How many readers have heard of the Zinn Education Project? I am chagrined to report that though it has been doing its good work for over ten years, I just learned of its existence when I came across an announcement of actions, Saturday, June 12. That day there were demonstrations in over 30 states by teachers and their supporters in opposition to dangerous censorship legislation being considered by numerous state legislatures.

[For the Zinn Education Project, check out their website at https://www.zinnedproject.org]

At the website, they have a section which describes the various laws being proposed in 15 states (with more probably on the way). It can be accessed at here. Find a report on the various actions taken by teachers and their allies around the country on June 12 here.]

The Zinn Education Project together with Black Lives Matter and Rethinking Teaching jointly organized the various activities on June 12. Following the links to the organizational sponsors, I came upon the Zinn Education Projects website. Of course, I knew of and greatly admired Howard Zinns best-selling A Peoples History of the United States. Originally published in 1980, it has sold over 3 million copies. For over 20 years, Zinn expanded the book in subsequent editions to discuss numerous issues that had arisen between 1980 and 2000. In addition, in 2004 Zinn and Anthony Arnove published a collection of more than 200 primary source documents entitledVoices of a Peoples History of the United States, which is available both as a book and as a CD of dramatic readings

The original book has also stimulated spin-offs. The Wikipedia page for the book lists eight separate titles which elaborate on some of the themes of Zinns original. One example is a book entitled A Peoples History of the Supreme Court. It has also inspired books with the same first four words about other parts of the world --- for example, A Peoples History of Australia.

Because that book and later the Zinn Education Project refuse to consider history as an exclusively joyous celebration of all the wonderful things about America, the book was subject to strong attacks by establishment figures. Zinn was a tenured member of the Government Department at Boston University where the right-wing President John Silber routinely attacked him. (When Silber ran for Governor of Massachusetts against a fairly conservative Republican, William Weld, all the liberals and leftists of Massachusetts (myself and all my friends included) deserted the Democratic Party and went out of our way to vote for Weld --- despite many of Welds policies with which we strongly disagreed. Many of us told ourselves that Silber was a fascist.).

One anecdote involved a historian from New Jersey, Norman Markowitz. He said that he once participated in a doctoral exam of one of Zinns students at BU. When Silber discovered that Zinn was on the examining committee, he refused to okay Markowitzs travel expenses. In a more disgusting action, Silber froze Zinns salary. Zinn retired from Boston University in 1988 but continued to write and lecture for almost 20 more years. Boston University students were the losers but the rest of us benefited from new expanded editions of A Peoples History and the various off-shoots.

The Zinn Education Project was formed to create a series of workshops and written materials that would help teachers who want to teach the REAL history of the United States --- warts and all. But Zinns book and the materials created by the project are not merely catalogues of the negative things in our countrys history. The book and project also celebrate ordinary people who fought the good fight --- abolitionists, white and black before the Civil War union organizers --- the anti-imperialists who opposed the annexation of the Phillipines in 1899 --- women who fought for voting rights --- fighters in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, --- the antiwar activists who ultimately forced US withdrawal from Vietnam. There is much to celebrate in American History and Zinn and the project made sure to bring that information to their readers.

What the right-wingers in the country cannot stand is BOTH the truth about American history and the celebration of ordinary people who stood up to the powerful and ultimately was able to achieve great progress. There is no abolition of slavery without the abolitionists. There would be no 14th and 15th amendment to the Constitution without the struggles of newly freed slaves and their white allies in Congress. Women marched and demonstrated and engaged in hunger strikes which ultimately bore fruit in the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Most of the laws being considered by various state legislatures specifically target the New York Times 1619 Project an effort to remind Americans that when the Declaration of Independence was written, most of the men who signed it, believed that only WHITE men were created equal. The 1619 Project calls attention to the centrality of race and racism to American History --- from the 3/5 clause and fugitive slave act within the Constitution to the thwarting of the 14th and 15th Amendments by the Jim Crow South. One (in Missouri) explicitly attacks the Zinn Education Project.

[In case there are any questions about the pro-slavery nature of the Constitution, check out Article IV Section 2 where we find these words: No Person held to Service or Labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be due. The drafters were careful not to use the word slave or slavery but referred to such people as those held to Service or Labor. But everyone knew what they were talking about.]

The emphases of the1619 project and the Zinn Education Project are apparently so dangerous they must be banned from curricula in schools. Teachers who teach the forbidden topics will be subject to fines and school districts will be subject to the denial of state funding.

[There is also an effort to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory. This opposition would be comical if it werent so tragic. Members of State Legislatures have been on television UNABLE to even explain or define what Critical Race Theory actually is. I would bet that 90 percent of the citizens getting up at school board meetings demanding that their children (in elementary or high school no less) not be subjected to Critical Race Theory havent a clue what it is. In fact, it originated in Law Schools as an effort to explain how race-neutral laws could in the end produce disproportionate impacts on people of color because of previous structural discrimination. Here is a relatively good short discussion of it: Singer, Alan, Looking at History Through a Critical Race Theory Lens, available here. ]

WOW --- so teaching high school students about structural racism, the defeat of Reconstruction and the coming of Jim Crow, the violent suppression of labor union organizing, atrocities in the Philipines after 1898 and other unknown aspects of US history will now be a crime.

I hope readers understand how contrary to the basic principle of all education this is. Education at its most basic level is teaching students to solve problems, think for themselves and communicate their thoughts effectively. Exposure to ideas and arguments, even those that are false and dangerous, is essential. How would any person know if an assertion or argument is wrong or dangerous if they are never exposed to them? Teaching the 1619 project and materials from the Zinn Education Project involves reading the materials and then DISCUSSING THEM. If these arguments are so wrong-headed as the various State Legislators seem to think, then a full airing in classrooms around the country is the best way to respond. Banning them will not stop students from being exposed to them. The whole idea that you can protect students from dangerous ideas by barring those ideas from the classroom is ridiculous.

Lots of white Americans dont like to hear about the racism that was a centerpiece of our nations founding and growth. I have had experiences in the classroom over the years where studying racism has led many of my (white) students to take it personally. When the discussion turns to what is called structural racism, where the disadvantages for people of color do not stem from the acts of individual racists but from the differential opportunities built into the system --- differential opportunities that have accumulated over generations as a result of policies related to education, job opportunities, accumulation of wealth, etc. --- people translate that in their minds into a personal assault on all white people. But of course, individual white folks can be perfectly fair and non-prejudicial in their personal interactions with black and other Americans of color and still benefit from the historical legacy of racist oppression. Events that happened 100 years ago, 50 years ago, 20 years ago have repercussions to this day.

To take one example that has recently hit the news, the recently passed Rescue Plan included $5 billion in relief to black and other farmers of color who had been subject to decades of discriminatory policies by the Department of Agriculture. In 1910, 14 percent of U.S. farmers were Black, in 2012 this number had fallen to less than 2 percent. A federal program established in 1961 to help farmers was administered locally and the local officials made sure that black farmers (particularly in the South) got virtually none of that money.

In an ironic twist, white farmers are now complaining that by appropriating money to rectify decades of discrimination, the US government is discriminating against them. But decades of discrimination had directed EXTRA MONEY to white farmers --- money that should have been more fairly distributed to ALL farmers. This history is the kind of information that will be banned by the laws making their way through State Legislatures.

[For details on this issue. ]

The battle to defend the right of teachers to teach the real history of the US not the sanitized version preferred by too many state legislators is just beginning. I urge everyone reading this to check out the Zinn Education Projects website. I also urge people to find out how they can support teachers all over the country who have promised to defy the laws in states that attempt to ban all critical teaching of US history. I think a massive national defense fund for such teachers is in order and I commend those teachers who have already promised to risk the fines or worse by teaching the truth about American history.

Ignorance is not bliss --- It is, in fact, dangerous!

Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of Economics at Western New England University. He is the author with Howard and Paul Sherman of the recently published second edition of Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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Michael Meeropol: In Praise Of Teachers Who Resist Censorship - WAMC

June 17, 2021 | Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC Today, U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Chris Coons (D-DE) introduced theOtto Warmbier North Korea Censorship and Surveillance Act, bipartisan legislation that provides $10 million annually for the next five years to counter North Koreas repressive censorship and surveillance state, while also encouraging sanctions on those that enable this repressive information environment both in and outside of North Korea.

The bill is named after Otto Warmbier, a Cincinnati, Ohio, native who was wrongfully imprisoned by the brutal North Korean regime and died as a result of the injuries he sustained while in custody. This Saturday, June 19th, is the fourth anniversary of Ottos passing.

Otto Warmbier was the best of America, the Midwest, and Cincinnati,said Portman.He died an unjust death and this legislation will helps ensure that his memory lives on and that the brutal regime responsible for his death is held accountable for this and its myriad of other human rights abuses.

As we remember Otto, we reaffirm our commitment to combating North Koreas human rights violations against its own people and others that have been held captive over the years. We will continue to pressure North Korea to stop its draconian surveillance and censorship policies, and by doing so honor Ottos memorysaid Brown.

We remember and celebrate the life of Otto Warmbier, who was just twenty-two years old when his life was taken,said Coons.Otto lived those years to the fullest, and I am pleased to work with Senators Portman and Brown in commemorating his life through this legislation, which will serve to honor his memory.

We are incredibly grateful for this meaningful legislation proposed by Senators Portman, Brown, and Coons. This will make a difference and improve the lives of the North Korean people.Otto would be proud, said Fred and Cindy Warmbier.

The flow of information in North Korea is tightly controlled of the 180 countries ranked, it consistently ranks last or near-last in the World Press Freedom Index. In North Korea, listening to foreign radio or television broadcasts is a severely punished crime, access to the internet is not available for regular citizens, and cell phones are not only blocked from making international calls, but their usage is also heavily monitored by the North Korean security services.

The billtakes steps to ensure that the people of North Korea can safely create, access, and share digital and non-digital news without fear of repressive censorship, surveillance, or penalties under law, while recommitting the United States to developing novel means of communication and information sharing. It also encourages the president to use all available sanctions authorities to combat censorship and surveillance in North Korea. Additionally, it allows for the funds in this legislation to bolster existing programming from the U.S. Agency for Global Media an independent agency designed to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy by restoring the broadcasting capacity of damaged antennas by Typhoon Yutu in 2018.

Specifically, theOtto Warmbier North Korea Censorship and Surveillance Actdirects:

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Portman, Brown, Coons Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Honor Otto Warmbier and Counter North Korea's Repressive Censorship and Surveillance State -...

Tech Giants Continue to Silence Conservative Voices

The internet has dramatically improved life for millions of Americans over the last quarter-century, but it has also brought new challenges. One major problem is that a handful of massive tech companies controls what we can say, read, buy, or view online. These companies have consistently shown that they are politically biased, with many of their actions targeting conservative speech and shutting down important debates.

For example, until recently, Facebook was restricting content that suggested COVID-19 may have originated in a lab a theory that more and more observers now believe to be true. Facebook has also announced that former President Donald Trump who is already banned from Twitter will be suspended from Facebook for two years, making it harder for him to communicate with the public. In March, Amazon delisted a bestselling book called When Harry Became Sally, which has helped many Americans think more critically about transgender ideology. And last fall, Twitter suppressed until after Election Day aNew York Poststory that included damaging allegations about Joe Biden and his son Hunter. These are just a few examples of Big Tech using its enormous power to silence voices and information they do not like.

Free Speech Marks a Free People

Our nation has always celebrated the free exchange of ideas. We have always understood that free and open debate allows the best ideas to emerge and carry the day. Our tradition of free speech is what gave rise to the movement to abolish slavery, the cause of womens suffrage, civil rights, and most recently, the pro-life movement. In the past, our civil discourse took place mostly in person and through a multitude of local newspapers, television stations, and community associations. Yet today, much of this activity occurs online through platforms that are policed by people with an obvious political bias. I fear our culture of free speech will erode unless Big Tech companies are held accountable for their actions.

Forcing Big Tech to Respect All Views

Tech companies are private organizations and have wide discretion to set their own policies, but they should not get to discriminate against users while continuing to enjoy special privileges under the law. Currently, federal law considers tech companies like Facebook and Twitter to be neutral platforms, giving them protection from being sued over content posted on their platforms. My feeling is that if these companies ever faced the possibility of such lawsuits, they would likely abandon their left-wing bias and start providing more balance in viewpoints.

Recently I introduced legislation that would put pressure on tech companies to treat their users in a neutral manner. This legislation, calledthe PRO-SPEECH Act, would bar platforms from discriminating against users based on their ideology and would require them to be transparent in how they manage or censor content. It would also require the Federal Trade Commission to investigate claims of viewpoint discrimination by social media companies, giving users a means of recourse when they have been wrongly censored for their views.

This legislation strikes a good balance between respecting the rights of private companies and protecting free speech. Fundamentally, it would force tech companies to think twice before censoring conservatives or silencing alternative narratives under the guise of fake news, as Facebook did with the Wuhan lab-leak theory. It is unfortunate that Big Techs iron grip on our public discourse has forced Congress to step in and defend the rights of users, but I am committed to doing what is needed to preserve our great tradition of free speech in the digital age.

Originally posted here:

Wicker offers solution to Big Tech censorship | Government | djournal.com - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

Senator Roger Wicker's (R-Miss.) PRO-SPEECH Act, introduced last Thursday, takes a novel approach to one of the most pressing threats to our democracy: Big Tech's control of our political discussion. While previous congressional efforts have focused on reforming Section 230, this bill takes a different tack and makes it an unfair trade practice to "bloc[k] or otherwise preven[t] a user or entity from accessing any lawful content" or to discriminate against any user "based on racial, sexual, religious, political affiliation, or ethnic grounds." The unfair trade practices approach in Wicker's bill offers a creative path forward to countering Big Tech's censorship.

The PRO-SPEECH Act empowers the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to handle any complaints of newly designated unfair trade practices. Relying on the FTC for enforcement has clear advantages. The agency could craft detailed, fact-specific settlements for the complaints it receives. It can also adapt more quickly than Congress to changing circumstances in the social media environment. Similar to the way in which it developed rules for online privacy and data breaches, the FTC could proceed in a methodical, small-steps approach to ensure fair practices and meaningful competition in the social media space.

Another one of the bill's strengths is its detailed disclosure requirementsan idea first put forth by the Trump administration's National Telecommunications and Information Administration Section 230 petition. Improved disclosure practices will help bring to light the ways that dominant platforms control public discourse through the promotion or silencing of certain content. The FTC here too could play a very useful role in setting forth the inevitably technical and complex rules that effective disclosure will require.

One final creative provision is worth noting. The act creates two exceptions from its prohibitions against blocking access to lawful content. One is for small platforms, and the other stipulates that prohibitions "shall not apply to the extent that an internet platform publicly proclaims to be a publisher." The bill essentially gives dominant social media platforms a choice: they can either choose to operate as a platform and be required to provide users access to all lawful content, or they can publicly declare themselves publishers and lose their immunity protections under Section 230.

Notably, these exceptions do not hold for the other unfair trade practices outlined by the bill. Whether a platform chooses to operate as a platform or publisher, it must abide by the bill's nondiscrimination and transparency requirements, as well as its prohibitions on unfair methods of competition.

The bill does have some areas for improvement, however. It could, for instance, go one step further to address the effects social media has on children. In what is perhaps the greatest and most ignored child experiment in human history, social media companies allow formation of accounts for minors without parental consent or mandatory parental control. If anything should qualify as an unfair trade practice, then recruiting, marketing to and profiting off of minors, all without parental consent, surely must.

The FTC has in the past taken the lead in responding to "Joe Camel" and Big Tobacco's marketing of harmful and addictive products to children. But it has so far been silent about Big Tech's marketing of the highly addictive product of social media to children. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt has demonstrated, social media use by minors leads to increased childhood depression, obesity, mental illness, emotional fragility and decreased school performance and social engagement. Wicker's bill suggests an approach by which government, at last, could muster a response to the myriad harms of social media on children.

Another issue the act could address is that of obscene or otherwise undesirable content. By prohibiting platforms from blocking access to any lawful content, the PRO-SPEECH Act would potentially make, for instance, Facebook's policy against nudity illegal, since most nude pictures are not illegal. Most platforms' current terms of service would become unlawful. Thus, the bill's critics claim that it would render social media a wasteland of pornography, profanity-laced trolling and annoying spam.

These are legitimate concerns, but there is a relatively simple solution. Wicker's bill could take one additional step, and incentivizeor requirethe platforms to hand the reins of their content-blocking or moderating tools to users themselves. Users could block pornography or other types of legal but unwanted content from their feeds. This solution to lawful, but unwanted, content would maximize consumer choice and free expression. Platforms' desire to centralize control over users' experiences and access to content is unjustified, except of course, insofar as it allows them to more easily segment markets for their advertisers and increases the power of their owners. They might at last be forced to give users the power to selectively filter and moderate what they see on their feeds.

Senator Wicker's thoughtful and innovative bill tackles these platforms' unjustified control and censorship head-on. Many of its provisions seem inspired by Justice Clarence Thomas's recent Supreme Court opinion, with an aim to stand up to legal scrutiny. There are areas where further improvements could be made, but overall, the PRO-SPEECH Act offers a strong, creative solution for protecting speech and competition in social media. Wicker has shown there are more strings for legislators to pull to curb Big Tech's censorship.

Adam Candeub is professor of law at Michigan State University and senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America. He was previously acting assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information. Clare Morell is a policy analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she works on the EPPC's Big Tech Project. Prior to joining EPPC, she worked in both the White House Counsel's Office and the Department of Justice, as well as in the private and nonprofit sectors.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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The PRO-SPEECH Act is a Creative Solution to Censorship | Opinion - Newsweek

Photo: Courtesy of Magnet

Britain in the 80s was grasped by the talons of Thatcherism: a brand of right-wing politics that upheld the individual and traditional family values. Some (many!) decried it as fascist, a call that became all the more emphatic when the Thatcher government took on Britains industrious towns and cities, closing down mines, mostly in the north and Wales, and destroying entire families livelihoods.

For Prano Bailey-Bond, the first-time director behind Sundance hit Censor, its difficult to separate Britains turbulent contemporaneous politics from the panic around video nasties: gore-heavy, straight-to-VHS B-movies around which the tabloids rustled up a profound moral hysteria, egged on by the state. In Britain at that time, you have job losses, you have welfare being cut. People were living in poverty, she says. So theres going to be more unrest, and I think horror was an easy scapegoat for all the bad in the world it took pressure off politicians, off what was actually going on.

This political reality serves as a tangible through-line in Censor, which follows a relatively simple conceit. Enid, a film censor played by Niamh Algar, is on the front line in Britains war against the nasties; she decides whether theyre fit for public consumption.All the while, shes tormented by the mysterious loss of her sister: Once inseparable, she vanished without a trace when they were young. But when she sits down to rate a particularly graphic film by the notorious gore-hound Frederick North, things begin to spiral, her perception of reality and fiction blurring at an exponential rate. The crescendo Censor eventually hits offers one of the more unsettling dnouements in recent horror cinema.

With Censor being released this week, Vulture chatted with Bailey-Bond about moral panic, why we love watching films that indulge in the most grotesque of body horror, and whether the video nasties, despite their reputation, can be appreciated as art.

Film censorship happens everywhere, but the moral hysteria around video nasties was specific to England in the 80s. Can you tell us a little about that history?

The birth of VHS led to a boom in low-budget horror becoming available. In every country, these films could go directly to the home, be watched and rewatched potentially getting into the hands of children. For various reasons, the U.K.s reaction was one of the most conservative in western countries. Its a moral panic that emerged in the Thatcher era, this idea that these films were going to possess those who watched them, make them throw their moral compass out of the window, and do terrible things: garrote each other with shoelaces, attack each other with axes.

In the Daily Mail, there was an article called Pony Maniac Strikes Again, which was about a bunch of ponies who were attacked. And the police statement in this article said that the attacker was probably influenced by either video nasties or the full moon. So suddenly the real world becomes this supernatural place where were all howling at the moon, and growing hairs, and going out to attack ponies. Its amazing how the tabloid press was about to whip up this moral panic around these films.

There are moments in Censor where you contrast the political violence of the Thatcher era in the background of one scene, theres archival news footage of police cracking down on a miners strike, for example with the grotesque, but otherwise benign, horrors of the video nasties. Why is that?

Its what I see when I look at that footage. Because obviously in the background of all of this were the miners protesting about the mines being closed down and everybody losing their livelihoods. And you see police brutality in the footage thats not being highlighted or looked at as perhaps not the right way to deal with things, when you look back. But some kind of gory, probably campy special effects are supposed to infect someones brain and make them go out and murder somebody.

We dont watch a horror film and then completely lose all of our morals. The reason people do terrible things is not that simple. It comes from somewhere much deeper; it can come from how weve been treated in life and how we feel in our heads. Its such a simple explanation to just blame horror.

It feels like theres a direct line between this moral panic, happening in a very specific political moment, and, say, the hysteria around video games in America over the past decade or so. The idea that games like Grand Theft Auto lead to shootings

Absolutely, and thats sort of why I wanted to set the film in the past, so that you have an objective viewpoint. When we were developing the film, a few people said, Why dont you make it about a contemporary censor? But the period and what was going on is just too rich not to set it then. But you also have distance from it. You can go back and go, Well, in the 50s, it was comic books that were going to turn little boys into horrible big men. And then it was video nasties. And then it was video games. Its been Marilyn Manson; its been rap music.

Specifically with the VHS thing, I found it interesting to think about just how fragile we think we are, or how fragile our moral compasses are as people, that this new piece of technology is going to completely destroy our understanding of right and wrong. Were so scared of technology; were so scared of the things we create and what theyre going to do back to us.

Sometimes the fear of what theyre going to do causes more of a problem than the technology itself. I think youve got that in the fears around social media and what thats going to do to us and how that is warping our perception of reality, which is perhaps warped already, because then we can go into, What even is reality? And we wont go down that road. Maybe were just a frightened species.

What is it with our attraction to the morbid, the grotesque, and gore what attracts us to, say, people being torn limb by limb by zombies, beheadings, and disembowelment?

I think about this a lot. Some people love it, and some people just cant stand it. I know from my perspective its not so much about the gore. Theres something very physical about watching these kinds of films. I think horror is the most similar, of all film genres, to a roller-coaster ride. You can feel the electricity sometimes when youre watching a horror film, and I dont think you get that from other genres. For me, Im really interested in trying to understand why people do bad things. Im really interested in dark minds and picking them apart.

Its a funny one: My sister isnt really into horror, but she loves crime dramas, and, actually, women are the audience for a lot of serial-killer films. Sometimes I think, Is it because we want to protect ourselves? I dont think anyone wants to genuinely put themselves in these horrific situations in real life, but because we know its fiction, theres something very cathartic about it its an adrenaline rush at times, too. I dont have a hard-and-fast answer.Im still trying to work it out.

Theres an early line of dialogue where a film producer hes supposed to be a bit of an asshole, I think shows some artistic appreciation for an eye-gouging scene that Enid wants to cut: Its King Lears Gloucester, he contests. Its Un Chien Andalou. Looking back, do you think the nasties can be framed, and appreciated, as art?

I think some of them can. The video nasties, as a whole, are quite varied in terms of their art. Some of them are only known or spoken about now because they were banned; had they not been banned, I dont think wed be watching them. Some of them were impressively bad.

But some of them I do think of as art: You look at something like [Dario Argentos] Suspiria or [Matt Cimbers] The Witch Who Came From the Sea they are pieces of art, in my opinion. They have a real kind of vision behind them. And theyre quite sophisticated filmmaking in their own way. Its a real range. Theres the really schlocky ones, and there are some really fun, wild ones like Basket Case. But even then, theres art in Basket Case, you know.

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Censor Director Prano Bailey-Bond Is Going to Shock You - Vulture

New VOD release Censor is meta-horror, but dont let that frighten you off. Director Prano Bailey-Bonds stylish directorial debut springboards off Britains video nasty controversy in the 1980s, when gory slasher flicks were targeted for supposedly corrupting children (wont SOMEBODY think of THE CHILDREN) and allegedly inspiring real-life copycat violence. A new censorship board was formed in 1984 to screen videocassette releases, since they were easier for young audiences to watch and thats where this movie starts, with Niamh Algar (of HBO series Raised by Wolves) playing a censor who brings a bit of psychological baggage to work with her.

The Gist: Eye gouging must go, Enid (Algar) writes in her notebook. Theres a question about a decapitation scene, a mention of screwdriver stuff and a light passing brush up against something to do with genital cuts, and I didnt care to discern if those were literal cuts as in with a blade or cuts as in film edits, because, you know, eek. Anyway, Enid is very exacting and detailed in her work, which involves watching some pretty cool terrible movies all day and determining which bits need to be lopped off in order to make them suitable for ages 15 and up or 18 and up, stuff like that. If this all seems terribly subjective, well, thats because it is, but Enid seems to be quite good at it, and is calm and collected in the face of an avalanche of disturbing blecch. She works long hours wouldnt you, if you got to screen amazing garbage 80s horror movies all day? then goes home and does crossword puzzles by herself and doesnt answer the phone while Baroness Thatcher goes on about this and that on the telly.

A crack begins to show in Enids facade when she has dinner with her parents (Andrew Havill and Felicity Montagu). They have a death certificate. Many years ago, Enids seven-year-old sister disappeared and was never seen again; cue some vague, bleary scenes of young Enid and her sibling, apparently lost in the woods. Its time for closure, Mum and Dad insist, but Enid clings to a miniscule thread of hope that her dear sibling is still alive out there somewhere. This is the opening rumble for a perfect storm thats about to soak Enid right through her poofy 80s blouse and loosen her hair bun. Things at work start getting bumpy; a while back she passed a movie titled Deranged, in which a man eats someones face, and now a real-life man has eaten a real-life face and somehow, her name got leaked to the press as the censor. If you have a rather myopic view of things and reality and the like, its quite obvious that its all her fault.

And then, a film producer named Doug Smart (Michael Smiley) oozes into the office to be a male chauvinist pig with rapey vibes, and to drop off Dont Go in the Church, which he promises to Enid will be a real bowel-gripper (my words, not his). And its true, because Enid fires it up and starts losing her shit while watching a scene in which two young girls get lost in the woods. She runs to the loo and barfs. No spoilers, but I will say that Enid will soon inspire a co-worker to comment, Someones losing the plot.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I havent liked a new horror film this much since Amulet, or maybe His House. Censor shows a bit of Argento-Suspiria giallo (the opening credits feature a Goblinesque score), scenes in a subway tunnel tickle the undercarriage of That Scene From Possession and Bailey-Bond cops many an old-school atmospheric vibe from stuff like Evil Dead and Halloween.

Performance Worth Watching: Algar is terrific as a buttoned-up protagonist who builds a wall of oh-so-British reservedness thats destined to crumble. Her characterization isnt outwardly TUT-TUT like a stereotypical conservative its more understated than that, and goes deeper than we may expect.

Memorable Dialogue: A decontextualized doozy via Enid: Thank you for the whiskey. Ill see myself out.

Sex and Skin: None. Having any such stuff in the movie sure would seem to clash with its intent.

Our Take: Ooh, tongues feel so nicely when theyre in cheek, dont they? Co-writing with Anthony Fletcher, Bailey-Bond doesnt weave the tightest narrative, but she slamdunks the tone, assuring that Enids psychotrauma carries some dramatic weight within an overall satirical context. And she doesnt Mank the crap out of things by making a smart-arsed movie about movies. Rather, Censor is stylish homage, winking pastiche and relevant commentary on the root cause of violence: not art, be it trashy or otherwise, because its never arts fault for doing what art does, namely, and specifically in the case of horror films, indulging the darkness within humanity, and/or humanitys fascination with that darkness.

No, the assertion the film makes is that a damaged mind left untreated is doomed to malfunction; its a serious champion for mental-health awareness. As the sides of the screen begin to narrow, so tighten the screws on Enids sanity. And Bailey-Bond shows us how ones mind may deteriorate into delusion with confident visual savoir-faire, playing with color, subtly referencing slasher classics, toying with aspect ratios and lightly fetishizing a/v static and the whirr and clunk of a VCR. She also implicates the sexual politics of the business of making gory movies notably, all of which feature human-on-human wickedness, not vampires or aliens or chupacabras by depicting lurid male filmmakers as exploitationeers who subject women to gross debasement. Some of you movie producers out there should give Bailey-Bond a blank check for her next project.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Censor is provocative and funny, boasting a smartness-to-cleverness ratio of 75:25, which is just about perfect.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

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Stream It Or Skip It: 'Censor' on VOD, a Provocative Horror Film About a Woman Who Cuts Up '80s Slasher Flicks - Decider

The act of delegitimising professional journalism undermines news medias status as the fourth estate

For nearly two decades, I have been concurrently looking at the annual Reuters Memorial Lecture delivered at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, and the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism administered by Columbia University. While the prizes represent the best practices in informing the public, the lecture deals with a critical issue facing the news industry and is delivered by someone at the highest level of journalism. The concurrent reading, in a sense, becomes a form of SWOT analysis. The lectures and prizes give insights into the current status of journalism and provide valuable clues on navigating its choppy waters.

It is disheartening to record that this year, both the Reuters Memorial Lecture and the Pulitzer Prizes have become veritable documents of the vulnerability of journalism. In April 2020, Nadja Drost wrote a long-form report in The California Sunday Magazine titled When can we really rest? It was on migrants crossing the Colombia-Panama border, which is said to be one of the most dangerous journeys in the world, to reach the U.S. On June 11, 2021, Ms. Drost, a freelance writer, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article, which the Pulitzer committee described as a brave and gripping account of global migration that documents a groups journey on foot through the Darin Gap, one of the most dangerous migrant routes in the world.

The tragedy is that The California Sunday Magazine no longer exists. Last June, it stopped its print edition. And as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to take its toll, the magazine stopped publishing online and posting on social media at the end of September. Kristen Hare of Poynter pointed out the historic significance of this development. She wrote: At least in the last 10 years, this is the first example we can find of a publication closing before it won a Pulitzer. She also pointed out that in the U.S., during the pandemic, more than 75 newsrooms closed, including some that were more than 100 years old. This pandemic-induced bloodbath in journalism is evident in India too.

If the Pulitzer Prize has gone to a defunct publication that was dedicated to long-form journalism, the Reuters Memorial Lecture brought out the multiple pressures faced by journalists in pursuing their vocation in a free and independent manner. On June 8, Brazilian journalist Patrcia Campos Mello delivered the annual lecture drawing from her series of investigative pieces on the rise of disinformation in Brazil. While the focus of her talk was Brazil, it is impossible not to draw parallels with what we are witnessing in India. She said: Lies are the foundation of the health tragedy we are going through and lies are the cornerstone of our incoming political disaster. Professional journalism is one of the last barriers against the collapse of democracy in Brazil and in many other countries struggling with an avalanche of lies. Meticulously checked information, careful and balanced reporting, and in-depth investigations are the only hope to bring back reality to many countries where facts became malleable and often secondary to opinions and beliefs.

This is true in India too. We have seen gross under-reporting of the rate of COVID-19 infections and mortality. We have seen numbers, including on the availability of vaccines, being fudged. We are in an unenviable position where the Union government has issued a directive asking the States not to divulge the details about the vaccine stock in hand as these details are sensitive information.

Ms. Mello pointed out that today, the muzzling of the press has taken on a different hue. She called it censorship by noise and defamation. It is a trait that has been normalised in India. She said: Censorship, in this new world, doesnt require the suppression of information. On the one hand, populist leaders flood social media, messaging apps, and the internet in general with the version of facts they want to prevail so that it drowns out investigations and negative news. Its the so-called censorship by noise. Then, for that manipulation of public opinion to succeed, these digital populist leaders need to delegitimise professional journalism.

The act of delegitimising professional journalism undermines news medias status as the fourth estate and denies it the crucial watchdog role. This blatant institutional capture not only ruptures our democratic fabric but also irreparably damages it.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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Censorship by noise - The Hindu

The horror genre has long been a space for cultivating creativity and pushing boundaries often early in a filmmakers career. George A. Romeros first feature Night of the Living Dead kicked off the modern zombie film genre, Robin Hardys name became synonymous with his cult classic, The Wicker Man, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez shook the film industry with their bare-bones found-footage-style film, The Blair Witch Project and Jordan Peele spoke to the horrors of racism with his groundbreaking Get Out. This summer, a new trio of directors who chose the horror genre for their first features hope to make an impact.

Prano Bailey-Bonds Censor (now in theaters), which was a breakout at this years Sundance Film Festival, is about a by-the-book censor in 1980s London who starts seeing parallels between a disturbing video and her own life. In exploring Britains video nasty era, which launched intense public debate around the notion that slasher films would poison minds, Bailey-Bond wondered: If a movie could be considered so terrible that it drives society to commit crime, what effect would it have had on the censors in the room? The premise allowed her to create a handful of original video nasties for her film, one of which was inspired by 1970s folk horror, like The Blood on Satans Claw, and another that emulated the work of the Italian giallo director Lucio Fulci.

By the time Bailey-Bond turned to filmmaking, after studying performing arts, she had already internalized many of the classics, like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Evil Dead and Basket Case, the latter of which was also a feature directing debut. I was drawn to darker characters, or trying to understand the parts of ourselves that we push away, she said. I hadnt come to the genre thinking, Im making horror. It was almost like horror chose me.

As she embarked on a series of short films, she found freedom within the genre. Theres this imagination that you can kind of let rip in horror, she said. That imagination took her down dark and rich visual paths with Censor that stretched as far as her mind and budget were willing to go.

She said that making a horror film about the genre itself sparked something in her. The relationship we have with the things we see onscreen I find fascinating. To be able to really explore that communicates something about who I am as a filmmaker.

For S.K. Dale, the drive behind his debut feature was to tell a visceral, edge-of-your-seat story. Till Death (in theaters and on demand July 2) fit the bill. The script (by Jason Carvey) made the 2017 BloodList, a list of the top unproduced horror screenplays. In the film, a woman, played by Megan Fox, is handcuffed to her dead husbands body in what is part of a cruel revenge plot against her.

Dale credited filmmakers like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg with sparking his interest in the horror/thriller space. Like them, he hoped to find his voice and visual style within the genre before moving onto bigger projects. For Dale, horrors appeal, particularly for his generation of filmmakers, comes down to its embrace of originality. Its one of the final genres where an audience is willing to see an original story, not based on I.P. or a book or comic or anything like that, he said.

With his directing experience having previously been limited to shorts, Dale had to sell himself and his vision to the producers. For them to bring me onto the team, they really wanted me to have a strong idea of what the story should be, he said, and that took a lot of brainstorming.

Join Times theater reporter Michael Paulson in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda, catch a performance from Shakespeare in the Park and more as we explore signs of hope in a changed city. For a year, the Offstage series has followed theater through a shutdown. Now were looking at its rebound.

Dale said that over weekly meetings, he threw every type of scenario possible at the producers. It was really finding what worked. Carveys original script, written with a lower budget in mind, was more contained than the final product. Dale said that when the two completed a rewrite together, they were able to go bigger with the third act, expanding the action beyond the walls of the house.

As the pandemic has given us a new lens through which to view stories of isolation, fear and existential dread, the director Sean King OGrady wanted a project that could contemplate these ideas in a thoughtful and personal way.

His film, We Need to Do Something (streaming at the Tribeca Festival), deals with a family stuck inside a bathroom during a tornado warning, something the writer Max Booth III experienced in his own life. Family bonds unravel and shift as isolation and a fear of whats behind the door settles in.

I realized that this was it, OGrady said. It captured all the anxiety and all the terror that I think wed all been feeling for several months at that point, but it also wasnt a pandemic movie. He emphasized the importance of making sure it would entertain. I wanted people to walk away from this having a good time, he said. I think that if you can feel all of that emotion, if you can be scared one minute, if you can be laughing the next minute, thats absolutely what we were going for.

Working in a cramped garage-turned-soundstage in Michigan had all the trappings of a horror film for these times. For 15 days, the cast and crew walked over from the adjacent hotel and spent hours on end together in a small space. But it made things easier, too, since they shot sequentially and without giving too much away the set became progressively more lived in.

For OGrady, making his debut with a horror feature was everything he ever wanted. You really get to flex your muscles. If youve wanted to be a filmmaker since you were a kid, and you wanted to elicit an emotional reaction from an audience, you get to do that with horror. If youve wanted to do special effects, you get to do that with horror. And he hopes that his work will be recognized like some of the talented first-timers that have come before him. Theres just a great history of people making fantastic first films in the horror genre. Who doesnt want to be a part of that legacy?

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Three New Directors Welcome the Freedoms of Horror - The New York Times

The Centre on Friday sought public comments on its draft Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which proposes to bring back its revisionary powers over the Central Board of Film Certification. This would empower the Centre to order re-examination of an already certified film, following receipt of complaints.

In November 2000, the Supreme Court had upheld a Karnataka High Court order which struck down the Centres revisional powers in respect of films that are already certified by the Board.

The draft Bill also includes provisions to penalise film piracy with jail term and fine, and introduce age-based certification.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said it wanted to add a provision for granting revisionary powers to the government on account of violation of Section 5B(1) of the Act (principles for guidance in certifying films).

Since the provisions of Section 5B(1) are derived from Article 19(2) of the Constitution and are non-negotiable, it is also proposed in the Draft Bill to add a proviso to sub-section (1) of Section 6 to the effect that on receipt of any references by the Central Government in respect of a film certified for public exhibition, on account of violation of Section 5B(1) of the Act, the Central Government may, if it considers necessary, direct the Chairman of the Board to re-examine the film, it said.

It said that under Section 6 of the existing Cinematograph Act, 1952, the Centre was empowered to call for the record of proceedings in relation to certification of a film and pass any order thereon. This means that the Central Government, if the situation so warranted, has the power to reverse the decision of the Board, it said.

However, it noted that the Karnataka High Court had stated that the Central Government cannot exercise revisional powers in respect of films that are already certified by the Board, a decision which was upheld by the Supreme Court on November 28, 2000.

But, the I&B Ministry said, the Supreme Court has also opined that the Legislature may, in certain cases, overrule or nullify the judicial or executive decision by enacting an appropriate legislation.

In this regard, it is stated that sometimes complaints are received against a film that allude to violation of Section 5B(1) of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, after a film is certified, it said.

The notification, which sought comments by July 2, said the provisions relating to certification of films under unrestricted public exhibition category are proposed to be amended so as to sub-divide the existing UA category into age-based categories like U/A 7+, U/A 13+ and U/A 16+.

On film piracy, the ministry said: In most cases, illegal duplication in cinema halls is the originating point of piracy. At present, there are no enabling provisions to check film piracy in the Cinematograph Act, 1952

The draft Bill proposes to insert Section 6AA which prohibits unauthorised recording. According to Section 6AA, notwithstanding any law for the time being in force, no person shall, without the written authorisation of the author, be permitted to use any audio-visual recording device in a place to knowingly make or transmit or attempt to make or transmit or abet the making or transmission of a copy of a film or a part thereof.

It said that if any person contravenes the provisions of Section 6AA, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than three months but which may extend to three years and with a fine which shall not be less than Rs 3 lakh but which may extend to 5 per cent of the audited gross production cost or with both.

It said the new Bill will also make the process of sanctioning of films for exhibition more effective, in tune with the changed times and curb the menace of piracy.

To tackle film piracy, the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was introduced in Rajya Sabha in February 2019. It was sent to the Standing Committee on Information Technology (2019-20), which presented its report in March 2020.

The observations/recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Information Technology in the report have been examined and it is proposed to suitably revise the clauses in the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019 based on the recommendations made by the Committee, the ministry said.

It said the recommendations of the Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee of 2013 and the Shyam Benegal Committee of 2016 had also been considered.

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Centre plans Bill to order censors to re-examine a cleared film - The Indian Express

We all know about the censorship by social media companies, but how this got started has never been explained.

Most people think that the Big Tech companies did this on their own because of their protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Well, I have had in my possession some documents for several months that came from the congressional office of U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, on his congressional stationery and signed by him.

These documents reveal that on April 29, Schiff sent a letter to the presidents on Google, YouTube and Facebook, suggesting that they could use their position to reduce or eliminate information on the internet that was contrary to the reports of the World Health Organization. It is reasonable to conclude that when Big Tech got the green light to censor people about COVID-19 that they saw the opportunity to use the same means to censor the president and so on.

I have provided the documents to various political and legal figures.

Everyone had assumed that social media was immune from prosecution because of Section 230. It is now clear that the Big Tech firms were acting as an agent for the federal government through its agent, Congressman Adam Schiff. As such, that eliminates the protections and makes them subject to a civil lawsuit.

This is the same legal principle as someone borrowing your car. If you loan your car to a third party for the benefit of the borrower, there is nothing wrong with that. But if you give this person the keys to your car so that he can pick up something for you, then he is acting as an agent for you and any negligence he commits is imputable to you, such as in the case of Congressman Schiff.

So when you get angry about the censorship of social media companies, remember who got all this started and vote the Democrats out of office and teach them a lesson.

Editors note: According to several news accounts, including CNBC, Congressman Schiff sent a letter to the CEOs of Google, YouTube and Twitter asking them to be more like Facebook about removing misinformation about COVID-19. Facebook was already directing its users to COVID myths debunked by the World Health Organization.

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Big Tech acting as Schiff's agent in its censorship - The Daily Advance