Chinese internet users wanting to vent frustration at their government's repression are using a coded language to dodge censorship filters.
According to an unofficial lexicon of online political slang, there are at least 25 phrases in China secretly loaded with taboo meaning. For example, saying that someone is checking the water meter means that police are knocking at the
door. The term playing hide-and-seek is used to discuss dying in police custody, whilst many Chinese bloggers refer to their own country as West Korea alluding to its authoritarian neighbour, North Korea.
According to Perry Link and Xiao Qiang, the authors of Decoding the Chinese internet: A glossary of political slang, the terms are rife among the 198 million users of Weibo, China's version of Twitter.
Recently, a company called Tzu Technologies, LLC began suing makers of sex toys for infringement of U.S. Patent No.
6,368,268 . This resulted in more than a few news stories (and probably a few snickers as well). But the case also shows how our broken patent system is preventing innovation in many spaces, including those we don't traditionally think about.
Looking closely at the patent, and specifically at what Tzu Technologies actually claims to own, it is clear that this patent, regardless of its exciting subject matter, deserves to be called stupid.
Tzu Technologies' patent, titled Method and Device for Interactive Virtual Control of Sexual Aids Using Digital Computer Networks is a patent related to teledildonics . Essentially, computer controlled sex toys.
Tzu Technologies recently sued a bunch of small startups in the sex toy space, claiming they infringed this patent. Comingle, for example and according to their website, is a four-person team that is developing open-source sex technology. Also
sued was Kickstarter, presumably for allowing another defendant, Holland Haptics, to raise money for their product the Freeble .
As this 1993 Chicago Tribune article shows, the idea of remotely stimulating a partner was nothing new in 1998 (the year the application for the patent was filed). Nor was it unknown how to do it. Howard Stern (in)famously engaged in some of his
own teledildonics in the 1980s, that was later reenacted [NSFW] in his 1997 movie Private Parts .
Given this history, you might expect that, in 1998, patent applicants would need to come up with some new and non-obvious way of using a computer to control a sex toy. But like many patents that we have labeled Stupid, that's not what
happened. Or at least, that's not what the inventors claimed .
Below is claim 8 of the patent, which Tzu Technologies seems to be asserting. This claim is ridiculously broad. Annotations, in bold, have been added to show just how broadly it can be read:
8. A stimulation system comprising:
[a] a hand-operable input device [a microphone] for generating a command signal [electrical signal] in response to an input [sound wave] received from a first user;
[b] a first user interface [the radio broadcast system] connected to said input device [the microphone] , said first user interface generating a control signal [radio waves] based upon the command signal [electrical
[c] a second user interface [a radio] remotely located from said first user interface [the radio broadcast system] , said second user interface receiving the control signal [the radio waves] ; and,
[d] a stimulation device [a stereo speaker] receiving the control signal [the radio waves] from said second user interface [the radio] , said stimulation device imparting stimulation to a second user in response to the
control signal [you get the idea] .
Ultimately, claim 8 of this patent is nothing more than the idea of teledildonics, dressed up in input devices signals and interfaces. That's what makes this patent, and these lawsuits, so frustrating. There was nothing novel,
nonobvious, or even patentable about this claim. It never should have issued. Doing it with a computer (literally) does not make something patentable.
More and more, everyday items are incorporating software and networking technology. Unfortunately, that means more and more everyday items are at risk of being said to infringe overbroad, vague patents that never should have issued. As this patent
shows, the problems with the patent system have the potential to impact many diverse fields, and until we find a way for small companies to quickly and efficiently shut down these patent trolls, we will continue to hurt innovators who are merely
trying to make life more interesting.
The Guardian has published an article presumably based on a government press release:
David Cameron is to give pornography websites one last chance to produce an effective voluntary scheme for age-restricted controls on their sites or he will introduce legislation that could see them shut down.
In a consultation to be launched in the autumn, the government will seek views on how best to introduce measures to further restrict under-18s' access to pornographic websites.
The industry, in the shape of either UK-based websites or internet service providers, will be given an opportunity to develop proposals to block content through payment providers, such as advertisers and other means.
The consultation will also consider the best form of legislation should voluntary agreements not work. A regulatory approach could see primary legislation introduced to make it an offence in the UK to publish pornography online without age
verification controls, possibly with a regulator to oversee and enforce controls.
The government recognises the spread of the internet makes it a challenge to find a form of legislation that would cover such sites both in the UK and internationally. The government has raised the prospect of setting up a pornography regulator
to oversee the process and fine firms that breach either legislation or the voluntary guidelines.
The aim is to ensure that the rules that apply offline apply online, giving parents the peace of mind of knowing that their children can use the internet safely.
Cameron said his government was working:
To make the internet a safer place for children, the next step in this campaign is to curb access to harmful pornographic content, which is currently far too widely available. I want to see age restrictions put into place or these websites will
face being shut down.
The minister for internet safety and security, Joanna Shields, said:
As a result of our work with industry, more than 90% of UK consumers are offered the choice to easily configure their internet service through family-friendly filters -- something we take great pride in having achieved. It's a gold standard that
surpasses those of other countries.
Whilst great progress has been made, we remain acutely aware of the risks and dangers that young people face online. This is why we are committed to taking action to protect children from harmful content. Companies delivering adult content in
the UK must take steps to make sure these sites are behind age verification controls.
The Hamburg Data Protection Authority said that Facbook could not force users to replace pseudonyms with real names, nor could it ask to see
The order came in response to a case where a woman complained to the watchdog after Facebook blocked her account, requested a copy of her ID and unilaterally changed her name.
Authorities of Germany, France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands are now all working together to investigate the privacy policies of Facebook.
Travellers have complained about Ofcom's decision to clear the BBC after Jeremy Clarkson was shown on an episode of Top Gear with a sign reading Pikey's Peak .
The Traveller Movement are 'outraged' that the communications regulator has green-lit the use of the word pikey and claim it is a victory for racist bullies .
A Traveller Movement spokesman told the Guardian:
We are appalled that Ofcom have followed the BBC Trust's line and have green-lit the use of 'pikey' on Top Gear.
Their decision that this particular use has no reference to Gypsies and Travellers is bankrupt.
The viewing public are not that stupid and Ofcom need to give them more credit. The decision is a victory for racist bullies and we will be meeting with our solicitors, Howe & Co, to consider our options.
An Ofcom spokesman said:
Following thorough investigation we found this programme did not break broadcasting rules by showing a placard which said 'Pikey's Peak'.
We found that, while some in the audience would perceive the word pikey as a derogatory term for Gypsies and Travellers, on balance there was sufficient context in the way the word was used to minimise offence.
However, we have advised broadcasters this doesn't mean the use of the word is acceptable in any programme in any context and that it is capable of causing significant offence in certain contexts.
Ofcom did not rely on the BBC Trust's findings in reaching its decision. As the UK's broadcast regulator, our team investigated this programme completely afresh and reached an independent decision.
It is Ofcom's view that the broadcaster ensured there was sufficient context in the way the word was used to minimise offence and therefore that the use of the word in the context of this programme was not in breach of [...] the Code.
Russia's internet censor Roskomnadzor has threatened to block another news website over an informational article about the internet
Officials today told Zuckerberg Pozvonit , or Zuckerberg Will Call, which focuses on news related to Internet entrepreneurialism, that it must delete or edit within the next three days an article it published about bitcoins. If the website
refuses, Roskomnadzor will block it.
The suddenly controversial article, titled What Are Bitcoins and Who Needs Them? was published more than two years ago in April 2013.
Roskomnadzor's warning is a response to a February 2015 court decision in Astrakhan, which determined that the article contains:
The propaganda of tax crimes in the area of legalizing [money laundering] income obtained in a criminal way and has a negative impact on the legal consciousness of citizens."
i Pixels is a 2015 USA action comedy by Chris Columbus.
Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Michelle Monaghan.
When aliens misinterpret video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth in the form of the video games.
According to some of the emails leaked from Sony, the studio heavily edited the movie Pixels to ensure it didn't fall foul of the ever-present Chinese censors.
For example, one scene, which featured pixelated aliens blasting a hole into the Great Wall of China, was decided to be too inflammatory for Chinese censors. Li Chow, chief representative of Sony Pictures in China, explained that although the film
featured other landmarks being destroyed, it was simply better to lose the scene.
The original script also apparently contained references to a Communist Conspiracy brother hacking an email server. As you can expect, this was also stripped in an attempt to pass the movie for the Chinese market. In fact, by the end of the
cull, there were no references to the authoritarian nation left in the script.
Initially, it seemed Sony execs toyed with the idea of releasing both a Chinese and international version of Pixels. Ultimately they decided this would likely backfire.
The government has said in a press release that ministers are calling youngsters to have the automatic right to demand the deletion of pictures and information held about them online.
Ministers are backing proposals for a string of internet rights for the under-18s to prevent them being embarrassed later on in life.
Indiscreet pictures or texts can blight job prospects, university offers or school places. However, even if potentially compromising content is deleted from a post, it can still turn up on search engines such as Google or on other websites. The
former managing director of Google in Europe and one-time Facebook boss, Baroness Joanna Shields is to lead the new internet rights policy group.
The rights that businesses and groups are being urged to sign up to include giving every youngster the right to easily edit or delete all content they have created .
The move comes as the European Union also prepares to allow adults to demand any online images or text posted by them when they were under 18 be taken down. It will be known as the right to erasure
Under the UK plan, websites will be encouraged to have 'delete buttons that young people will be able to use to request information about them be removed.
A group of MPs have called for an investigation into a well known blog, reporting on muslim extremism, that is
popular with the far right.
The Gates of Vienna
website has also been promoting an upcoming exhibition of cartoons of the religious character Muhammad in London. It has been organised by the former Ukip parliamentary candidate Anne-Marie Waters and is set to take place at a location in central
London on 18 September.
The Labour MPs Ian Austin, Ruth Smeeth, Imran Hussain, Paula Sherriff, Wes Streeting and John Cryer have written to the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, asking her to consider if the site's owners are breaching the law. The letter
It is clear that these are the ideas that inspired Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik and as such it is deeply troubling that they are available to inspire others. We would urge you to investigate the Gates of Vienna website and take
appropriate action if anyone involved is deemed to be promoting terrorism and civil disorder.
Austin told the Guardian that the exhibition of Muhammad cartoons was:
Clearly [intended] to provoke a reaction from British Muslims and we must all ensure this does not happen.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said an appropriate policing plan would be put in place for the event but would not comment further.
American rapper Chief Keef has had a holographic show halted by police. The holographic projection was part of a Chicago music event called Craze Fest
Now the company behind the presentation is threatening to sue the local mayor.
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott said he believed Keef was outlawed in Chicago and so took steps to prevent the performance. He said that he had heard Keef had recorded a lot of songs about gangs and gun violence.
Chief Keef has an outstanding warrant for lapsed child support payments in the state of Illinois,
Keef is reported to be very laid back about the ban with an organiser saying: He's used to the police and city always shutting him down, that's been the case since day one.
North Korea has ordered house-to-house searches to confiscate and burn banned music CDs.
The country's crazed leader Kim Jong-un has also ordered music censorship to be extended, banning not only foreign songs but local tunes too, sources inside North Korea say.
The Korean Workers' Party Propaganda and Agitation Department has begun circulating a new and expanded list of banned songs.
The soundtrack of a North Korean-produced movie, Im Kkeok Jeong , about a Robin Hood-like figure who lived in the 16th century, is listed, including titles such as Take Action Blood Brothers and To Get Revenge.
Sources report that the confiscations of CDs and tapes is stirring discontent and has led to fights between residents and propaganda authorities. Another source suggested that the ban seemed to be reviving interest in older prohibited songs that
had faded from public memory.
Russia's TV and radio censor Roskomnadzor has issued an official warning to the Govorit
Moskva radio station for broadcasting a program on swingers.
In the warning, Roskomnadzor said that an episode of the station's program Underground that was broadcast in May had violated the law on protecting children from harmful information. The program rejected traditional family values, according to the warning, such programs are only allowed after the watershed.
This may sound reasonable, but in fact the watershed hours are simply unviable being set at 11pm until 4am. Govorit Moskva's program was broadcast at 2:30 pm.
Govorit Moskva said in an online article Friday that the program was devoted to the culture of swinging, in which participants swap sexual partners.
The radio station will appeal the decision.
Under Russian law, if a media outlet gets two warnings within a year, Roskomadzor can ask a court to revoke its publishing license.
A current promotional advert at US fast food chain, ampm , uses the phrase 'holy cow' as an exclamation about
the size of the burger.
Perennial hindu whinger, Rajan Zed, was quick to take offence, and said that cow was held sacred by Hindus and was considered the seat of many deities. Inappropriate usage of Hinduism concepts for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism added that businesses should be more sensitive to the feelings of faithful of all religions.
Three employees at the Kerala office of India's Censor Board were arrested in connection with the piracy of recent Malayalam blockbuster movie Premam
Earlier, the anti piracy cell of the state police had found that the pirated copy of the movie uploaded on the internet had carried the water mark censor copy. This made the police suspect the involvement of staff at the Censor Board. Police had
raided the censor board office and found that a section of staff used to take out copies of films submitted for censoring.
France's highest authority on constitutional matters has approved a controversial bill that gives
the state sweeping new powers to spy on citizens.
The constitutional council made only minor tweaks to the legislation, which human rights and privacy campaigners, as well as the United Nations, have described as paving the way for very intrusive surveillance and state-approved
eavesdropping and computer-hacking.
An 18-strong United Nations committee for human rights warned that the surveillance powers granted to French intelligence agencies were excessively broad . It said the the bill grants overly broad powers for very intrusive
surveillance on the basis of vast and badly defined objectives and called on France to guarantee that any interference in private life must conform to principles of legality, proportionality and necessity .
Amnesty International warned that the French state was giving itself extremely large and intrusive powers with no judicial control.
The bill gives the country's secret services the right to eavesdrop on the digital and mobile phone communications of anyone linked to a terrorist inquiry and install secret cameras and recording devices in private homes without requesting
prior permission from a judge.
Intelligence agencies can also place keylogger devices on computers that record keystrokes in real time. Internet and phone service providers will be forced to install black boxes that will alert the authorities to suspicious
behaviour online. The same companies will be forced to hand over information if asked. Recordings can be kept for a month, and metadata for five years.
A special advisory group, the National Commission for the Control of Intelligence Techniques, made up of magistrates, MPs and senators from the upper house of parliament, will be consulted instead of a judge.
Starring Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgård and Kristen Wiig.
A teen artist living in 1970s San Francisco enters into an affair with her mother's boyfriend.
The BBFC commented further in its BBFC Insight:
Strong sex scenes include mechanical thrusting, breast and buttock nudity, and implied oral sex. One scene includes brief sight of a pencil drawing of a young woman with a penis in her mouth.
Other issues include several moments of drug use, including cocaine use, the taking of LSD, and the smoking of marijuana. The film also contains strong verbal sex references and over forty uses of strong language ('fuck'). Some still pictures and
short animated sequences include the sight of penises, both erect and flaccid.
The filmmakers have expressed disappointment after British film censors gave it an 18 certificate rather than a 15. Producers have been battling against an 18 certificate, arguing that it is exploring female sexuality in an open and honest way,
and that other films featuring underage sex, Kidulthood, Fish Tank and The Reader, were all awarded 15 certificates. Wahida Begum of Vertigo Releasing said:
We are massively disappointed.
The film explores female sexuality with boldness and honesty in an unexploitative manner. In an age where young women are still continually being sexualised and objectified we feel The Diary of a Teenage Girl sends a very positive, reassuring
message to young girls about female sexuality and body image.
It is a shame that audience will not be able legally see a film that was made by women for women of all ages.
The film is due to be released in the UK, with the 18 certificate, on 7 August.
The film is R rated in the US which would be called a 17A rating in the UK. The film is 15 rated in Australia (MA15+).
The Green Inferno is a 2013 USA horror thriller by Eli Roth.
Starring Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy and Aaron Burns.
The US group Amazon Watch is petitioning people to boycott Eli Roth's The Green Inferno (which seems to be already being boycotted by distributors). The group writes in a petition:
Films like this have always portrayed negative stereotypes against indigenous people as brute savages. These films have psychological effect as indigenous people have been through colonial trauma assimilating to white culture being taught self
hate. Westerners are unfortunately ignorant about Amazonian indigenous cultures and depicting them in such a violent story dehumanizes their peoples and couldn't be farther from reality. Shame on you.
It's a shame, we should be creating stories than accurately depict indigenous way of life which is holistic, sustainable, spiritual and harmonious with our earth and brothers and sisters. If you want to save the Amazon and stop China from buying
leases to drill oil, make a story depicting the corporate shills for the murderers that they really are. You don't have to create racist, offensive, inaccurate crap to get people to care about the most biodiverse place on the earth.
. The website also has staff working in the UK for a company called Vice UK.
ATVOD considered that this was sufficient UK interest for the video service to be liable to ATVOD censorship which comes with a hefty price tag but absolutely nothing in return for the money.
As the website is under US editorial control and hence out of UK jurisdiction, Vice appealed ATVOD's decision to Ofcom who are the ultimate authority for censoring internet video.
Ofcom looked into the location editorial control of the website videos, which is one of the legal fundamentals of deciding the jurisdiction in charge of censorship. And Ofcom concurred with Vice, that the website is controlled from the US and so
overturned ATVOD's decision.
This rather leaves ATVOD hunting around for new victims to try and pay for its expensive 'services' of looking into a trivial 55 complaints in a year about UK internet video. Existing non-adult internet video companies are rationalising and
declining in numbers, whilst adult services are either closed down or driven offshore by ATVOD's impossibly onerous age verification requirements.
It seems pretty likely that my visibility as a campaigner has made me a target. In other words, ATVOD are
punishing me for speaking out against them. My priorities as a loud-mouthed activist have, it seems, ended up conflicting with my priorities as a creative artist. If I'd kept my head down and stayed quiet, and not attended any protests, or argued
against the regulations on the news, or done interviews with the press - if I'd not written a lot of angry blogposts or fundraised £3826 to help Backlash fight the laws - maybe I'd have been left alone a bit longer.
The European Union has launched an antitrust investigation against several large U.S. movie studios and Sky UK. The European Commission wants to abolish
geographical restrictions and has sent a statement of objections over the geo-blocking practices of six major US film studios including Disney, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros.
Due to licensing agreements designed to encourage lucrative monopolies, many movies and TV-series are only available online in a few selected countries, often for a limited period. The movie studios often restrict broadcasters and streaming
services to make content widely available, a practice which the European Commission wants to stop.
Margrethe Vestager, EU Commissioner in charge of competition policy said:
European consumers want to watch the pay-TV channels of their choice regardless of where they live or travel in the EU. Our investigation shows that they cannot do this today, also because licensing agreements between the major film studios and
Sky UK do not allow consumers in other EU countries to access Sky's UK and Irish pay-TV services, via satellite or online.
The geo-blocking practices are a thorn in the side of the European Commission who now hope to abolish these restrictions altogether. Under European rules consumers should be able to access the services of Sky and other service providers regardless
of where they are located. At the moment, most online services block access to content based on the country people are located, something Sky and the movie studios also agreed on.
The Commission plans to end unjustified geo-blocking, which it describes as a discriminatory practice used for commercial reasons.
Sky UK and the six major studios will now have to respond to the concerns.
The Australian Sex Party is back in the federal political contest, two month's after the party's registration was cancelled.
Back in May, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) determined the party should be deregistered because it was not meeting the membership requirements of 500 members to maintain registration.
The leader of the party, and elected member of the Victorian Parliament, Fiona Patten said the AEC decision provoked an angry response.
There was outrage amongst many of our members.
Patten says there are about 6,000 members of the party across the country, and a candidate will contest the next election in all states and territories.
US retailer Target has refused to stop selling an ironic T-shirt which alludes to women as trophies with a spokesperson explaining that women of all ages
love the controversial item.
A few PC bullies have been flooding social media with threats to boycott the store via the inevitable Change.org petition. User Amanda R. from Milwaukee, Wisconsin started the petition last month for Target to Stop Selling Sexist
"Trophy" Shirt That Demeans Women , claiming that the shirt's message encourages rape culture. The petition has been signed by about 11,500 people and moans:
The word trophy should not refer to any person, man or woman, because we are not THINGS - we are human beings. Labeling any person as a "Trophy" is demeaning their humanity and objectifying them as a tangible object that can be bought,
used, and disposed of.
Target have responded in statement to USA Today:
It is never our intention to offend anyone and we always appreciate receiving feedback from our guests, The shirt you're describing is part of a collection of engagement and wedding shirts that are available in our women's and plus size
The collection also included shirts that say "Team Bride", "Mrs" and "Bride". These shirts are intended as a fun wink and we have received an overwhelmingly positive response from our guests.
Ofcom chief executive Sharon White was called to address the parliamentary culture, media and sport select committee. During
the course of the session White told the MPs that she is paid £275,000 a year.
She seemed keen on expanding Ofcom's remit to take on the censorship portion of the BBC Trust's current role. She did however baulk at the suggestion to take on wider governance of the BBC.
White said Ofcom already regulated various aspects of the BBC's output, including issues around decency and harm and offence, and said if the government wanted it to extend its responsibilities to bias and impartiality we will do the best
possible job .
But she also warned there would be resourcing implications for the censor, which deals with around 25,000 complaints a year, a tenth of the 250,000 complaints that are received by the BBC on an annual basis.
White was quick to belittle a further option that another body entirely should pick up the BBC censorship role. White warned that concern should be taken that a new OfBeeb-style body did not clash or cause confusion with the role of Ofcom. But she
laughed off suggestions of a looming turf war .
On the topic of extremist religious broadcasting, White said that Ofcom has not been hampered by lack of legislation in cracking down on extremist broadcasts following David Cameron said it should be given beefed-up powers to tackle the issue.
This was identified as one of the key pillars of Cameron's five-year counter extremism strategy unveiled on Monday, in which he said Ofcom would be given new powers to take action against foreign channels that broadcast hate preachers.
White told MPs on the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee:
We haven't found that we have been unable to act because the legislation hasn't given us the powers.
Where do you place cause and effect, between television and content being a powerful influencer, and that reflecting growing views in society? It's a very difficult judgment to make ... One suspects that it will vary by community, even by
She said Ofcom had a very good monitoring department that looked at potentially extremist content but added:
Depending on the detail of the prime minister's statement and how that gets reflected in legislation ... we would need to look at the team and whether it would need some extra resourcing.
Ofcom shares the government's concerns about harmful, extremist content, and we have taken action against a number of channels. We are continuing to work closely with the government to ensure audiences remain protected.
But she said the regulator's remit with regard to the internet was rather limited, to the broadcasting of stuff that looks like it's been on the television, in the terrible jargon, TV-like content . Ofcom's remit does not cover content on
the open internet.
A few EastEnders viweres were 'shocked' when the BBC soap aired a gay sex scene in a funeral parlour on Friday.
TV censor Ofcom received 48 complaints after Ben Mitchell (Harry Reid) was seen getting frisky with Paul Coker (Jonny Labey) in front of an open coffin containing a dead woman's body.
Twitter was inevitably 'awash' with 'shocked' comments from a few viewers criticizing the storyline, branding it disgraceful and distasteful .
The scene, which saw both teens strip off their shirts when their romp was interrupted by Paul's grandparents leading to Ben hiding under the coffin.
A BBC spokesperson responded:
The millions of regular EastEnders fans who tune in each week know and expect dramatic storylines. We are always mindful of out time slot in which we are shown and the scenes in question were implied and not explicit.
The BBC has published a response to the whinges about EastEnders:
We received complaints from viewers who felt the scenes between Ben and Paul in the Chapel of Rest were inappropriate.
We do appreciate that for some members of the audience the scenes in the Chapel of Rest might have a particular resonance, but it wasn't our intention to cause any distress or upset to our viewers with Ben and Paul's storyline.
When the Cokers were introduced as funeral directors, it was inevitable that their work would feature in storylines, and that in keeping with the tone of the show, these would range from serious to light-hearted. We try very hard to be true to
our characters and keep their comments and actions as authentic as possible, sometimes this will include actions others find disagreeable.
We approach our portrayal of homosexual relationships in exactly the same way as we do heterosexual relationships; ensuring depictions of affection or sexuality between couples are suitable for pre-watershed viewing. In this case we were careful
to ensure the scene was implied rather than explicit, but we appreciate all of the feedback we've received.
Ofcom said it assessed the complaints but concluded they didn't raise issues warranting further investigation . Its decision continued:
We found the scenes were justified in the context of a long-running plotline and sexual contact between the characters was implied rather than overt. Our rules don't discriminate between scenes involving opposite-sex and same-sex couples.
Making copies of copyrighted music and videos for personal use is again illegal in the UK because of a ruling by the High Court.
The ruling quashes the 2014 regulation that made it legal to make personal copies of performances for private use as long as the person doing so has lawfully acquired the content and doesn't distribute it to anyone else. That regulation allowed
people to make backups or play songs or movies in different formats but didn't allow selling copies or sharing them with family and friends.
But the High Court ruled last month that the regulation hadn't been enacted properly. The personal use exception wasn't immediately thrown out because other remedies could have been considered, but in a further hearing a judge ruled that the
government was wrong legally when it decided not to introduce a compensation scheme for songwriters, musicians, and other rights holders who face losses as a result of their copyright being infringed.
The decision came after a legal challenge from Basca, the Musicians' Union, and industry representatives UK Music.
The decision to quash the law occurred quickly after last month's ruling because government officials decided not to object.
The scene, which saw both teens strip off their shirts when their romp was interrupted by Paul's grandparents leading to Ben hiding under the coffin.
A BBC spokesperson responded:
The millions of regular EastEnders fans who tune in each week know and expect dramatic storylines. We are always mindful of out time slot in which we are shown and the scenes in question were implied and not explicit.
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the UK's House of Commons is to hold its first evidence session with the
newly-appointed Chief Executive of Ofcom, Sharon White. She will appear before the Committee on Tuesday 21 July.
Amongst over topics, the agenda items include: Tackling harmful content online.
MasterCard and Visa have supported a move to censor advertisements in the adult section of classified ad website
The credit card companies will now longer allow their card to be used for payment for such adverts.
The move comes after a sheriff in Cook County, Illinois named Thomas Dart requested that both credit companies sever ties with the site. He cites for reasons of supposed trafficking but no doubt the basis is a moral judgement against adult
instigated by a US county sherriff.
Mastercard has announced it was implementing a worldwide ban on customers placing adult ads on Backpage.com, an online classified advertising marketplace used widely by sex workers to promote their services.
The site has long come under fire from moralist in the US, where sex work is illegal in most states, for promoting prostitution. But the censorship still applies even where legal.
The Scarlet Alliance, which speaks on behalf of Australian sex workers, said Backpage.com was the primary source of clientele for many local sex workers.
Brisbane sex worker Nikki Cox said she was angry and upset about Mastercard's decision. She said:
We have fought long and hard in this country to have the rights that we do.
For a sheriff in the USA to come along and appeal to have credit card companies remove the option of using our card to pay for advertising services is a badly thought out decision on his behalf.
This is fine for the USA where sex work is illegal in 49 states but it should not have a rollover effect in Australia.
Scarlet Alliance CEO Janelle Fawkes went one step further, accusing Mastercard of discrimination.
We have anti-discrimination protection for sex workers in some parts of Australia, and much of that legislation is framed around treating sex workers differently and disadvantaging them.
This is very specifically singling out and discriminating against sex workers, which is absolutely unacceptable.
Sex workers are part of the community and are earning a legitimate income like everyone else, and they have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else.
The online classified web site Backpage.com, long used by sex workers as a low-cost means of advertising their services and screening clients, has announced that it is allowing users to post ads for free to the adult services section of its site.
Backpage has been sending e-mails to users of the adult services section of the site informing them that they could use free promo code FREESPEECH until their payment situation was resolved to post ads.
Advertisers can also still use bitcoin to pay for ads, and the company recently began allowing users to pay for credits that could be used to post ads. The credits can be purchased by money order, check or cash mailed to a P.O. Box in
Brighton has a reputation for permissiveness and a liberal, laid-back, independent attitude, but it
appears to have taken an uncharacteristically authoritarian approach into what you can and can't do for free on its beaches and environs.
For anyone wanting take pictures or carry out an interview on its beach or in town, the city council has decreed that there is a £200 fee.
Civil liberty campaigners and champions of a free press have expressed bemusement after Brighton & Hove city council tried to charge the fee for working on its beach or other parts of the city. Caroline Lucas , the Green MP for Brighton, has
investigated and expressed her concern. Index on Censorship is among the organisations that said the move ran counter to the right to freedom of expression.
Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship , said:
Journalists should not be charged in order to carry out their jobs. This runs counter to all the principles that should underpin a free and independent media.
Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors , branded the move outrageous. He said:
Beaches and streets are public places. If local councils are to start charging for reporting the news, it is time someone reminded them that we are supposed to live in a free society.
When the Guardian asked the council again about the policy, its press office said it stemmed from a decision made by the economic development and culture committee in June last year, at which point the council was run by the Green party.
The council approved new fees and charges payable for filming in the city. In 2013-14 the council was paid more than £33,000 for 135 pieces of filming. It agreed to introduce a new structure from 2014-15 that would include an increase in charges
As noted in the recently published Annual Report, the BBFC are adjudicating on appeals against unfair website blocking by mobile service providers.
There's a few interesting decisions mainly in areas of age classifications for PC sensitive website themes.
For instance one of the early decisions was about banter on a sports forum featuring a 'rape gallery' highlighting attractive girls. The feature seems to have been deleted from the current forums on offer.
The BBFC reports:
A member of the public was concerned about several chat forum threads on not606.com which were available on an operator's mobile service, ranging from jokes about the Bin Laden family, to images with a sexual element, and a thread encouraging
members to post pictures of people they would rape, described as a 'Rape Gallery', alongside written comments about raping these individuals.
The BBFC reviewed the content on 5th November 2013.
We partially upheld the complaint. Much of the humorous content was aimed at adolescents and was suitable, under BBFC Guidelines, for 15 year olds and above. This content therefore did not require restriction to adults only. However, we took the
view that, while the Rape Gallery might have been intended to be funny, many would not find it so, and, moreover, that it posed a non-trivial harm risk by presenting women as rape targets.
We concluded that it would be classified at least 18 or R18, and might potentially be refused classification.
More than 11,000 people are protesting a proposal which may ban private domain name registrations for millions of websites. The changes would make it easier to identify owners of pirate sites, but the commenters warn that this may have disastrous
A new ICANN proposal currently under review suggests various changes to how WHOIS protection services should operate.
The changes are inevitably welcomed by copyright holders, as they will make it easier to identify the operators of pirate sites, who can then be held responsible.
However, several domain registrars, digital rights groups and the public at large are less enthusiastic. They fear that the changes will also prevent many legitimate website owners from using private domain registrations.
At the time of writing ICANN has received well over 11,000 comments , most of which encourage the organization to keep private domain registrations available. A few dozen comments have been filed by special interest groups, but most were submitted
by ordinary Internet users who fear that they will have to put their name, address and other personal details out in public.
Commenters note that the proposals would encourage crime by providing the criminals with more information. Others warn that the proposals will leave the door open for all sorts of harassment , or even aid oppressive regimes and terrorist groups
including ISIS. One writes:
Please do not make it easier for these oppressive regimes and terrorists to identify and target the brave men and women who risk their lives by writing and blogging about what goes on in those dangerous parts of the world.
It will be interesting to see how the public consultation will influence ICANN's proposal and the future operation of domain name privacy services. The commenting period closes this coming Tuesday and will be followed by an official report. After
that, the ICANN board will still have to vote on whether or not the changes will be implemented.
UK VoD industry forced to cough up half a million quid so that 3 staff and 3 fat cats can investigate 55 complaints, of which 10 were upheld and 10 are ongoing. That's 22,000 quid spent for each happy complainant
No wonder ATVOD keep banging on about on about their campaign against hardcore porn websites. There's not much else to do.
ATVOD writes in its press release:
The Authority for Television On Demand , co-regulator of editorial content in UK video on demand services, has today published its annual report detailing steps taken by ATVOD in the year to 31 March 2015 to protect children from hardcore porn on
regulated video on demand ( VOD ) services.
Twelve services, operating across 137 websites, were found to be in breach of the statutory rules in 2014-15 because they featured hardcore porn material which could be accessed by under 18's.
Of the twelve services, eight acted to make changes to bring the service into compliance or closed, and two were the subject of ongoing enforcement activity at year end. The remaining two were transferred to the control of a person or company
established outside the UK. ATVOD has no powers in relation to services operated from abroad and on-demand services provided from outside the UK are not required to have in place the sort of age verification and access control systems required by
ATVOD in the UK to protect children from hardcore pornography.
Given the ability of adult website operators to place their services beyond the reach of current UK regulations, ATVOD counsels against complacency and has continued to encourage policy makers to consider how children might be better protected
from pornography online.
ATVOD Chief Executive Pete Johnson said:
We have made good progress in ensuring that UK operators of regulated VOD services comply with rules designed to protect children from harmful content, but we are not complacent and will continue to monitor relevant services and act as required.
Our enforcement activity has sent a clear message that UK providers of hardcore pornography on demand must take effective steps to ensure that such material is not accessible to under-18's. Asking visitors to a website to click an I am 18 button
or enter a date of birth or use a debit card is not sufficient, if they are going to offer explicit sex material they must know that their customers are 18, just as they would in the offline world.
ATVOD will continue to discuss with policy makers further options for reducing the exposure of children to pornography and other potentially harmful VOD material on websites based both inside and outside the UK. We strongly support initiatives
designed to improve the take up of parental control software and worked with the Department for Culture Media and Sport on the drafting of legislation introduced in December 2014 which prohibits on UK based, tv-like VOD services any material
which would not be classified for sale on a DVD.
Looking forward, we note with interest the Conservative Party manifesto commitment to require age verification for access to all websites containing pornographic material.
Chairman Ruth Evans notes that she is standing down from the role in 2016.
Ruth Evans is now set lead the British government's Payments Strategy Forum, which is currently being assembled to bring together the U.K. payments industry and representatives of all those that use payment systems. She will begin her new role on
July 27 while still helming the title of chair for ATVOD.
As chair of the Payments Strategy Forum, Evans will be responsible for guiding and progressing discussions among stakeholders, including card payment systems operated by Visa and MasterCard, as well as direct debit processors. Evans' slot will be
independent of the industry but appointed by and accountable to the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), the new economic regulator for U.K. payment systems that became fully operational in April.
A French MP has started the ball rolling on internet censorship on the grounds that children need to be protected from X-rated sites.
MP Jean-Jacques Candelier of the Democratic and Republican Left said that he'd had enough of the scourge of freely available online pornography. He wrote to Laurence Rossignol, the Secretary of State for the Family, Elderly People and Adult
Care, asking for the government to introduce an access code in France, meaning that adults who want to see pornographic content online must manually opt-in to gain entry.
Failing that, Candelier suggested a default blocking of all pornography online, a move he said was inspired by David Cameron's controversial internet filters that came into effect in the UK last year.
The MP told France TV Info:
I don't condemn the existence of these sites, but they have to be reserved for adults. We need to put in place a system of access codes that will be asked for every time someone tries to connect to these sites,
Nearly three-quarters of people questioned for a survey for a christian morality campaign said all websites
offering adult movies and pornography should introduce age-verification systems
The Government should impose age verification checks on all websites which offer pornography and 18-rated entertainment such as horror films , Fifty Shades of Grey and Game of Thrones , according to the survey.
The survey of more than 2,000 adults was conducted earlier this month for Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), which is campaigning for internet censorship.
The ComRes survey found 74% of the people they asked said the Government should require sites offering pornography in the UK to put age verification checks in place. A further 73% also said that age verification should apply to 18 rated films
The timing of publication of the survey was timed to support Elspeth Howe's latest Online Safety Bill, which was debated in the House of Lords today. The
Online Safety Bill
required default website blocking for mobile phones, requires strict ID verification for adult internet video and also required foreign porn sites to get a UK licence for its operation on threat of banks denying payment services for unlicensed
The Bill passed its 2nd reading in the Lords and now moved to committee. But the government did rather point out that Howe was stepping on their toes for initiatives that the government would be introducing in the near future.
An Adelaide bookshop owner has been gently raided by police for selling copies of the cult novel, American Psycho that were not plastic-wrapped.
The novel, by American author Bret Easton Ellis, has been classified R18 by book censors since its release in 1991, requiring it to be sold in plastic and only to those aged over 18.
It is a satirical book depicting a psychotic high-flying Wall Street worker in an era of greedy America and includes a number of very violent and graphically shocking passages.
Imprints Booksellers co-owner Jason Lake said previous editions had always been plastic-wrapped but the most recent edition was a Picador Classic with an introduction by famous Scottish author, Irvine Welsh, and it did not come plastic-wrapped. He
We just assumed the classification has been lifted.
It's the only book on our shelf that we ever have with a plastic wrapper.
Lake said the police were very gentle when they arrived and asked that the book be removed from the shelf. He said the raid occurred because somebody complained to police after reading in a weekend newspaper column that the book was being sold by
bookshops without plastic wrapping.
In a decision of great potential importance, the Divisional Court (a Lord Justice and High Court Judge sitting together) have declared section 1 of
DRIPA, an Act of Parliament passed in 2014, to contravene the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as it was interpreted in the Digital Rights Ireland judgment of April 2014.
Digital Rights Ireland declared invalid the Data Retention Directive of 2006, an EU measure which had been promoted by the UK and which required all Member States to retain telecommunications data for periods of between 6 and 24 months.
DRIPA (enacted under emergency procedures in July 2014, in only four days) was the UK's reaction to Digital Rights Ireland. Its purpose was to provide a statutory basis, replacing the now-invalid Directive, for the requirement that service
providers in the UK retain certain categories of data (e.g. sender/recipient, date/time/duration of communication, but not content or web browsing history) for 12 months.
The Divisional Court judgment applied the Digital Rights Ireland principles to DRIPA, disapplying the Act of Parliament to the extent that it failed to respect the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It remains to be seen whether the Government will appeal and, if so, how quickly that appeal will be heard.
It seems to be something of a tradition for the press to pick up on the handful of complaints about film classifications as the only thing worth reporting from the BBFC Annual Report.
There are hardly any complaints presumably because the age categories are set more or less in line with most peoples expectations. In addition people have positively elected to go to the cinema or watch the DVD, so are less likely to be surprised
at the contents, than for more passive viewing medias like TV.
Anyway the top films that attracted a few whinges are:
The film Mr. Turner , classified 12A, generated the most feedback in 2014: nineteen members of the public complained about a sex scene in the film, though it needs to be kept in mind that this is a very low figure
for most complained-about film, and is a tiny proportion of those who will have seen it. In the scene in question, Turner's clothed buttocks are seen clenching vigorously, before the scene cuts to a close-up of his face and his thrusting head
and shoulders. The scene is relatively brief and does not contain any nudity, but Turner does appear rather distressed. The act ends with shots of Turner sobbing, almost in an exhibition of self-loathing.
The 15 classification of 12 Years A Slave generated a total of twelve complaints about the violence, including sexual violence, in the film. 12 Years A Slave tells its story in a considered and responsible manner,
and contains very little in the way of blood or injury detail. The scenes of violence in the film are strong but are contextually justified. With very few clear images of the injuries inflicted, the depictions of violence serve to illustrate the
very real brutality suffered by many slaves at the hands of their masters. The rape of a female slave is shocking but is shown in a discreet manner. There is no nudity and the focus of the scene remains on her impassive face.
The 15 classification for Bad Neighbours received eight complaints. Correspondents raised the language, drug references and sex scenes in the film as problematic to them at 15. There is one use of the word 'cunt' as
a man laments the fact that his baby has heard someone swear and worries that soon the baby will begin using the c-word .
300: Rise of An Empire is the sequel to the film 300 and was classified 15. Seven members of the public contacted the BBFC about scenes of violence, a strong sex scene, and sexual violence in the film. Although 300:
Rise Of An Empire does contain strong violence, the sequences are presented in a very stylised and unrealistic manner. For example, scenes of decapitations and slow motion plumes of blood are exaggerated and very clearly rendered using computer
generated images. This gives the film a visual style similar to that of the comic book the 300 films are based on.
The Equalizer generated seven complaints from the public for its 15 classification. Correspondents raised the violence in the film as problematic at 15, while others complained that the film had been cut to achieve a
15 classification. Although the violence in The Equalizer is strong in places, particularly during hand to hand fight scenes, it does not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury, nor do any of the scenes qualify as the strongest gory images of
the type that would require an 18 classification.
An ad on the side of buses and a poster for the film Poltergeist :
(a) The bus ad featured an image of the head of a scruffy, smiling clown doll which stated THEY KNOW WHAT SCARES YOU. POLTERGEIST .
(b) The poster ad featured the same clown doll and text in a darker format. Issue
Seventy two complainants, many of whom considered the ads were distressing for themselves, their children or had colrophobia (fear of clowns), challenged whether the ads were suitable for outdoor display in an untargeted medium.
ASA Assessment: Not upheld
The ASA acknowledged that some children and adults considered that the ad was distressing especially in an untargeted, outdoor medium and that consumers with colrophobia could find the ad distressing. We noted that the ad had a dark format and the
image of the clown starred out from the poster and had a scruffy appearance. However, we considered the image was not menacing and noted the ad included no other images that were likely to contribute to such an impression. The ad also included the
text THEY KNOW WHAT SCARES YOU. POLTERGEIST but we considered in the context of ads for a horror movie it was not overtly threatening or suggestive of danger, rather it was likely to be understood by consumers as being a typical reflection
of a movie of that format.
Although we acknowledged that some distress had been caused, because we did not consider that the overall impression of the ads was such that they were likely to cause excessive fear or distress, particularly in the context of an ad for a horror
film, we concluded that they were not irresponsibly targeted in outdoor media.
Further voluntary regulation of online content began in October, when the BBFC in partnership with the BPI, Vevo and You Tube, and UK record companies Sony Music UK, Universal Music UK and Warner Music UK, launched a pilot to classify online music
videos by UK artists signed to the three major labels. The pilot brings the same content standards to online music videos as that envisaged by an amendment to the Video Recordings Act, in force from 1 October 2014, requiring the classification of
previously exempt music videos, and other educational, sport or religious videos, on DVD and Blu-ray. Any video featuring content at the 12, 15 or 18 level must be submitted to the BBFC for classification. BBFC Director David Cooke said:
As in 2013, the most fast-moving developments in our work have been in the non-statutory, self-regulatory area. Our work to protect children from potentially harmful media content online increased significantly and our partnership with the mobile
industry to regulate, on a voluntary basis, internet and commercial content delivered via the mobile networks of EE, O2, Three and Vodafone also received praise from the Government, child protection groups and others, including the Open Rights
Group. In 2014 we considered appeals in relation to 42 websites available via mobile networks, dealing with issues as diverse as assisted dying, racism, abortion, and hunting. Details of all of these cases are published on our website.
In addition to a growth in voluntary regulation, the BBFC classified more than 950 films for cinema release in 2014, making the level of theatrical submissions on a par with the 1960s.
In 2013 the BBFC Classification Guidelines review consulted more than 10,000 members of the British public about film classification and found that 75% understand that a film rated 12A is generally suitable for children aged 12 and over, but a
younger child may see the film if accompanied by an adult. Because up to a quarter of those surveyed were unsure as to the meaning of the 12A rating, from July to September 2014 an advertisement to help increase awareness of what the 12A cinema
rating means was broadcast in cinemas across the UK. The advertisement reminds parents to check the BBFCinsight for every 12A film before they take a child under 12 to see it.
As part of our wider education work, in 2014 the BBFC spoke to more than 12,000 teenagers, younger children and adults about its work to protect children and empower consumers. Many BBFC education sessions take place in partnership with film
festivals, libraries and cinema chains. Our biggest collaboration of 2014 was with the Into Film Festival where we introduced 22 screenings at 17 cinema locations across the UK.
Sky Broadband has issued a strange press release boasting of the uptake in its internet website blocking service whilst not revealing the
relevant stats that underlie the claim. The press release leads with the paragraph:
Millions more families across the UK are enjoying the internet in safety following the successful roll out of Sky Broadband Shield. Sky's award-winning free internet filtering and safety tool is now active in over 70% of the homes in the roll-out
to customers who had not previously made a choice, with the majority of families keeping the parental controls in addition to the malware and phishing protection Sky Broadband Shield provides.
One would suspect that 70% of subscribers are opting for some level of website blocking, but this does not necessarily mean that all of these are blocking adult content. Sky Broadband Shield includes the option to just block malware and phishing
sites, which is probably a popular option.
On the subject of blocking the likes of porn, then Sky just says that the majority of families select this option. The Daily Mail notes that the ISP TalkTalk said that about 36% of subscribers are families with children, so Sky's comment about the
'majority of families' probably means something over 18% of total subscribers selecting the adult content blocking levels.
Sky also make the point that far more people have turned on some level of blocking because they were forced to make a decision, than before when they were merely told that options were available. Sky writes:
Following the introduction of Sky Broadband Shield in 2013, Sky initially asked its existing customers to choose whether or not to turn Sky Broadband Shield on, and new customers were required to choose whether or not to turn it on at activation.
Beginning in January 2015, Sky then rolled Broadband Shield out to all customers who hadn't already made a choice about whether to activate it or not.
Sky took the decision to roll out Sky Broadband Shield to customers after the Government challenged ISPs to look at how they protected children and families online. By making the default position of Sky Broadband Shield on and making it
easy to adjust or decline at any time, Sky gave customers a choice about whether they wanted the protection whilst making their online safety a priority.
Sky's decision to give customers a choice about Broadband Shield whilst making the default position on meant that many more customers took an active interest in what the product offers. When customers were previously emailed and asked to
choose, less than 5% engaged. This evidence supports Sky's unique approach as the safest and easiest way to protect families online.
BBC bosses have been finalising contingency plans in case they can't air a lot of Kanye West's set from Saturday night's Glastonbury headline slot because of strong or 'offensive' language.
They want to avoid a repeat of ITV's embarrassment which saw the channel mute the audio during his performance of All Day, due to repeated mentions of the word 'nigger'. A BBC source said:
The set list can change at the last minute, so who knows what Kanye could say on stage?
There are contingency plans in place. A warning will be broadcast ahead of his set, advising viewers to expect bad language, but as he comes on at 10.15pm there's hope it will be acceptable post-watershed.
Given his excessive swearing at the Brits, there will be a lot of nervy execs during his performance.
Given the post-watershed hour, the BBC decided not to bleep Kanye West for his Glastonbury performance, the BBC did though embarrass itself over a puerile attempt at censoring the strong language for the subtitles.
BBC Subtitles tried a new approach by replacing offensive words with words that sounded similarly but didn't include profanity.
This way, they got motherducker and shut the lock up and ligger / ligga and so, so many more hilarious words. Whoever was working on BBC Subtitles that night eventually lost heart and replaced all with the generic [HE
These ludicrous substitutions certainly amused some viewers and fun was to be had by all on Twitter.
Meanwhile 44 whinged to TV censor Ofcom about the strong language.
We received complaints from some viewers who were unhappy with some of the language used by Kanye West during his headline set.
The performance was broadcast after the watershed and clear warning notices were given that it may contain strong language -- both at the start of the show and again, with a caption placed on screen just as Kanye's act started.
The Indian film ABCD 2 has suffered censorship problems in Pakistan.
The Sindh Board of Film Censors passed the film without any cuts and with a U (Universal) certificate in Karachi on June 18. The Punjab Board of Censors also cleared it without cuts.
However the Central Board of Film Censors (CBFC) in Islamabad wanted passionate lip kissing shots from the song Dance, excised. The certificate further stated that Indian flags, wherever occur in the film, be excised .
The last diktat posed problems for exhibitors since the Indian tricolour waves across the film and is prominently displayed in the climax song. The only cineplex in Islamabad, after some deliberation, decided not to screen the film. But two other
cinemas played it. Nadeem Mandviwalla, a leading distributor and exhibitor in Pakistan, said:
Due to excessive cutting in the film by the CBFC, specially in the end song, resulting in nearly the entire song being excised, we opted not to exhibit the film at our ME--Centaurus Cineplex in Islamabad.
Malaysia's Film Censorship Board (LPF), known in Malay as Lembaga Penapisan Filem, has
issued bizarre new guidelines that are stricter for muslim Malay productions than for other local ethnic groups, mostly Chinese and Indian.
Apparently complaints were lodged by the public to the LPF about a local Malay drama that depicted a married couple in a bedroom scene. The complaints caused by said drama, Maid , prompted the LPF to introduce the new guidelines.
Issued on June 30, the guidelines apply mostly on local Malay productions, though any Chinese, Tamil and English productions that include a Malay cast will be subjected to the Malay productions criteria.
Some of what local TV dramas and movies will have to adhere to include:
No passionate scene between men and women and members of the same sex
No passionate kissing scene (on lips/neck)
No molesting/ touching of the genitals and licking between men and women or members of the same sex scene
No rape or sexual scene (except if filmed without lighting, behind mosquito nets, or filmed using vague shadows without sexual action)
For fans of horror movies, the below guidelines for any Malay/Chinese/Tamil/English productions will be even more horrifying than any Jasons or Ju-Ons to appear onscreen:
No scene showing very scary and terrifying faces of creatures/entities
No terrifying, nauseating and disgusting scenes
Meanwhile, action movies will have to think of a way to advance their plot without breaking any of the following guidelines:
No scene depicting going against the law (except if the criminals face retribution)
No scene or dialogue that gives a bad image to the government (example: bribing and misuse of power)
Of course, any usage of coarse language/gestures, portrayal of men as women (unless in disguise) and display of skin/genitals/genital outlines as well as anything political will also face the chopping board.
The guidelines currently address TV contents only but it is likely that they will be extended to movies playing in cinemas too.
Pahlaj Nihalani, surely the most megalomaniac head that the Central Board of Film Classification (CBFC) has ever had,
has resurrected an old rule from 1990 that means that 'A ' (18) rated films can no longer be aired on television even if they have been re-cut or re-censored to be eligible for a U or U/A certificate.
Nihalani claims he's simply going by the book and told 9XE that this is a result of films in recent times becoming more predominantly vulgar themes by depicting sex and featuring double meaning dialogues , which he deems as
infinitely more harmful than the violence and horror that would form a staple of Hindi cinema earlier. We cannot possibly edit out a film's theme, he was quoted as saying, so how do we re-censor these films to make them U or U/A?
TV channels are legally not allowed to broadcast adult content but have previously allowed the films to be shown after CBFC cuts to a lower rating. Of course if the CBFC refuse to make the cuts then the films are then automatically banned from TV.
Of course losing TV sales will hit the pockets of producers of such films and may lead to fewer A rated films being made.
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Snapchat could all potentially be banned under the latest revision of the Government's Snoopers
Charter that's being drafted at the moment.
The Investigatory Powers Bill, mentioned in the 2015 Queen's Speech
, would allow the government to ban instant messaging apps that refuse to remove end-to-end encryption.
Home Secretary Theresa May reportedly plans to push the bill forward as quickly as possible, putting it in front of the Government by the Autumn.
The unconfirmed ban has caused an outcry on social media with reactions ranging from anger to disbelief that the Government would be able to take on companies like Apple, Google and Facebook.
David Cameron hinted at such repressive measures earlier this year in the aftermath of the Paris shootings when he claimed that when implementing new surveillance powers he would have no problem banning services like Snapchat if they didn't
comply. He threatened:
In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which even in extremes, with a signed warrant from the Home Secretary personally that we cannot read.
My answer to that question is no we must not. If I am prime minister, I will make sure it is a comprehensive piece of legislation that makes sure we do not allow terrorist safe spaces to communicate with each other.
In a damning report on government surveillance however
, leading computer experts at MIT have claimed that the proposals by both the US and UK governments have 'failed to account for the risks' that are inherently associated with removing encryption. The report states:
These proposals are unworkable in practice, raise enormous legal and ethical questions, and would undo progress on security at a time when Internet vulnerabilities are causing extreme economic harm.
New rules for Internet providers across the European Union could eliminate adult website blocking in the U.K.
The telecoms single market rules, approved June 30, will go before the full European Parliament for a vote this fall. If the legislation gets a green light, it will trump existing national laws. Censorship provision were more laterly debated in
Council on July 8.
Despite the best efforts of UK Conservatives in the Parliament, the EU-wide regulation will put an end to Internet service provider-level filters for adult content, which will mean new U.K. laws by the end of next year.
Currently in the U.K., the major ISPs give users the option to block pornography or gratuitous violence. Consumers are prompted to choose whether to turn on the blocking filter when they first use their Internet connection.
While an exception for parental blocking tools was debated, it was not included in the final text.
There will be no restrictions on watching porn within the confines of your own home, the Indian Supreme Court
has said. The apex court declined a plea to pass an interim order to block all porn sites in India.
Hearing a petition by advocate Kamlesh Vashwani, Chief Justice H.L. Dattu said: Such interim orders cannot be passed by this court. Somebody may come to the court and say look I am above 18 and how can you stop me from watching it within the four
walls of my room. It is a violation of Article 21 [right to personal liberty].
Like so many of his friends and colleagues across the world, we were shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Caspar Bowden, the British privacy activist and co-founder of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR).
Among a community filled with perceptive advocates for a better future, Caspar Bowden stood out as one of the most prescient and the most determined. With a far-reaching knowledge of both policy and technology, he was frequently years ahead of his
contemporaries in identifying upcoming issues, and never hesitated to transform his own life and career to better meet those challenges.
Caspar was a key figure in the British fight for the right to encrypt in the 1990s Crypto Wars. As a technology adviser for Scientists for Labour, he successfully convinced Britain's Labour party, then out of power, to adopt a civil liberties
platform that was strongly pro-privacy and pro-encryption.
But when Labour attained power in 1997, its leadership turned its back on the party's own election promises. Instead it began drafting a potentially catastrophic law that would have mandated compulsory crypto backdoors in the UK. Caspar leapt from
internal lobbying of the Labour party to co-found the Foundation for Information Policy Research, a non-partisan thinktank that intellectually dominated the opposition to Labour's new policy. What eventually became the Regulation of Investigatory
Powers Act (RIPA) would have been a far worse law without Caspar's constant interrogation of its drafters, and behind the scenes lobbying for better language, oversight, and an abandonment of backdoors and key escrow as a statutory goal.
After RIPA passed into law, Caspar joined Microsoft as its Senior Privacy Strategist. From 2002, he worked within the corporate sector to improve user privacy. His experiences at Microsoft gave him the insight and later authority to warn others of
the dangerous weaknesses of the United States' legal protections for non-U.S. persons.
When he left Microsoft in 2011, he once again became an independent voice, warning others that they were sleepwalking into a surveillance state. He had surmised what Snowden's leaks ultimately confirmed: that the NSA was using the United States
dominance in hosting new cloud services to spy with almost no legal limits on the rest of the world. Instead of a single political party or the British establishment, he now began to educate and inform the European Union about how its
member states and citizens were being treated by the U.S. intelligence services, and how they could fight back. From this broader stage, his reputation as a deeply knowledgeable expert on surveillance spread across the world.
Caspar frequently had the frustrating experience of seeing his most pessimistic predictions disregarded as alarmist, only to turn out to be true all along. His final illness came just as Britain's Prime Minister once again made the call to
eliminate strong encryption and insert dangerous and futile backdoors by force of law. Caspar passed away before he had the chance to see victory in this new, old, battle, but he left us with over twenty years of piercing analysis and compelling
arguments to continue his work. It's now up to us to fulfill his wishes in compliance with the high expectations he always expected and lived by.
The right to freedom of expression is enshrined in all major international human rights instruments, starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The exercise of this right and the activity of journalism, whether by professional or
non-professional journalists, however, sometimes leads to prosecution, judicial harassment, arbitrary detention, or worse. How can journalists be protected in the face of such dangers? The answer lies in the law. Journalists operate within an
international legal framework which protects their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of information, meaning that governments can be held to account. The right to freedom of expression can be limited, however, and so this Handbook also
looks at how freedom of expression can be restricted in specific circumstances and how it is balanced with other rights, such as the right to privacy.
The Defence Handbook for Journalists and Bloggers is unique in its kind as it focuses specifically on the application of international legal principles to the work of journalists. It includes decisions and recommendations made by international and
regional bodies and courts in relation to various aspects of freedom of speech, including: international sources of law giving rise to freedom of expression and freedom of information principles; defamation; the right to privacy; protection of
public order and morality; and national security and state secrets.
A listener, who also could have done with a few more parental smacks, complained after the broadcast it had condoned the physical abuse of children and said the comments were insensitive and inappropriate .
The complaint was rejected by the BBC's editorial complaints unit, saying Blofeld and Boycott were very well known to the audience and had well-established characters .
The complaint was later escalated to the BBC Trust, but trustees ruled out an appeal saying it had little chance of success. It acknowledged the seriousness of protection of children but said the audience would have understood that there
was no serious intent behind the remark . It said it was clear that the remarks were made in the context of criticising the behaviour of the player who appealed to the umpire that a cricketer was out in circumstances when it was evident he
was wrong .
a. A poster displayed on a bus stop pictured three women posing and looking at the camera and text which stated A little bit of Bella ... A little bit of Layla... A little bit of Nicola ... Get your own little bit at vivastreet.co.uk .
b. An ad on the side of a black cab featured the same image and text as ad (a).
The ASA received 24 complaints:
All the complainants objected that the ads, and in particular the phrase Get your own little bit , were offensive because they were sexist and objectified women.
Five complainants also objected that the ads were irresponsibly placed where children could see them.
ASA Assessment: complaints upheld
The ASA understood that the ads promoted Vivastreet's personals section, which included a subsection for escorts as well as dating. We acknowledged that some people would find the advertising of classified ads for escorts offensive because of the
product being promoted. However, the fact the product would be offensive to some people was not grounds for finding a marketing communication in breach of the Code. We therefore considered the overall impression and context of the ads.
The image of the women in the ad was no more than mildly sexual in nature and we considered that most people who saw the ad were likely to recognise that the words used derived from the well-known song Mambo No.5. However, we considered that the
words A little bit of Bella ... A little bit of Layla ... A little bit of Nicola ... Get your own little bit at vivastreet.co.uk , in combination with the image, objectified women and implied that they could be bought on the Vivastreet
website, which was likely to cause serious or widespread offence. We considered that many older children were also likely to understand that implication of the ads and for that reason (and notwithstanding that the ads were not placed in close
proximity to schools) it was socially irresponsible to place the ads in outdoor media because they were likely to be seen by children. Although we understood that Vivastreet were aiming the ads at a particular target market, they appeared in
outdoor media and could therefore be seen by anyone. We concluded that, in that context, the ads were likely to cause serious or widespread offence and that they were unsuitable for public display.
The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Vivastreet to take particular care when advertising the personals section of their website, including in outdoor media, to ensure they did not objectify women or imply they could be
bought, to avoid causing serious or widespread offence.
Even in their seventies, the Rolling Stones still have the power to get the
establishment hot under the collar. A poster for their new museum exhibition has been banned for being supposedly lewd.
The advert has their trademark logo of a cartoon mouth and protruding tongue covering the crotch of a woman's bikini bottom.
While it has already been used across social media, on news websites and by major companies such as Ticketmaster, bosses at Exterion Media, censors that approve posters to appear on the London Underground and at bus stops, insisted the logo be
moved up to the woman's belly button before allowing it to go ahead.
This is despite the advert already being widely used by the band online to promote Exhibitionism , which opens at London's Saatchi Gallery next year.
A spokesman for the band said:
We are dumbfounded and perplexed at this rather silly decision. Perhaps the fact that it's the Rolling Stones and controversy seems to follow them everywhere.
English PEN has announced the publication of Draw The Line Here , a collection of cartoons drawn in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January 2015.
The book is a collaboration between the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation (PCO), Crowdshed, and English PEN. It features cartoons drawn by British artists in the days immediately after the attacks. The work of 66 cartoonists is featured,
including Steve Bell, Dave Brown, Martin Rowson, Peter Brookes and Ralph Steadman. The book features a Foreword by Libby Purves and an introduction by Robert Sharp of English PEN.
Two themes appear repeatedly in the cartoons. The first is the black balaclava of the terrorist - a menacing yet somehow compelling image. Whether it is Jihadi John in Syria or the Paris gunmen, the masked face of the assassin has already become
The second theme is that of a writing implement as a weapon. Pencils that counter the gun barrel, or pens held aloft like a crusader's sword. Such images are a form of wish fulfilment - if only a pen or a brush could really stop bullets.
The profits from Draw the Line Here will be shared between the Charlie Hebdo victims' fund and English PEN's free speech campaigns for embattled writers and artists around the world. Perhaps the most pleasing aspect to this book, therefore, is
that the contributors have used their own freedom of expression to defend the free speech rights of others. It is a positive and creative response to a moment of destruction, and should give us cause for hope.
Porn shops, cuirrently illegal in Malta, will soon be able to open on the strength of legal reforms that will allow pornographic material to be
displayed so long as a clear warning is affixed outside the shop. The warning must read:
Warning. Persons passing beyond this notice will find material on display which they may consider indecent. No admittance to persons under 18 years of age.
It will still be illegal to distribute pornographic material in public places and to expose children or the unsuspecting public to pornographic material.
This is one of a series of legal reforms addressing morality and censorship. Another amendment decriminalises the vilification of religion.
Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said these reforms showed that government did not believe that the State ought to be the moral custodian of adults. He said:
Adults are to be treated as adults... These reforms aim to incentivise freedom of artistic expression while protecting the vulnerable,
Bonnici explained that the legal reforms -- that were in draft stage and would soon be presented in Parliament -- will include the complete removal of articles 163 and 164 of the Criminal Code. This will mean decriminalising the vilification of
the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion and other religions.
The two articles made it illegal to vilify religion by words, gestures, written matter, whether printed or not, or pictures or by some other visible means.)
The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about Sri Lankan authorities' decision to re-establish the Sri Lankan Press Council, a media
regulatory body which gives the government powers to jail journalists in connection with their reporting.
The Press Council was established under the 1973 Press Council law and is made up of members appointed by the president as well as two journalists chosen by media organizations. Under the law , outlets are forbidden from publishing documents
related to cabinet decisions without the permission of the cabinet, as well as some defense and fiscal matters. The law also provides for wide-ranging punitive powers, including the imprisonment of journalists and publishers, according to local
press freedom groups.
President Maithripala Sirisena announced the decision on July 2 , and appointed new members to the council that day, according to news reports. The president did not consult any local media houses or press organizations.
The Press Council was dissolved in January 2015 after Sirisena was elected president. During his presidential bid , Sirisena vowed to uphold press freedom. But his commitment to uphold press freedom has proved somewhat short lived.
Lawmakers have passed a bill enabling further internet under Russia's version of the 'right to be forgotten'. The bill was rushed through
parliament after only being submitted on May 29.
The new law, passed despite objections from Yandex, Russia's largest search engine, will allow people to censor search links about them that they do not like. i
The legislation is reported to be broader than the European Union's right to be forgotten initiative.
Yandex, after failing to get amendments incorporated, said it had major objections to the final version of the law said:
Our point has always been that a search engine cannot take on the role of a regulatory body and act as a court or law enforcement agency. We believe that information control should not limit access to information that serves the public interest.
The private interest and the public interest should exist in balance.
Facebook can recognise you from photos even it can't see your face. Researchers trained the software using 60,000 photos taken from Flickr It was able to correctly identify individuals with more than 83% accuracy
Love is a 2015 France / Belgium drama by Gaspar Noé.
Starring Gaspar Noé, Aomi Muyock and Klara Kristin.
A sexual melodrama about a boy and a girl and another girl. It's a love story, which celebrates sex in a joyous way.
Gaspar Noé's new film Love has been given a 16 rating in France, despite a government 'recommendation' that it should receive an 18 rating.
The 3D drama, which features explicit sexual scenes, was originally rated 16, but the French culture minister Fleur Pellerin made the unusual move of interfering. Pellerin requested that there be a second review, given the sexual nature of the
film. But despite this, the certificate remained the same.
The French directors' guild also stood by Noé and criticised Pellerin. The group said in a statement:
We have nothing to gain from being in the game of conservatism and puritanism. The 'moralisation' of works, the intimate friend of censorship, is a dangerous game. The filmmakers of ARP remain convinced that poetry, sexual as it is, [from]
filmmaker Gaspar Noé, will remain a better educational source than that of porn debauchery permanently available on the internet.
Note that the 16 certificate in France is used for films towards the strong end of violence, and for those featuring softcore or else non pornographic real sex. The French 18 rating is reserved for hardcore pornography. UK 18 rated films not on
the stronger end of the sex or violence spectrums are often 12 rated in France.
To coincide with a nationwide re-release of Touch Of Evil, and a BFI season to mark the centenary of Orson Welles during July and August (2015), The BBFC takes a look at the censorship file for the 1958 thriller:
Touch Of Evil arrived at the BBFC for classification in April 1958, and much of the original film file is lost. BBFC examiner records do however include a cuts list for the original submission, available here, which shows the Board's concerns
about scenes of violence, implied gang rape, and gore in the film. With these reductions made, the film was passed A, meaning it was more suitable for adults.
Wikipedia is campaigning against yet more censorial legislation from the EU. Wikepedia writes:
Absence of full Freedom of Panorama means we can't illustrate Wikipedia properly.
For more than a decade, volunteers have compiled countless facts and contributed millions of hours to build Wikipedia. Photographers have donated hundreds of thousands of photos to illustrate the articles.
The reason Wikipedia can freely depict public spaces in most of the countries in the European Union is that we enjoy full Freedom of Panorama
. This is an exception to copyright that allows people to make and use photographs of public spaces without restriction, while at the same time protecting the architect's or visual artist's rights.
Now, the free use of many of these images is in danger by a proposal in the European Parliament
. If the restrictive text accepted by the Legal Affairs Committee is adopted in the course of the upcoming EU legislative procedure on copyright reform, hundreds of thousands of images on Wikipedia would no longer be free and thus would no longer
belong in Wikipedia.
Party ever come to power, the group has celebrated its first legislative success, the decriminalization of blasphemy.
Birgitta Jonsdottir , one of three Pirates in the Althing, Iceland's Parliament, was among party activists celebrating the vote in favor of their bill to repeal the prohibition on impious irreverence, which had been in force since 1940.
The measure to repeal the law , which made ridiculing or insulting the dogmas or worship of a lawfully existing religious community an offense punishable by a fine or up to three months in jail, was introduced in January , in the wake of
the murderous attack in Paris on Charlie Hebdo.
While the vote was underway in the Althing, The Iceland Monitor reported , all three of the party's members took the floor to say, I am Charlie. After the bill was made law, the party said in a statement , The Icelandic Parliament has
issued the important message that freedom will not bow to bloody attacks.
In the past four months, the Australian Classifications Board has labelled 220 video games, making it
illegal to sell, advertise or exhibit them in the country.
Australian newspapers have been downplaying the censorship saying that it doesn't sound so bad when one realises that the amount of bans is related to the large quantities of back catologue apps being processed via a new rapid decision program,
perhaps up to 150,000 of them.
In fact that the 220 games are properly banned under censorial rules for what's allowed in adults only R18+ games. There was a lot of political opposition to allowing an adults rating at all and the final compromises rules ban games for content
that would be perfectly legal in most western countries. For instance more or less anything to do with the depiction of drugs is banned from Australian games.
Examples of banned games on the list include:
Torture the Murderer 2
Measure Bra Size Prank
Douchebag Beach Club
Pass the Grass
Time for Cocaine
Police Bus for Criminals
2015 Athletic Fruits Girls
Fun Swimming Pool Love Kiss
There are also several instances of the same game developer submitting multiple, obviously identical games (for example Weed Time submitted as Smoke a Bong FREE, Smoke a Bong, Smoke a Joint, Smoke a Joint FREE and Nose Dose ).
So it seems there are still serious discussions to be had around Australia's game censorship system, including the fact that Australia is much stricter than other countries when it comes to representations of sexual content and drugs, something
that has resulted in the blocking of a handful of high quality, well-respected games that adult players in other countries enjoy.
The opening night of William Tell at the Royal Opera House has been marked by boos over a rape scene with nudity. Some
opera goers also booed at the end of the performance when the production team came on stage for the curtain call.
The BBC news report suggests that the booing may not have been totally aimed at the depiction of the rape, but may be connected with fundamentalist opera goers who feel that directors should stick more closely with operas as written. And in this
age of the PC bully, they feel that their views should be heard above those of the director and other opera goers.
The Opera House issued a statement after the performance of Guillaume Tell apologising for any distress caused. Director of opera Kasper Holten said:
The production intends to make it an uncomfortable scene, just as there are several upsetting and violent scenes in Rossini's score. We are sorry if some people have found this distressing. 'Brutality and suffering'.
The scene puts the spotlight on the brutal reality of women being abused during war time, and sexual violence being a tragic fact of war.
Rossini's opera of the Swiss patriot, William Tell, who shoots an arrow that splits an apple atop his son's head, was directed by Damiano Michieletto.
The Stage gave the production one star. George Hall called it:
A dire evening in which the gratuitous gang-rape scene provoked the noisiest and most sustained booing I can ever recall during any performance at this address.
Michael Arditti, the Sunday Express theatre critic said the production represented a new nadir for the opera house and heads should roll .
But some were upset at the booing in the audience. Janice Evans wrote she was:
In shock at this level of intolerance exhibited in the ROH. I felt abused by their aggression and ashamed of their disrespect for the performers.
Before investigating the issues raised below we told Protein World that, due to
our concerns about a range of health and weight loss claims, the ad could not appear again in its current form.
While the ad was prohibited from appearing again solely on those grounds, we undertook a separate investigation to establish whether the ad was in breach of the advertising rules on harm, offence and social responsibility.
A poster for a slimming product, seen on the London Underground network, stated ARE YOU BEACH BODY READY? and featured an image of a toned and athletic woman wearing a bikini.
378 complainants, who raised a range of issues around offence and potential harm, challenged whether:
the ad implied that a body shape which differed from the idealised one presented was not good enough or in some way inferior and was, therefore, offensive; and
the combination of an image of a very slim, toned body and the headline ARE YOU BEACH BODY READY? was socially irresponsible in the context of an ad for a slimming product.
ASA Assessment: Complaints not upheld
1. Not upheld
The ASA understood that the Copy Advice team had seen the ad prior to it appearing and advised that it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence. We recognised that beach body was a relatively well understood term that for some
people had connotations of a toned, athletic physique similar to the image of the model in the ad. We considered that it also had a broader meaning - that of feeling sufficiently comfortable and confident with one's physical appearance to wear
swimwear in a public environment. We considered the claim ARE YOU BEACH BODY READY? prompted readers to think about whether they were in the shape they wanted to be for the summer and we did not consider that the accompanying image implied
that a different body shape to that shown was not good enough or was inferior. We concluded that the headline and image were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.
2. Not upheld
Although we understood the claim Are you beach body ready? invited readers to think about their figures, we did not consider the image of the model would shame women who had different body shapes into believing they needed to take a
slimming supplement to feel confident wearing swimwear in public. For that reason, we concluded the ad was not irresponsible.
The European Union has said an exception to net neutrality rules, covering spam filtering and blocking porn, was part of its new compromise deal.
The deal included four instances when net neutrality rules need not be applied.
One of the four exceptions was filtering spam as well as allowing parents to set up parental filters that block pornography or gratuitous violence from children.
However, the commission now admits that this exemption was announced before it was actually agreed.
The three other exceptions were the blocking of illegal content; preventing the misuse of networks, for instance viruses, malware or denial of service attacks; and finally to minimise network congestion that is temporary or exceptional .
Over blocking on Westminster's internet network is denying MPs the basic tools to do their job properly.
The press have had a field day about a particular website being blocked called sexymp.co.uk which rates politicians by sex appeal and presents visitors with photos of two randomly selected parliamentarians and asks which one would be preferable in
Clearly some parliamentarians are given privileged uncensored internet as the Telegraph bemoans that more than 50,000 views to the sexymp.co.uk website were allowed compared with 484,683 attempts to view which were censored.
The next most popular banned website was the Urban Dictionary, with 155,000 attempted views, of which 8,180 were successful. Visitors can learn the meanings behind ghetto slang with phrases such as rich rolling - or showing one's
most ornate materials .
Overall the MPs made more or less zero access to content termed porn in 2014 with the reported total access count being just 394.
A member of the IT staff spoke about the partial availability of uncensored internet feeds:
The intention is that all computers are subject to the same website filtering rules. As highlighted in the response to the FOI request, these rules had not been correctly applied to some connections, this has now been rectified.