Sour Family Hour? This report from the conservative
Parents Television Council made the top of the front page in our local paper this morning. If you visit the PTC home page, you'll get a pop-up calling for action against Comedy Central and "South Park" because they recently went over the top by not censoring the word "shit" and compounding the sin by using a counter in the corner to note how many times it was said. (Anybody catch that episode?)
posted by jdbanks
on Aug 2, 2001 -
16 comments
The movie censored in France opens in the US this week. Base-Moi is being translated by the newspapers as "Rape Me" but a better translation would be "Fuck Me," which better indicates that sexual power that the main female characters have. They use sex as a weapon, as the gateway firearm to murders and massacre. Violent, bloody, aggressively sexual, even pornographic, filled with "chic amoralism," as the
New York Times says, and perhaps difficult to redeem. Gratuitous everything.
posted by Mo Nickels
on Jul 6, 2001 -
18 comments
Do I make you h*rny, baby? [censored] This is far from new, but I just stumbled on this hilarious review of the Austin Powers sequel written by ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP). I don't post this to bash Christians or to inspire a bazillion comments about religion or censorship. I just thought CAP's outrage over an essentially harmless film was fun to read.
posted by Karl
on Jun 27, 2001 -
18 comments
John Ashcroft on web porn: "I am concerned about obscenity and I'm concerned about obscenity as it relates to our children". I'm curious what those of you who are more on the conservative/libertarian side of things think about this. Are there special exemptions to the concept of free speech when it comes to this type of content? [more]
posted by owillis
on Jun 11, 2001 -
40 comments
The Morality Police. "Our hysterical attempts to shield kids from images of sex and violence are stunting young lives -- and trapping us all in a Big Lie." A well-argued piece, more of an op-ed than a straight-up book review. As a scientist I only quibble with the author's musing that "if there really were a cause-and-effect link between real violence and media violence, then it would have been proven by now."
posted by topolino
on Jun 11, 2001 -
13 comments
"Red" China? Communist Cuba? No kids, its America! Where the government
has decided for us that we shouldn't listen to music that "contains unmistakable offensive sexual references. In this regard, portions of the lyrics contain sexual references in conjunction with sexual expletives that appear intended to pander and shock". Aren't you glad Big Brother is taking care of
you?
posted by owillis
on Jun 8, 2001 -
28 comments
ABC censors "Christ"? Very odd. On the 5/18 broadcast of
Politically Incorrect on ABC, a word was bleeped (either "Christ" or "Jesus") and Bill Maher's lips digitally obscured when he was making a joke/observation that Christ/Jesus (it wasn't clear which he was saying) would be compassionate to someone who needed the drug to ease their pain. Does anyone know more on this?
posted by owillis
on May 19, 2001 -
46 comments
Most of us are familiar with stories about government suppression of the free flow of information on the Internet - e.g. China's crackdown on internet dissidents; France's tussle with Yahoo over online sales of Nazi memorabilia; and, fresh from yesterday's news,
Iran's closure of 400 internet cafes. But did you know there are no web servers to speak of in North Korea? That you need government permission to own a fax machine or modem in Burma? That Somalia has only one ISP? If you can forgive some of its design peculiarities, this
Enemies of the Internet report (by Reporters Without Borders) gives a pretty comprehensive rundown of the international state of online freedoms.
posted by varmint
on May 14, 2001 -
6 comments
David! Cover Up! But it gets so darned hot and humid this time of the year in Florida, even for great art. Is this likely to lead our school kids astray too?
posted by Postroad
on Apr 25, 2001 -
21 comments
"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly
partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources.
We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing":
"We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'"
Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
posted by holgate
on Apr 14, 2001 -
7 comments
Scientology Strikes Again Last Saturday a comment was posted on Slashdot by an anonymous reader that contained text that was copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. They have since followed the DMCA and demanded that Slashdot remove the comment. After consulting with their lawyers, that's exactly what Slashdot did, but posted the above page with oodles of links to anti-Scientology resources. Will Scientology stop at nothing to silence its opponents?
posted by yarf
on Mar 16, 2001 -
21 comments
But what about the children! An internet censorship bill before the South Australian Parliament gives police ridiculously broad powers in going after material "unsuitable for children".
posted by frykitty
on Mar 3, 2001 -
6 comments
Censorware.org one of the best censorware pages, has died. "Due to demands from some of the people who contributed, in however minor a fashion, to this site, it has been taken down." Dagnabit! Anybody have any idea why? The site had one of the neatest pages on the net, estimated how fast it was going to show how impossible it was to keep up. Free spxxch loses an important defender.
posted by mrmorgan
on Jan 30, 2001 -
0 comments
A modern Dr Bowdler... (yeah, I know it's Salon, but...) A video-rental store in Utah offers "cleaned up" versions of modern films. First thought: is it legal? Post-DeCSS, one would think not: after all, the MPAA has done its best to protect its right to control the manner of reproduction. But are the studios not jumping to litigate, because they're happier to alienate Linux users with DVD drives than the LDS contingent in UT?
posted by holgate
on Jan 11, 2001 -
31 comments
Yahoo appeals to U.S. District Court to avoid being regulated by the French government. This is one of the first important cases testing jurisdiction on ecommerce sites, and neither side appears to be backing down.
posted by jed
on Dec 27, 2000 -
5 comments
Censorship on a public Blog? - When someone posts a link to content that others find shocking to a public blog (in this case Flazoom.com) how should the blog-master handle it. This got me thinking about how we handle the content at MeFi - which is better? Removing the post a few layers, or bereating the poster with lots of mean comment posts?
posted by DragonBoy
on Sep 18, 2000 -
24 comments
Police State 2000. "What makes you think you can edit content?" the federal judge asked city officials. "Isn't that classic censorship and prior restraint?"
posted by owillis
on Jul 10, 2000 -
24 comments
Another day, another piece of
unconstitutional net-censorship legislation in Congress. And this time it's authored by your pal and mine, John "Watch Out for Charlies!" McCain. Perhaps we should start a deadpool for all these bills, giving out some cash to whoever guesses the dates on which the courts throw them out?
posted by aaron
on Jun 27, 2000 -
4 comments
speed limit -- A bill banning Internet sites which publish or even link to drug-making information looks set to sail through Congress
posted by palegirl
on Apr 26, 2000 -
3 comments
Potential Employment: Here is a chance to show what you are made of. Quit your high paying job you have now, for one that will give you the opportunity to "help the children."
posted by brent
on Feb 12, 2000 -
0 comments
Y2K Spoof Flick Goes Awry "This FBI agent called," said Zieper. "He said, 'There are a lot of people planning to vacation in New York this year, a lot of them are coming to your site and they're getting scared. I want to talk to you about how we can stop people from coming to this site.'" ... see the flick
here. The FBI is full of a bunch of weirdos.
posted by greyscale
on Nov 25, 1999 -
0 comments
