Censorship // Current TV

The Human Centipede sequel banned from cinemas for being too horrible

The Human Centipede, the now infamous 2010 horror film in which a deranged sadistic scientist stitches kidnap victims together mouth to bum, was proudly touted as "the most horrific film ever made".But now it seems its Dutch director, Tom Six, may have gone too far in the follow-up, because the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has denied The Human Centipede II an 18 certificate for fears it poses a "real risk" to cinemagoers.The BBFC has said that there is unacceptable material throughout the sequel that no amount of cuts can remedy it for commercial release.The first centipede was released uncut as an 18 rating allowing it to be shown in cinemas and eventually released on DVD.   Released in April 2010, it was widely referenced online, with the trailer receiving more than 10 million views on YouTube. However, the film itself was a financial flop at the cinema, recouping little more than a tenth of what it cost to make at the box office - though it did go on to fare strongly on DVD.
Fast forward twelve months and the BBFC has taken the unusual step of refusing outright to classify the proposed straight-to-DVD sequel on the basis that it is "sexually violent and potentially obscene".
This means that it cannot be legally sold anywhere in the UK effectively banning the film from landing on these shores.  Whilst the first film was able to be released uncut, the BBFC concluded that the thrust of the film was the "sexual arousal of the central character at both the idea and the spectacle of the total degradation, humiliation, mutilation, torture and murder of his naked victims".
It said: "There is little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience." Talking about their refusal to classify the Centipede sequel they concluded that the film "poses a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers".
It's the first film to be banned in the UK since 2009's Grotesque and the filmmakers have six weeks in which to appeal the decision. The Human Centipede, the now infamous 2010 horror film in which a deranged sadistic... more

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GOP Response To Town Hall Backlash: Ban Recording Devices And Censor Citizen Journalists

The premier political story of the past few months has been the Republican plan to dismantle Medicare and the resulting voter backlash. In town halls across the country, voters are expressing their anger at the GOP priorities of ending Medicare, extending tax breaks for the wealthy, and protecting subsidies for oil companies.

ThinkProgress has reported extensively from town halls in Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, and elsewhere. In addition, citizen journalists have attended town halls and reported about them online, allowing others who couldn’t attend in person to see the event.

However, some congressmen are concerned about what could happen if citizen journalists repost their town halls on the Internet. At least two members of Congress have taken extraordinary measures to shut down the spread of information.

ThinkProgress readers passed along the following photos, taken outside town halls held by Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) and Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV). Barletta specifically barred citizen journalists and other non-credentialed media from recording the event, while Heck took a more encompassing approach of “no recording devices” at all:

When Republicans won back the House in 2010, one of their central promises was “to make Congress more transparent.” However, when it comes to their own congressional events, the same standard apparently does not apply.

Indeed, with members like Lou Barletta and Joe Heck barring citizens from recording the events and preventing those who couldn’t attend from seeing what the congressmen had to say, one has to ask: what are they trying to hide?
Update At his town hall, Heck reportedly faced a rowdy crowd upset about his vote for the Medicare-ending House Republican budget. When pressed, he backed away from the plan a bit, saying, “I’m not saying it’s the best idea, but it’s the only one and the best being proposed now."
(Can anyone tell me why Tea party can carry weapons,guns, and military replicas and we can't even have a tape player ?!)-figg
(some great comments at Think Progress and source)The premier political story of the past few months has been the Republican plan to... more

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Save Current Italia

Use your Google translator to English. This is the official Current TV effort to save... more

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Google chairman: Internet blacklists make us more like China

By Nate Anderson | Published a day ago

Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, has strong views on legislation setting up government Internet blacklists. "I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [passing] simple solutions to complex problems," Schmidt said during a Google conference in England today, according to the Guardian. "So, let's whack off the DNS. Okay, that seems like an appealing solution but it sets a very bad precedent because now another country will say, 'I don't like free speech so I'll whack off all those DNSs'—that country would be China."

Schmidt seems to have two targets in mind: the UK, where the Digital Economy Act allows for judicially ordered site blocking, and the US, where the newly introduced PROTECT IP Act hopes to monkey about with the domain name system (DNS) in order to cut off international pirate websites.

"If there is a law that requires DNSes to do 'x' and it's passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it," he added, according the Guardian.

And the Financial Times, also present for Schmidt's remarks, quotes him as saying that he has no interest in removing file-sharing sites from search results. "We have been in discussion with media companies for a long time; it is not obvious how to solve it," he said.

Back in Washington, this tough line has been echoed by trade group CCIA, of which Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other tech companies are members. "Meddling with Internet architecture to disappear sites and even hyperlinks to those sites is an Orwellian approach to law enforcement," said CEO Ed Black in a recent statement. "The solution to violations of intellectual property law is to enforce the law, not to engage in dangerous and fruitless efforts to sanitize the Internet."

"This directive may look different than Egypt or China’s Internet filtering and censorship," Black continued. "But technologically speaking shutting down parts of the Internet, even for a seemingly good reason, is still censorship—no matter what new name you give it. This bill would send a signal to Internet restricting countries that they can make similar demands and use similar tools—only for more sinister reasons."(more at link ) and at my site is a petition from demand progress if you'd like to get involved and help stop Protect IP act NOW! -figg
http://figrd.blogspot.com/2011/05/david-segal-demandprogress.htmlBy Nate Anderson | Published a day ago Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, has... more

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Worse Than China?! U.S. wants to Censor Search Engines & Browsers

A very important message and action from Demand Progress please if you treasure an... more

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http://gsfn.us/t/29p0a

a mishap has developed http://gsfn.us/t/29p0a

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The Little Red (Face)Book

When I spoke at Facebook about In The Plex recently, rumors were swirling that the... more

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Hidden Post? Censorship?

Why are some posts Hidden? Is this a new form of censorship?... more

MotherForTruth
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The Art Destroyers ...

NYRBlog by Gary Willis Palacio de Bellas Artes Diego Rivera, detail of Lenin from... more

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OUR SOLUTION TO GOVERNMENT CYBER CENSORSHIP? Chinese Use Microblogs to Bypass Govt Censors

As You Tube, Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China, microblogs are emerging in... more

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Censored TV Ad Banned from Airwaves

A television ad for EndofAmericaVideo.com that features Alex Jones’ narration... more

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Happy 92nd Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti!

Los Angeles Times... Happy 92nd birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti! March 24,... more

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MTWorks Uses Theatre To Speak Out Against Censorship

New York City- MTWorks and playwright David Stallings use theatre as a tool to speak out against censorship which is again in the forefront of the news with the "revised" version of Huckleberry Finn. A magical and dark fictional look into the dangers and consequences of caging innocence, THE FAMILY SHAKESPEARE, a play inspired by the true story of the Bowdler family (publishers of the Complete Censored Works of William Shakespeare, and whose family name later replaced "expurgation" and "castration of text" with "bowdlerization") delves into the psyche of a family who thinks has the right to cross out and modify words with the supposed aim to protect youth and purity.

Written by award-winning playwright and MTWorks' Artistic Director David Stallings and directed by founding member Antonio Miniño. THE FAMILY SHAKESPEARE will play a 3-week limited engagement at the June Havoc Theatre (312 West 36th Street, 1st Floor, Abingdon Arts Complex, Midtown). Performances begin Wednesday, April 13th through Saturday, April 30th .

Henrietta has always been enraptured by the works of William Shakespeare. When she dangerously invites an innocent boy into her magical world, she discovers her family has not only censored the Bard, but also kept her from one of his most scandalous tales. Will their actions crush her imagination, make it spin out of control, or will they join her in a land of Ophelias, Calibans and Kings?

The cast includes Eric C. Bailey, Sarah Chaney, Jason Emanuel, Diánna Martin, Frankie Seratch, Peter B. Schmitz, Corey Tazmania* (NJ Rep’s The Housewives of Mannheim) and Cotton Wright* (Flux Theatre Ensemble’s Pretty Theft & Angel Eaters).

THE FAMILY SHAKESPEARE plays the following schedule through Saturday, April 30th:

Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7pm
Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm

Tuesday performances are followed by a talk-back.

Tickets are $18 and are now available online at www.MTWorks.org or by calling 212-352-3101. Tickets may also be purchased in-person at the theatre’s Box Office 30min prior to the show.

For more information visit www.mtworks.orgNew York City- MTWorks and playwright David Stallings use theatre as a tool to speak... more

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Is the Denial of Book Promotional Rights the Same as Censorship?

Case in Point: PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or A Cautionary Tale of Two Girls & Their... more

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ShopSavvy #Food Trace = Know Your Farmer

From the blog post by Alex Muse (CEO of ShopSavvy, Inc., the creators of ShopSavvy)... more

TOP10PRODUCELLC
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The Beauty of Noise - Merzbow + free CDs

Merzbow was born in Tokyo in 1981, the bastard son of Masami Akita. Inspired by... more

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The internet has ruined porn ; an editorial

OR - "Where has all the good porn gone / long time passing . . . " When I... more

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Embedding Videos Gets You Arrested

Don't share a copyrighted video on your site, because now you can get arrested. Brian McCarthy is a 32-year-old Texan who ran channelsurfing.net until he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week. Channelsurfing.net let users watch videos that were not supposed to be free, including sports and pay-per-view events. By embedding these videos on his site, Brian only linked to someone else's copy of the vid, he did not possess the file anywhere on his web space. He did allow users to watch pirated videos without leaving his website. Brian made $90,000+ a year from advertisers on his site.

By doing this, Brian managed to upset the UFC, WWE, NFL, NBA, and NHL who were supposed to be charging to broadcast these events. He now faces up to 5 years in prison.

Should Brian be going to jail? Copyright infringement is normally a civil offense, NOT criminal. But Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is claiming it's criminal this time because Brian profited off the distribution of illegal content. This is a stretch in the power of ICE, because no one has been arrested who didn't actually host pirated content before.

...

If Brian goes to jail, its likely more people will get arrested or fined for embedding copyrighted videos on their site. Techdirt.com writes, "it should worry almost anyone who has a website and has ever embedded videos. I have, for example, frequently embedded YouTube videos on this site -- and some of those videos might have been infringing. On top of that, I make some money from advertising on this site. Does that mean I now face criminal liability? I certainly hope not, but that seems to be the incredibly chilling message that ICE is sending. It immediately makes me question if I can ever embed another video without first getting explicit permission from the copyright holder."

While we all laugh at the fact that "ICE" is "chilling," let's think about this. The internet makes it very easy to share information. Do we want to change that by arresting people for sharing certain kinds of information? Internet censorship is already on the rise. Countries and schools can block any site deemed offensive or inappropriate. If we don't stop censorship at some point, how soon until we are all forced to "see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil?"Don't share a copyrighted video on your site, because now you can get arrested.... more

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Facebook Censoring Art!

Facebook has decided to censor the Cover Art for Nikki Sixx's latest album... more

The_Wanderer_KS
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PayPal On Cutting Off Courage To Resist: “This Has Nothing To Do With WikiLeaks”

Last time we checked in with PayPal, it, along with MasterCard, Visa and others had blocked its services with regards to donations to WikiLeaks foundation.

Today it is being reported that PayPal has taken further action against another WikiLeaks-related fund, in freezing the account of the Courage To Resist foundation which, in conjunction with the Bradley Manning Support Network, gives donations to the Bradley Manning legal defense fund. The imprisoned Manning is allegedly the source of the US Embassy cables leaked by WikiLeaks.

In a phone call earlier today, PayPal representative Anuj Nayar told me that this action is not WikiLeaks related and that PayPal has only temporarily restricted the fund, “This has nothing to do with WikiLeaks.”

Courage To Resist and PayPal are still in talks, and according to Nayar the former is infringing against PayPal’s policy on 501 3c non-profits, which hold that a non-profit needs to have a bank account associated with their PayPal account. “For the vast majority of none profits this is not an issue,” says Najar.

Nayar also takes up CTR’s claim that PayPal would not un-restrict the account unless CTR authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from the checking account by default, “We can’t do that without the authorization of an account holder, so a) We can’t do it b) We don’t do it c) Even if we did the bank would resist the charge.”

So why make this a WikiLeaks issue? “That’s a question for them,” he says.

The company’s official statement, below:

“Today’s temporary limitation of the Courage to Resist organization’s PayPal account is due to PayPal regulations requiring non profits to associate a bank account to their PayPal account. It is nothing to do with Wikileaks. Back in December 2010, we permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We’ve notified the account holder of this action. This is not the case with Courage to Resist”

GO TO STORY:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/paypal-on-cutting-off-courage-to-resist-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-wikileaks/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29Last time we checked in with PayPal, it, along with MasterCard, Visa and others had... more

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