Category Archives: Censorship

In January, the US Court of Appeals ruled that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) no longer had to adhere to fairness rules, known as Net Neutrality, when it came to how people connected to websites. The decision has stirred controversy on how it could lead to widespread internet censorship.

As NetworkWorld noted:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Columbia Circuit on Tuesday ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to implement the rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic. The FCC passed the net neutrality rules, also called open Internet rules, in December 2010, but Verizon Communications challenged them, saying Congress did not give the agency the authority to regulate broadband providers.

Under the new deregulated environment, ISPs become the gatekeepers on internet access and could charge extra fees for access to certain websites, or even block them completely if their owners refused to pay for more bandwidth. ISPs could also slow or block access to their competitors, or political sites that did not express views they agreed with. Regardless of whether internet traffic is influenced by additional fees or political ideology, it still equates to a form of censorship and discrimination against those who cant afford to pay higher fees to access their favorite websites.

Lawmakers in Washington are divided on what the end of Net Neutrality could mean for the future without a fair and open internet, so on Monday, House Democrats introduced legislation called the Open Internet Preservation Act.

However, the bill has little chance of passing since Republicans support ending Net Neutrality rules.

In the end, the consumer will be on the losing end of pay-for-play internet access speed. Big companies willing to pay more for faster download speeds are likely to pass those costs along to their customers, while smaller start-ups could be relegated to obscurity.

The internet was working and was indeed an information superhighway that connected the globe in a free and open environment.

If Republicans have their way and successfully block the Open Internet Preservation Act, the internet will be restricted to those with enough money to buy what used to be free.

Republicans say they believe in smaller government, but their actions say otherwise. Ending Net Neutrality is about as Big Brother as you can get.

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Court ruling on Net Neutrality could lead to internet ...

[Dtoid community blogger OpiumHerz shares his experiences gaming in Germany. Want to see your own blog appear on our front page? Go write something! --Mr Andy Dixon]

My name is Jim and I am German. I've been writing a blog series titled "The worst thing about censorship is " for about a year now in order to give you a little insight into videogame censorship, which is still pretty much alive and kicking here in Germany (and elsewhere). In this episode, I'll discuss censorship in various games spanning multiple regions, including Soldier of Fortune II, The Witcher II, Bulletstorm, Balder's Gate, Dead Rising, and more. For more entries, check out my Cblog!

Soldier of Fortune II

We start right off with one of the most ridiculous censorships ever: Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix. You remember how in Half-Life some enemies were exchanged for robots? Yeah, they pulled that one again. Except, this time it wasn't only the enemies. The WHOLE game was robotized. Now don't get me wrong: Soldier of Fortune 1 and 2 were brutal as hell. The gore engine developed for those titles was incredibly detailed and I would dare to say that, as far as simple splatter goes, there are few games that have matched them. You could literally dissect killed enemies up to the organs.

As I said, in Germany the whole game got the robot treatment. This means that not only your enemies are robots (and thus no blood and no gore exists, only sparks fly when you shoot somebody and burning robots don't scream of course, because they know no pain), but everybody. They even have welding seams. In fact, the whole story takes place in a parallel universe, as a convenient text explains. Yeah. The German version of SOF2 takes place in another universe where the machines took over the world and humanity went extinct. Over time, the robots became feeling beings and because they only know humanity, they started living like humanity. Isn't that a great explanation why those robots go to work and have families and build cities with human-like politics and stuff? So while the original story was about biological warfare, the censored version is about a computer virus. I shit you not.

Funfact: the UK version had a region lock. So when you played it in German, it still had human enemies, but no gore. Human enemies in this version just dropped dead and that was it. However, this region lock could be circumvented with a simple console code. I personally had a Russian version of this game, where this region lock was in effect too. So I guess it was coded into every other version.

Also, the censored version is incompatible with uncensored versions in terms of multiplayer. So German players were only able to play against other German players. They also didn't even bother with patching the game to Version 1.03 over here.

And the real kicker? This censored version was still rated 18+, so it got our highest possible rating. Later on the game was released on the original Xbox. It came to Germany completely uncensored -- with the same rating. There is no set process in rating a game in Germany, and stuff like this is the result of that.

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Censorship in Germany: How they changed your fav games ...

Adding a censorship to "Frozen" Funniest Vines 2014 HILARIOUS Vine by Jack Dytrych
Adding a censorship to "Frozen" Funniest Vines 2014 HILARIOUS Vine by Jack Dytrych **IGNORE TAGS** Tags: Vine Compilation 2014 Funniest Vines 2013 Best V...

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Adding a censorship to "Frozen" Funniest Vines 2014 HILARIOUS Vine by Jack Dytrych - Video

Sansr Aalar eylemine siz de katln / Join Censorship Trees Action
Korsan Parti Trkiye, sansr, gzetleme, basklara kar eylem arsnda... #internetimedokunma #sansuredurde #SayNo2Censorship #nternetimeDokunma #DoNotTo...

By: Korsan Parti

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Sansr Aalar eylemine siz de katln / Join Censorship Trees Action - Video

5 More Ways to Protect Yourself from the NSA and Internet Censorship
Check out my previous video, "10 Ways to Protect Yourself from NSA Surveillence and the Inevitable Censorship of the Internet"! Peerblock- http://www.peerblo...

By: DigitalCombat

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5 More Ways to Protect Yourself from the NSA and Internet Censorship - Video

Queen Victoria Talks About Sex and Censorship To Gladstone
If we can help further please contact us- we are real friendly people you can talk to. Birchills Telecom has been providing the simplest and most powerful bu...

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Queen Victoria Talks About Sex and Censorship To Gladstone - Video

Censorship Law COVER UP in Australia Game Banning D bag Michael Atkinson is at it again)347

By: Barbara Poplits

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Censorship Law COVER UP in Australia Game Banning D bag Michael Atkinson is at it again)347 - Video

This article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the oprainfall staff as a whole.

Haru Akenaga, CEO of Idea Factory International, Inc. has released a statement regarding the fan feedback of Monster Monpiece and its censorship. Fans are not happy about the censorship and are speaking out. While we certainly dont fault anyone for speaking out Lets break this down a little bit. For those of us who have looked at the cards that have been censored, we know that they really did censor as little as possible. The main things censored were girls that were, or appeared to be, underage. There is a difference in each culture of what is acceptable, and what is not. In our culture, some of the cards in the game would not have been acceptable.

I get it! I truly do. I am against censorship. I want any game as close to the original format as possible. There are differences between censorship and localization, however. Changing these cards, in my opinion, has more to do with localization than censorship. With the amount of games I play and anime I watch that makes others cringe even I have to admit that sometimes you have to put a bit of cloth on the girly bits!

One of the first things Haru Akenagasays is: First of all, please allow me to clarify that Idea Factory International is fundamentally against censorship and we will never censor a title purely as a strategy to increase sales.He later says: The Monster Monpiece license was also offered to third party publishers but none were interested in acquiring the license. The main reasons cited were that the title was too hard-core and niche, making it extremely difficult to forecast enough sales to make this a profitable title for the western markets.

Translation card games do not sell well here.So, the company has taken it upon themselves to localize this game for all of us who do want to play it! If you would like to continue to see these types of games from the company, lets really look at this censorship. Can we see a little bit of the reasons behind this decision? Should we see the reasons behind it or should we stick with our ideals of not ever altering anything? If we cant see the reasons behind this decision, we may not get these types of games from Idea Factory Int. in the future. Lets keep this in mind and decide what side of this fight we want to be on.

The statement continues to say: Idea Factory International intends to focus its ongoing licensing and publishing activities primarily on titles that will appeal to the most hard-core gamers within the JRPG niche of the North American and European game markets. As such, this first title, Monster Monpiece, is an important test case for us and the final results will weigh significantly towards our decisions regarding future titles for these markets.

Translation if we cant sell this game, we wont be able to bring others over. When (just as with this game) other third party publishers will not localize a game with mature themes such as those in Monster Monpiece, we wont have access to them at all. Idea Factory Int. will not be able to localize the game since we will have proved to them that if they have to alter anything in the game, we wont buy it.

One of the ending paragraphs of this statement is this: We decided to release Monster Monpiece in these markets because we wanted to make our fans happy. However, if those same fans find that the modifications we felt we had to make have made the localized version of the game completely unacceptable, perhaps it was not the right decision to try to localize and publish this title for these markets. Perhaps it would be in the best interest of both our fans and our Company to publish only those titles that will not require any censoring or modification.

This is the bottom line here folks. If you cant accept changes that are necessary in the localization process, you may well lose out on games down the road that you really want to play. I said this above and Ill say it again: I am against censorship. I do see the difference between censorship and localization though. Are there any other issues with the game that you feel were altered that did not need to be? If we were talking about story changes here, I would likely be angered and speaking out against this game as well. In this instance though, its about changing cards where seemingly underage girls were way too exposed.You are all smart people who are passionate about their beliefs and I respect that! If you feel that I am wrong, or am missing some fundamental aspect to this, please (nicely) let me know!

Ill leave you with this final thought from the Press Release: Please be assured that we did our utmost to make sure that the modifications/censoring we determined necessary for Monster Monpiece were at the absolute minimum. We have paid meticulous attention to which images to replace/modify so as not to affect the gameplay and game system itself.

Originally posted here:
EDITORIAL: Censorship, Sales and Monster Monpiece - oprainfall

ISTANBUL: The European Union (EU) has expressed "serious concerns" over Turkey's new Internet law, which approves the blocking of web pages within hours without a prior court order.

The government said the new law is aimed at protecting individual privacy.

But critics said that with freedom of speech already restricted through bans, arrests of journalists and alleged pressure by politicians, Turkey is becoming more conservative.

Censorship in Turkey has a long history.

The Ottoman king, Sultan Abdl Hamid, apparently forbid the word nose from being printed, because he hated his large nose.

In modern-day Turkey, books, newspapers and other media continue to face heavy censorship.

Political satire, sex and controversial history are frequently banned, and the offending artists and writers can face fines, job loss and even imprisonment.

Cartoonist Halil Inescu has had 250 pieces of work censored, and the magazine he works for has even been bombed.

After completing one particularly controversial political cartoon, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison and banned from drawing political cartoons for three years.

I never self-censored because of the legal authorities -- I count that as a shameful thing. Im really against self-censorship and censorship. I never accept it, said Halil Inescu.

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Censorship remains in Turkey as new Internet law ...

ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- The Turkish Parliament approved of a new law that allows government entities to block access to websites, a move critics say is a violation of human rights.

The law allows the transportation, maritime affairs and communications minister to block websites without first obtaining a court order, Today's Zaman reported Wednesday.

The Telecommunications Communication Presidency will also be authorized to block a website if there is a request concerning the violation of the right to privacy.

The Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association said the new law could pose problems in preserving human rights.

Critics said the new law could prevent dissidents and citizen journalists from sharing information about social or political activity, the newspaper said.

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