Boarding House is a 1982 USA comedy horror by John Wintergate (as Johnn Wintergate).
Starring John Wintergate, Kalassu and Lindsay Freeman.    

Noted as the first horror film shot on video. The original video release from 1982 was a spoof comedy horror. This version was banned by the BBFC for 1983 UK VHS release. The  video was re-edited to create a more serious horror for an MPAA R rated Theatrical Version. An alternative version was created in 1984 titled Psycho Killer. A much longer fan based creation from 2013 has been labelled the Director's Cut

Summary Notes

Resembling a cross between "The Amityville Horror" and a Playboy Playmates video, this film tells the terrifying tale of a cheesy video special effect that stalks bikini-clad women. In between scenes of them playfully splashing each other and wrestling with each other's bathing suit tops, they're murdered and/or terrorized by horrific hallucinations. These hallucinations include seeing blood in the shower stalls (while they're trying to lather up), having giant monsters jump out of the hall closet, and seeing their faces temporarily turn into rubber halloween masks.

Fan Created Director's Cut

Director's Cut run: 156:48s pal: 150:32s

US: The Director's Cut is MPAA Unrated for: 2015 Olive Films DVD [Director's Cut + Original Video Version] R1 DVD at US Amazon

Psycho Killer Version

Psycho Killer run: 98:08s pal: 94:12s

US: The Psycho Killer Version is MPAA Unrated for: 2021 American Genre Film [Original Version + Theatrical Version + Psycho Killer] R0 Blu-ray at US Amazon #ad

Theatrical Serious Horror Version

Theatrical Version run: 87:57s pal: 84:26s

US: The Theatrical Version  is MPAA R rated for: 2021 American Genre Film [Original Version + Theatrical Version + Psycho Killer] R0 Blu-ray at US Amazon #ad 2015 Olive Films DVD [Director's Cut + Original Video Version] R1 DVD at US Amazon

Original Spoof Horror Video Version

Original Version run: 98:46s pal: 94:49s		US: The Original Version is MPAA Unrated for: 2021 American Genre Film [Original Version + Theatrical Version + Psycho Killer] R0 Blu-ray at US Amazon #ad 2015 Olive Films DVD [Director's Cut + Original Video Version] R1 DVD at US Amazon
banned		UK: The Original Version was banned by the BBFC for: 1983 Intervision VHS

Turkish singer Gulsen has been arrested and accused of suupsedly inciting hatred over a joke she made about religious schools. In April, the singer joked a member of her band's perversion was due to him having attended one.

Despite the comments being old, they recently went viral online, drawing criticism from religious conservatives.

Gulsen, who is likened to a Turkish Madonna, had apologised on social media. Writing on Twitter and Instagram, the singer said that while she was defending freedom of expression with her joke between colleagues she apologised to everyone who was offended.

She is being held pending trial.

Nigeria has banned foreign models and voiceover artists in advertisements.

The measure, taking effect from October, will particularly mean that adverts in the African nation will no longer feature white models and British accents.

The Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria president Steve Babaeko said that Britons currently accounted for about half of models and voiceover artists in Nigerian commercials.

The California legislature is very, very close to passing AB 2273, The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. As far as I can tell, it has strong support in the legislature and very little opposition. And that's incredibly dangerous, because the bill is not just extremely problematic, but at the same time it's also impossible to comply with.

The bill is a for the children bill in that it has lots of language in there claiming that this is about protecting children from nefarious online services that create harm. But, as Goldman makes clear, the bill targets everyone, not just children, because it has ridiculously broad definitions.

Bill 2273 doesn't limit its impact to sites targeting those under 13. It targets any business with an online service likely to be accessed by children who are defined by a consumer or consumers who are under 18 years of age. I'm curious if that means someone who is not buying (i.e., consuming) anything doesn't count? Most likely it will mean consuming as in accessing / using the service. And that's ridiculous.

Because EVERY service is likely to have at least someone under the age of 18 visit it.

According to the law, I need to estimate the age of child users with a reasonable level of certainty. How? Am I really going to have to start age verifying every visitor to the site? It seems like I risk serious liability in not doing so. And then what? Now California has just created a fucking privacy nightmare for me. I don't want to find out how old all of you are and then track that data. We try to collect as little data about all of you as possible, but under the law that puts me at risk.

Yes, incredibly, a bill that claims to be about protecting data, effectively demands that I collect way more personal data than I ever want to collect.

See full article from techdirt.com

Last summer, we launched the Sensitive Content Control so people could choose how much or how little sensitive content to see in Explore from accounts they don't follow.

The Sensitive Content Control has three options, which we've renamed from when we first introduced the control to help explain what each option does. The three options are: More, Standard and Less.

Standard is the default state, and will prevent people from seeing some sensitive content and accounts. More enables people to see more sensitive content and accounts, whereas Less means they see less of this content than the default state. For people under the age of 18, the More option is unavailable.

The Sensitive Content Control has only two options for teens: Standard and Less. New teens on Instagram under 16 years old will be defaulted into the Less state. For teens already on Instagram, we will send a prompt encouraging them to select the Less experience.

This will make it more difficult for young people to come across potentially sensitive content or accounts in Search, Explore, Hashtag Pages, Reels, Feed Recommendations and Suggested Accounts.

In addition, we are testing a new way to encourage teens to update their safety and privacy settings. We'll show prompts asking teens to review their settings including: controlling who can reshare their content, who can message and contact them, what content they can see and how they can manage their time spent on Instagram.

The World Economic Forum has made a big push for digital identity programs around the world

The article then states (without mentioning numbers) that consumers said they would pick banks and financial firms as the most trustworthy entities to create and maintain a system that controls their identities online.

The WEF write-up adds some doom-and-gloom scenarios and fear mongering into the mix, arguing that with economies around the world heading into high inflation and recession, and the trend likely to continue -- digital economy and its potential becomes more important than ever.

But -- unless there is a way to identify everybody online, the WEF warns that people will actually stop interacting online.

Weighing in at 218 pages, with 197 sections and 15 schedules, the Online Safety Bill is a clunking attempt to regulate content on the internet. Its internal contradictions and exceptions, its complex paper chase of definitions, its weasel language suggesting more than it says, all positively invite misunderstanding. Parts of it are so obscure that its promoters and critics cannot even agree on what it does.

The real vice of the bill is that its provisions are not limited to material capable of being defined and identified. It creates a new category of speech which is legal but harmful. The range of material covered is almost infinite, the only limitation being that it must be liable to cause harm to some people. Unfortunately, that is not much of a limitation. Harm is defined in the bill in circular language of stratospheric vagueness. It means any physical or psychological harm. As if that were not general enough, harm also extends to anything that may increase the likelihood of someone acting in a way that is harmful to themselves, either because they have encountered it on the internet or because someone has told them about it.

This test is almost entirely subjective. Many things which are harmless to the overwhelming majority of users may be harmful to sufficiently sensitive, fearful or vulnerable minorities, or may be presented as such by manipulative pressure groups. At a time when even universities are warning adult students against exposure to material such as Chaucer with his rumbustious references to sex, or historical or literary material dealing with slavery or other forms of cruelty, the harmful propensity of any material whatever is a matter of opinion. It will vary from one internet user to the next.

If the bill is passed in its current form, internet giants will have to identify categories of material which are potentially harmful to adults and provide them with options to cut it out or alert them to its potentially harmful nature. This is easier said than done. The internet is vast. At the last count, 300,000 status updates are uploaded to Facebook every minute, with 500,000 comments left that same minute. YouTube adds 500 hours of videos every minute. Faced with the need to find unidentifiable categories of material liable to inflict unidentifiable categories of harm on unidentifiable categories of people, and threatened with criminal sanctions and enormous regulatory fines (up to 10 per cent of global revenue). What is a media company to do?

The only way to cope will be to take the course involving the least risk: if in doubt, cut it out. This will involve a huge measure of regulatory overkill. A new era of intensive internet self-censorship will have dawned.

See full article from spectator.co.uk

In January 2022, an Instagram account that describes itself as publicising British music posted a video with a short caption on its public account. The video is a 21-second clip of the music video for a UK drill music track called Secrets Not Safe by the rapper Chinx (OS). The caption tags Chinx (OS) as well as an affiliated artist and highlights that the track had just been released. The video clip shows part of the second verse of the song and fades to a black screen with the text OUT NOW. Drill is a subgenre of rap music popular in the UK, with a large number of drill artists active in London.

Shortly after the video was posted, Meta received a request from UK law enforcement to remove content that included this track. Meta says that it was informed by law enforcement that elements of it could contribute to a risk of offline harm. The company was also aware that the track referenced a past shooting in a way that raised concerns that it may provoke further violence. As a result, the post was escalated for internal review by experts at Meta.

Meta's experts determined that the content violated the Violence and Incitement policy, specifically the prohibition on coded statements where the method of violence or harm is not clearly articulated, but the threat is veiled or implicit. The Community Standards list signs that content may include veiled or implicit threats. These include content that is shared in a retaliatory context, and content with references to historical or fictional incidents of violence. Further information and/or context is always required to identify and remove a number of different categories listed at the end of the Violence and Incitement policy, including veiled threats. Meta has explained to the Board that enforcement under these categories is not subject to at-scale review (the standard review process conducted by outsourced moderators) and can only be enforced by Meta's internal teams. Meta has further explained that the Facebook Community Standards apply to Instagram.

When Meta took the content down, two days after it was posted, it also removed copies of the video posted by other accounts. Based on the information that they received from UK law enforcement, Meta's Public Policy team believed that the track might increase the risk of potential retaliatory gang violence, and acted as a threatening call to action that could contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm, including retaliatory gang violence.

Hours after the content was removed, the account owner appealed. A human reviewer assessed the content to be non-violating and restored it to Instagram. Eight days later, following a second request from UK law enforcement, Meta removed the content again and took down other instances of the video found on its platforms. The account in this case has fewer than 1,000 followers, the majority of whom live in the UK. The user received notifications from Meta both times their content was removed but was not informed that the removals were initiated following a request from UK law enforcement.

In referring this matter to the Board, Meta states that this case is particularly difficult as it involves balancing the competing interests of artistic expression and public safety. Meta explains that, while the company places a high value on artistic expression, it is difficult to determine when that expression becomes a credible threat. Meta asks the Board to assess whether, in this case and more generally, the safety risks associated with the potential instigation of gang violence outweigh the value of artistic expression in drill music.

In its decisions, the Board can issue policy recommendations to Meta. While recommendations are not binding, Meta must respond to them within 60 days. As such, the Board welcomes public comments proposing recommendations that are relevant to these cases.

Respond via article from oversightboard.com

The Hungarian media censor has said it was investigating Netflix for potentially violating an anti-LGBT law, citing several complaints over a cartoon showing girls kissing.

The National Media and Communications Authority said it was checking whether an episode of a Netflix kids series named Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous had violated a law which prohibits the portrayal of homosexuality or transgender people in content shown to minors.

The Netflix series, rated for 7-year-olds and above, shows one of the main characters confessing her love to another girl and kissing her.

The censor said that if it found Netflix to have violated its law, it would have to inform the Dutch media authority, which oversees Netflix because the firm's European headquarters are in the Netherlands. The Dutch censor would in turn have the final say.

A comedian has been cancelled by an Edinburgh Fringe venue after he got his penis out on stage and made jokes about disallowed topics on his opening night.

Jerry Sadowitz was scheduled to play at The not very pleasant Pleasance at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre on Friday and Saturday.

The censorial venue confirmed that it had been pulled because his material does not align with our values.

One female audience member told the Scottish Sun that Sadowitz  called Rishi Sunak a 'paki' and said the economy was awful because it is run by blacks and women.

The event listing carried a warning which read:

This show contains strong language and themes some may find distressing.

Revealing the decision, Sadowitz said on Twitter:

Did a show last night, 75 mins, thought it went well. Didn't see any walkouts. Today I'm told my show's been cancelled. Great stuff. I'm truly sorry for everyone who travelled to see the show tonight.

Offsite Comment: They finally came for Jerry Sadowitz

15th August 2022. See article from spiked-online.com by Simon Evans

Comedians dismiss cancel culture at their peril.

Plans to compel social media platforms to tackle online harms are not fit for purpose according to a new poll of IT experts.

Only 14% of tech professionals believed the Online Harms Bill was fit for purpose, according to the survey by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

Some 46% said the bill was not workable, with the rest unsure.

The legislation would have a negative effect on freedom of speech, most IT specialists (58%) told BCS.

Only 19% felt the measures proposed would make the internet safer, with 51% saying the law would not make it safer to be online.

There were nearly 1,300 responses from tech professionals to the survey by BCS.

Just 9% of IT specialists polled said they were confident that legal but harmful content could be effectively and proportionately removed.

Some 74% of tech specialists said they felt the bill would do nothing to stop the spread of disinformation and fake news.

The Pretty Little Thing website www.prettylittlething.com, seen 1 June 2022, featured Alabama Barker as a brand ambassador, along with her Y2K Edit clothing collection.

The brand ambassador webpage featured the headline Y2K IS CALLING, under which text stated, channel that teen dream realness with barely-there micro mini skirts. The page also included a series of images of Ms Barker modelling clothing from her edit. In one image, Ms Barker wore a tight-fitting short dress whilst sucking a lollipop. Another image featured Ms Barker wearing high heels and a low-cut short dress that revealed her breasts whilst spraying a water hose. Ms Barker was also shown wearing a dress taking a phone call whilst lying on a bed and licking her lips. Further images showed Ms Barker in a short V-necked dress clutching her chest with one hand, and posed with her leg bent wearing a mini skirt and knee high boots. An image of an open mouth with the tongue hanging out also featured.

On the product page for the clothing collection text stated, Nail the latest trends and team a cropped varsity jacket with a mini skirt and knee-high boots for a date with your best dolls or flaunt your curves in a white figure-hugging dress 206 Alabama Barker is here to make sure you're feeling confident and looking fierce. The page featured several products modelled by Ms Barker. One such image showed Ms Barker wearing a miniskirt, shirt and corset top whilst reclining on a bed and holding a handbag in the air. Another image featured Ms Barker wearing fluffy hair clips, a white cropped shirt, exposing her midriff, and sunglasses emblazoned with the text THAT'S HOT. In another image, Ms Barker wore a mini skirt, vest and cropped jacket whilst bent forward and clutching her chest.

A complainant, who believed that Alabama Barker was 16 years old, challenged whether the ad breached the Code by portraying someone who was under 18 in a sexual way.

Prettylittlething.com Ltd confirmed that Ms Barker was 16 years old at the time of the ad's shooting. They said that they had chosen Ms Barker as their brand ambassador because their customer base was primarily aged between 16 and 24 years old. They said that the campaign was based on the Y2K trend which they said was extremely popular with their target market and which they characterised as girly, colourful, fun and playful. PrettyLittleThing said that they did not intend to sexualise Ms Barker and disagreed that she was portrayed in a sexual manner.

ASA Assessment: Complaint upheld

The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must not portray or represent anyone who was, or seemed to be, under 18 in a sexual way.

The ASA understood that Ms Barker was aged 16 years old at the time of shooting and we considered that she also looked under 18 in the images. We noted that Ms Barker was shown in a number of different outfits and wore items such as a tight-fitting short dress, a low-cut short dress that revealed her breasts, a corset top, mini skirt and knee-high boots. We considered the clothing to be revealing. We also noted that Ms Barker wore sunglasses emblazoned with the text THAT'S HOT, which we considered to be a reference to sexual or passionate feeling.

We considered that a number of her poses were also likely to be considered as sexual. In several images, Ms Barker was shown lying on a bed and in one of them she was licking her lips in a sexually suggestive manner. Several of the images in which she was wearing a mini skirt involved Ms Barker crouching down, or bending her leg, which accentuated the prominence of her upper thighs, to the extent that her buttocks were almost visible. Furthermore, we noted that in another image Ms Barker was shown spraying a water hose which was positioned between her legs, which we considered focused the eye to her crotch area. In other images, Ms Barker was shown sucking a lollipop and clutching her chest.

We also considered that the text channel that teen dream realness with barely-there micro mini skirts further highlighted Ms Barker's young age. The references to barely-there micro mini skirts were also likely to be seen as sexualised.Given the above, we considered that the ad depicted a person who was under 18 in a sexual way, and we therefore concluded it was irresponsible and breached the Code.

The ad must not appear in its current form. We told PrettyLittleThing.com Ltd to ensure future ads did not include images that portrayed or represented anyone who was, or seemed to be, under 18 in a sexual manner.

The Australian state of New South Wales has become the second to ban the Nazi flag and and associated symbols.

Intentionally bearing swastikas can now land a person in jail for up to a year and a fine of over $100,000

Politicians claim that the symbol is a rallying call to Nazism but in fact the symbol is now more likely to to be used to criticise contemporary groups for acting like Nazis.

Meta writes:

• We're testing secure storage on Messenger, a new feature that allows you to back up your end-to-end encrypted chats.

• We're also starting a test of automatic end-to-end encrypted chat threads on Messenger and expanding other features.

People want to trust that their online conversations with friends and family are private and secure. We're working hard to protect your personal messages and calls with end-to-end encryption by default on Messenger and Instagram. Today, we're announcing our plans to test a new secure storage feature for backups of your end-to-end encrypted chats on Messenger, and more updates and tests to deliver the best experience on Messenger and Instagram.

See article from about.fb.com

Thor: Love and Thunder is a 2022 Australia/US film by Taika Waititi
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Christian Bale

Thor enlists the help of Valkyrie, Korg and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster to fight Gorr the God Butcher, who intends to make the gods extinct.

Malaysia: Banned by the film censor in August 2022

Disney likes to add a little preachy moralising about gay positivity and this film is not an exception with a couple of minor script references. Korg (Taika Waititi) mentioned his two dads and briefly ending up with another male Krogan. The other reference was the female character, Valkyrie, taking an interest in a concubine of Zeus.

Malaysia's Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Zahidi Zainul Abidin spotted the gay references and said that he would continue to look out for LGBT content that would continue to censored in future.

The film censor did propose that cuts could be made to secure a release but Disney declined and the film was formally banned.

Hong Kong has banned the screening of an award-winning animated short film over a one-second depiction of the city's 2014 democracy protests.

The Ground Up Film Society told AFP that it cancelled a Sunday screening of Losing Sight of a Longed Place at their film festival after Hong Kong authorities would not allow an uncut version to be shown.

The eight-minute film began as a student project and tells the true story of a Hong Kong gay rights activist.

Hong Kong censors demanded cutting a scene that lasts less than a second. The contentious shot shows tents and slogans reminiscent of Hong Kong's pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in 2014, which authorities describe as an unlawful occupation of thoroughfares.

A Times investigation, published this week, has found that universities across the UK have been removing the requirement, and in some cases the option, to study certain books because of their supposedly distressing content. The University of Sussex, for example, has removed August Strindberg's play, Miss Julie , from a literature module because it contains discussion of suicide.

Students at Wrexham Glyndwr University, on a module dedicated to mentoring, are being given the option to skip a book called Mentoring , because it includes "humour" that is not inclusive of people who are trans or nonbinary.

Similarly, on Nottingham Trent's French course, a French language module has removed a requirement to study satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo . It says the magazine contains racist, sexist, bigoted, Islamophobic satirical206 cartoons with strong language.

Other universities have slapped trigger warnings on Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro ('trivialised role and abuse of female characters'), Austen's Mansfield Park ('poverty, classism, sexism, mistreatment in a domestic context'), and -- in a masterstroke of dark comedy -- Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four ('contains explicit material which you may find offensive or upsetting').

See full article from spiked-online.com

Google is ramping up this effort to make sure the search engine isn't simply returning results -- like people might still expect it to do -- but what Google decides are trustworthy results as opposed to falsehoods and misinformation.

Google is introducing what it calls content advisories. Google says the goal is to help users understand and evaluate high-quality information, and also promote what it calls information literacy. And the way this editorialized by Google information is presented to users to evaluate is fairly aggressive: on mobile devices, these advisories are full-screen, displayed above the fold where they are most visible.

It looks like there aren't many great results for this search, the advisory will read.

On its blog, the corporation said that its systems are already trained to identify and prioritize signals which it has decided indicate that content is authoritative and trustworthy.

Internet censors of the Information Commissioner's Office has been called on to implement  a full-scale probe into how the online betting industry is exploiting new technology to profile and target gamblers.

The move follows a complaint by  the campiagn group Clean Up Gambling. It alleges that Sky Bet and its partners are creating detailed behavioural profiles of customers and sharing thousands of data points with dozens of third parties.

Clean Up Gambling alleges that one advertising partner, Signal, owned by TransUnion, has a dossier of 186 attributes for an individual, including their propensity to gamble, their favourite games and their susceptibility to specific types of marketing.

TransUnion said it assists gambling companies in preventing fraud, confirming age and identity, checking affordability and protecting vulnerable customers, to support responsible gambling.

Lightyear is a 2022 US children's cartoon drama by Angus MacLane
Starring Chris Evans, (voice), Keke Palmer, (voice), Dale Soules and (voice)

The story of Buzz Lightyear and his adventures to infinity and beyond.

There are no censorship issues with this release in the west but the film has been banned in many muslim countries.

In particular the film won't be in theaters in Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Malaysia. The issue is the presence of openly LGBTQ characters in the film.

The film was also removed from the Disney+ streaming service. Disney were reluctant to make cuts to remove the gay material and decided that it was best to remove the film entirely from countries or regions where the material is controversial.

The Indonesian government has blocked website access to a range of online services, including Steam, Epic Games, PayPal, and Yahoo after the companies failed to comply with a new censorship requirement.

Recent censorship laws require that companies deemed Private Electronic System Providers must register with the government's database to operate in the country, or otherwise face a nationwide ban. Indonesia gave companies until July 27th to comply and has since banned those that haven't. The requirement is part of a law called MR5

The laws give the Indonesian government the ability to obtain data about specific users, as well as coerce companies into removing content that disturbs public order or is considered illegal. Platforms have four hours to take action on urgent removal requests, or 24 hours in the case of any other content.

The ban has left users in Indonesia stuck without the ability to process payments or even play certain games. Some other popular games and services affected by the ban include Origin, DOTA 2 , and Counter-Strike.

Meanwhile, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, TikTok, Twitter, Netflix, and Spotify registered for a license last week , and all remain available.

 

Update: Blocks partially lifted

6th August 2022. See article

Indonesia has lifted its ban on Steam and Yahoo now that both companies complied with the country's restrictive laws that regulate online activity (via @ZhugeEX). The Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) announced the news in a translated update on Twitter, noting that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 are back online as well.

Although PayPal has yet to comply, Indonesia unblocked access to the service for five days starting July 31st to give users a chance to withdraw money and make payments. According to the Indonesian news outlet Antara News, PayPal reportedly plans on registering with the country's database soon.

Epic Games and the EA-owned Origin still remain banned in the country, which makes games like Fortnite and FIFA unplayable.

  Hampshire Constabulary sent five police officers to arrest a man in Aldershot for a Facebook post containing an image that made Progress Pride flags (flags that combine the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rainbow pride flag with a chevron containing the blue, pink, and white stripes of the transgender flag) look like a swastika.

The image that the man was arrested for posting has been widely shared online by thousands of social media users, including Reclaim Party leader and free speech activist Laurence Fox, who was present when the man was arrested.

Harry Miller, a former UK police officer and chairman of the UK political party Reclaim, was also arrested for attempting to obstruct the arrest of the man who posted the transgender flag swastika.

Miller also accused the police of trying to shakedown the man during this visit by offering to downgrade the crime to a non-crime if the man agreed to pay £60 and attend a Community Awareness Course that would give him a mental toolbox that will enable him to keep out of trouble in the future.

Miller and the man were subsequently released without charge. According to Hampshire Constabulary, the man was released under investigation but it will be taking no further action against him. Miller was released under investigation but inquiries are ongoing and it's still a live investigation.

Donna Jones, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire and Isle of Wight, expressed concern about the proportionality and necessity of the police's response to the incident. She said:

When incidents on social media receive not one but two visits from police officers, but burglaries and non-domestic break-ins don't always get a police response, something is wrong, Jones said. As Police Commissioner, I am committed to ensuring Hampshire Constabulary serves the public as the majority of people would expect. It appears on this occasion this has not happened.

Jones added that she will be writing to the UK College of Policing to make them aware of the incident and encourage greater clarification on the guidance in order to ensure that police forces can respond more appropriately in the future.

 

Offsite Comment: When did memes become a police matter?

2nd August 2022. See article from spiked-online.com

We need to put our dimwitted, would-be Stasi back in its box.

 

Update: Hampshire Police scraps its hate crime re-education course

7th August 2022. See article from dailymail.co.uk

Hampshire Police were revealed to have been more or less forcing people accused of online insults to attend a hate crime re-education course or else face prosecution for the insult.

Hampshire Constabulary was among three forces in the country that ran the two-hour re-educational sessions for people accused of racism, sexism, misogyny and transphobia.

The Orwellian scheme was funded out of the force's Police and Crime Commissioner's budget, but faced controversy when an  army veteran was arrested for a trivial gay pride insult which showed four LGBT pride flags positioned to make a swastika.

No doubt other victims of the police harrasmment have been forced into attending but this time around the victim had contact with friends that could generate enough publicity to get the police deservedly shamed.

Donna Jones, Tory Police Commissioner for Hampshire, said that she is ending the contract with the company which manages the programme.

An upcoming and controversial Nintendo Switch game has been officially postponed and delayed indefinitely.

The game Massage Freaks was reported by ComicBook.com as the most NSFW game released on the Switch yet. Now it looks like it is Nintendo itself that has prevented the game from releasing on Switch this week, at least in its current form.

The game developer Qureate recently announced the game had changed names from Massage Freaks to Beat Refle and is no longer Switch bound. According to developer Qureate, the delay is the result of discussions with related parties. Nintendo isn't name-dropped, but it's unclear who else this could be referencing.  Querate said in a statement:

The Nintendo Switch version of 'Massage Freaks,' which was scheduled to be released on August 4, 2022, has been postponed after discussions with related parties, We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused to our customers.

Further background from article from en.wikipedia.org :

The game received criticism for its depiction of women, which was considered discriminatory and reminiscent of real-world sexual crimes at massage parlors in Japan. It was also noted that female characters in the game shared their first names with members of the idol group Hinatazaka46. Following the criticism, qureate delayed the Switch release indefinitely, cancelled preorders, and changed the characters' names. beat refle was silently released on Steam on July 31, 2022, albeit censored.

Watership Down is a 1978 UK / USA animation adventure thriller by Martin Rosen.
Starring John Hurt and Richard Briers and Ralph Richardson.

Based upon Richard Adam's novel of the same title, this animated feature delves into the surprisingly violent world of a warren of rabbits as they seek to establish a new colony free of tyranny and human intervention.

Uncut and U rated by the BBFC for many years.  Perhaps the BBFC's bloodiest, albeit animated, U rated film. It is surely one of the BBFC's most controversial ratings.

The U was finally uprated to PG for cinema release in 2022.

Not Okay is a 2022 US comedy drama by Quinn Shephard
Starring Zoey Deutch, Dylan O'Brien and Embeth Davidtz

A misguided young woman, desperate for friends and fame, fakes a trip to Paris to update her social media presence. A terrifying incident takes place in the real world which becomes a part of the imaginary trip and offers all she wanted.

Hulu's new film Not Okay starts with a surprising disclaimer that reads:

CONTENT WARNING: This film contains flashing lights, themes of trauma, and an unlikeable female protagonist. Viewer discretion advised.

The trigger warning was added by the director, not the Disney-owned platform itself. The film's director Quinn Shepard said, while it might not be taken seriously, the warning was inspired by some very real concerns. She said:

The content warning was borne out of, to be honest, our test screenings.

We un-ironically and consistently got responses from -- I'm not going to say what demographic, but you might be able to guess -- people who were quite literally like, 'Why would someone make a movie with an unlikable woman?' It's something I've repeatedly heard, and a lot of my other writer friends have as well. If you portray flawed women or women who reflect societal flaws, you get notes like, 'I literally don't understand why you tell a story about this character.'

Lucy D'Orsi, chief constable of the British Transport Police, says her force wants access to data from passengers' mobile phones and bank cards so that it can track us around the network. At the moment, you can get on a train from Wolverhampton to London with a paper ticket and leave little trace. The ticket itself can be tracked if it's put through the ticket barriers at a station that has them, but no rail company nor the British Transport Police can have any real idea who is travelling on that ticket, especially if it was bought with cash.

D'Orsi was quite open about the possibilities that would arise. She quoted the example of someone who was spotted by an algorithm travelling on the Tube for six hours and who, she suggested, might be a pickpocket or a predatory sex offender. She also quoted the example of someone who caught a train from London to Liverpool and then caught one back straight away. That's not normal, she said. That's not what people do. So why is someone doing that? In future, she suggested, British Transport Police would be able to pick them up as a suspected drug-dealer.

We are supposed to think, of course, that only criminals will be stopped. Except that there are very good reasons why we all sometimes find ourselves making unusual journeys. Next winter, I confidently predict, D'Orsi and her colleagues will find themselves feeling the collar of large numbers of poor people who are travelling the Tube to keep warm and save heating bills at home -- henceforth they are could be suspected pickpockets or predatory sex offenders. As for who would want to travel to Liverpool and straight back again, I can think of numerous reasons: a parent dropping off their children with grandparents or an ex-partner for the week; someone who started a journey to attend a business meeting only to receive a call en-route that it had been cancelled; someone meeting family or friends from abroad and is going with them for the journey. All these people are, apparently, in the eyes of British Transport Police, criminal suspects, designated as such by an algorithm.