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Posts Tagged ‘censorship’

Only Fans bans porn – goodbye OnlyFans

OnlyFans is where you can pay to connect with physical fitness experts, chefs, musicians and “other creators who post regularly online”. You can also use it for on-the-clock, internet-enabled sex with a sex worker. From October 1, the site will block sexually explicit photos and videos.

“In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of our platform, and continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines,” OnlyFans said in a statement. But the site is synonymous with pornography. There will be no more hardcore porn and live sex shows on the site, just nudity – you know, the kind of stuff you can see all over the web. So what’s the point of OnlyFans?

“These changes are to comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers,” says OnlyFans.

On Twitter, @PostCultureReview posts an interesting take on the move: “A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong, and the reality of it is a lot more damaging and concerning to both the livelihood of sex workers and online freedom in general.”

Are the prudes and censors winning? Whose body is it? The twitter account alleges the move is part of a broader purge on porn pushed by evangelical Christians in the US.

Tezza Williams, 22, from Birmingham, tells the BBC: “If you’re not allowed to post really explicit content it’s going to be a massive kick in the teeth. There’s this massive stigma on sex workers that just should not be a thing. We’re doing it from the comfort of our own bedrooms, it’s given us a living – it could be getting people off drugs, off the streets. [Making porn] is helping people and they still want to put bans on it, and [that’s] disgusting.”

Does banning stuff that makes OnlyFans and porn sites popular help people and society? And who gets to ban things? Who makes the decision, and why are they making it?

Posted: 22nd, August 2021 | In: News | Comment


They are Charlie Hebdo: Batley Grammar school students campaign to save teacher’s job after Mohamed picture debacle

charlie hebdo

Anyone searching for sanity in the Batley Grammar school row can enjoy the news that pupils have rallied to save their teacher’s job. Sir was suspended for showing his class a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed – the image that in 2015 Islamists took such offence to they murdered 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the French magazine that created and published the work. For a brief while lots of politicians chanted “Je Suis Charlie”. Now to show the cartoon to students at a secular school in the UK in an effort to get them thinking and foster debate gets you tossed from a job. The teacher is said to be in hiding.

Lots of people angered that the cartoon was shown protested at the school gates. The West Yorkshire school agreed with the protestors, calling the image “inappropriate”. Headteacher Gary Kibble apologised “unequivocally”. He is “investigating” the teacher.

The students are robust. They have rallied to the teacher’s defence:

“The religious studies teacher was trying to educate students about racism and blasphemy. He warned the students before showing them the images and he had the intent to educate them. He does not deserve such large repercussions. He is not a racist and did not support the Islamophobic cartoons in any manner. This has got out of hand and due to this the students have missed out on lessons.”

As ever, it’s not the open-minded, inquisitive children we should fret about, it’s the adults.

Image: In this Sept.19, 2012 file photo, Charb, the publishing director of the satyric weekly Charlie Hebdo, displays the front page of the newspaper as he poses for photographers in Paris. He was killed.

Posted: 26th, March 2021 | In: News | Comment


UK bans China state broadcaster from British airwaves; Putin’s RT continues to troll West


Uighurs

UK state broadcast regulator Ofcom has banned China state broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN) because it is ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and, thus, has no editorial control of its own – a legal requirement. Ofcome once blocked Iran-backed Press TV. So why does Russia Today (RT) continue to broadcast?

Julian Knight MP, chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, is chuffed:

“Today’s ruling is confirmation that the Chinese Communist Party is the ultimate controller of its broadcasts which is not permitted under UK law. CGTN had already breached broadcasting codes with a forced confession, and failure on impartiality over coverage of the Hong Kong protests. It should be seen as a strong warning that the power to broadcast carries with it responsibility and accountability. Failing this bar will not be tolerated.”

So you cannot watch Red TV but you can trade with China and not mention its abuse of Uighurs and other Muslims at camps in China’s Xinjiang region – no national newspaper has led with the story on its front page. The UK and China agree on one thing about that nastiness: there’s nothing to see here, move along…

Posted: 5th, February 2021 | In: News | Comment


You scumbags, you faggots: BBC censors The Pogues Fairytale of New York

‘You scumbag, you maggot /

You cheap lousy faggot /

Happy Christmas your arse /

I pray God it’s our last.’

Prudes at the achingly stiff BBC Radio 1 have censored The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York. Words deemed too strong for the Beeb’s youth audience have been purged. This is of course marvellous news for The Pogues because there is no surer way to blunt the once edgy and hip than to have it endorsed by the BBC. Ban it. And ban it good. The kids will seek it out.

Listeners to Radio 1 will not hear Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan sing “faggot” and “slut”. Instead it’s “haggard’ and “slut” gets beeped out. Oddly, BBC Radio 2 will air the full version and in a sop to further management cowardice 6 Music will allow its DJs to choose the version they wish to play. So if you want to hear the uncensored version, kids, tune into the station once reserved for middle-aged roadkill.

The BBC says: “We know the song is considered a Christmas classic and we will continue to play it this year, with our radio stations choosing the version of the song most relevant for their audience.”

So there it is. The young must be protected from hearing bad words and so remain on the ‘right side of history’. Meanwhile… here’s on Radio 1 is a song about Cardi B’s vagina:

Posted: 19th, November 2020 | In: Music, News | Comment


Facebook knows the Coronavirus truth – Facebook bans news editor-in-chief Zuckerberg disagrees with

Facebook must know the truth about coronavirus Covid-19 because it’s banned fake news on the pandemic. Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg says misinformation will not be tolerated on his social network. There is one version approved of events and you can read about it on Facebook.

Zuckerberg will remove any content likely to result in “immediate and imminent harm” to users. “Even if something isn’t going to lead to imminent physical harm, we don’t want misinformation to be the content that is going viral,” he tells the BBC. Does he not trust his customers to use circumspection when reading news on his website? Does Zuckerberg think Facebook users gullible fools in need of his protection, the sort of people who read one website and believe everything on it?

Facebook has removed Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s claim that scientists have “proved” there was a coronavirus cure. No need to hold it up to ridicule and check it for yourself. Facebook has banned it – or censored it, if you prefer. The claim is “obviously” not true, says Zuckerberg. Obvious to him. But maybe not obvious to you. You will also not be able to consider and debunk the view that the 5G digital network has spread Covid-19. It’s been banned. Says the BBC:

David Icke had suggested that 5G mobile phone networks are linked to the spread of the virus and in another video he suggested a Jewish group was behind the virus.

Well, d’uh. Every conspiracy theorist ends up blaming the Jews. The good news is that with so much information out there, the loons are easy to disprove. Ban it and watch the conspiracy fester. It’s grist for the mill.

Says Zuckerberg: “We work with independent fact checkers. Since the Covid outbreak, they have issued 7,500 notices of misinformation which has led to us issuing 50 million warning labels on posts. We know these are effective because 95% of the time, users don’t click through to the content with a warning label.”

So you can still click it. But Facebook has edited it. Which suggests that Facebook is a publisher. And Zuckerberg is de facto Facebook editor-in-chief.

Posted: 21st, May 2020 | In: News | Comment


Tabloid readers flock to buy Vogue for news of Harry and Meghan as former royals ban the Sun, Express, Mirror and Mail from doing their PR

prince harry meghan
Harry and Meghan – live cam

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will no longer “offer themselves up as currency for an economy of clickbait and distortion”. The couple, now living in LA and functioning as the ambulatory Archewell brand, tell four of the main British tabloids, The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Mirror, they are above such things. They are beginning “a new media relations policy”. They tell the media:

“It is gravely concerning that an influential slice of the media, over many years, has sought to insulate themselves from taking accountability for what they say or print – even when they know it to be distorted, false, or invasive beyond reason. When power is enjoyed without responsibility, the trust we all place in this much-needed industry is degraded.”

From now on the tabloids will have to rely on gossip, paparazzi photos and ‘sources’ close to the couple for news. Yeah. Plus ca change. Harry and Meghan will bar the media they don’t like from receiving official updates and photographs. The four newspapers of the apocalypse will not receive the couples press releases telling of their unique inspiring love and where you can buy their news range of scented candles. The papers will have to wait for other approved organs to publish the PR before splashing the statements across their web pages. The papers will also be banned from attending official Archewell events.

Tabloid readers will be distraught at the news and flock to buy Vogue and therein read of the couple’s wonderful lives and where to get their merchandise.

Posted: 20th, April 2020 | In: Key Posts, News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment


The Entartete Kunst – when Nazis banned ‘degenerate’ art and music

Entartete Kunst

The Nazis were not ones for jazz and free expression. They damned all as entartete kunst (degenerate art). To let fellow Ubermensch know what wrong thinking looked like, the Nazis created a travelling exhibition called – predictably – Entartete Kunst. The show opened in Munich in 1937, displaying works deemed to be “an insult to German feeling”. How they flocked to be educated and disgusted by stuff purged from museums and stolen by the State for the common good. More than two million visitors attended the exhibition from July 19 to November 30, 1937, in Munich alone.

Part of the purge was listed in the 10 Rules for Combatting Jazz. The whole shebang of depravity formed a brochure, of which London’s V&A holds the only known copy of a complete inventory of Entartete Kunst.

The museum notes:

The list of more than 16,000 artworks was produced by the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) in 1942 or thereabouts. It seems that the inventory was compiled as a final record, after the sales and disposals of the confiscated art had been completed in the summer of 1941. The inventory’s two typescript volumes provide crucial information about the provenance, exhibition history and fate of each artwork.

The inventory consists of 482 pages (including blank pages and a missing page), split into two volumes. The entries are organised alphabetically by city, institution and artist’s name. Volume 1 covers the cities Aachen to Görlitz, while Volume 2 covers Göttingen to Zwickau.

It’s pretty much a guide to everything you should enjoy.

Spotter: Flashbak

Posted: 30th, January 2020 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians, Strange But True | Comment


Tumblr is dead: network bans Iggy Pop, David Bowie and The Bayeux Tapestry for being too dangerous

Tumblr is dead. The social media network owned by Verizon bans everything and anything. It offers users a right to “appeal” its ridiculous decisions. Why bother? It’s not worth the effort. Here are some images Tumblr has banned from my page for Flashbak. The offence for each image is the same:

Thee are just some of the images that are for adults only. Yeah , as if the cool kids us Tumblr – dream on:

david bowie banned
David Bowie in his flat – this image will corrupt minors. Keep up the good work, Dave!
tumblr banned iggy pop
Banned! Iggy Pop will be chuffed to bits
A postcard for sale in Miami – Bettie Page remains edgy
tumblr banned
Ban this sick filth!

tumblr banned
Album covers are now X-rated – more disco days debauchery here
tumblr banned
Girls’ Love magazine 1965 – BANNED!
tumblr banned
Beatles concert (1964) – Look away now, kids!
tumblr banned
As seen on the The Bayeux Tapestry, a mainstay of history lessons
tumblr banned
BANNED! Dancers Berinoff and Angelina. Photo by Martin Badekow, 1920s
tumblr banned
Carmen Miranda – fine for 1941 but classified as dangerous in 2019

tumblr banned
Speedo Jockette Stretch Bri-Nylon underwear advertisement, Australia, 1977. BANNED!

Tumblr is dead. What odds large chunks of the corporatised web follow?

Posted: 12th, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Technology | Comment


After New Zealand: Tom Watson calls Mark Zuckerberg ‘wicked’ and blames Facebook for massacre

Forty-nine people are known to have been murdered as they prayed in a New Zealand mosque. The killer live-streamed the massacre on Facebook. On LBC Radio, Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson used his hosted show to call Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, “wicked”. Watson said he “dreams of the day” when he no longer has to use social media.

The Sun New Zealand massacre

Watson sounds like the intro to 1970s TV show Why Don’t You?, which advised British children tuning in to turn the telly off and get a life – but only after they’d finished watching this show, which was more pure than all the other shows. So by all means use Twitter and Facebook, but only listen to people who advocate “decency”, like Tom Watson.

The Daily Telegraph calls the slaughter the first social media terror attack. The Sun calls the killer the ‘FACEBOOK TERRORIST”. The Mail says it’s the “MASSACRE SHAME ON FACEBOOK”. The mood is clear: more censorship is required to prevent a repeat of this. But is that how you stop a disease from spreading? And who gets to decide what we, the impressionable masses, get to see?

You can argue about what kind of person seeks out a video of people being murdered, and why anyone not involved in psychopathic studies would want to spend a muon of their time reading the killer’s long manifesto. But should things be banned?

daily mail new zealand facebook

Maybe context is key? In France, the odious Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Rally, is being investigated for her tweets. Her response to suggestions that the Far-Right has much in common with jihadism was to tweet the pointer “This is Daesh” and a series of gruesome photos. She thought it useful to show her followers images of a man being burned alive in a cage and decapitated US journalist James Foley. Le Pen has been charged with “circulating violent pictures liable to be seen by children”. “Sharing is caring,” says the blurb beneath social media icons. Not always it isn’t.

So, who else be blamed?

The Hill:

“New Zealand Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced and we quickly removed both the shooter’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video,” Mia Garlick, Facebook’s director of policy for Australia and New Zealand, said in a statement. Facebook is “removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we’re aware,” Garlick added.

A caller to Watson’s show said words heard in any video can be transcribed by machine learning. If the broadcast features a word on the banned list, then the video is flagged. So, for instance, a video of Tom Watson talking about “porn” and “white supremacy” would be flagged and blocked at the gate. The problem with that approach is clear. No platforming words and ideas diminishes us all.

What to do? Well, a word from Waleed Aly is worth listening to:

Posted: 16th, March 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians, Tabloids, Technology | Comment


When Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and Barry Gardiner wanted to ban Keith Flint

On 08 December 1997, Jeremy Corbyn wanted to ban us from knowing about a song by The Prodigy. The groups’ frontman Keith Flint has died too soon at the age of just 49. The early day motion to ban the mesmeric, relentless Smack My Bitch Up went:

That this House expresses its disgust and outrage at the advertising billboard campaign to promote a record album entitled Smack my Bitch Up; and urges the recording company to withdraw this advertisement immediately.

Of the 41 people who wanted music banned, the following are notable:

Keith Fint Labour the Prodigy

Where are they now? Yep – ‘Disgusted of Westminster’ are threatening to lead the country.

Spotter: Keith Flint, the last punk

Posted: 4th, March 2019 | In: Key Posts, Music, News, Politicians | Comment


Arsenal fans support Spurs Yid Army

 

We’re back talking about the ‘Yid Army’ and Spurs fans right to sing what they want to. This week something called The World Jewish Congress – I’ve not been invited to attend – and the Board of Deputies of British Jews – not been invited to that shindig, either – politely requested that Tottenham Hotspur Football Club have a word with their fans. They must tell them to stop freely referring to themselves as ‘Yids’. And that goes for the club’s Jewish fans, too.

Robert Singer, the CEO of the World Jewish Congress, stood in the pulpit and opined: “[The use of the word ‘yid’] by fans in the stands, either as a self-designated nickname or as a slogan against rivals must not be tolerated in any way. We would also ask Tottenham Hotspur to take a stand against the use of ‘Yid Army’, ‘Yid’ and ‘Yiddos’ by their fans. Such a long overdue action is important to kick antisemitism off the pitch and create a welcoming environment for all.” To which the reply from this Arsenal fan is: “We’ll sing what we want to.” 

If Spurs fans want to self-identify as Yids, let them. It’s self-determination. The Yid Army is not the least bit anti-Semitic. What is bigoted and censorious is telling people what they can and cannot say about themselves. Singer and his ilk should spend more time calling out genuine acts of anti-Semitism than disabusing ‘Yids’ of their language. Most anti-Semites I’ve encountered are more subtle than to give full throat to the Yids. They speak of those “clever Jews”, those “rich Jews”, and those Jews who are loyal only to one another and don’t get “English irony”. 

Posted: 7th, January 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Sports, Spurs | Comment


Carl Benjamin versus the bowdlerized Web

carl benjamin

‘Validate me’

 

Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, is no longer appearing on Patreon, the funding platform self-explained as: “Patreon is a membership platform that makes it easy for artists and creators to get paid.” Or not. You only get on if you’re the right sort of artist making the right sort of art. And Benjamin is the wrong sort. He’s been booted from the platform for breaking the “community guidelines” on hate speech. And here’s the hook: the verboten content was found in an interview Benjamin gave to a YouTube channel. He’s heard calling a sneer (is that the word?) of alt-right trolls “niggers” and “faggots”. Patreon published the transcript of the video. Benjamin explains why he doesn’t like the alt-right crowd and compares them to “white niggers”.

Patreon added: “As a funding platform, we don’t host much content, but we help fund creations across the Internet. As a result, we review creations posted on other platforms that are funded through Patreon. Sargon is well known for his collaborations with other creators and so we apply our community guidelines to those collaborations, including this interview.”

Benjamin is tainted. In conversation with Fraser Myers, of Spiked, Benjamin says: “Ever since I started my YouTube channel, I’ve always been politically incorrect – it is what I do. I had never had a problem with Patreon before because its terms of service were quite specific. They said it had rules around hate speech on its platform, which I think is quite fair and so I didn’t want to break them.” Isn’t anyone who sets out to be politically incorrect less a champion of free speech than a narcissist trying to cause offence, defining themselves by what they are not rather than what they are? He adds: “I think Patreon is trying to sanitise its platform and looking to remove people who the mainstream politically correct establishment find offensive. (I am offensive, of course!)” 

Free speech isn’t about being rude and seeking to cause offence for the sake of it. That’s puerile, crass and cheap. Free speech is simply speaking your mind and testing your thinking. Sharing only increases the goodness. But increasingly, the web is being divvied up into echo chambers. If Patreon isn’t for you, where is? 

Fox has more:

A pair of influential Internet social and political commentators are putting their money where their mouths are, ditching crowd-funding site Patreon over its hate speech rules despite not having any viable alternative.

Dave Rubin raised money for his YouTube show, “The Rubin Report,” through Patreon until recently when he decided to fight back after the crowd-funding site banned participants who used language deemed offensive by the service. Best-selling author Jordan Peterson, a frequent Rubin guest whose lectures draw millions of views on YouTube and who gets funding from the service, joined Rubin in walking out on Patreon.

“The reason that Dr. Peterson and I are leaving Patreon on January 15, despite it being something like 70 percent of my company’s revenue, which I’m voluntarily giving up, is that it is time for someone to take a stand,” Rubin said Thursday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Surely the open market will create a new space:

“Dave Rubin and I (and others) have been discussing the establishment of a Patreon-like enterprise that will not be susceptible to arbitrary censorship, and we are making progress, but these things cannot be rushed without the possibility of excess error,” Peterson wrote last month.

As ever: follow the money. 

Posted: 7th, January 2019 | In: Key Posts, Money, News | Comment


Top-Ho, Jeeves: Happy Public Domain Day 2019 – what you can use for free

public domain day

 

It’s Public Domain Day, the moment when lots of old works become free to use. It’s a biggie this year because for 20 years nothing new has been released. In 1998 Disney and other copyright holders got the State to impose copyright restrictions for an additional 20 years. The 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act is a horror. Works from 1922, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, turned copyright free in 1998 but anything published the following year was protected. But from today music, book, posters, art, films and plays published in 1923 will be free of intellectual property restrictions. Dig in. Go create.

Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, explains:

But now the drought is over. How will people celebrate this trove of cultural material? Google Books will offer the full text of books from that year, instead of showing only snippet views or authorized previews. The Internet Archive will add books, movies, music, and more to its online library. HathiTrust has made over 50,000 titles from 1923 available in its digital library. Community theaters are planning screenings of the films. Students will be free to adapt and publicly perform the music. Because these works are in the public domain, anyone can make them available, where you can rediscover and enjoy them. (Empirical studies have shown that public domain books are less expensive, available in more editions and formats, and more likely to be in print—see herehere, and here.) In addition, the expiration of copyright means that you’re free to use these materials, for education, for research, or for creative endeavors—whether it’s translating the books, making your own versions of the films, or building new music based on old classics.

Here are some samples from the American Public Domain Day List, as compiled by Jennifer Jenkins and Jamie Boyle at the Duke Center for the Public Domain.

Films 

* The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Lon Chaney
* Short films featuring Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang
* Animated films including Felix the Cat and Koko the Clown
* Safety Last!, directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, featuring Harold Lloyd 
* The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. DeMille 
* The Pilgrim, directed by Charlie Chaplin 
* Our Hospitality, directed by Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone 
* The Covered Wagon, directed by James Cruze 
* Scaramouche, directed by Rex Ingram

Books 

* Joseph Conrad, The Rover
* Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”
* Nikolay Gogol, Dead Souls
* Rudyard Kipling, Land and Sea Tales for Boys and Girls
* Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Golden Lion 
* Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links 
* Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 
* e.e. cummings, Tulips and Chimneys 
* Robert Frost, New Hampshire 
* Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet 
* Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay 
* D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo 
* Bertrand and Dora Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization 
* Carl Sandberg, Rootabaga Pigeons 
* Edith Wharton, A Son at the Front 
* P.G. Wodehouse, works including The Inimitable Jeeves and Leave it to Psmith 
* Viginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room

Music 
* Yes! We Have No Bananas, w.&m. Frank Silver & Irving Cohn 
* Charleston, w.&m. Cecil Mack & James P. Johnson 
* London Calling! (musical), by Noel Coward 
* Who’s Sorry Now, w. Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby, m. Ted Snyder 
* Songs by “Jelly Roll” Morton including Grandpa’s Spells, The Pearls, and Wolverine Blues (w. Benjamin F. Spikes & John C. Spikes; m. Ferd “Jelly Roll” Morton) 
* Works by Bela Bartok including the Violin Sonata No. 1 and the Violin Sonata No. 2 
* Tin Roof Blues, m. Leon Roppolo, Paul Mares, George Brunies, Mel Stitzel, & Benny Pollack (There were also compositions from 1923 by other well-known artists including Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, WC Handy, Oscar Hammerstein, Gustav Holst, Al Jolson, Jerome Kern, and John Phillip Sousa; though their most famous works were from other years.)

Spotter: Aleteia , Boing Boing

Posted: 1st, January 2019 | In: Film, Key Posts, Music, News | Comment


Craigslist closes personal ads as internet restrictions bite

You can no longer browse the personals section of Craigslist in the US. The owners of the online classified ads site have closed personal listings in reaction to Congress’s passage of a law that makes websites accountable for users who “misuse” personal ads. A click on the “casual encounters”, “strictly platonic” or any other romance-seeking connection tabs coughs up this message from San Francisco-based Craigslist:

US Congress just passed HR 1865, “FOSTA”, seeking to subject websites to criminal and civil liability when third parties (users) misuse online personals unlawfully. Any tool or service can be misused. We can’t take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking craigslist personals offline. Hopefully we can bring them back some day.

To the millions of spouses, partners, and couples who met through craigslist, we wish you every happiness!

Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) aims to curb online sex trafficking.

Electronic Frontier Foundation opposes the bill, stating last month:

“Facing the threat of extreme criminal and civil penalties, web platforms large and small would have little choice but to silence legitimate voices. Platforms would have to take extreme measures to remove a wide range of postings, especially those related to sex.”

The fear is that only the the most moneyed platforms will survive. Forced to err on the side of caution and view users as suspects, platform owners will shut down accounts.

You can still use the personal ads on the UK site. But the impact of the new riling is spreading. Reddit has switched off a raft of its community pages. On Reddit’s r/announcements we learn:

As of today, users may not use Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services, including:

  • Firearms, ammunition, or explosives;
  • Drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, or any controlled substances (except advertisements placed in accordance with our advertising policy);
  • Paid services involving physical sexual contact;
  • Stolen goods;
  • Personal information;
  • Falsified official documents or currency

Gizmodo notes:

In the comments of the announcement, it was further clarified that relatively benign activities like beer trades and e-cigarette giveaways are also likely to fall under the purview of this rule, which encompasses not just purchases but transactions of any sort.

So much for freedom.

 

Posted: 23rd, March 2018 | In: News, Technology, The Consumer | Comment


Thérèse Dreaming must be censored to save people from art

therese dreaming

 

To New York, where offence-seekers and defenders of sound morals are demanding the Metropolitan Museum of Art remove Balthasar Klossowski’s (1908-2001) painting, Thérèse Dreaming. Mia Merrill was “shocked” to see the painting. “It is disturbing that the Met would proudly display such an image,” Merrill told Care2, the self-styled “social network for good”. “They are a renowned institution and one of the largest, most respected art museums in the United States. The artist of this painting, Balthus, had a noted infatuation with pubescent girls and this painting is undeniably romanticizing the sexualization of a child.”

In 2013, when the Met created the 2014 exhibition Balthus: Cats and Girls—Paintings and Provocations the show came with a warning that read: “Some of the paintings in this exhibition may be disturbing to some visitors.” It stopped short of saying that the best art is unsettling and much of the other stuff is ‘meh’ – and failed to say why only “some visitors” would be disturbed. Why not all? That show also featured Thérèse Dreaming, one of 10 portraits of Thérèse Blanchard (1925-1950), Balthus’ young neighbour in his native Paris.

“If The Met had the wherewithal to reference the disturbing nature of Balthus in the 2013 exhibit, they understand the implications of displaying his art today,” Merrill laments. “Given the current climate around sexual assault and allegations that become more public each day, in showcasing this work for the masses, The Met is romanticizing voyeurism and the objectification of children.”

When asked about the poses of preadolescent girls in his work, Balthus said, “It is how they sit.” When asked why they did it, no child abuser cited Balthus.

But in the minds of the ‘good’ and caring, to see is to do. They have judged the art and found it wrong. It must be banned. Ideas that make them feel uncomfortable must be suppressed.

One look at the intense painting of a glowing and self-possessed Thérèse Blanchard, who was about twelve or thirteen at the time this picture was made, will turn the mentally negligible masses into child abusers. It must be censored by they who know best, those shiny-eyed seers who view the rest of us as suspects. Down the memory hole with this paintings, the statues, the art, the gender, the books, free expression and the birth names. The world’s being changed into a safe space. We’re all in therapy now.

Posted: 5th, December 2017 | In: News | Comment


Paperchase must ban all Daily Mail suspects from its stores

Paperchase is “truly sorry” for speaking to Daily Mail readers, offering them two free rolls of wrapping paper in Saturday’s newspaper. Stop Funding Hate, the group that hates the Daily Mail and its pressie-wrapping readers, promising without irony to “tackle the culture of hate, demonisation and division that is poisoning our political discourse”, encouraged tweeters to complain, just as it did when Lego advertised in the Mail. Lego responded by vowing never again to advertise in the popular tabloid. One minute you’re a Danish-based company selling plastic figurines to children; the next you’re a force for moral good. Life moves pretty fast when your in the censor’s crosshairs.

Stop Funding Hate spotted the Paperchase promotion in the Mail and opined: “After a torrid few weeks of divisive stories about trans people, is a Daily Mail promotion what customers want to see from @FromPaperchase?” Paperchase, of course, laughed this off, arguing that pricey envelopes and novelty pens should be available to all people, even those who only send emails. No, of course not. It said: “We now know we were wrong to do this – we’re truly sorry and we won’t ever do it again. Thanks for telling us what you really think and we apologise if we have let you down on this one. Lesson learnt.”

With any luck, all ‘responsible’ advertisers will pull their ads and the Daily Mail will be much reduced, existing on a sponsorship of Nazi memorabilia, cricket bats and Downton Abbey merchandise before dying with their last reader’s final breath.

 

paperchase cards daily mail

‘For her’ – pink and flowers

 

paperchase cards daily mail

‘For him’ – the skies the limit and here’s to spoting success

 

Not far enough, of course. Paperchase, which as you can see from the images above, thinks nothing of supporting arcane gender stereotypes, disappointing we who look it for guidance on all manner of pressing issues (such as: when does Christmas shopping begin? when are 2018 diaries discounted?; is there life after death?) needs to do more. Sam White suggests: “Paperchase, not good enough. You should question people wishing to enter your stores as to whether they have ever handled or looked at a Daily Mail. Those who have can be refused entry, or possibly sent for re-education.”

And there’s a card for everything, even the Untermensch:

 

paperchase brexit

Paperchase – not fan of Brexit

 

When you see a card declaring ‘Intolerance will not be tolerated’, you know where to send it…

Posted: 21st, November 2017 | In: News, Tabloids, The Consumer | Comment


Inside China’s censorship factories

censorship china

 

To the Wisdom Mountain Twin Towers in China’s Tianjin city, where the bright young things are cleansing the internet of words and images the State would rather you did not see. The Chinese government often outsource censorship to British students private companies, like Toutiao, which raised $2B in capital markets. These companies are recruiting prim minds to uphold moral values and restrict your view of the world and the people around you.

And you won’t hear the West complain, not as long as the Chinese keep paying for our acquiescence. In August, under pressure of an academic boycott, Cambridge University Press reinstated over 300 articles it removed from its prestigious China Quarterly journal at the behest of the Chinese authorities. The Chinese State wants facts erased the world over:

Zhang Lijun, chairman of the online news and video portal V1 Group, said that between 20 and 30 per cent of his company’s labour costs went on content auditors – a necessary business expenditure.

“Without doubt you need to maintain close ties with the ruling party,” Zhang said. “Party building, setting up party units properly, these can ensure your news goes out smoothly and keeps your business operations safe.”

The Beijing-based censor said Toutiao used artificial intelligence systems to censor content, though these don’t always understand the tone of posts.

“We are training the AI. They are not as smart. Hopefully they will learn to handle all this eventually.” For now, though, real humans are still in demand.

An advertisement Toutiao posted on Tianjin Foreign Studies University’s career page for students this month sought 100 fresh graduates to work in “content audit”, earning between 4,000-6,000 yuan ($611-$917) per month.

Spotter: SCMP

Posted: 13th, October 2017 | In: News, Technology | Comment


Censorship means Alabama shoppers buy sex toys blind

If you buy an online sex toy online in Alabama, you’ll have to do so blind. You get to see a fair deal of the ‘marital aid’, but the gaps have been plugged.

 

 

Alabama law prohibits selling products that are “primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs”.  This is down to  “the state’s interest in preserving and promoting public morality provides a rational basis for the challenged statute.”

So there.

 

 

 

Spotter: JWZ

Posted: 7th, October 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment


The ASA war on gender means mum gets the power drill and dad goes to Iceland

asa gender

 

The Advertising Standards Authority once complained about this site. An advert featuring Page 3 stunna Lucy Pinder was sexist, they alleged. Pinder welcomed readers to Old Mr Anorak’s throbbing organ, which for filthy lucre had been sheep-dipped in Lynx, the stuff that drives women wild with lust. It was all a lot of nonsense. Pinder was willing. No readers were damaged. And rumours abound of a whole generation of young Anoraks. Now the ASA is going for other “gender-stereotypical” commercials, seeking to censor inappropriate ads “that feature stereotypical gender roles”.

There’ll be no more Pinder presenting her primary sexual characteristics like Saint Agatha in a bikini. No more Oxo mum feeding her family. No more Ronseal man telling us it does “exactly” what it says on the tin. And no more ads for yoghurts in which a baby-voiced female celebrity talks about her “tummy”.

Such amplification of “stereotypical gender roles” can “cause harm”. These ads “reinforce assumptions that adversely limit how people see themselves and how others see them”. It turns out that Lynda Bellingham is a bigger role model than your actual mum and dad.

So mum gets the power drill for Christmas after all, and dad gets a trip to Iceland for own-brand ketchup and other tastes of regret.

How’s that for progress?

Posted: 20th, July 2017 | In: Key Posts, News, The Consumer | Comment


Politicians and students agree that looking is a gateway to crime

Politicians all want to censor the web. CapX writes:

It took us many centuries, a lot of effort and much expended blood and gore to get to this place where we are free – at liberty and ruled by the law, not the whims of people nor the rage of the mob. That we have those who would snatch them from us worries me far less than what our rulers will do to us and our liberty in the name of protecting us from those bearded nutters.

Just wait until the next generation of politicians arrive in Westminster from our elite universities. Spiked’s Free Speech University Rankings tells us: “The more prestigious universities, those ranked highest in popular league tables, are nearly always the most censorious; the few green-ranking institutions are generally less highly esteemed.”

Joanna Williams adds:

The link between academic success and a fondness for censorship is more than just a mindset. It is precisely because they are the academic achievers that students at elite universities demand freedom from speech…They’ve learned that language constructs reality, and that ‘words that wound’ can inflict ‘spirit murder’ on those who, according to their gender, ethnicity or sexual identity, are assumed to be forever powerless. The students who excel in elite universities today have come to embody the vulnerability they see in others.

They don’t trust us. They moralise about our choices, thoughts and movements. They pick technical arguments about what should be banned and permitted over debating the root cause of the problem that leads people to become Islamist killers. In the minds of these superior prudes and knowing gatekeepers, the mere act of looking becomes a gateway to crime.

Posted: 7th, June 2017 | In: News, Politicians, Reviews, Technology | Comment


Saudi censors turn woman a in swimming pool advert into a ball

Saudi censors have been busy adapting an advert selling a swimming pool. The man is dressed. The children are ready for school. And the woman’s been turned into a Winnie the Pooh ball:

 

saudi swimming pool censor woman ball

 

saudi swimming pool censor woman ball

 

Spotter: @omar_quraishi

Posted: 6th, June 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment


Katie Hopkins: sacked LBC DJ is Twitter’s Candyman

LBC and Katie Hopkins have agreed that Katie will leave LBC effective immediately.” writes @Lbc over on Twitter.  Thank fuck for that!  Source: Twitter/@LBC

 

LBC and Katie Hopkins have agreed that Katie will leave LBC effective immediately.” writes @Lbc over on Twitter.

Rejoice!

No. The sensible move was to ignore her. It’s the ratings game. If you don’t like her, don’t mention her. Do the reverse Candyman.

For those of you missed the tweet but got the fallout, Katie Hopkins tweeted in response to TV presenter Phillip Schofield, petitioning him to be strong in the face of terror.  She tweeted: “Do not be a part of the problem. We need a final solution.”

Yeah, that bad. She knew what she was doing. She knew it would antagonise. She hoped it would place her at the centre of the conversation over the heinous attack in Manchester. Revolting stuff from the tabloid’s to-deadline controversialist. And then Twitter erupted with outrage and demands for her sacking. A woman with all the relevance of a loon shouting at the pigeons in the precinct became important.

Tom Slater finds a reason for it. It’s not her. It’s us:

Why have some of those born and raised among us – as Abedi was – grown to hate us? Why, among a minority of Muslim youth, is this nihilism brewing? And what might we have done to foster it, to cultivate it? These are questions they’d rather not answer. To do so would be to inflame, in their minds, the only hate they really care about – the hate of lumpen plebs, the sort of people they imagine lap up Katie Hopkins’ every tweet.

Hopkins tried to make Manchester all about her. But through the response it generated, it told us more about the mainstream, about the cowards who tell us to treat Islamist terror like a natural disaster, a time only for sympathy and thanking the emergency services; the cowards who would rather shriek at cretinous columnists than reckon with the real hatred in our midst; the cowards who seem to get more exercised by tweets than bombs.

I don’t think the tweeters are cowards. I think it’s a question of impotence: Katie Hopkins you can get; the West’s navel-gazing you can’t.

Spotter: Twitter/@LBC

Posted: 26th, May 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment


King of Thailand threatens to sue Facebook over a video of him in a small yellow crop top

Not long before he became King of Thailand, Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn was on a trip to Munich, Germany. He mooched about a shopping centre with a woman. That’s him in the natty yellow crop top, showing off the tattoos on his tum-tum and back.

Thanks to Somsak Jeamteerasakul, “a prominent Thai historian and critic of the monarchy who lives in France”, the video of Maha’s shopping trip has appeared on Facebook, as The New York Times reports. Apparently, the King has had the video blocked in Thailand. He’s also told Facebook to remove the video or else.

Under the country’s lese-majeste laws, people can be jailed for 15 years for insulting monarchy. But is it an insult merely to show the monarch out and about? And won’t all the cool kids be dressed like this next year?

The video has been blocked in Thailand but was still available outside the country on Tuesday.

Facebook, which opened an office in Thailand in 2015, declined to answer questions about its operations in the country or the pages that the government wants to remove. A spokeswoman, Clare Wareing, said only that the company’s policy was to comply with requests by governments to restrict access to content that officials believed violated local laws.

“When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content,” Ms. Wareing said in an emailed statement. “If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted.”

 

 

Spotter: The New York Times.

Posted: 17th, May 2017 | In: Royal Family, Strange But True | Comment


Banned in Australia: Ayaan Hirsi Ali is unfit for human consumption

Anyone who bought a ticket to hear Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak on her Australian tour will get a full refund. It’s been cancelled because her opinions as so outrageous they present a threat to her security and the safety of every Muslim in Oz. Stick a ‘BANNED” label on a record cover or book and we all want to listen to it. Ayaan Hirsi Ali might think about getting “Banned in Australia” on a T-shirt or a medal.

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

 

 

She’s banned because when 400 Muslim women petitioned for her to be stopped from spreading her “divisive rhetoric” and thus amplifying “hostility and hatred towards Muslims” the State caved in. Hard won freedoms about speech and thought were obliterated. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s words are unfit for human consumption. No debate. No ridicule. No Q and As with her sympathizers and accusers. Just banned.

Ali, a campaigner for women’s rights and a strident critic of Islam, which in her words is “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death”, is taboo. A woman who was abused under Islam cannot criticize it. However potent or toxic Ali’s view is, banning her quashes progressive moves for the airing and exchange of ideas in a public space. It increases separatism, otherness, division, conformity, intolerance and misunderstanding. Ideas hermitically sealed in closed groups fester and curdle into something claustrophobic and suffocating.

“Shame on you for carrying water for the Islamists, shame on you for trying to shut people up who are trying to raise awareness about sharia law,” said Ali is response to the ban. “We can’t have that open discussion, we can’t stop the injustices if we say everything is ‘Islamophobic’ and hide behind a politically correct screen. We should not make the mistake of finding ourselves inadvertently allied with the Islamists, as these petition-signers are doing.”

The event, “Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Hero of Heresy”, was advertised as an opportunity to “step inside the controversy” surrounding Islam and Muslim womanhood. The controversy rumbles on, albeit in private.

Spotter: SMH

 

Posted: 4th, April 2017 | In: Reviews | Comment


Paul Gascoigne becomes an anti-free speech role model

Paul Gascoigne is not in the best of health. This we know because the tabloids love to feature Gazza in various stages of trouble. He’s back in the news for the criminal offence of telling a joke. At Dudley Magistrates Court, the former England footballer’s joke was appraised. It was found wanting. Gascoigne was deemed guilty of using ‘”threatening or abusive words”. Those words also cost him a £2,000 fine.

By now you all want to know what Gascoigne said. What does a £2000 joke look like? At An Evening With Gazza at Wolverhampton Civic Hall last year, the show’s eponymous star told a black security guard, Errol Rowe: “Can you smile please, because I can’t see you?”

Anyone heading to an evening with Gascoigne, a man who seemed to run on nervous energy, is unlikely to attend expecting a night of coherent thought and incisive wit. Nonetheless, District Judge Graham Wilkinson was outraged, telling Gazza, “it is not acceptable to laugh words like this off as some form of joke… We live in the 21st century — grow up with it or keep your mouth closed.”

The 21st Century looks a a draconian place. Gascoigne’s joke was sad, weak and, worst of all, unfunny. And that’s crucial to the crime. The advice is that if you’re unsure of what is and what is not acceptable to the state, you should not speak. You should censor yourself lest you cause the State to be offended.

And take care not to be famous and unfunny. Wilkinson told Gascoigne that his punishment is a warning to us all. “A message needs to be sent that in the 21st century,” said the Beak, “such words will not be tolerated.”

Intolerance will not be tolerated. How’s that for freedom?

PS: If you want to look for racism. you can find in a pathetic joke, if you want. But what about in the judiciary?  Wilkinson told Gazza: “”It is the creeping ‘low-level’ racism that society still needs to challenge.” And what about the institutional racism?

Dame Linda Dobbs opines:

Posted: 22nd, September 2016 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Reviews, Sports | Comment