not advertise during the whole month of July to put pressure on Facebook until it changes its moderation policies.

This week, Berlin called for more action at a meeting on Monday of the bloc's justice ministers. German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said:

We cannot accept the public debate being distorted and poisoned. Voluntary commitments and self-responsibility are not enough.

Since 2018 there is a law in Germany that requires that content that has been reported as inappropriate be blocked or removed from social networks within 24 hours. This law encouraged social networks to dedicate themselves much more to regulating content.

For the German government and activist groups, it's still not enough. And, at this point, it's starting to look like nothing ever will be.

Journalism is taking a massive revenue hit in the face of nominally free news circulated via social media. And traditional mainstream broadcasters are a little aggrieved that they are held to higher standards, and a more expensive, regulatory envirnoment, compared to their internet competitors.

Now three of Britain's largest broadcasters are calling on ministers to introduce new laws to even up the playing fields by requiring more regulation and censorship for social media news dsitribution. Of course the broadcasters site that old chestnut of supposed  'fake news' to justify the increased regulation.

In a joint letter published on The Times website, the heads of ITV, Channel 4 and Sky say that statutory regulation of online advertising is necessary, and urgent, given the scale of harm supposedly currently being caused to consumers.

Dame Carolyn McCall of ITV, Stephen van Rooyen, Sky's chief executive for the UK & Europe and Alex Mahon at Channel 4, home of the appalingly biased progressive propaganda bulletin called Channel 4 News, say that laws should be enacted urgently to hold online platforms and online advertisers to the same high standards as television channels. The broadcasters called for these new laws to be backed up with large fines that meaningfully incentivize major online platforms to comply with the rules.

The group were perhaps on firmer ground in noting that the internet companies had effectively stitched up the online advertising market. But again the broadcasters tried to justify calls to challenge the is advertsing status quo by citing misinformation as if the silly stories about 5G and coronavirus were bringing civilsation to its knees. The trio suggested that Facebook and Google's dominance in the digital advertising market is the cause of the "epidemic of disinformation" and wrote that "statutory regulation of online advertising is necessary, and urgent, given the scale of harm currently being caused to consumers."

They also argued that Google and Facebook should "bear the responsibility for the advertising they carry and liability for harmful or misleading ads" as broadcasters and claimed that their advertising models "reward and amplify many of the very types of content that the government wants to see tackled."

Chinese video app TikTok has been accused of being a data-gathering arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in news reports quoting an unnamed federal parliament member.
 A mysterious whistle-blower said the government is facing pressure to ban the app, as was recently done in India. TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

Members of the armed forces in Australia and the US have been told not to use the app on any Defence-issued device.

There's a possibility TikTok representatives could be called before an ongoing Senate Inquiry into Foreign Interference on social media.

Update: America too

7th July 2020. See article from aljazeera.com

The United States is considering banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, over allegations Beijing is using them to spy on users. The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said:

I don't want to get out in front of the President, but it's something we're looking at.

US politicians have raised concerns over t he handling of user data by TikTok saying they were worried about China's laws requiring domestic companies to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

In an apparent attempt to distance itself from China, Tik Tok said it would pull its popular video sharing platform from app stores in Hong Kong. It came as a growing number of tech companies suspended compliance with data requests from the Hong Kong government, citing concerns over a new national security law imposed by Beijing on the financial hub.

China 24, News Hour
CCTV News, 27 August 2013, 12:00 and 14 July 2014, 21:002

CCTV News broadcast China 24, a news programme which reported on the arrest of Peter Humphrey and included footage of him appearing to confess to a criminal offence. It then broadcast a follow up report during News Hour, which reported on Mr Humphrey's subsequent conviction and included footage of him apologising for having committed the offence. He was named in both programmes, although his face was blurred.

Ofcom found that:

• The programmes included footage of Mr Humphrey which had the potential materially and adversely to affect viewers’ perception of him. The Licensee did not take sufficient steps to ensure that material facts had not been presented, omitted or disregarded in a way that was unfair to Mr Humphrey.
   

• The Licensee had not provided Mr Humphrey with an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond to the allegations of wrongdoing being made about him in the programmes as broadcast.
   

• Mr Humphrey had a legitimate expectation of privacy in relation to the filming and subsequent broadcast of the footage of him without his consent. In the circumstances, Mr Humphrey’s legitimate expectation of privacy was not outweighed by the broadcaster’s right to freedom of expression and the audience’s right to receive information and ideas without interference. The Licensee had therefore unwarrantably infringed Mr Humphrey’s privacy in respect of the obtaining of the material included in the programmes and in the programmes as broadcast.

Ofcom also considers that the breach of Rules 7.1 and 8.1 of the Code is serious. We are therefore putting the Licensee on notice that we intend to consider the breach for the imposition of a statutory sanction.

Major internet and social media platforms said Monday they will stop processing requests for user data made by Hong Kong law enforcement authorities while they carry out an assessment of a controversial security law imposed by China on the city.

Facebook and its messaging service WhatsApp said in statements that they would pause the review of information requests from the Hong Kong government pending further assessment of the impact of the National Security Law, including formal human rights due diligence and consultations with human rights experts. Facebook said the company believes freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and support the right of people to express themselves without fear for their safety or other repercussions.

A Google spokesperson told CNN Business that when the law took effect, they paused production on any new data requests from Hong Kong authorities, and we'll continue to review the details of the new law.

Facebook and WhatsApp said they only comply with information requests from law enforcement authorities in accordance with their terms of service and only when the requests are in line with international human rights standards.

Books written by prominent Hong Kong democracy activists have started to disappear from the city's libraries after Beijing imposed a repressive new national security law.

Among the authors whose titles are no longer available are Joshua Wong, one of the city's most prominent young activists, and Tanya Chan, a well known pro-democracy lawmaker.

Wong said he believed the removal of the books was sparked by the security law. He wrote on Facebook:

White terror continues to spread, the national security law is fundamentally a tool to incriminate speech, using a phrase that refers to political persecution.

Searches on the public library website showed at least three titles by Wong, Chan and local scholar Chin Wan are no longer available for lending at any of dozens of outlets across the city.

Copenhagen's iconic The Little Mermaid statue in was vandalised on Friday but police and commentators were mystified about the slogan daubed on the rock. An unknown person has scrawled the words 'Racist Fish' on it.

According to police other statues around Copenhagen have also been vandalised with various phrases. Police also said that on June 16, someone had written racist on a statue of Danish King Christian IV, who ruled between 1588 and 1648.

Four episodes of 30 Rock in which characters appear in blackface are to be taken down, at the request of creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock.

Fey wrote that the episodes are best taken out of circulation and apologised for pain they have caused. The episodes will be removed from streaming services Amazon Prime and Hulu, as well as purchase platforms, including iTunes and Google Play. No re-runs will be shown on TV either.

They include a live episode with guest star Jon Hamm in series six. He appeared in a wig and blackface, part of a spoof of an old US radio and TV show titled Amos n Andy.

Two episodes of the hit US series featured Jane Krakowski's character Jenna - one from series three, Believe in the Stars, and the other from series five, called Christmas Attack Zone. The Believe in the Stars episode (2008) involved Jenna and Tracy Jordan (played by Tracy Morgan) deciding to swap identities in order to determine whether black men or white women faced more challenges in society.

The fourth and final episode being pulled by the studio is the East Coast version of season five's Live Show - the first live episode of 30 Rock.

The day before a committee debate and vote on the EARN IT Act, the bill's sponsors replaced their bill with an amended version . Here's their new idea: instead of giving a 19-person federal commission, dominated by law enforcement, the power to regulate the Internet, the bill now effectively gives that power to state legislatures

And instead of requiring that Internet websites and platforms comply with the commission's best practices in order to keep their vital legal protections under Section 230 for hosting user content, it simply blows a hole in those protections. State lawmakers will be able to create new laws allowing private lawsuits and criminal prosecutions against Internet platforms, as long as they say their purpose is to stop crimes against children.

The whole idea behind Section 230 is to make sure that you are responsible for your own speech online--not someone else's. Currently, if a state prosecutor wants to bring a criminal case related to something said or done online, or a private lawyer wants to sue, in nearly all cases, the prosecutor has to seek out the actual speaker. They can't just haul a website owner into court because of the user's actions. But that will change if EARN IT passes. That's why we sent a letter [PDF] yesterday to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing the amended EARN IT bill.

Section 230 protections enabled the Internet as we know it. Despite the politicized attacks on Section 230 from both left and right, the law actually works fine . It's not a shield for Big Tech--it's a shield for everyone who hosts online conversations. It protects small messaging and email services, and every blog's comments section.

Once websites lose Section 230 protections, they'll take drastic measures to mitigate their exposure. That will limit free speech across the Internet. They'll shut down forums and comment sections, and cave to bogus claims that particular users are violating the rules, without doing a proper investigation. We've seen false accusations succeed in silencing users time and again in the copyright space, and even used to harass innocent users. If EARN IT passes, the range of possibilities for false accusations and censorship will expand.

EARN IT Still Threatens Encryption

When we say the original EARN IT was a threat to encryption, we're not guessing. We know that a commission controlled by Attorney General William Barr will try to ban encryption, because Barr has said many times that he thinks encrypted services should be compelled to create backdoors for police. The Manager's Amendment, approved by the Committee today, doesn't eliminate this problem. It just empowers over 50 jurisdictions to follow Barr's lead in banning encryption.

An amendment by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), also voted into the bill, purports to protect encryption from being the states' focus. It's certainly an improvement, but we're still concerned that the amended bill could be used to attack encryption. Sen. Leahy's amendment prohibits holding companies liable because they use end-to-end encryption, device encryption, or other encryption services. But the bill still encourages state lawmakers to look for loopholes to undermine end-to-end encryption , such as demanding that messages be scanned on a local device, before they get encrypted and sent along to their recipient. We think that would violate the spirit of Senator Leahy's amendment, but the bill opens the door for that question to be litigated over and over, in courts across the country.

And again, this isn't a theoretical problem. The idea of using client-side scanning to allow certain messages to be selected and sent to the government, circumventing the protections of end-to-end encryption, is one we've heard a lot of talk about in the past year. Despite the testimonials of certain experts who have sided with law enforcement, the fact is, client-side scanning breaks the protections of encryption. The EARN IT Act doesn't stop client-side scanning, which is the most likely strategy for state lawmakers who want to use this bill to expand police powers in order to read our messages.

And it will only take one state to inspire a wave of prosecutions and lawsuits against online platforms. And just as some federal law enforcement agencies have declared they're opposed to encryption, so have some state and local police.

The previous version of the bill suggested that if online platforms want to keep their Section 230 immunity, they would need to earn it, by following the dictates of an unelected government commission. But the new text doesn't even give them a chance. The bill's sponsors simply dropped the earn from EARN IT. Website owners--especially those that enable encryption--just can't earn their immunity from liability for user content under the new bill. They'll just have to defend themselves in court, as soon as a single state prosecutor, or even just a lawyer in private practice, decides that offering end-to-end encryption was a sign of indifference towards crimes against children.

Offering users real privacy, in the form of end-to-end encrypted messaging, and robust platforms for free speech shouldn't produce lawsuits and prosecutions. The new EARN IT bill will do just that, and should be opposed.

Chinese printers have banned an Australian book by Miro Bilbrough because it contained the phrase 'Tibetan Buddhism'.

Miro Bilbrough had to change printers after the Chinese censor attempted to removed the phrase Tibetan Buddhism from her manuscript. Bilbrough's upcoming memoir, I n the Time of the Manaroans , due to be printed in China before the words Tibetan Buddhism, were requested to be removed from the manuscript.

Bilbrough, who grew up in New Zealand, said leaving the words in the book was non-negotiable. She said China had overt, geo-political views about Tibet, by not recognising it as a country. She added:

That is what censorship is, they are symbolically erasing Tibet. I did feel quite sick when I read the email.

She was pleased publisher Victoria University Press was on the same page as her, saying:

I'm really happy that Victoria University Press is taking the book elsewhere -- and not pandering to this very overt censorship.

The use of the phrase Tibetan Buddhism, related to a discussion of the concept of karma, and the book itself was not about Tibetan sovereignty, but about the experience of being a child of hippies in 1970s New Zealand.

The statellite and cable subscription service, Sky Cinema, has issued a political correctness disclaimer to its subscribers that some of its content contains outdated attitudes, languages and cultural depictions which may cause offence today. Sixteen films have the warning:

• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). The only non-white character in the film Mr Yunioshi is played by white actor Mickey Rooney. Pretending to be a Japanese man, he wears fake teeth and puts on a Japanese accent.
• The Jungle Book (1967 and 2016 live-action remake). There have been suggestions the character of orangutang King Louie, which did not feature in Rudyard Kipling's original novel, implied inequality between African Americans and Caucasians. It has also been claimed the character's portrayal is based on what white people thought about black people at the time, such as his poorer linguistic skills and him wanting to be like the other men.
• Aladdin (1992). Critics have expressed concerns over the story's use of Orientalist stereotypes, while casting decisions also came under scrutiny, with Aladdin, Princess Jasmine and the genie played by white actors in the animation.
• The Goonies (1985). The portrayal of Clever Data, a gadget freak who helps the boys in situations, speaks in a stereotypically Asian accent.
• Dumbo (1941). Dumbo has been accused of containing racist stereotypes of African Americans at the time in the form of black crows, who use jive-like speech patterns. The main bird is even named Jim Crow, a nod to the racist segregationist Jim Crow laws of the time, and is voiced by a white actor.
• Aliens (1986). The film has been accused of hi-tech racism and android apartheid due to the way in which humans in the film deal with the presence of other. It has been suggested the character of Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, treated them with fear and suspicion.
• Trading Places (1983). The film was littered with controversies, including Dan Akroyd wearing blackface, continuous stereotyping of black people and women and frequent use of the n-word throughout the movie.
• Flash Gordon (1980). The film's antagonist, Ming the Merciless, played by Max von Sydow, is viewed as a classic example of Yellow Peril xenophobia.
• Gone With The Wind (1939). Gone With The Wind has been criticised for romanticising slavery and glosses over the horrors of slavery. The film also features the word 'nigger' throughout, which was used in the book.
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Some criticised the film for feeding on racial stereotypes and on Western beliefs that Arabs needed foreigners to guide them.
• Tropic Thunder (2008). Robert Downey Jr appeared in blackface for the comedy blockbuster, while many considered use of the word retard, uttered 17 times in the film to denote a person with learning difficulties, as unacceptable.
• The Jazz Singer (1927). The musical drama was criticised for Al Jolson's use of blackface, though many have since pointed to the fact the actor was a civil rights advocate, often backing projects by black artists, including playwright Garland Anderson.
• The Littlest Rebel (1935). Perhaps Shirley Temple's most controversial movie, The Littlest Rebel, in which she appears in blackface, is also accused of glorifying Confederate ideals, with black slaves appearing unhappy to be set free.
• The Lone Ranger (2013). Questions were raised over Johnny Depp's portrayal of Tonto, a Native American, as it sparked a debate over whether actors should play a race other than their own. The actor himself said he considered the role an attempt to try to right the wrongs of the past, meaning poor portrayals of Natives in Hollywood.
• Balls of Fury (2007). The ping-pong based comedy starring Christopher Walken was criticised for caricaturing Asian characters and carrying racist jokes and a running gag making fun of blind people.
• T he Last Samurai (2003). Tom Cruise's role as a captain hired to train the Japanese army to fight a Samurai rebellion is considered problematic by some for the sense of American superiority portrayed in the film.

Sky say that they are reviewing a number of their titles across their platform and are adding any warnings where they think it necessary to flag issues of cultural sensitivities and attitudes which may cause offence as part of its broader commitment to tackle racial injustice.

 

Update: Can art survive woke culture?

3rd July 2020. See article from spiked-online.com by Nick Dixon

Sky's bizarre film warnings show we no longer trust people to make or consume culture unattended.

On Monday, online discussion platform Reddit permanently took down its largest community of Donald Trump supporters, r/The_Donald.

The community had more than 7,000 active users per day (although this has previously been much higher). The ban was on the grounds that some posts incited violence, and the community had engaged in harassment on other subreddits. It will have removed hundreds of thousands of posts, and millions of comments going back many years.

The r/The_Donald subreddit is a themed, online message board where users can submit, comment and vote on posts. The decision to ban it comes as several other platforms censure racist and violent material from Trump and his supporters.

According to the New York Times, Reddit also banned another 2,000 communities across the political spectrum alongside the pro-Trump community, including left-leaning groups.

Started in 2015, r/The_Donald was the largest and most controversial subreddit dedicated to supporting Trump. Before the ban, it had more than 790,000 subscribers and was at times one of the most popular subreddits on the platform.

In June last year, Reddit quarantined the subreddit over posts inciting violence. Several months later it purged most of the community's volunteer moderators, arguing they weren't upholding the platform's policies, particularly through allowing banned content to stay up.

These shifts mirror changes in Reddit's overall governance approach. Historically, the platform has sold itself as a democratic space for free speech, with administrators resisting censorship in favour of a hands-off philosophy. However, like other platforms, Reddit now faces pressure from advertisers that don't want their brands associated with political extremism. Advertising is a growing part of Reddit's economic model. And with major partners such as L'Oreal and Audi, advertisers' preferences undoubtedly hold sway in how the website is regulated.

... Read the full article from theconversation.com

The House of Lords Gambling Committee claims that video game loot boxes should be regulated under gambling laws.

The Lords claim that loot boxes they should be classified as games of chance - which would bring them under the Gambling Act 2005. If a product looks like gambling and feels like gambling, it should be regulated as gambling, their report says. And they warn that such a change should not wait.

In reality the regulation of gambling is an entirely different kettle of fish that is about adult entertainment and significant levels of moeny being lost. Surely the monetising of games throught loot boxes would be better dealt with by those with expertise in child psychology.

Ex BBC boss Michael Grade, chairman of the committee, told BBC Breakfast that lots of other countries have already started to regulate loot boxes because they can see the dangers which is teaching kids to gamble. He said the Gambling Act was way behind what was actually happening in the market but he added that the overwhelming majority of the report's recommendations could be enacted today as they don't require legislation.

Gambling Harms: Time for Action Report: Key recommendations

The Committee sets out a range of recommendations across different areas to reduce gambling-related harm.

• The gambling industry offers a variety of products to consumers, including some which can be highly addictive. The Gambling Commission should create a system for testing all new games against a series of harm indicators, including their addictiveness and whether they will appeal to children. A game which scores too highly on the harm indicators must not be approved.
• The equalisation of speed of play and spin, so that no game can be played quicker online than in a casino, bookmaker or bingo hall.
• The Gambling Commission must explain the minimum steps which operators should take when considering customer affordability, and make clear that it is for the operator to take the steps which will enable them to identify customers who are betting more than they can afford.
• The creation of a statutory independent Gambling Ombudsman Service, modelled on the Financial Ombudsman Service, to settle disputes between gambling operators and gamblers.
• The Government must act immediately to bring loot boxes within the remit of gambling legislation and regulation.
• Gambling operators should no longer be allowed to advertise on the shirts of sports teams or any other visible part of their kit. There should also be no gambling advertising in or near any sports grounds or sports venues.
• Problem gambling is a common mental health disorder, and the NHS has the same duty to treat it as to treat any other disorder. Last year the NHS promised to open 15 new clinics. It should do this before 2023 and establish a comparable number within the following few years.

Habit is a 2020 USA film by Janell Shirtcliff.
Starring Bella Thorne, Bria Vinaite and Paris Jackson.

The casting of Jackson, a model and actor who is the daughter of the late pop star Michael Jackson, opposite Bella Thorne and musician Gavin Rossdale in the film was announced in April .

The plot synopsis suggests that Thorne plays a street smart party girl with a Jesus fetish [who] gets mixed up in a violent drug deal and finds a possible way out by masquerading as a nun. Jackson's gender-bending take on the religious figure was reported to include a nose ring, tousled waves and a traditional robe.

Echoing PC rules that selectively ban actors from playing roles based on a different ethnicity ('blackface'), the petitioners claim that it is unacceptable for a female to play a male role.The petitioners denounce the film as Christianophobic garbage, and call for the film to be banned. The petition has attracted about 260,000 signatures.

The petition, which names Warner Bros and Lionsgate as its targets, claims that Jackson will play Jesus as a lesbian, though there is no mention of this in any publicly available reports of the film. The petition also claims the film is blasphemous.

The project previously sparked protest from a christian organisation called One Million Moms , which claimed the film was sacrilegious and ridicules people of faith. It has started its own petition which has attracted about 69,000 signatures.