Category Archives: Censorship

US internet censorship mirrors China's 5/5/2015 - Of the world's great powers, China, is perhaps the most restrictive when it comes to freedom of speech and expression. That said, it should come as little surprise, then, that the Communist Party leadership of China works overtime to monitor, control and censor what the Chinese people are allowed to... Facebook is deliberately censoring alternative media, pushing globalist agenda 10/30/2014 - Increasingly, Facebook is being accused of censoring material that users post on the world's largest social media website, prompting outrage and confusion from many who see hypocrisy in the site's rules. In one recent instance, as reported by InfoWars.com, multiple users of the site have complained... Freedom of the press vanishing from student newspapers across America 12/9/2013 - Most of us don't pay attention to student newspapers. Yet, these publications are where many budding journalists get their feet wet for the first time. It's exciting to learn to craft a story that your peers will read. Knowing the paper is sure to be read by teachers and school administrators, too,... Google reports 'alarming' rise in government censorship requests 6/23/2012 - In what may be the most ironic thing to happen all year, tech giant Google - a serial privacy violator - says the company is experiencing what it describes as an "alarming" increase in the number of censorship requests being received by Western (in particular, the U.S.) governments. Seems the Leviathan... At least 7,000 websites black out their homepages in protest of SOPA and PIPA internet censorship bills 1/19/2012 - On January 18, 2012, thousands of websites from around the world came out in protest of two pieces of legislation that threaten to censor the internet as we know it. Google, WordPress, Wired.com, Wikipedia, Tumblr, The Daily Paul, reddit, NaturalNews, and thousands of other websites censored portions... FDA censorship of nutritional science threatens health of all Americans 9/9/2010 - Concerned about breast cancer? There are three nutrients that virtually eliminate your risk of the disease, even if you carry "breast cancer genes." Wondering how to cure arthritis? A combination of four different nutrients virtually eliminates arthritis symptoms. Afraid of diabetes? Five different... Google calls for end to internet censorship 8/9/2010 - Testifying before a Congressional panel, Google's director of public policy, Alan Davidson, called for firm action to end censorship of the Internet. "The growing problem for Internet censorship is not isolated to one country or one region," Davidson said before the Congressional-Executive Commission... FDA defeated in federal court over censorship of truthful health claims 6/4/2010 - Health freedom has just been handed a significant victory by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which ruled last week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated the First Amendment rights of a nutritional supplement company when it censored truthful, scientifically-backed... GMO alert: U.S. attempting global censorship of GMO food labeling 5/4/2010 - I received an urgent alert from Jeffrey Smith today about a dangerous situation taking place right now at the international CODEX conference. The U.S. is attempting to push its agenda to censor all GMO labeling of foods everywhere around the world. This would result in a global GMO cover-up as consumers... FDA tyranny and the censorship of cherry health facts (opinion) 5/2/2006 - In the past, I jokingly said that broccoli might someday be banned as soon as the public begins to learn about the potent anti-cancer chemicals found in the vegetable. Thats because, as I jested, the FDA wouldnt want people treating their own cancer with the anti-cancer medicines found in cruciferous... See all 102 censorship feature articles. Corruption: Prescription drugs: Dangerous drugs: Drug companies: The FDA: Pharmaceutical companies: Drug racket: FDA: Big Pharma: Ethics: Vioxx: Drug safety: Sodium: America: Medicine: Drugs: Today's Top Stories on NaturalNews

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Censorship news, articles and information:

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut

Freedom of speech, the press, association, assembly, and petition: This set of guarantees, protected by the First Amendment, comprises what we refer to as freedom of expression. It is the foundation of a vibrant democracy, and without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would wither away.

The fight for freedom of speech has been a bedrock of the ACLUs mission since the organization was founded in 1920, driven by the need to protect the constitutional rights of conscientious objectors and anti-war protesters. The organizations work quickly spread to combating censorship, securing the right to assembly, and promoting free speech in schools.

Almost a century later, these battles have taken on new forms, but they persist. The ACLUs Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project continues to champion freedom of expression in its myriad formswhether through protest, media, online speech, or the artsin the face of new threats to free speech. For example, new avenues for censorship have arisenalongside the wealth of opportunities for speech afforded by the Internet. The threat of mass government surveillance chills the free expression of ordinary citizens, legislators routinely attempt to place new restrictions on online activity, and journalism is criminalized in the name of national security. The ACLU is always on guard to ensure that the First Amendments protections remain robustin times of war or peace, for bloggers or the institutional press, online or off.

Over the years, the ACLU has frequently represented or defended individuals engaged in some truly offensive speech. We have defended the speech rights of communists, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, accused terrorists, pornographers, anti-LGBT activists, and flag burners. Thats because the defense of freedom of speech is most necessary when the message is one most people find repulsive. Constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups if theyre going to be preserved for everyone.

Read this article:
Free Speech - Censorship | American Civil Liberties Union

One of the early nicknames for the Internet was the "information superhighway" because it was supposed to provide the average person with fast access to a practically limitless amount of data. For many users, that's exactly what accessing the Internet is like. For others, it's as if the information superhighway has some major roadblocks in the form of Internet censorship.

The motivations for censorship range from well-intentioned desires to protect children from unsuitable content to authoritarian attempts to control a nation's access to information. No matter what the censors' reasons are, the end result is the same: They block access to the Web pages they identify as undesirable.

Internet censorship isn't just a parental or governmental tool. There are several software products on the consumer market that can limit or block access to specific Web sites. Most people know these programs as Web filters. Censorship opponents have another name for them: Censorware.

While there are some outspoken supporters and opponents of Internet censorship, it's not always easy to divide everyone into one camp or another. Not everyone uses the same tactics to accomplish goals. Some opponentsof censorship challenge government policies in court. Others take the role of information freedom fighters, providing people with clandestine ways to access information.

In this article, we'll look at the different levels of Internet censorship, from off-the-shelf Web filters to national policy. We'll also learn about the ways some people are trying to fight censorship.

We'll start off by looking at Internet censorship on the domestic level.

Excerpt from:
How Internet Censorship Works - HowStuffWorks

Why is music censored? and who are the censors? A general introduction to the issues of music censorship.

01 January 2001

In countries like Sudan, Afghanistan and China, violations of musicians rights to freedom of expression are commonplace. In the USA and Algeria, lobbying groups have succeeded in keeping popular music off the concert stage, and out of the media and retail. In ex-Yugoslavia musicians are often pawns in political dramas, and the possibility of free expression has been aversely affected.

WHY IS MUSIC CENSORED?

You may wonder why music is being censored. Why have musicians been tortured, jailed, exiled and even killed. Why have certain forms of music been silenced?

Music is a free expression of the ideas, traditions and emotions of individuals and of peoples. It may express musicians hopes and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, their very identity as a culture. Yet these expressions may conflict with those of people in power. The ideas themselves may simply be unpopular or outside the current thinking or practices of a regime or special interest group. For there are those the world over who are threatened by the very nature of a free exchange of ideas. There are those who will stop at nothing to stifle them.

Music censorship has been implemented by states, religions, educational systems, families, retailers and lobbying groups and in most cases they violate international conventions of human rights.

Video about music censorship

Read more:
About music censorship | Freemuse

Adam Berry/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Protecting a Person's Privacy

This is probably the least controversial form of media censorship.

When a minor commits a crime, his identity is concealed to protect him from future harm -- so he isn't turned down from getting a college education or a job. That changes if a minor is charged as an adult, like in the case of violent crime.

Most media outlets also conceal the identity of rape victims, so those people don't have to endure public humiliation. That was not the case for a brief period at NBC News, when it decided in 1991 to identify the woman accusing William Kennedy Smith (part of the powerful Kennedy clan) of raping her. NBC quickly reverted to the common practice of secrecy.

Avoiding Graphic Details and Images

Every day, someone commits a heinous act of violence or sexual depravity. In newsrooms across the country, editors have to decide whether saying a victim "was assaulted" suffices in describing what happened.

In most instances, it does not. So a choice has to be made on how to describe the details of a crime in a way that helps the audience understand its atrocity without offending readers or viewers, especially children.

It's a fine line. In the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, the way he killed more than a dozen people was considered so sick that the graphic details were part of the story.

That was also true when news editors were faced with the sexual details of Pres. Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the accusations of sexual harassment Anita Hill made about then-U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas. Words that no editor had ever thought of printing or a newscaster had ever considered uttering were necessary to explain the story.

Those are the exceptions. In most cases, editors will cross out information of an extremely violent or sexual nature, not to sanitize the news, but to keep from offending the audience.

Concealing Security Information

The U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic operations function with a certain amount of secrecy. That confidentiality is regularly challenged by whistleblowers, anti-government groups or others who want to remove the lid on various aspects of U.S. government.

In 1971, The New York Times published what's commonly called the Pentagon Papers, secret Defense Department documents detailing the problems of American involvement in the Vietnam War in ways the media had never reported. The Nixon administration went to court in a failed attempt to keep the leaked documents from being published.

Decades later, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange are under fire for posting more than a quarter million secret U.S. documents, many involving national security. When The New York Times published these U.S. State Department papers, the U.S. Air Force responded by blocking the newspaper's website from its computers.

These examples show that media owners face a difficult relationship with the government. When they approve stories containing potentially embarassing information, government officials often try to censor it.

Advancing Corporate Interests

Media companies are supposed to serve the public interest. Sometimes that's at odds with the conglomerate owners who control traditional media voices.

Such was the case when The New York Times reported that executives from MSNBC owner General Electric and Fox News Channel owner News Corporation decided it wasn't in their corporate interests to allow on-air hosts Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly to trade on-air attacks. While the jabs seemed mostly personal, there was news that came out of them.

The Times reported that O'Reilly uncovered that General Electric was doing business in Iran. Although legal, G.E. later said it had stopped. A cease-fire between the hosts probably wouldn't have produced that information, which is newsworthy despite the apparent motivation for getting it.

Cable TV giant Comcast faces a unique charge of censorship. Shortly after the Federal Communications Commission approved its takeover of NBC Universal, it hired FCC commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker who had voted for the merger.

While some denounced the move as a conflict of interest, a single tweet is what unleashed Comcast's wrath. A worker at a summer film camp for teenage girls questioned the hiring through Twitter. Comcast responded by yanking $18,000 in funding for the camp.

The company later apologized and offered to restore its contribition. Camp officials say they want to be able to speak freely without being hushed by corporations.

Hiding Political Bias

Critics often lambast media for having political bias. While viewpoints on the editorial pages are clear to see, the link between politics and censorship is harder to spot.

The ABC news program Nightline once devoted its broadcast to reading the names of more than 700 U.S. servicemen and women killed in Iraq. What appeared to be a solemn tribute to military sacrifice was interpreted as a politically-motivated, anti-war stunt by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which didn't allow the program to be seen on the seven ABC stations it owned.

Sinclair is the same company that a media watchdog group says called more than 100 members of Congress "censorship advocates" for raising concerns to the FCC about Sinclair's plans to air the film Stolen Honor. That production was blasted for being propaganda against then-presidential candidate John Kerry.

Sinclair responded by saying it wanted to air the documentary after the major networks refused to show it. In the end, bowing to pressure on several fronts, the company aired a revised version that only included parts of the film.

Communist countries that once stopped the free flow of information may have largely disappeared, but even in America censorship issues keep some news from reaching you. With the explosion of citizen journalism and internet platforms, the truth will now have an easier way of getting out.

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How Media Censorship Affects the News

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The PlayStation 4 launched in China back in March, but sales haven't been as strong as Sony would have hoped. PlayStation boss Andrew House said in an interview at the Tokyo Game Show this week that China's censorship rules are hurting the sales potential of the PS4 in the country.

"We are still challenged somewhat with a censorship regime that we have to work with," House told Reuters. "This can be time-consuming."

Despite a slow start, House said he still sees huge potential in the China, a country whose gamer population exceeds the entire US population.

"I don't think it has been a kind of a rocket launch start," House said, adding that he envisions "tremendous potential for gaming as an entertainment medium in China." With an estimated population of 1.35 billion and a growing middle-class, China is considered to potentially be the world's largest market for video games.

According to China's censorship rules, nothing that promotes drug use of violence is allowed. All games must be approved by the Shanghai government culture department and the approval process for games is said to take no longer than 20 days. A full list of content that is not allowed in games sold in China is available here.

The Xbox One launched in China in September 2014 and sold around 100,000 units during its launch week. Nintendo has not yet announced specific plans to bring its consoles or games to the market.

According to one Asia business analyst group, the PS4 and Xbox One systems in China may only sell fewer than 550,000 units, combined, in 2015.

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PS4 Sales in China Hurt by "Censorship Regime," Exec Says

Welcome to The Censorship Pages. Here you will find information about the freedom of speech and of the press in reference to the written word. These pages provide the resources needed to explore how, and why censorship happens not only in the United States, but all around the world. I hope these pages are helpful and encourage you to get involved.

PLEASE NOTE: These pages were coded over six years ago as a resource for Bannd Books Week. Many of them are now no posted on the web or have moved to a new address. We are trying to correct any like we can and note others that are dead. If you can find the new URL for a dead link, or a substitute page, please let us know.

As an example of a just banned book, David Guterson's acclaimed book Snow Falling on Cedars has been banned by the South Kitsap School District in Washington state as an inappropriate and obscene book. Why it was banned is much deeper, as the book is written about the racism and anti-Japanese persecution during and after WW II on the Kitsap Peninsula. The book was banned because Kitsap is still a right wing, racist stronghold and they wish to block any recognition of their bigoted past and present.

Send comments and questions to webmaster@booksatoz.com

Read more from the original source:
The Censorship Pages -- Information on Censorship of the ...

Censorship in all its forms is often unjustifiable and is used simply to stop truths or ideas emerge which draw attention to powerful people or governments, or undermine ideology. This is inexcusable.

When the exercise of the right to free expression clashes with the rights of others or threatens the safety of the nation, legislators face a difficult exercise of drawing lines; is a restriction necessary and how far should it go?

As James Madison, who framed the US Constitutions protection of freedom of expression, wrote, it is often prudent to permit some abuse of freedom of expression in order to ensure that legitimate use of the right is not discouraged:

Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of everything, and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press. It ... is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to their luxuriant growth than, by pruning them away, to injure the vigour of those yielding the proper fruits.

One of the main arguments advanced against licensing of journalists and publications was its indiscriminate nature: denial of a licence is tantamount to a ban on all future articles, without regard to their content.

But what about a statement, whether written or audiovisual, which has already been completed but not yet made public? Should the authorities only impose sanctions after publication, where justified, or should they, in appropriate circumstances, be able to prevent its release?

Prior censorship poses special dangers to freedom of expression. If the authorities are able to suppress publications which nobody has seen, it becomes impossible for others to verify whether the suppression was indeed justified; it is a question of time before such an unchecked power is abused to prevent criticism of government. One partial solution is to make the authorities decision subject to court appeal. But this creates a different problem; control by the authorities of the timing of the flow of information is a considerable power. Challenging a decision to censor information will be an expensive and slow process, which many may not even use. Furthermore, news is a perishable commodity, so that success in court after lengthy proceedings will often prove a pyrrhic victory.

Because of the risk of abuse compared to sanctions after the fact, the American Convention on Human Rights prohibits prior censorship altogether, except to protect children. Article 13(2) of the ACHR states:

The exercise of the right provided for in the foregoing paragraph shall not be subject to prior censorship

Nevertheless, some courts have been reluctant to rule prior restraints out categorically, mainly because the damage done by a publication may not in all cases be reparable through subsequent sanctions. This dilemma was posed starkly in one American case, after a magazine, The Progressive, had attempted to publish an article explaining in some detail how to construct a hydrogen bomb. The author and publisher argued that they were merely synthesising publicly available documents, with the purpose of raising awareness of the threat of nuclear weapons. The District Judge held:

A mistake in ruling against The Progressive [will] curtail defendants [right to freedom of expression] in a drastic and substantial fashion. [But a] mistake in ruling against the United States could pave the way for thermonuclear annihilation for us all. In that event, our right to life is extinguished and the right to publish becomes moot.

The case did not reach the US Supreme Court. In other disputes, however, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated the following position: Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.

International bodies have echoed this point of view. In a report on the Republic of Korea, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression stated that any system of prior restraint on freedom of expression carries with it a heavy presumption of invalidity under international human rights law. The ECtHR ruled that the dangers inherent in prior restraints are such that they call for the most careful scrutiny.

This last case involved the ad hoc application of prior restraint to a specific harmful expression the authorities had gotten wind of the upcoming publication, and had applied to a court to prevent it. Systems of prior restraint whereby publications must be submitted to censors for clearance before being distributed can never be justified for the media, and have for some time now been unknown among democracies.

The position in international law can be summarised as follows: Although the right to freedom of expression does not require an absolute ban on prior censorship, this should be a highly exceptional measure, taken only when a publication threatens grave harm, such as loss of life or serious harm to health, safety or the environment. An article deemed defamatory, blasphemous, obscene or overly critical of the government would rarely if ever meet this threshold. Moreover, a system whereby media content must be officially cleared before it can be released would be unacceptable; its harm to freedom of expression would plainly far outweigh the benefit to its goals.

More:
Censorship, Violence & Press Freedom What we do Article 19

We have been critical of Wikipedia's approach to censorship in the Middle Kingdom. In a recent piece, I lamented the loss of Wikipedia in China. The encyclopedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, reached out to us and agreed to publish our unedited exchange on the difficult nature of dealing with censorship in China.

With every passing day, we're being moved further down the road towards a totalitarian society characterized by government censorship, violence, corruption, hypocrisy and intolerance, all packaged for our supposed benefit in the Orwellian doublespeak of national security, tolerance and so-called "government speech."

John W. Whitehead

Attorney, President of The Rutherford Institute, and author of 'Battlefield America'

Positing the blame solely on a vocal, but still small group of individuals who voice these concerns, calling this a "movement" in order to fan the flames of reaction, and slapping them with a dismissive label only makes matters worse.

College should indeed be a safe space, but not in the sense of being safe from upsetting images or ideas. College should be a place where it is safe to explain what you believe and to disagree with others.

Student journalists at East Lansing High School will now have editorial control of the school newspaper, Portrait, after last year's policy of prior administrative review that students said led to censorship.

The article likens free speech advocates (like me, I assume) to "gun nuts," claims that campus speech codes have mostly been repealed (which is completely false), then bizarrely questions if people can believe in a diversity of belief. Those of us who are big fans of the concept of pluralism found the latter particularly mystifying.

Greg Lukianoff

President, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

Education is not about being taught more and more reasons about why we alone are right and everyone else is wrong. Rather, it is a process of being given more and more air, a wider perspective that affords us a grander, more Olympian sweep of everything.

This kind of crime deeply saddens us, but, what's worse, it spreads fear. As ordinary Mexicans, we deserve better. We deserve to see justice delivered. We are not going to be left blinded, silent and in the dark.

Four years after the Arab Spring, is it still possible to imagine that an ultra-repressive regime is the best defense against instability? Must we turn a blind eye to this regime's human rights violations because of its "secular" nature?

The issue of censorship is one that we as Americans often associate with images of backwards political bodies in third world nations, mass protests dripping with the sweat of revolution and the historical burning of books, magazines and other literary works during the early 20th century.

Neel Swamy

Student and editor-at-large, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

In the real world people face their accusers in court. This might be a little Beach Boys of me, but wouldn't it be nice if Facebook was like that? Instead of anonymous accusations and handed-down judgments, make someone reporting "offensive content" own up to their action.

If Kasich makes it onto the ticket, the election will take place two weeks shy of the 10th anniversary of his guest host interview on "The O'Reilly Factor" in which he did the bidding of an ex U.S. Attorney I criticized in my HarperCollins investigative book "Triple Cross."

Peter Lance

Peter Lance is a five-time Emmy winning former correspondent for ABC News now writing books for HarperCollins website http://www.peterlance.com

When speaking out means sacrificing privacy, we lose points of view, and the quality of our democracy suffers. That should give all of us something to truly fear.

Brynne O'Neal

Brynne O'Neal is a Research and Program Associate at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

When LinkedIn decided to create a China-hosted version of its website in February, 2014, it made a decision to compromise the company's values in the pursuit of the dollar.

If the display or broadcasting of creative works were reliant on a virtue rubric, then our museum walls would be nearly empty, our radio waves and streaming would run rather silent, our bookshelves would be quite bare....or chock full of posted disclaimers....?

At the heart of the Muzzles is a simple but powerful idea: "Congress" -- and all levels of government, thanks to the 14th Amendment -- "shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

Dan Kennedy

Associate professor, School of Journalism, Northeastern University; author, 'The Wired City'

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Censorship - The Huffington Post

INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN INDIA: IS IT NECESSARY AND DOES IT WORK?

SARAI-CSDS

Short Term Independent Fellowship for 2004.

Internet Censorship in India:

Is It Necessary and Does It Work?

Ketan Tanna

Mumbai

http://www.ketan.net

Mobile: 91-9821034500

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to my parents

Narottam (Bachubhai) Mulji Tanna and Kusum Tanna

as well as my friend Viraf Doctor

for their support and help.

Contents

1

Introduction

The curious case of http://www.hindunity.org and role of the Mumbai police.

2

Internet Censorship in India

Origins and blocking of Yahoo groups

3

Laws that govern Internet Censorship in India

4

Is Internet Censorship Necessary?

5

Does Internet Censorship work in India?

6

Internet Censorship- India vis--vis the world

7

Interviews

8

Conclusion

The rest is here:
Internet censorship in India - http://www.ketan.net