In reaction to the sanctions, organisations such as Coin Center have defended the mixer, stating that the smart contract code is not a sanctionable entity.

It is unknown whether privacy coins such as Monero would face similar restrictions in light of this new precedence. A hard fork upgrade on August 13 made it more challenging to trace Monero transactions.

Contrary to the idea that all bitcoin transactions are private by nature, the data on a blockchain is public, and transactions may be traced. Crypto mixers and privacy coins were established to facilitate the open financial systems anonymity. But each faces unique uphill struggles.

A crypto mixer, also a tumbler or blender, is a transaction mixing tool or service anybody can use to conceal a crypto wallets source of funds. These technologies were initially built for bitcoin in 2013, but once solutions like Tornado Cash made them available for a range of cryptocurrencies, they became a popular alternative to privacy coins.

Blender.io was the first custodial mixer sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury (OFAC). It didnt garner the same attention as Tornado Cash since it belonged to the pattern of prior punishments against individuals and organisations.

Tornado Cashis an Ethereum-based crypto mixer that mixes ETH and ERC-20 tokens using non-custodial smart contracts. Through a zero-knowledge proof contract, users contribute funds to smart contract addresses that arrange them by the amount and efficiently mix the deposits.

For instance, suppose you wish to combine 11 ETH. Because deposits are categorised by amount, you send 10 ETH to the 10 ETH mixer and 1 ETH to the 1 ETH mixer. Once funds are given to each mixer, the zero-knowledge proof verifies that you provided a deposit to each one without revealing which one was initially yours. This provides the equivalent of a withdrawal authorisation slip for each mixer.

On August 8, 2022, OFAC added a list of Tornado Cash-related addresses to the same list of sanctioned addresses, including Blender.io. OFAC used the same language for Blender.io as it did for Blender.io, but failed to recognise their significant custody distinction. Coin Center asserts that Tornado Cash has two distinct components: the decentralised group of governing members, Tornado Cash Entity and the immutable smart contract coin mixers Tornado Cash Application.

The Tornado Cash Entity cannot modify or update the Tornado Cash Application due to the destruction of the original developers administrative keys. Smart contracts exist so long as the Ethereum blockchain is operational. Therefore, even if the Tornado Cash website is down, anybody can develop a replacement front end or communicate with the smart contracts directly that gives users access to the same mixers.

The issue is that OFAC included these immutable addresses for smart contracts on its list of penalties. Consequently, there are currently innocent Americans with funds in these mixes. If they attempt to transfer the funds, they will violate the law and face penalties. And because the application is not a legal business, it cannot petition OFAC to remove the sanctions.

Coin Center claims that OFAC did not cite the legal authority to add the smart contract addresses to the sanctions list since the Tornado Cash Application is not an organisation, triggering constitutional concerns. In response to OFACs notification, firms agreed to filter individuals associated with these IP addresses. Aave, a decentralised financial application, prohibited any user that received Tornado Cash payments in a dust assault.

Privacy coins are digital currencies that employ various techniques to conceal IP addresses, wallet balances, and the movement of transactions. Z-cash and Monero are the two most popular privacy-centric cryptocurrencies. Z-cash is a cryptocurrency that protects transaction data primarily through zero-knowledge proofs. They vary from crypto mixers in transforming financial privacy into a product rather than a benefit.

Since this early setback, Z-cash has never returned to the highs of the 2017 bull cycle and presently stands second in total market capitalisation behind Monero. While Monero prices were able to hit 2017 levels in 2021, they could not surpass their all-time high.

Monero is a privacy-centric cryptocurrency that provides financial anonymity via privacy-enhanced blockchain encryption. Every transaction uses one-time stealth addresses to conceal the balances of public addresses.

The protocol for Monero was improved on August 13. The earlier version of Monero provided a layer of anonymity, but its entire untraceability was questionable. In 2018, detractors said that the process of elimination might discover the signature rings inputs. And in 2021, CipherTracer purportedly patented a transaction-tracking technology used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Even if CipherTracer uncovered actual flaws, the scope of their repercussions remains unknown. They did not reveal their tactics or degree of success. Since it prevented CipherTracer from being accessed by anybody unwilling to pay, this earlier version nevertheless provided some financial anonymity.

In Canada, efforts were undertaken to trace the sources of funding for the trucker freedom convoy. The authorities sanctioned 34 cryptocurrency wallets associated with the movement, and Monero addresses were included on that list.

By raising the number of transactions in a ring signature, the Monero team expect this upgrade will solve any possible security loopholes. Even if the anticipated Monero chain enhancements are essential, the principles of tracking the likely source of funds remain the same after the fork. If the update is successful in eliminating these backdoors, there is a danger that OFAC might take similar action against Monero.

The developers prospective capacity to benefit from these smart contracts renders him accountable. The Dutch financial crimes agency FIOD detained a Tornado Cash developer suspected of using the application to launder money. It is unknown if he was arrested for his attempts to launder money or for his association with others who did so.

Though major privacy coins like Monero and Z-cash are actively trying to improve transaction privacy, they havent obtained the same level of acceptance as leading layer-1 blockchains such asEthereum. Many rivals, notably Secret Network and Oasis Network, believe that privacy coins do not provide a privacy layer that can be utilised to create Web3.

In 2020, Secret Network was the first privacy-based blockchain to offer the programmability of smart contracts. It resides in the Cosmos ecosystem and works towards a Web3 privacy goal. Multiple applications have been released, including the decentralised messaging service Altermail and the decentralised exchange SiennaSwap.

However, Secret Network and its rivals confront the typical difficulty of a crowded market. They have a long way to go before overcoming the market domination of Monero and Z-Cash. The prospect of punishment has spurred many members of the Z-Cash community to investigate the possibility of programming their smart contracts.

Amid the battle for financial privacy, the state has used two distinct instruments thus far. They employed the regulatory sanctions hammer with crypto mixers. If one financial privacy method is too popular with criminals or difficult to trace, their strategy may be to eliminate it.

Advocacy groups such as Coin Center may challenge such measures in court, but this may take years. In the meanwhile, the sanctions are probably harming innocent Americans.

They may continue their cat-and-mouse game with developer upgrades via investigations for other privacy solutions.

However, user adoption is a crucial aspect of this game. As more users use mixers or privacy coins, tracing transactions becomes progressively more difficult. It is comparable to the traditional police pursuit into a tiny alley. If the suspect approaches a busy procession, they can brush themselves off and blend with the crowd.

If a privacy coin, mixer, or base-layer privacy solution obtains widespread adoption, its resistance to censorship might increase. State officials would struggle to garner political support for sweeping punishments or the necessary technologies to circumvent privacy protections. And the possible repercussions of Tornado Cash punishments on Ethereum validators may draw millions more into this discussion.

More here:

Can Crypto Mixers And Privacy Coins Withstand Censorship? - Coin Culture

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has written to the Madison County School Board in Ridgeland, Mississippi, regarding recent restrictions on 10 books, requiring students to obtain parental permission in order to read them.

The 10 books in question address race-related or LQBTQ+ themes, and we are concerned that the district may have unconstitutionally targeted these books for the political views they express.

We understand that school districts can be subject to heavy pressure to censor books, which is why it is vital to have strong book challenge procedures. The district should strive to address the concerns of parents by explaining the pedagogical purposes of the library and instructional materials chosen by qualified education professionals, rather than by simply labeling them as supposedly problematic.

NCAC strongly urges the district to reconsider this policy and to adopt alternatives which do not endanger the rights of students to read and learn.

Please read our full letter to the Board here:

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Madison, Mississippi, School District Restricts Books on Race and LGBTQ+ Themes - Blogging Censorship

Russia's failure to secure a quick victory against Ukraine forced Vladimir Putin to adapt.

Over the past six months, Russia has been fighting an information war alongside its military campaign.

How Moscow rerouted the internet

On 30 May the internet connection in occupied Kherson dropped. It returned within hours, but people could no longer access sites like Facebook, Twitter and Ukrainian news.

The internet had been rerouted to Russia. The online activity of those in Kherson was now visible to Moscow and was subject to censorship.

Internet traffic in Kherson was originally routed from network hubs elsewhere in the country and passed through Kyiv.

These connections remained in place during the first three months of the invasion before it was rerouted.

As Russia gained strength in southern Ukraine, reports emerged that it was taking over control of local internet providers in Kherson either through cooperation or by force.

Once in control, Russia could reroute the internet to Moscow via a state-owned internet provider in Crimea.

This briefly happened on 1 May, before Ukrainian officials managed to reverse it. But on 30 May, with Russia now in control of more infrastructure, it happened again. It now appears permanent.

With the people of Kherson now forced to use Russian internet if they want to go online, they are subject to Moscow's censorship.

For three months they have been unable to access Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Some Ukrainian news websites are also blocked.

Alp Toker, director of Netblocks, an internet monitoring company, says the rerouting has "effectively placed Ukrainian citizens under the purview and surveillance of the Russian state at the flick of a switch."

Internet operators and monitors report internet access in large areas of Kherson is censored to a similar level as experienced in Russia. Some smaller areas are experiencing even tougher censorship, with some Google services blocked.

Ukrainians in Kherson are finding ways to evade Russia's efforts to monitor and censor their online activity.

When Ivanna (not her real name) leaves her home, she deletes social media and messaging apps like Instagram and Telegram in case she is stopped by a soldier who may search her phone.

"You need to be careful," she tells Sky News, using an online messaging app.

She goes online using a VPN (virtual private network) which hides the user's location and allows them to bypass Russian censorship.

Searches for the software spiked in Kherson when internet controls tightened.

Russia has also shut down the mobile phone network in Kherson and new SIM cards are being sold for locals to use.

Ivanna told Sky News a passport is needed to buy the sim cards, prompting fears their use may be tracked.

Cautious, she paid a stranger to buy a SIM under his name.

TV and phone communications targeted

In the unoccupied parts of Ukraine, Moscow has sought to destroy the communication infrastructure - such as TV towers and communication centres.

It's a tactic Russia initially wanted to avoid as it did not want to damage resources that would be useful as an occupying force, explains William Alberque, director of strategy, technology, and arms control for the Institute for Strategic Studies.

"Russia thought they were going to win so fast [so wouldn't] destroy infrastructure as it was going to own that infrastructure," he tells Sky News.

Subscribe to the Ukraine War Diaries on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Spreaker

But by keeping the lines open, Ukrainians were able to communicate with one another and the wider world.

Ultimately Russia moved to destroy what it was unable to quickly seize.

Examples of the attacks on communication infrastructure have been logged by the Centre for Information Resilience, which has been tracking and verifying attacks like these using open-source information.

One incident logged by the group was a communication centre in southern Ukraine.

Russia's attempt to control information has also included targeting TV towers.

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Power cuts in Ukraine have also caused the nation's biggest broadband and mobile internet providers to lose connectivity.

Disinformation has doubled since the war began

Russia has used disinformation during the war to influence those in Ukraine, the country's allies, as well as its own population at home.

Examples of pro-Russian fake news include a clumsily faked video of the Ukrainian president telling people to surrender (known as a deepfake video) and social media posts accusing bombing victims of being actors.

Some of Russia's efforts have been effective. Moscow claimed the invasion was in part to tackle nazism in the Ukrainian government. Searches for "nazi" in both Russia and worldwide spiked in the first week of the war.

The number of disinformation sites has more than doubled since the Russian invasion in February, according to Newsguard, which provides credibility rankings for news and information sites.

In March, its researchers found 116 sites publishing Russia-Ukraine war-related disinformation. By August, that number had risen to 250.

It's not possible to show that all of those sites are run on the orders of Russia, however, Moscow has allocated a boosted pot of funds for its propaganda arm.

The independent Russian-language news site The Moscow Times reported the government had "drastically increased funding for state-run media amid the war with Ukraine".

The article cited figures provided by the Russian government. It said 17.4bn rubles (244m) had been allocated for "mass media" compared to 5.4bn rubles (76m) the year before.

It said in March, once the war was underway, some 11.9bn rubles (167m) were spent. This is more than twice as much as the combined spend of the two months before, which was 5bn rubles (70m).

The research comes as no surprise to Mr Alberque, who says Russia's disinformation campaign has been "constant".

"As they shift into war mode, [Russia] has to go to directly paying salaries and no longer hoping that people will echo its messages but paying them to send a certain number of messages per day," he told Sky News.

Looking forward, Mr Alberque believes the death of the daughter of an ally of Vladimir Putin will be a distraction for those directing Russia's disinformation efforts.

Russia has pointed the finger at Ukraine for carrying out the fatal car bombing in Moscow but Kyiv denies any involvement.

An apparent high-profile assassination in the capital has sparked a number of conspiracy theories, including claims the responsibility may lie with a Russian group looking to influence the war.

"The Russian government is going to have to try to control this narrative," Mr Alberque explains.

He adds that propaganda resources that would be focused on Ukraine may now be drawn into the fallout of the death, saying: "I think it's going to be a huge information sink for them because it's going to take up time and attention."

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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How Putin used internet censorship and fake news for six months to push the Ukraine war agenda - Sky News

In response to the US Treasury sanctioning crypto mixer Tornado Cash, advocacy groups such as Coin Center have come to its defense arguing that smart contract code is not a sanctionable entity.

With this new precedent, it is unclear if privacy coins such as Monero will face similar censorship. A hard fork update on Aug. 13 reportedly made Monero transactions harder to trace potentially closing any back doors law agencies used to track transactions.

The view that any cryptocurrency transaction is private by default is a common misconception. In fact, the opposite is true. Blockchain data is public and transactions are traceable. Crypto mixers and privacy coins were created to provide privacy for this open financial system. But both face different uphill battles. Before analyzing the likelihood of eithers success, we need to explain how they work, where they differ and the regulatory strategy game of financial censorship.

A crypto mixer, also known as a tumbler or blender, is a transaction mixing tool or service that anyone can use to obscure a crypto wallets source of funds. These tools were first created for bitcoin in 2013 but became a popular alternative to privacy coins once solutions like Tornado Cash made it available for a variety of cryptoassets.

There are two types of crypto mixers: custodial and non-custodial. Custodial blenders such as blender.io are central entities that take full custody of funds to mix transactions. Users pay a fee for the service and trust the entity to return their funds once the transactions are blended.

Blender.io was the first mixer to be sanctioned by US Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). It did not receive the same attention as Tornado Cash because it fell under the pattern of previous sanctions made against persons and entities. A North Korean state-sponsored hacker collective known as the Lazarus Group reportedly used the service after a hack against Axie Infinity that resulted in a $620 million loss.

With Tornado Cash, users send funds to smart contract addresses that automatically mix deposits of the same amount. They then use a zero-knowledge proof contract to prove they have the right to withdraw that amount.

For example, say you want to mix 11 ETH. Tornado Cashs smart contracts group deposits by amounts. So you could deposit 10 ETH to the 10 ETH mixer and 1 ETH to the 1 ETH mixer. Once funds are sent to each blender, the contracts then use zero-knowledge proofs to verify you sent a deposit to each one without knowing which one was originally yours. This essentially gives you the equivalent of a withdrawal permission slip for each mixer.

So if you were to use the permission slips to withdraw both deposits, it would be close to impossible for any outside observer to identify the correct source of funds. They would see a myriad of potential options.

The tool provides pretty good financial privacy by breaking the link between the sender and receiver. But its not perfect; theoretically, third party blockchain intelligence could use outside data and behavior models in an attempt to deduce which transaction history belongs to the tokens on your new wallet address.

On Aug. 8, 2022, OFAC added a list of addresses associated with Tornado Cash to the same list of sanctioned addresses where Blender.io ended up. This was in response to news that the Lazarus Group used the tool to launder $455 million in stolen funds.

OFAC used the same messaging and reasoning as it did Blender.io, but it did not acknowledge the key custodial difference between the two. In Coin Centers full analysis, they argue that Tornado Cash has two separate elements: The decentralized group of governing members they call Tornado Cash Entity and the immutable smart contract coin mixers they call Tornado Cash Application.

The Tornado Cash Entity cannot update or change the Tornado Cash Application because the original creators destroyed their admin keys. The smart contracts will exist as long as the Ethereum blockchain continues to operate. So even though the Tornado Cash website is down, anyone can spin up a new front end or interface with the smart contracts directly that lets users access the same mixers.

The problem is that OFAC included these immutable smart contract addresses in the list of sanctions. So there are now innocent Americans with funds still in these mixers. If they attempt to move the funds, they will be breaking the law and subject to penalty. And because the application is not an entity, it has no means to petition OFAC for sanction removal.

Coin Center further argues that because the Tornado Cash Application is not an entity, OFAC did not cite the proper authority to add the smart contract addresses to the sanctions list. This marks an unprecedented move with potential constitutional issues.

In response to OFACs announcement, companies agreed to censor anyone connected to these addresses. The decentralized finance app Aave blocked any users that had Tornado Cash funds sent to them in a dust attack. And Circle followed by freezing 75,000 usd coin stablecoins belonging to Tornado Cash users. The Blockworks Empire podcast explains how that is possible in a Twitter thread.

Privacy coins are cryptocurrencies that use a variety of approaches to obscure IP addresses, wallet balances and the flow of funds from public view. They differ from crypto mixers in that they make financial privacy less of a feature and more of a product. As a result, they only provide privacy to transactions made in a specific currency.

The two most popular privacy coins are Z-cash and Monero. Z-cash is a cryptocurrency that relies primarily on zero-knowledge proofs to shield transaction info. In October 2018, Z-cash announced that they fixed an 8-month-old bug in proofs that could have permitted an infinite inflation of supply. Due to transaction privacy, it was unclear how much was actually inflated.

Since this early stumble, z-cash has never returned to the highs of the 2017 bull cycle and currently ranks second to Monero in total privacy coin market cap. While monero was able to once again reach similar prices of the 2017 market, it failed to break its all-time high in 2021.

Monero is a privacy coin that offers financial anonymity through layers of privacy-enhanced blockchain encryption. Every transaction utilizes single-use stealth addresses to prevent the visibility of public address balances. So only users with a wallets private key can map its balance back to a public address. It also uses ring signatures to obscure the source of funds in a transaction by including random addresses in the verification signature.

The Monero protocol was upgraded on Aug. 13. While the previous version of Monero offered a layer of privacy, its complete untraceability was debatable. In 2018, critics claimed that inputs in a signature ring could be deduced through a process of elimination. And in 2021, CipherTracer reportedly patented a method that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses to trace transactions.

Even if CipherTracer discovered real vulnerabilities, the extent of their impact is unclear. They didnt disclose their methods or success rate. This previous version still provided a degree of financial privacy in the sense that it blocked anyone not willing to pay CipherTracer.

But this disincentive is less resistant to state sanctions and censorship. Theoretically, the state is more willing to spend resources in an attempt to trace addresses especially if they suspect a connection to crime, or in some countries, political opposition.

In Canada, an effort was made to trace financial contributions to the trucker freedom convoy. The government ended up sanctioning 34 crypto wallets in connection to the movement, and Monero addresses were included in that list.

The Monero developers hope this update will close any potential vulnerability by increasing the number of transactions in a ring signature. But in response to the update, CipherTracer stated, While Moneros upcoming chain improvements are significant, the fundamentals of our approach to tracing probable source of funds will still apply after the fork.

If the upgrade does succeed in closing these back doors, there is concern that OFAC may take similar actions against Monero. In an interview with CoinDesk, a Monero contributor said that, at the moment, Im not concerned about immediate legal action.

There is no direct financial incentivefor developers, unlike [the situation with] the Tornado Cash developer, he said.

These comments seem to infer that the potential ability for the developer to profit from the use of these smart contracts makes him liable. Dutch financial crimes agency FIOD arrested a Tornado Cash developer on suspicion of laundering money through the tool. But it is unclear if that arrest was for his specific attempts to launder money or for his connection to others using it for that purpose.

Even though top privacy coins such as monero and z-cash are actively working to increase the privacy of transactions, they have not seen the same degree of adoption as leading layer-1 blockchains such as Ethereum. Many competitors, including Secret Network and Oasis Network, argue that the reason for this lag is that privacy coins do not offer a base layer of privacy that can be used to build Web3.

In 2020 Secret Network was the first privacy based blockchain to enable smart contract programmability. It lives in the Cosmos ecosystem and is working toward a vision of Web3 privacy. It has launched multiple apps such as the decentralized messaging service Altermail, and decentralized exchange SiennaSwap.

But Secret Network and its competitors face the classic challenge of an overcrowded sector. They still have a long way in overcoming the market dominance of Monero and Z-Cash. The threat of sanctions have motivated many in the Z-Cash community to explore creating their own smart contract programmability.

The battle against financial privacy feels like a game of whack-a-mole. So far, the state has tried two different tools. With crypto mixers, they used the regulatory sanctions hammer. And for privacy coins, they tried blockchain intelligence sleuths.

Their approach may be, if one financial privacy method is too popular with criminals or too hard to trace, they will just shut it down with the hammer.

Advocacy groups such as Coin Center may respond by challenging such actions in court, but that process will take years. The sanctions are very likely hurting innocent Americans in the meantime.

For other privacy solutions, they may use investigations to continue in their cat and mouse chase with developer upgrades.

User adoption, though, is a key element to this game. As more people are drawn to either mixers or privacy coins, the chance of tracing transactions becomes exponentially difficult. Switching analogies, its like the classic police chase down a narrow alley. If the suspect reaches a bustling parade, they can dust off and subtly slip away into the crowd.

If a privacy coin, mixer or base-layer privacy solution gains mainstream adoption, it could have greater resistance to censorship. State officials would struggle to find the political backing for sweeping sanctions or technology needed to crack privacy measures. And the potential Tornado Cash sanctions fallout for Ethereum validators may pull millions more into this conversation.

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Editor, Evergreen Content

John is the Editor of Evergreen Content at Blockworks. He manages the production of explainers, guides and all educational content for anything crypto related. Before Blockworks, he was the producer and founder of an explainer studio called Best Explained.

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Crypto Mixers and Privacy Coins: Can They Resist Censorship? - Blockworks

Fiction writer Anthony Marra joins Fiction/Non/Fiction hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss how his new historical novel, Mercury Pictures Presents, echoes the rights current embrace of authoritarianism in the U.S. and globally. By looking at censorship in 1940s Hollywood and the fascist regime of Italy during that same period, Marra teases out truths about conservatives current interest in controlling popular opinion.

Subscribe and download the episode, wherever you get your podcasts!

Check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHubs Virtual Book Channel, Fiction/Non/Fictions YouTube Channel, and our website. This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

*From the episode:

Anthony Marra: Mercury Pictures Presents is, shall we say, a long-awaited novel. It was during the run-up to the 2016 election when I first began to really see the parallels between so much of what these characters are struggling with and what many people in the U.S. in 2016 were in terms of trying to understand this rising threat.

Whitney Terrell: One of the ways that your book works, and I was very impressed by, is by resurrecting stories about life under actual fascism, particularly in Italy. It helped me imagine how such a regime might happen here in the United States. I was particularly interested in the character of Giuseppe Lagana, whos a lawyer, and who gets caught up, sort of at odds with, Mussolinis regime. Could you talk a little bit about him and how he gets into trouble?

AM: Yeah, absolutely. So, Giuseppe is the father of the novels central character, Maria Lagana, and he works as a defense attorney in Rome, primarily defending socialists and anarchists prosecuted by the state. And to me, he is this heartbreaking figure in that he continues to believe in the rule of law and the impartiality of the court and the nobility of defending the accused, even as Mussolinis regime chips and chips and chips away at the underpinnings of the justice system, eventually instituting these tribunals that pass sentences without trials altogether.

And Giuseppes way of trying to quietly resist that is simply to document the lawlessness of these tribunals, which eventually leads to his own arrest. And he is sentenced to

Its one of those things where you can see sort of through Giuseppe, through his gradual realization that the world that he believed he was living in had slipped away much earlier than he had thought, and I always felt as I was working on that during the Trump years, just just seeing how much of things that I believed in about America turned out to be empty, and how many aspects of my own relationship to my country were built on this sort of false mythologythat was certainly something that Giuseppes character helped illuminate for me in my own personal life.

V.V Ganeshananthan: Giuseppe is also one of my favorite characters. I was reminded actually of conversations Id had with lawyers who would tell me that they were documenting for precisely the reason that Giuseppe documents, which made it feel very alive to me. Theres a remarkable early scene where Giuseppe and Maria, who you spoke of, are attending a showing of the movie

In LA after Maria has fled Italy, she and her boss Artie Feldman, battle U.S. censors who consider Arties films decadent and too critical of fascism. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the role of censorship coming from different actors in the novel.

AM: The forces of reactionary conservatism have obviously long embraced censorship as a way to mold society to their liking. And the great irony in all of it, of course, is that its the very people waving around pocket-sized Constitutions who are the first to ban books. In the period covered by this novel, all movies were censored by an organization called the Production Code Administration.

And a lot of this resulted in truly ridiculous forms of censorship as the production code strove to make movies gratuitously inoffensive. For decades, you couldnt show a pregnant woman on screen because it might raise uncomfortable questions about where babies really come from. You couldnt show a couple on the same bed unless both of their feet were planted on the ground. If you remember the movie Psycho, it was chiefly scandalous for the fact that it was the first movie in about 30 years to show a toilet bowl. In the bathroom scene, theres a toilet bowl, and a toilet bowl had not been seen on screen since the early 30s.

Of course, much more insidious than this priggish sense of morality was the production codes prohibition on politics. If you only received your news in the 1930s from your local picture house, you would have thought that the American South was untouched by Jim Crow, and that Europe was untouched by fascism. By the late 30s, filmmakers were beginning to push back against this censorship often by very convoluted means. For instance, there was a movie made in the late 30s, about the Spanish Civil War.

But the only way that the filmmakers could get past the censors was to make it an absurdly unfaithful depiction of the conflict. So they actually brought experts in who had participated in the Spanish Civil War in order to make sure that the movie was meticulously inaccurate. They made sure that the uniforms were all wrong, that the settings were incorrect. And so the only way to make a movie about a true and contentious subject was to turn it into pure fantasy.

In September 1941, there were enough of these anti-fascist movies that isolationists in the U.S. Senate began to hold hearings to investigate so-called Hollywood war propaganda. The heads of the major studios all testified there, and they really acquitted themselves brilliantly. They more or less used the opportunity to reveal the hypocrisy behind the investigations themselves. And three months later, following Pearl Harbor, those filmmakers and executives were fully vindicated.

VVG: One of the ways the different kinds of censorship intersect across borders here is in the figure of Maria, who corresponds with her father, who is confined in the manner that you described earlier. Theyre corresponding and his letters are censored, and then she uses her knowledge of how things are censored or how to get things past censors in the film industry, which I thought was so interesting. There are characters who are in really quiet ways censoring themselves or by strategizing about censorship or who, behaving in response to censorship, are altering what they might say in ways that they almost dont recognize.

AM: I feel like we have a certain number of themes that we keep returning to, a certain number of ideas that kind of animate our work. And for whatever reason, censorship is one that Ive returned to in several of my books. Do you all find that in your own work that youre kind of almost like reshuffling the same deck of cards in each new project?

WT: Yeah, I have themes that I go back to you all the time. Sure, absolutely. I think thats true for everyone. I wanted to point out, back to the lawyer thing, when Trump was appointing so many judges, thats when the way that the legal system in Italy changed in the 30s, to cease to be really a legal system and be like an authoritarian legal system that doesnt apply rule of law any more I started realizing, Oh, that was kind of the idea. Thats why it was so important to him to get judges. If you can end the way the court system works, you get around that, then you start moving toward authoritarianism.

Similarly, when you start controlling information and you start leaning on calling things decadent, you can use decadence, like the kiss in the recent Buzz Lightyear movie, or whatever it is you want to call decadent, to suppress political content that you dont like. And thats what youre also talking about here is that the real reason that censorship was going on in the 30s and 40s, and in your novel, the head censor is a Catholic, surely not an accident, and he is really concerned about not hearing a lot of criticism for fascism. So he uses sex as an excuse to basically censor that political side. And I feel like thats exactly whats happening today.

AM: Yeah, absolutely. Criticisms toward changes in culture are camouflage for these very specific and intense political ideologies and agendas. Im curious what you all think about the changes in censorship over time, because one of the things that I was thinking about over the last several months, just reading the news and seeing, talking about, book bannings and all of that is just how much less effective censorship is today.

Im not sure if its a result of technology, just giving us so much access to information that if your local library bans a particular book, there are just so many more venues for you to find it in. Maybe its also that in the present day, weve just become hopefully somewhat more educated about the intentions and motivations behind the censorship But I could be talking complete bullshit. So Id love to hear your thoughts, Sugi.

VVG: I dont think youre talking complete bullshit, but I guess I wonder who are the we who know how censorship operates? Because theres obviously a whole set of people who are buying whats being sold. Theres this list of books that have been banned in, I think, Utah, thats going around, and it has a huge number of LGBTQIA-associated books, and then some of them are bestsellers.

And so theres this increased surveillance, but then theres also these increased ways to get around it and a population that maybe is better at getting around some of the things that we might expect to be censorship. But then it does seem like theres this other set of people who are whos the audience for the propaganda? Someones putting out the propaganda movies and someone sits in the audience and cheers and feels good about watching it. There are parts of me that like a good montage and a movie with a rousing Hans Zimmer score; I cant pretend that that part of me is not there. How has censorship changed over time? I think that my wariness of the American government has certainly increased. Im curious what you would say about this, Whitney.

WT: We did a couple episodes on book banning earlier on. And one of the things that came out is that when youre in a conservative state or a state thats run by conservatives like Florida, the teachers start getting really worried about what they can and cannot teach. So when youre dealing with public school teachers, or even public university professors, professors are a little bit more protected than school teachers. But I do think that censorship and state rules on what you can and cannot teach really will start to affect what high school and middle school and elementary school teachers feel comfortable teaching. And that actually can change how the kids are educated. I think thats why conservatives are concerned with that.

*

Selected Readings:

Anthony Marra Mercury Pictures Presents The Tsar of Love and Techno A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

Others:

Frankenstein Psycho Lightyear S5 Episode 13: Farah Jasmine Griffin: Censoring the American Canon S5 Episode 12: Intimate Contact: Garth Greenwell on Book Bans and Writing About Sex Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann Billy Wilder Three Days of the Condor Jason Bourne franchise Ban on 52 Books in Largest Utah School District is a Worrisome Escalation of Censorship PEN America

__________________________________

Transcribed by https://otter.ai. Condensed and edited by Anne Kniggendorf.

Read the original:

Fascism Past and Present: Anthony Marra on What the Censorship of 1940s Hollywood and Italy Can Teach Us - Literary Hub

This week, the local-to-me Moms For Liberty contingent lost their bid to get Gender Queer removed from Barrington School District 220. Parents and community members who supported the right to read and queer students and educators in the district showed up to the meeting, and the committee reviewing the book found it to be appropriate for their high school library.

As this was happening, a new billboard showed up in Crystal Lake, Illinois, which is just a few miles west of Barrington. The billboard said that districts in the town needed to stop sexualizing children, and at their school board meeting the same night, a regular right-wing staple showed up and spoke about government conspiracies related to the 1918 pandemic (shes been mad about a book in their school library since at least January). That individual filed three FOIA requests in a span of minutes to the school district. The first, which was denied, demanded to know the sexuality of educators and students in the district. The second and third were requests that could be Googled.

Snuggled in between Crystal Lake and Barrington is Cary, which has its own breed of right-wing parents itching to get their say in education.

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Barrington, Cary, and Crystal Lake are close to Lake In The Hills, where UpRising Bakery was vandalized in July because they were hosting an all-ages drag show brunch in their private business. The event was canceled as they cleaned up the damage from the individual who drove over an hour to destroy the space the night before the show, and what followed was a lawsuit from the ACLU against the town because of how it decided to proceed. The queer-owned bakery was able to host the show to a sold-out crowd just days later.

UpRising also sent educators in Barrington a welcome back feast to kick off the school year and support them as they endure continued attacks by groups who have agendas and no background in education.

Never fear, though. The local Moms For Liberty group tweeted their support of educators as parnets (yes, misspelled that way), then showed up to the board meeting to talk about indoctrination.

Im sure Im not saying anything that will shock readers here, but if its not clear already, perhaps this makes it clear: while this is about the books, it is in no way about the books. Its about the systemic erasure of queer people. If the books arent available and the teachers are called any number of names, then queer people disappear, right? And if a private business is vandalized by someone who was at the January 6 insurrection its not about education or indoctrination, is it?

I was unable to make the board meeting in Barrington to support queer members of the district. Despite that, and despite not being a citizen of the community but one of a town nearby, I wrote a letter. Im sharing it here in hopes that this can help others looking for ways to act and how to approach letter writing. You are welcome to copy and modify as appropriate.

Ive shared a template before. This is that template expanded. In addition to offering support for the book and for queer community members, I took the time to lay out who the people behind these pushes to curtail intellectual freedom are and the where and how of these coordinated movements.

In addition to sending the letter to the board, I also emailed every teacher librarian in the district and thanked them for their hard work. One board member thanked me for that, as they knew how much ugly rhetoric and discussion around these hard-working members of the school community were fielding.

So much for the Joyful Warrior parnets supporting educators.

I wanted to share the above story because much of this is news to me this week. I live here, I spend a lot of time researching book bans and access to information, and yet, I did not know what was happening in Crystal Lake. It was a reminder how wide-spread this right-wing nationalism is and, more, how local media fails to keep their eye on these things its being put on citizens to share this information and to band together, show up, and make sure that student rights are at the forefront of education.

This is not the beginning nor the end of challenges in Barrington. The district retained Lawn Boy earlier this year, and several other books are on the docket for review. Those include Flamer, This Book is Gay, Fighting Words, and All Boys Arent Blue.

It is equally disturbing that, aside from Chicago Media Collective, not a single Chicagoland media outlet had reported on this story until Thursday (the meeting was on Tuesday). They gave space to those who created the queer panic earlier this summer, but it has been radio silence still. This means parents who want to show up in support of education as a means to expanding world views remain completely in the dark about whats happening.

The lack of local media, as well as the focus of legacy media on only the clickiest stories, is in no small part why we are where we are and why well continue to be plowed by these well-organized, well-funded hate groups.

The Get Ready Stay Ready toolkit, built by parents and librarians, is one way to be prepared as an average citizen. This on-going effort is an incredible resource for staying up to date on issues relating to censorship and how you can prepare and fight back against these agendas. There are letters and templates you can use to contact school and library boards, training and educational resources to up your knowledge, and and resources aplenty for civic engagement, for supporting queer people, and for seeing and boosting voices of marginalized people. Save this and refer to it often as you continue your work ensuring access to information and ongoing support for queer and BIPOC students, educators, and library workers across the country.

Original post:

Defending the Right to Read: Book Censorship News, August 19, 2022 - Book Riot

In a report from TheBlock, the team behind the Ethereum (ETH) protocol Aave addressed the concerns about their address screening process. The decision to partner with compliance firm TRM Labs has been gaining a lot of attention after several high-profile personalities were blocked from accessing the platform.

These individuals and smaller users include TRON founder Justin Sun, Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano, CEO of Coinbase Brian Armstrong, and others. Over the weekend, these names were blocked from using Aave until an update to the platforms frontend re-instated some with access to the protocol.

As Bitcoinist reported, the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on decentralized exchange Tornado Cash. This unleashed controversy in the crypto community and prompted some users to dust, and send small amounts of ETH to high-profile individuals as a form of protest, leading to some users being lockout by the protocols front end.

The team behind Aave confirmed that the address screening process is being implemented on the protocols website (frontend), but a deeper implementation would require community approval, according to the report:

The wallet monitoring here is only at the front-end layer, as for on-chain, contract-level [wallet monitoring] as it applies to the Aave Protocol, the Aave smart contracts are decentralized no one person or entity can change, control, update or shut down the protocol. For any change to occur to the protocol, an AIP (Aave Improvement Proposal) would have to be proposed, voted on, and approved by the Aave DAO.

Via their official Twitter, the team behind the Ethereum protocol claimed that the address screening system has been implemented to provide users with more security. This system identifies all users that have interacted with Tornado Cash, including dusted addresses.

The team behind the project confirmed that they implemented their address screening system following the U.S. Treasury sanctions on Tornado Cash. Aave claims that it will continue to mitigate any issues with this system and will continue testing the integration with TRMS API.

In that sense, and in light of recent events, Aave said:

The Aave Protocol is and remains decentralized and governed by the DAO. We encourage the community to remain engaged and actively fight for equitable finance. The Aave team will continue to innovate. We encourage the community to remain engaged and actively fight for open and fair finance.

Several digital rights organizations and crypto think tanks have expressed their concerns about the sanctions imposed on Tornado Cash, and the consequences: developers arrested, users blocked from certain platforms.

Coin Center is one of the organizations questioning the Treasurys decision as they believe it crossed a line and an important distinction between entities with the capacity to jeopardize the financial system and neutral technologies.

In a recent report, the organization claims that the sanctions are an overstepped of the institutions legal authority. Coin Center revealed that it will cooperate with other organizations to pursue administrative relief, and potentially challenge the sanctions in court.

Excerpt from:

Why Aave Will Submit Address Censorship To A Community Vote - Bitcoinist

After being smeared by Big Tech censorship partner The Dispatch as a frequent purveyor of bad information for calling out the Pfizer CEO for not being fully vaccinated last year, Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson was exonerated by an admission in the CEOs own book but not before being deplatformed by Twitter.

Robinson published an article on her Substack on Monday morning triumphantly declaring, I Was Right About The Pfizer CEO! after journalist Jordan Schachtel noted that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla admitted to canceling his March 2021 trip to Israel because he had not yet received his second Covid-19 jab.

In his book Moonshot: Inside Pfizers Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible, published in March of 2022, Bourla confirmed that he declined to advise researchers in Israel in early March of 2021 because he was not in compliance with the countrys two-jab requirement.

Getting vaccinated had created a crisis of confidence for me, Bourla wrote. I chose to wait until my vaccination might be used to encourage those with vaccine hesitancy later on.

Shortly after that cancellation, Bourla received his second jab.

In August of 2021, Robinson tweeted a link to a report explaining why Bourlas plans changed. Robinson emphasized that, out of all people, it was the Pfizer head who was not fully vaccinated.

But at the time of Robinsons tweet, Big Tech censors and their partners jumped at the opportunity to take down someone who regularly questioned the Covid-19 shot. Twitter added a context warning to Robinsons tweet, and The Dispatch published a false article attempting to refute the reporter.

In the fake fact check, Dispatch fact-check editor Alec Dent shamed Robinson for sharing that Bourla has not been vaccinated against coronavirus months after the trip was canceled. He lamented that the misleading tweet went viral.

A Newsmax correspondent tweeted a story about Albert Bourla without noting it was from March, the subheadline of the article states.

Dent cited a statement from Steven Danehy, director of media relations at Pfizer, who denied that Bourla was not fully vaccinated as proof that Robinson was lying to thousands of people on Twitter.

That is categorically false. Dr. Bourla has been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Danehy said in a statement.

Dispatch editor and CEO Stephen Hayes amplified Dents article and noted that Robinson is a frequent purveyor of bad information.

[She] tweeted yesterday that the CEO of Pfizer had to cancel a planned trip to Israel because he was not fully vaccinated, Hayes wrote. The Pfizer CEO was fully vaccinated in March.

But even though Robinsons tweet didnt occur until months after the canceled trip, Bourlas book confirms she was right: The CEO had to cancel a planned trip to Israel because he was not fully vaccinated. Theres nothing misleading about it. Robinson clearly did not forget how The Dispatch targeted her for reporting the truth and hinted in her recent Substack that she plans to take legal action.

Did The Dispatch receive any funding from Big Pharma or its affiliates? Or from the federal governments HHS to push the COVID vaccines? My attorneys will be asking them such questions very soon, Robinson warned.

The Dispatch has a longstanding partnership with Big Tech to suppress and censor conservative voices. During the 2020 election cycle, The Dispatch colluded with Facebook to block two advertisements from the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, which detailed then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harriss support of abortion on demand up until the moment of birth. The Dispatch rated the ads partly false because they said Biden has not explicitly stated that he supports late-term abortions, even though he has repeatedly said he wants no restrictions on a womans right to choose.

After The Federalist published an article detailing the censorship, the Dispatch claimed that even though its main Twitter account retweeted the article, it was accidentally published in draft form by the editorial staff.

The fact-check was published in error and in draft form, before it had been through final edits and our own internal fact-checking process, Hayes wrote. As a result, the viral post was assigned a partly false rating that we have determined is not justified after completing The Dispatch fact-checking process.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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The Dispatch Smeared Reporter Who Called Out Not-Fully-Vaxed Pfizer CEO - The Federalist

The Rev. John Bouquet| Special to Ashland Times-Gazette

The Motion Picture Association can produce a movie and then evaluate that movie based on its content as to whether it should receive a G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17 rating, grading whether the content of the movie or the subject matter is safe for children or too extreme.

No one claims any offense to this rating system. No one cries censorship.

This debate about certain books in the Ashland Public Library is not about censorship.

Wikipedia's definition of censorship is, the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This is about proper examination and the content of the books to age appropriateness.

Every book in the library and those not in the library have been censored by the library. It is the subject criteria that is the issue. The library and the American Library Association have a criterion and an array of subjects they want to introduce to the public.

We have not said ban the books. We have not asked for them to be removed from the library. The request from the beginning is for these books to be moved to the adult section because the subject matter is too extreme for childrens eyes.

The books are graphic in sexual content. They are targeted for children ages 5-12, according to their publishers. The content is too mature for a young child to comprehend.

Just because there is a paragraph of explanation, the eyes and mind of a child are drawn to pictures first, not words. Unless there is custodial parental instruction, the child is left to decide. This is a dangerous possibility.

We have a simple solution to this dilemma. The books can stay in the library, but they should and must be moved to the adult section. Any parent, grandparent or trustworthy adult can pull the book, check it out and introduce their children to these subjects under proper instruction and explanation.

This is about protecting the innocence and purity of our young hearts and minds. The next generation is our responsibility to guard their hearts. This is about the parent rights to introduce their children to these stages of mature subjects at a time deemed acceptable to the parents.

The library Board of Trustees has been clear in their communication. It is not our job to protect the children.

The Trustees have also said, We trust the publishers of these books.

We do not agree with either of those statements.

The pastor shepherds of several churches in this county could not disagree more. The community health and well being of children is when they know their parents, their pastors and teachers all want to protect their minds from subjects of adult nature for as long as we can.

I believe the library is responsible to join us in protecting the minds and hearts of children. The library trustees should step up to the plate and move these books to the adult section.

We do not trust the publishers at all. They are writing books to make money, promote an agenda and to introduce children to subjects they are not prepared to deal with at ages 5-12.

The Rev. John Bouquet is the senior pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Savannah. He is an active participant in the Ashland County Ministerial Association and has pastored in the community for 40 years.

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Rev. John Bouquet shares a view about the Ashland library book debate - Wooster Daily Record

Live A Lives English localization has come under fire, as yet another Square Enix title is being accused of censorship and poor translation.

Source: Live A Live (2022), Nintendo

RELATED: Eidos Montral Founder Describes Management Of Square Enixs Western Studios As A Train Wreck In Slow Motion

Originally released in 1994, the SNES JRPG takes place across multiple eras, each with their own twists on gameplay. From the ancient past to the far-flung future, from feudal Japan to the wild west, a mysterious threat seems to transcend time and space. The game didnt have an official western launch until its 2022 remake, with English gameplay of the SNES original coming from fan-translated emulators.

Twitter profile@iuntue, an account dedicated to cataloging inaccurate translations and censorship in localization of Japanese games, shared their thoughts on Live A Live Remake. As with several prior Square Enix titles, liberties appear to have been taken, typically avoiding content that could be deemed sexist or offensive. This is despite a study this year proving sexualized content doesnt cause misogyny or body image issues.

It should be noted that while Square Enix both develops and publishes Live A Live in Japan, the games worldwide release was published by Nintendo. Even so, thanks to Square Enix own ethics department and aforementioned recent history, one must wonder which of the pair dictated these changes.

Source: Live A Live (2022), Nintendo

Starting with the Imperial China chapter, Earthen Heart Shifu (Xin Shan Quan Master in fan translations) playfully teases bandit Lei Kugo over her temper. It could be argued he is either evoking the trope of a much older man either making flirtatious comments or testing her resolve to keep her temper; a flaw Lei eventually overcomes in the story as she becomes Shifus student.

In the English version however, Shifu doesnt outright tell her to keep her calm. Instead he reassures her that he wont forget her name, praises it, and cautions her to avoid the arrogance that led to him so easily halting her attempted mugging.

Japanese

Earthen Heart Shifu: All right, all right, no need to get so angry. Youre letting your pretty face go to waste.

English

Earthen Heart Shifu: You may rest assured that I will not [forget your name]. It is a good, strong name, worthy of pride. But pride will lead you astray if you let it. As it did not so long ago.

Source: @iuntue, Twitter

Moving to the Wild West, the Mariachi band appears to have lost their Mexican accents at first. @iuntue highlights how one band member greets you with A-amigo! in Japanese, but G-greetings, my friend! in English.

Source: @iuntue, Twitter

However, the English version does feature the band members speaking and singing in Mexican, with their words translated into English in brackets. They also use Spanish words when addressing the player in English, such as vaquero and pistolero, and dubbed lines spoken with a Mexican accent.

One also inquires, Tequila! Yes, tequila! Thats what you need, yes? which could be assumed to be a stereotypical Mexican drink. As such, if there was an attempt to downplay Mexican stereotypes, the only change made would be ditching the Spanish/Mexican word for friend.

Source: Live A Live (2022), Nintendo

A later scene also sees an outlaw harassing Sundown for sitting in his spot, has his advances rejected by Annie, and then hurls a child into Sundown who remained still up until that point. Pretending to make amends, the outlaw mockingly offers to buy Sundown a glass of milk, alluding to his perceived delicate nature.

As Sundown rejects the milk, the outlaw mocks Sundown in the same manner in English and Japanese. Sundown can then either remain silent or respond. In Japanese his response is curt, arguably fitting someone slow to anger, or wanting to avoid trouble and about to be pushed too far. In English its more of a quip, and almost looking for trouble.

Japanese

Outlaw: Or do you like it when the milk doesnt come from mamas titty? (Machine Translation: DeepL)

Sundown: Get lost.

English

Outlaw: Lemme guess: its not that you hate milk, but that you cant stomach it less its fresh from your mothers tits!

Sundown: Your mothers, maybe.

Source: @iuntue, Twitter

Players also have the option to swipe clothes from Annies wardrobe. In the original 1994 version at least, based on the English fan translation players can find Annies Nighty. In the 2022 English version, this is Annies Diary.

She still acts with disgust over the player obtaining it, and showing it to her has Annie responding Hey! This aint no library! Youre on thin ice, you two! However, as it was a nighty, players are able to equip the diary to the torso armor slot.

It could be argued that the censored version still works, as tucking a book under your shirt or jacket so its just in front of your heart is a trope that would fit in the wild west setting. Even so, it cant hide the fact it offers very little defense, much like a sheer nightgown. This is also not the only time a piece of inappropriate gear was renamed.

Source: Live A Live (2022), Nintendo

RELATED: Square Enix Heavily Censors Sexualized Artwork From Various Series For English Release Of Manga UP! App

In the original 1994 release, during the Near Future chapter, Watanabe can help the player obtain Taekos Panties, but not before several failed attempts including his own boxers. In the localized version of the 2022 remake his initial offer is Watanabes pocket lint (originally Watanabes Boxers). In other instances outside the home, Watanabes Boxers is changed to Watanabes Badge.

The reason for this change is because Akira is attempting to steal Taekos pocket money. Players are given Taekos Pouch (Taekos Jeans), Taekos Picture (Takekos Stockings), Taekos furious fist (Taekos Punch, with a notably softer sounding tap when Akira uses it on Watanabe), and finally Taekos Secret Stash (Taekos Panties).

@Iuntuenotes that this change is also reflected in the Japanese version, at least with the underwear being changed to money; specifically, Taekos Secret Savings via machine translation on DeepL. Again, these items may be equipped to certain armor slots despite their new titles.

Source: @iuntue, Twitter

Another point of contention among fans was the fact that, as detailed by Twitter user @KingOfPrinnies, this change makes the scene slightly out of character for Akira.

Now that Ive hit the Near Future chapter in Live A Live, I think Ive found my 2nd issue with the official translation, the userbegan (his first issue mentioned later in this article). The original lets Akira have Watanabe try to steal Taekos underwear, but thats been changed to have him steal money. Which, morally somehow seems worse.

Source: @KingofPrinnies, Twitter

Like, stealing the underwear of the woman who raised you since you became an orphan has some implications if you think about it, but like, now youre stealing the money shes been saving up. Like, dude, maybe that money was for THE ORPHANAGE YOU LIVE IN, @KingofPrinnies reasons. Dk move.

Source: @KingofPrinnies, Twitter

NPC Kazu also states Yukis so mean! She keeps calling me Sir Farts-a-Lot! But it wasnt me! In the original Japanese, Kazu states Yuki called me a pervert!

One more scene in the near future has Lawless, a cool and collected biker who Akira looks up to, offering slightly different dialogue. As he pilots a mecha with his dying breath, he reveals the truth about his past, and how he was responsible for something terrible in Akiras life.

His girlfriend Taeko interrupts, saying hes in no condition to keep piloting the mecha and needs to rest @iuntue shows how in both languages Lawless answers about doing the right thing to make amends, but in Japanese was censored, likely to prevent accusations of misogyny.

Source: Live A Live (2022), Nintendo

Japanese:

Lawless: Its not a womans place to but in When a man is setting things Straight

English:

Lawless: Sometimes youve gotta own up to your mistakes Consequences be damned. Am I Am I right?

@iuntue also notes that even the fan-translation wasnt accurate, as they went with Women always get in the way Right?

Source: @iuntue, Twitter

One final line comes from the Pre-History chapter, which is almost entirely devoid of text. While its amusing to think English localizers may have bungled a chapter with only one word of dialogue, there are menus, equipment, and skills found in this chapter.

At the end of Prehistory, @GeneKanichen explains, Pogo fks the girl and creates spoken language by saying LOOOOOOOVE!!! (Ai in Japanese). The scene is fairly suggestive, as Pogo is seen walking into a cave with a girl, and despite being comic relief ties into Live A Lives themes of humanity, love, hatred, and keeping hope for better things. The new game leaves it as AIIIIIIIIEEEE.

@LunarArchivist shares the fan-translation and official 2022 English versions side by side, much to their disgust. Jesus Christ.

Source: @LunarArchivist Twitter, @GeneKaninchen Twitter

Note: Spoilers for Live A Live from here.

In the games final chapter, @iuntue justifies that The localization kinda explains Aieee! if you pick Pogo at the end. While Pogo screams Aieee! again, Oersted understands this as him attempting to say love in Japanese. In English, he merely takes the cave-mans wild caterwauling as being passionate, and reminding him of love.

Japanese:

Pogo: Ai~~~!

Oersted: A Aika (Love)

English:

Pogo: Aieee!

Oersted: Such passion. Nay. Tis love.

Source: @iuntue, Twitter

What do you think of Live A Lives localization? Let us know on social media and in the comments below.

NEXT: Interview: Fan And Professional Translators Speak Out On Western Localization Issues And The Current State Of The English Manga Industry

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English Localization Of Square Enix's 'Live A Live' Found To Be Riddled With Poor Translation And Censorship - Bounding Into Comics