Daily Archives: July 6, 2020

Happy 4th of July from WLTX! – WLTX.com

Posted: July 6, 2020 at 5:51 pm

We're wishing everyone a wonderful Independence Day celebrating America's founding.

COLUMBIA, S.C. Happy July 4th from News19!

The holiday, of course, commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, which formally split the United States from Britain.

The legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain actually occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. (Founding father John Adams believed that it would be July 2nd that would forever be the day remembered by Americans with celebrations and fireworks. But alas...)

After voting for freedom, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence itself. Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the document, which Congress debated and revised, finally approving it on July 4.

We think perhaps way to pay tribute to the holiday is by reprinting the Declaration of Independence, that incredible document of freedom, which you can read below.

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

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Happy 4th of July from WLTX! - WLTX.com

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Special weather alert: Snow, heavy rain and strong winds to lash Western and Northern Cape – News24

Posted: at 5:51 pm

- Strong to gale north-westerly winds (60-75km/h) are expected in places over the Northern Cape and Western Cape on Thursday.

- Strong to gale north-westerly winds (60-75km/h) between Cape Columbine and Cape Agulhas of the Western Cape Thursday spreading to Plettenberg Bay by the evening.

- High seas with wave heights from 6m to 8m are expected between Hondeklip Bay and Cape Agulhas Thursday.

- Heavy rain is expected over the high lying areas of the Cape Metropole and Cape Winelands Thursday evening and Friday.

- A heavy rain leading to localised flooding is possible over the Cape Metropole, mountainous areas of Cape Winelands and Overberg from Friday until Saturday.

- Very cold conditions are expected over Western Cape and the southern high ground of the Northern Cape on Friday afternoon spreading eastwards by Saturday morning.

- Snowfalls are expected over the mountainous regions of the Western Cape and the southern high ground of the Northern Cape on Friday.

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Sea vessels warned of higher and lower than normal tides – News24

Posted: at 5:51 pm

National Sea Rescue Institute performs a life saving exercise during the learn to swim event at Monwabisi Beach.

The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) has appealed to beach goers and smaller vessels at sea to be cautious because of higher and lower tides, which will peak on Sunday.

In a statement, the NSRI said high seas, combined with a Spring tide and the cold front, are expected to reach the Western Cape on Saturday along the south and south-west coastline and persist into Monday morning.

"The concern is for smaller vessels at sea navigating through the conditions, as well as for beach goers and coastal hikers, who may be caught off-guard by large waves at Spring high tide that could potentially sweep them off the rocks along the shoreline," NSRI CEO Dr Cleeve Robertson said.

"We are appealing to boaters, paddlers, beach goers, surfers, coastal hikers, anglers and the public to be cautious around the coastline and to follow SA Weather Service (SAWS) forecasts."

- Compiled by Alex Mitchley

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National Security Agency warns that VPNs could be vulnerable to cyberattacks – CBS News

Posted: at 5:50 pm

The National Security Agency issued a new cybersecurity advisory on Thursday, warning that virtual private networks, or VPNs, could be vulnerable to attacks if not properly secured. The agency's warning comes amid a surge in telework as organizations adapt to coronavirus-related office closures and other constraints.

A VPN allows users to establish private, encrypted connections to another network over the internet. They are used widely by corporations and other organizations to protect proprietary data from hackers while employees work remotely.

A senior NSA official who briefed reporters Wednesday said the increase in remote work had attracted the attention of potentially malicious cyber actors.

"We certainly see adversaries focused on telework infrastructure," the official said. "We've seen exploitation and as a result, have felt that this was a product that is particularly helpful now."

VPN gateways in particular are "prone to network scanning, brute force attacks, and zero-day vulnerabilities," the NSA's advisory said. "[N]etwork administrators should implement strict traffic filtering rules to limit the ports, protocols, and IP addresses of network traffic to VPN devices."

The senior official said the NSA, whose employees deal daily with highly classified materials and systems, had taken its own steps to adapt to the pandemic, reducing some of its workforce to "mission-essential" for several weeks and introducing social distancing measures within its outposts.

The advisory was issued by the agency's Cybersecurity Directorate, which launched last October. Its mandate involves reinvigorating a set of missions the NSA has long had protecting government and private sector systems by accelerating, broadening and "operationalizing" its dissemination of unclassified threat information, according to officials.

The directorate has now issued over a dozen public advisories since its launch. In October, it warned that nation-state actors were targeting VPN devices. In January, it was behind the disclosure of a "critical vulnerability" in Microsoft's Windows 10 software something the agency might have once exploited, instead, as a hacking tool. And in May, in another rare move, it named a Russian military hacking unit that was secretly accessing commonly used email software.

"Attribution is always interesting," the senior NSA official said Wednesday. "We do it if we believe it creates a sense of urgency to address a vulnerability."

The directorate's emphasis on information-sharing stems from a recognition that nation states are getting more aggressive and more sophisticated in going after government and non-government targets. Its leadership has said it is also a conscious effort to move away from stubborn perceptions that the agency is a secretive black box or "No-Such-Agency," as the NSA has been labeled. (Its foreign intelligence mission which involves intercepting signals and communications overseas is likely to continue avoiding the public eye.)

The agency has also broadened its presence on social media, launching an Instagram account, a dedicated Twitter account for the directorate, and even bringing its notoriously circumspect director to the platform. (Paul Nakasone has tweeted three times in three weeks.)

"General Nakasone has looked at the environment and said, 'We see adversaries increasingly using cyber to achieve national security objectives below the level of armed conflict,'" the senior official said. "'We're seeing rapid technological change, which just brings in a whole new set of vulnerabilities.'"

"It led him to say, 'We really need to up our game.'"

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National Security Agency warns that VPNs could be vulnerable to cyberattacks - CBS News

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NSA warns that VPNs could be vulnerable to cyberattacks – WTOP

Posted: at 5:50 pm

The National Security Agency issued a new cybersecurity advisory on Thursday, warning that virtual private networks, or VPNs, could be vulnerable to attacks if not properly secured.

The National Security Agency issued a new cybersecurity advisory on Thursday, warning that virtual private networks, or VPNs, could be vulnerable to attacks if not properly secured. The agencys warning comes amid a surge in telework as organizations adapt to coronavirus-related office closures and other constraints.

A VPN allows users to establish private, encrypted connections to another network over the internet. They are used widely by corporations and other organizations to protect proprietary data from hackers while employees work remotely.

A senior NSA official who briefed reporters Wednesday said the increase in remote work had attracted the attention of potentially malicious cyber actors.

We certainly see adversaries focused on telework infrastructure, the official said. Weve seen exploitation and as a result, have felt that this was a product that is particularly helpful now.

VPN gateways in particular are prone to network scanning, brute force attacks, and zero-day vulnerabilities, the NSAs advisory said. [N]etwork administrators should implement strict traffic filtering rules to limit the ports, protocols, and IP addresses of network traffic to VPN devices.

The senior official said the NSA, whose employees deal daily with highly classified materials and systems, had taken its own steps to adapt to the pandemic, reducing some of its workforce to mission-essential for several weeks and introducing social distancing measures within its outposts.

The advisory was issued by the agencys Cybersecurity Directorate, which launched last October. Its mandate involves reinvigorating a set of missions the NSA has long had protecting government and private sector systems by accelerating, broadening and operationalizing its dissemination of unclassified threat information, according to officials.

The directorate has now issued over a dozen public advisories since its launch. In October, it warned that nation-state actors were targeting VPN devices. In January, it was behind the disclosure of a critical vulnerability in Microsofts Windows 10 software something the agency might have once exploited, instead, as a hacking tool. And in May, in another rare move, it named a Russian military hacking unit that was secretly accessing commonly used email software.

Attribution is always interesting, the senior NSA official said Wednesday. We do it if we believe it creates a sense of urgency to address a vulnerability.

The directorates emphasis on information-sharing stems from a recognition that nation states are getting more aggressive and more sophisticated in going after government and non-government targets. Its leadership has said it is also a conscious effort to move away from stubborn perceptions that the agency is a secretive black box or No-Such-Agency, as the NSA has been labeled. (Its foreign intelligence mission which involves intercepting signals and communications overseas is likely to continue avoiding the public eye.)

The agency has also broadened its presence on social media, launching an Instagram account, a dedicated Twitter account for the directorate, and even bringing its notoriously circumspect director to the platform. (Paul Nakasone has tweeted three times in three weeks.)

General Nakasone has looked at the environment and said, We see adversaries increasingly using cyber to achieve national security objectives below the level of armed conflict,' the senior official said. Were seeing rapid technological change, which just brings in a whole new set of vulnerabilities.'

It led him to say, We really need to up our game.'

2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Former American NSA John Bolton says Indias reaction on Balakot airstrike was appropriate – MyNation

Posted: at 5:50 pm

Bengaluru: Lauding Indian government for the way it handled the Balakot airstrike, former US National Security Advisor (NSA) John Bolton has added it was a crisis well handled by the Indian side, reports India Today, in its exclusive.

Also Read:All about Balakot airstrike you need to know

John Bolton, who has recently released his book 'The Room Where it Happened', said that during the India-Pakistan crisis in 2019, India showed restraint and acted in a balanced way.

The website adds that among a host of other things, John Bolton's book mentions the Balakot airstrikes conducted by the Indian Air Force in February last year. When asked why he did not write about it in detail, Bolton said Donald Trump, him and other officials of the US government were caught up with the meeting with North Korea.

In this regard, he said, "This was potentially a very significant military confrontation, very risky behaviour on the Pakistani side. The US spoke to India as it is a part of expanding and deepening bilateral US-India relationship. We have many common threads. We have some issues which need to be resolved between the US and India, but there's no underestimating the stronger India-US connection.

Also Read:How Balakot was planned

About Americas intelligence on the issue, he said, I won't get into what the US intelligence revealed to us of course, but the US authority had a very good conversation with his counterpart. We came away from the crisis feeling that the Indian side had exercised appropriate kind of restraint and it was a real incentive for deepening communication in the future crisis. If we are prepared for it, there are chances that it can be resolved more easily.

He also gave this reaction on what US felt about it. He said, We were pleased by the way the crisis played up and the restraint showed by the Indian side and that it was resolved peacefully. We had a similar conversation with the Pakistani side. These things have different versions depending on what capital city you are sitting in. But it showed something of the enhanced communication with New Delhi in particular.

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Venezuelans defy censorship to broadcast their own news bulletins – from their balconies – FRANCE 24

Posted: at 4:49 am

Laura Helena Castillo is one of the founders of "Bus TV". She told our team how they came up with the idea to keep on broadcasting local news from their windows and balconies after La Cruz went into lockdown. Theyve started referring to the project as "La Ventana TV", which means Window TV. When lockdown began, at first, we were worried because weve always carried out our projects in the street, in close contact with people, and we had to stop it all. So, we decided to try and develop other activities that would allow us to respect social distancing measures.

We did our very first news bulletins from our windows in mid-May. We got this idea because we had seen how balconies had become a space for expression in Europe during lockdown, allowing contact with the rest of the world. People were singing, playing music and applauding

The very first window news bulletin was delivered in mid-May. In this video, you can hear someone saying, This afternoon, starting at 4pm, La Cruz TV will be broadcast from the balcony of our neighbor, Mrs. Rosa Elena Marrobo."

Then, Daro dresses up in an elegant outfit and reads the news bulletin into a microphone from one of the balconies in the neighborhood while Mariln films him [Editors note: even though these videos are never posted online]. Different people in the neighbourhood offer up their balconies. Weve also rented a speaker from one of the neighbours so that people in the neighbourhood can hear.

"Testing, hello, hello, testing La Cruz TV has a project during quarantaine thats called La Ventana TV", says Daro Chacn in this video.

"Today is May 16, 2020. Weve been in quarantaine for 61 days in Venezuela. Whats happening in La Cruz? The sale of proteins, vegetables in La Cruz were a major help for the community during quarantaine", says Daro Chacn in this video.

For the time being, weve only done three news bulletins from the windows. We had to stop everything for more than two weeks because a woman in the neighbourhood was suspected of having Covid-19. So we didnt want Daro or Mariln to take any risks. But wed like to do two televised news bulletins a week, which was our rhythm with La Cruz TV.

"Three balconies, three episodes of La Ventana TV"

The start of a televised news bulletin presented on a balcony.

These flyers provide information for La Cruz residents.

Article by Chlo Lauvergnier.

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Chinas hue & cry over apps ban contradict its own rule of internet censorship – Economic Times

Posted: at 4:49 am

New Delhi: Indias decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile applications, including ByteDances TikTok and Tencents WeChat, may have become a topic trending on social media apps in China but Beijings own record with globally popular social media platforms are appalling with tight censorship that disallows own citizens to access information available worldwide.

China blocked Facebook besides Twitter and Google services in 2009 following riots in Xinjiang. China has most extensive and sophisticated censorship regimes in the world. Described as the "Great Firewall," a number of methods are employed to control online content, including website blocking and keyword filtering, censoring social media, and arresting activists.

Chinese government agencies have absolute authority over the internet in China. The Central Propaganda Department and the Ministry of Public Security in 2014 established the Cyberspace Administration of China as the main body for internet censorship in China.

The Great Firewall prevents users from accessing foreign news sites such as the BBC, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Facebook has billions monthly active users worldwide, with primarily no footprint in China.Thats because Facebook is banned in China. The Chinese government controls content it deems is not in the interest of the state. The list is long.

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Are Facebook and Twitter Finally Paying the Price for Censorship of Conservatives? – National Legal and Policy Center

Posted: at 4:49 am

Has the dam broken following the build-up of conservative frustration over one-sided censorship against them byFacebook andTwitter?

Evidence of that which had built up for weeks turned into a flood over the last ten days.

What had been a quiet trend of sign-ups by publicly known conservatives including many elected officials turned into an out-and-out campaign to urge followers to join them in social media alternative platformParler (originally Par-lay per the French spelling; apparently the English literal pronunciationis acceptable now too). According toreport by Business Insider, tech data trackers said Parler reached No. 2 for Top News apps on the App Store.

According to data Sensor Tower has provided to Business Insider, Parler has seen a 246% increase in US downloads this week compared with a week prior, the site reported. On Wednesday Parler saw the biggest number of daily installs its ever had: Users downloaded the app an estimated 40,000 times in 24 hours, Apptopia told Business Insider.

Perhaps the most ominous signal came from Trump re-election campaign manager Brad Parscale, whowarned Twitter on June 19th that its days are numbered, after the liberal-leaning platform unnecessarily labeled a humorous-but-innocuous video parody of Fake News CNN posted by the President as manipulated media. The creator of the video, popular conservative meme-maker Carpe Donktum, waspermanently removed from Twitter last week.

It marked a turning point for Parscale, whose only previous statements about Parler were onlycriticisms for its functionality and technical shortcomings, compared to Twitter.

Twitter has recently upped its negative disclaimers and sometimes outright censorship on some tweets posted by President Trump, who is its most famous user. Last month Twittershielded a tweet by Trump that said, during the riots following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, that said, These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I wont let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you! Twitter warned readers that the tweet violated its policies for glorifying violence.

Twitter alsoplaced a warning on a June 23rd Trump tweet in which he wrote, There will never be an Autonomous Zone in Washington, D.C., as long as Im your President. If they try they will be met with serious force! Twitter said it violated our policy against abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.

Trumps apparent November opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, has not experienced similar treatment from Twitter, despite the campaign itselfposting obvious manipulated media to make Trump look bad.

Facebook has also gotten into the speech suppression act against Trump, after receiving pressure from its own leftist Silicon Valley employees and other Democrats over its policy to not restrict or delete his posts. Last week CEO Mark Zuckerbergsaid the platform would start labeling political content that violates its policies an apparent about-face fromlate last year, when he said he believed free speech should prevail when it comes to political content.

Also last week,Project Veritas released new videos of whistleblowers who captured former Facebook colleagues saying they suppressed conservative content. If someone is wearing a MAGA hat, said one content moderator, I am going to delete them for terrorism.

And several large corporate sponsorssaid last week they would halt advertising, after they were pressured by liberal groups like the NAACP to punish Facebook over its failure to censor hate speech. This may have been the last straw for many conservatives, who know the label hate speech is applied broadly against them for noncontroversial statements.

Parler is positioned to possibly take away users from both Facebook and Twitter, because it allows up to 1,000 characters per post. Twitters limit is 280, while Facebook is long-form friendly so Parler is a potential happy medium for both.

Hundreds of conservatives have set up on Parler, but most still exist on Twitter. Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Lara Trump have Parler accounts, as do many Republican Congress members, andother conservative personalities. But the Big Kahuna, the American president, is still a holdout.

Its about time yall joined me on @parler_app, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentuckytweeted on Wednesday. Whats taking the rest of you so long?!

This platform gets what free speech is all about, and Im excited to be a part of it, said Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Lets speak. Lets speak freely. And lets end the Silicon Valley censorship.

Join us on @parler_app at @Jim_Jordan! tweeted the conservative Congressman from Ohio. They dont censor or shadow ban.

On Friday Parler was the top downloaded app in the News category in the iPhone store, outperforming Twitter and Reddit,according to CNBC. Itout-downloaded Twitter again on Monday.

Will there be enough Start Parler activists to motivate a Quit Twitter campaign? It increasingly looks like a possibility.

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Cyberpunk 2077 Deemed Too Risque In Japan, Will Receive Heavy Censorship – Geek Culture

Posted: at 4:49 am

CD Projekt Reds Cyberpunk 2077 is shaping up to be arguably the most expansive RPG to date, in terms of character creation and the exploration of various mature themes, such as sexuality and violence. However, it might not be as well received in some countries than others.

In the case of Japan, it looks as though the game will be receiving more than just an M rating it will be heavily censored in various areas.

According to Australian press Press Start (via Games Radar), the sexually-explicit content in the Japanese version of Cyberpunk 2077 will get a major overhaul, where underwear will be permanently added to naked characters, and will also include the revision/removal of various art that depicts genitalia in the game, such as posters or billboards.

This most likely will also mean that players may not be able to customise their characters genitalia, or even pubic hair, to say the least.

One main reason for this form of censorship for Cyberpunk 2077 could be due to Japans laws with regards to pornographic content, by way of Article 175 of the Criminal Code. This law effectively means that any depiction of exposed genitalia in an obscene manner must be at least partly censored.

Despite it being a game, Cyberpunk 2077 does tick those boxes, which would mean any cyber-penises and vaginas would have to either be heavily pixelised ( la the adult industry in Japan), or covered entirely, hence the decision for CDPR to use underwear to cover up those naughty bits.

READ ALSO: Netflix Nabs Legendary Disney Animator Glen Keane For Over The Moon Feature

Additionally, there could be selective revision of various depictions of violence, specifically those that involve dismembering and mutilation of the human body, as well as the depiction of exposed innards.

However, the report did not state whether the aspect of making non-binary or homosexual relationship choices will be censored. Seeing as it is a major talking point in the game, and given hundreds hours have been poured into developing the code for quest lines involving them, it might be a little more troublesome to do so.

Interestingly, it appears that Japan will be the only country that will censor Cyberpunk 2077, as Australia another country notorious for heavy censorship in multimedia will not be censoring the game at all, and only giving it an R18+ rating.

Cyberpunk 2077 will release on 19 November for PS4, PC, Xbox One, and Google Stadia.

Marion has a serious RPG addiction. Sometimes it bleeds into real life; he forgets to sleep because he thinks he has a Witchers body clock. Forgive him in advance if he suddenly blurts out terms such as Mind Flayer and Magic Missile, because never once does he stop thinking about his next Dungeons & Dragons game.

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