Category Archives: Censorship

How often do corporate media mention that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Dream" speech called out "the unspeakable horrors of police brutality?" Never. But Ferguson and Staten Island call to mind those words and others by MLK, such as, "Riot is the language of the unheard" and his naming "[his] own government ... the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

Today's police use militarized force to "protect and serve" the One Percent and intimidation to silence critics. St. Louis cops last week demanded that five black NFL players on the hometown Rams be disciplined for publicly showing solidarity with Ferguson protestors. And, for the past seven months, police pressured the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) into eliminating a lesson about MLK's deepest critique of American injustice. But persistent protest defeated this censorship.

Last April, Fox News reported that the national Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) objected to a history unit on MLK's little-known radical ideas posted on the OUSD website. The unit included a lesson asking students to consider a parallel between textbooks' exclusion of King's radical ideas and media censorship of the most controversial death-penalty case of our time: the 1982 conviction of ex-Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal for killing a Philadelphia cop.

OUSD submitted to police pressure by taking the MLK unit offline, along with 26 other social justice lessons collectively called Urban Dreams. This ensured that students wouldn't learn about MLK's ideas challenging American society's core values or about Abu-Jamal, the nation's best-known critic of police violence.

The FOP professed reverence for MLK and outrage that a lesson connected him to Abu-Jamal. But police also spied on, abused, and threatened King. In his final year, King consistently opposed the Vietnam War, US aggression worldwide, and a system in which "profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people." He was murdered weeks before he was to lead a multiracial Poor People's campaign to occupy Washington, DC.

OUSD's decision to repost Urban Dreams shows that police censorship can be defeated. Persistent pressure from community supporters, teacher unions, the county labor council, Ed Asner, and Alice Walker prevailed.But the forces of "law and order" won't relent. It took activism by millions to win Civil Rights movement demands and end the Vietnam War. It will take more to achieve what King and Abu-Jamal both have advocated: a society with jobs, housing, food, education, medical care, and a healthy environment for all.

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Police Censorship Defeated for Now

Unnecessary Censorship in Smite part 7
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Unnecessary Censorship in Smite part 7 - Video

Vodafone UK isnt letting its customers access the website of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), one of the oldest and largest associations of computer hackers in Europe.

Its not clear why the mobile operator has blocked the ccc.de website since late last week, but the CCC believes its because its site has been misclassified in the Internet filtering system used by Vodafone.

Since its founding in 1981 in Berlin, the CCC has highlighted security risks in technology affecting a large number of people, has exposed government surveillance and has advocated for privacy and freedom of information online. Every year the group organizes the Chaos Communication Congress, the largest hacker convention in Europe.

Vodafone UK did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For years ISPs in the U.K. have blocked access to websites that host images of child sexual abuse based on a list maintained by an organization called the Internet Watch Foundation. However, in 2013 the U.K. government convinced ISPs to build their own Internet safety filters in order to block sites that host content unsuitable for minors, including pornography and drugs.

The initiative was criticized by human rights and Internet advocacy groups because it allows ISPs to judge what is right or wrong for young people and opens up the door to over-blocking, where users are prevented access to non-harmful and even helpful websites and information.

When these filters were introduced, their abuse was imminent, said CCC spokesman Dirk Engling in a blog post Friday. Today, we are shocked to learn that they not only block access to our site, but also to our conference. We see this as proof that censorship infrastructureno matter for which reasons it was set up, and no matter which country you are inwill always be abused for political reasons.

According to a check on http://www.blocked.org.uk, a website maintained by U.K.-based Open Rights Group (ORG), ccc.de was being blocked by both Vodafone and Three, another U.K. mobile operator, as of Sunday. The Chaos Communication Congress tickets site, tickets.events.ccc.de, was only being blocked by Vodafone.

Overblocking is a major issue when it comes to filters that are designed to stop children and young people from seeing adult content, said Pam Cowburn, ORGs communications director, Monday via email. When we tested the Alexa 100k websites, we found that almost 1 in 5 sites were blocked. Although many of these may have been deliberately blocked because, for example they are pornography, this high figure suggests that there is a real problem with over blocking.

Sites that have been incorrectly blocked in the past include political blogs, sites about womens rights and even a Porsche sales site, Cowburn said. A site that offers support to victims of sexual abuse and rape, aged 16 and higher, was also blocked and so were some sites that belong to charities, she said.

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Vodafone blocks Chaos Computer Club site, fueling 'Net censorship concerns in UK

This Week in Unnecessary Censorship | JimmyKimmel
This is our weekly tribute to the FCC where we bleep and blur things whether they need it or not. This week we feature Peyton Manning, Monica Lewinsky and mo...

By: Jimmy KimmelLive

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This Week in Unnecessary Censorship | JimmyKimmel - Video

Sony hack could lead to censorship
Dave Aitel, former NSA computer scientist and current CEO of security firm Immunity, says the Sony hack could lead to self-censorship by movie studios.

By: CNNMoney

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Sony hack could lead to censorship - Video

Obama Admin. Flirting With Chinese Censorship Tactics
RAND PAUL: JOHN MCCAIN WANTS ANOTHER 15 WARS http://www.infowars.com/rand-paul-john-mccain-wants-another-15-wars/ OBAMA OFFICIAL MEETS WITH CHINESE INTERNET ...

By: TheAlexJonesChannel

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Obama Admin. Flirting With Chinese Censorship Tactics - Video

Unnecessary Censorship - Dragon Age Inquisition Part 1 (Censored Parody)
Unnecessary Censorship - Dragon Age Inquisition Part 1 (Censored Parody) Dragon Age Inquisition is made by Bioware and owned by EA Games and is available here: (uk link) ...

By: Unnecessary Censorship Central

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Unnecessary Censorship - Dragon Age Inquisition Part 1 (Censored Parody) - Video

In August, 1942 a newspaper columnist received a "very stern letter" from the U.S. government because she had described the weather during a trip with her husband. Eleanor Roosevelt promised not to do it again.

That the First Lady would be so reprimanded demonstrates the scope and power of American censoring authorities during WW2. As part of the 1941 War Powers Act, the Lady's husband created the Office of Censorship, and appointed Byron Price, a respected Associated Press editor, to run it. Price convinced the President to let the media censor itself. He issued guidelines, but they came down to one pre-publication question for reporters: Is this information I would to like to have if I were the enemy? 14,462 employees of the Office of Censorship asked the same question, while monitoring all U.S. media.

Voluntary self-censorship worked well, even if it meant battlefront reportage that ran heavily to human-interest stories. As requested, newspapers didn't publish photographs of dead American troops until 1944, when the government wanted to motivate home front support. Reporters knew the war's biggest storythe coming atom bombtwo years in advance, and kept the secret. They knew the war's longest story tooPresident Roosevelt's failing healthand kept that secret. In fact, Price contended that of the thousands of stories filed, only once did a U.S. journalist intentionally break the rules.

Some book publishers seemed eager to censor themselves. Existing manuscripts critical of some allies, for instance, weren't released until after the war. Publisher Bennett Cerf even suggested to his colleagues that they "check their backlists carefully," and eliminate any books that suggested Russia, "our (new) friend in need," was a less-than-splendid operation.

By 1942, 10,000 civil servants were reading and censoring a million pieces of mail weekly, especially those to or from POW's and other internees. (At the same time, they watched for potentially valuable information. Loose lips could also sink the other guy's ships.) GI's writing home-all subject to censorship by officers-were prohibited from mentioning anything about the military situation around them. Their families were encouraged to write back frequently, sending light, happy letters that were non-specific about life and especially work at home. Allegedly, that's what combat soldiers wanted to read, even if, as in one case, a D-Day veteran learned all about how difficult Pledge Week had been at Kappa Kappa Gamma.

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The Perilous Fight . Censorship | PBS

GwidT Deactivates, GTA 5 Banned in Australia, Video Game Censorship More - Red Scarce
Leave a LIKE if you enjoyed the video! SUBSCRIBE if you haven #39;t already! http://bit.ly/SubtoScarce Check out my recent video http://youtu.be/BuoabqqxCvQ Customize your PC! http://www.iron...

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GwidT Deactivates, GTA 5 Banned in Australia, Video Game Censorship & More - Red Scarce - Video

Source: Radio Zamaneh

On the occasion of the Day of Action against Censorship, Iran's Writers' Association announced that the Islamic Republic government continues to impose censorship in various and complex ways.

In a statement, the association writes that in the past year, despite President Rohani's election promises, censorship has continued to affect book publishing, the arts, the press and the internet, impeding freedom of speech.

They report that publishers are kept waiting for publishing permits, internet users are subjected to arrest and questioning, and many internet sites continue to be blocked.

The statement also refers to journalists being arrested, which make it a highly hazardous occupation for Iranians.

Read related statement by the Association of Iranian Journalists (in Persian)

The Writers' Association cites the jamming of satellite programming as a serious form of government censorship imposed because it both violates the right of the public to access these programs and compromises their health.

Iran's Department of the Environment has called for an end to the use of interference waves to jam satellite programming, confirming that they can be linked to cancer.

... Payvand News - 12/03/14 ... --

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Iranian writers' group denounces continued censorship