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I'm sure by now you've heard about the massive issues going on in China, which have been going on for a very, very long time now - but we're at a point where it's hard to ignore, even for gamers.

Activision Blizzard is in the crosshairs of Chinese censorship, with the Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft creator bowing to Chinese pressure. Activision Blizzard recently suspended one of its pro Hearthstone players after the player support pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

But the list is growing, wtih Apple taking a knee to Chinese censorship and even the likes of American Airlines, Gap, Mercedes-Benz, Ray-Ban, Nike, TikTok, and many others pressured by the country and its strict stance on criticism. Mashable has compiled a big list of these companies that include (so far, as I'm sure there are more):

* Prices last scanned on 10/14/2019 at 6:03 am CDT - prices may not be accurate, please click for very latest pricing

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Here's a list of companies taking the knee to Chinese censorship - TweakTown

The third season of The Seven Deadly Sins anime, Wrath of Gods, recently debuted on Japanese television much to the dismay of fans who found that depictions of blood and gore were being heavily censored.

In the first episode of the new season, titled The Light That Drives off Darkness, viewers discovered that depictions of blood, such as Escanor slicing a demon in half or Merlin blowing a hole in a demon with her Purgatory Venom technique, were colored bright white and that depictions of gore, such as Ban using his Snatch ability to take out a monsters heart, were colored black:

Related: Seven Deadly Sins Confirms Season 3 Release Date

Related: Cosplay of the Day: Sarah Addy as Elizabeth from Seven Deadly Sins

As this episode provided a re-cap for viewers of the previous season, this censorship was most notable when recounting Melodias death at the hands of Estarossa, as the scene was depicted with a giant black circle covering up Melodias wounds, which were clearly visible in the original episode:

Left: The original scene as seen in The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of Holy WarRight: The same scene as seen in the recap featured in The Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath of Gods premiere

Related: New The Seven Deadly Sins Anime Announced by Studio DEEN

Fans have expressed their displeasure regarding the censorship on social media:

The season premiere marks the debut of Studio Deen as the series primary animator, replacing A-1 Pictures who had worked on the previous two seasons, and of the series on its new broadcast home, TV Tokyo. It is currently unknown what roles, if any, these two companies had on implementing the heavy censorship.

Its unclear if this censorship will carry over to the United States release that will come to Netflix.

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censorshipThe Seven Deadly SinsThe Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath of Gods

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The Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath of Gods Debuts with Heavy Censorship of Blood and Gore - Bounding Into Comics

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Last Friday, a now-deleted tweet from Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey sent China and the NBA world into a frenzy. Immediately, the NBAs Chinese partners suspended all ties with the Houston Rockets, and the NBA released a statement claiming that Mr. Morey had deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China.

What was the terrible thing that Mr. Morey posted? Well, he simply publicly supported the pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong by tweeting the slogan Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.

Right now, Hong Kong citizens are embroiled in the fight of their lives against the growing authoritarianism of the Chinese government. It seems strange, then, that Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta was so quick to tweet that Mr. Morey does NOT speak for the team. Mr. Moreys support for basic freedoms, too, was deemed regrettable by NBA spokesman Mike Bass.

Whose team are these guys on, anyway?

Chinas, so it seems. And their loyalty is enmeshed with a dependency on Chinas money. As one of the most popular NBA teams in China, the Houston Rockets are on track to lose hundreds of millions, if not billions, if the Chinese market continues to punish them for Moreys regrettable proclamation. Of course, that shouldnt matter to them in the face of the regimes continual assault on freedom. However, sadly it does.

American businesses have long tailored their products or services to the demands of the Chinese market and its censors. As Ryan Khurana of the Institute for Advancing Prosperity has noted, this practice can be seen in everything from Hollywoods re-editing its films so they dont violate the Communist Partys definition of public morality to Googles offering to comply with censorship practices that directly oppose its own mission of increasing peoples access to information worldwide.

Until recently, the American public didnt really notice. But now, things are different. Its no longer just a matter of companies changing their product to satisfy the Chinese market. The controversy surrounding the Houston Rockets is evidence that some American businesses are willing to silence their own employees at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party.

Its cowardly, but being brave has become less important to companies as access to Chinas enormous market grows into an ever more irresistible prize to firms around the world. China boasts a mushrooming middle class of more than 400 million people and a massive economy that has, in some ways, already surpassed the United States.

Of course, China is still a ruthless authoritarian state with extreme disregard for human rights. Its using ever more forceful methods to suppress the Hong Kong protestors and, in Xinjiang, more than one million Muslims are currently imprisoned in so-called re-education camps. Any semblance of freedom in their press or speech is seriously absent, too.

As China Daily, a newspaper owned by the Communist Party, proclaimed, China hopes the incident with Morey and the Houston Rockets will teach other companies a lesson: The big Chinese market is open to the world, but those who challenge Chinas core interests and hurt Chinese peoples feelings cannot make any profit from it. In other words, any criticism of China will not bode well for American businesses from now on.

But U.S. businesses shouldnt cave to Chinas will. In fact, firms that stand for freedom of expression ought not worry about scorn from the Chinese, because Americans shouldnt be trying to appease an oppressive regime. Rather, companies that act to censor the free expression of their employees should have their feet held to the fire by a concerned American people.

The U.S. consumer should take a firm stand and potentially boycott those organizations that continue to give in to the draconian whims of the Communist Party. Doing so would create an heavy disincentive to any company thinking of succumbing to the pressures of the Chinese government, and similarly, if the collective pressure of multinational businesses standing up to Chinese censorship builds, the shoe will be on the other foot Beijing will be forced to rethink its current practices out of fear of losing the business of many of Americas billion-dollar companies.

Like Mr. Morey, Americans have a duty to stand boldly against authoritarian abuses abroad, even when money is at stake. After all, China isnt holding all the cards. U.S. consumers have a great deal of power that they can leverage all on their own.

Alexander C. R. Hammond is the policy adviser to the director general at the Institute of Economic Affairs and a Young Voices Foreign Policy fall fellow. You can find him on Twitter at @AlexanderHammo

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American businesses shouldn't give in to Chinese censorship - Washington Times

A pair of House Democrats have accused Education Secretary Betsy DeVos of ignoring allegations of censorship and civil rights violations at Liberty University because of the institutions close relationship with President Donald Trump.

In a letter Monday, Rep. Andy Levin, D-Michigan, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D- Maryland, argue Libertys honor code violates a recent presidential executive order and federal civil rights laws because it places extreme restrictions on student speech and relationships between LGBTQ students.

Given that Libertys violations are public and longstanding, we are left to conclude that the Departments failure to act is deliberate and that it is only interested in enforcing free speech policies against institutions it deems unfriendly, the congressmen wrote.

Mondays letter, which includes additional allegations unrelated to Liberty, asks DeVos to hand over records involving investigations into free speech violations to the House by Oct. 21. It is unclear if DeVos will comply with the request. A spokesperson for DeVos did not return requests for comment.

In a statement Tuesday, Falwell said the congressmens letter demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the scope and purpose of federal laws governing private universities.

Unlike most of its counterparts in the United States, Liberty University actually promotes free speech and free expression. Using its own resources, Liberty University invites conservatives and liberals, as well as Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Independents to its regular student Convocation forums and commencement ceremonies, Falwell said.

At the heart of the letter are claims DeVos is improperly giving cover to Liberty, an institution the congressmen describe as politically aligned with the Trump administration.

Falwell is a vocal supporter of the president and has said Trump offered him the job of education secretary shortly after the 2016 presidential election. Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have spoken at Liberty graduation ceremonies in recent years.

Levin, the vice chair of the House Education Committee, and Raskin, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, wrote that Liberty is in violation of an executive order issued in March directing federal agencies to ensure colleges promote open debate as well as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination at educational institutions receiving federal money.

The letter takes aim at Libertys honor code, known as The Liberty Way, for banning students from consuming media and entertainment that is offensive to Libertys standards and traditions and prohibiting sexual relations outside of a biblically- ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman.

The congressmen also allege Liberty has suppressed student journalism, referencing a 2016 decision by Falwell to remove a student-authored opinion piece from the university newspaper criticizing then-candidate Trump for boasting of sexual assault. Falwell told The News & Advance at the time the column was redundant because the paper already was printing a letter urging support for Trumps opponent Hillary Clinton.

In their statement, Liberty officials pushed back against allegations of censorship and discrimination, saying the honor code is fully consistent with the proper role of a Christian institution and the First Amendment prohibits the federal government from intervening in speech decisions made by a private institution.

In the statement, Falwell notes the alleged incidents of censorship occurred long before Trumps executive order but also argues the episodes would have not violated the order had it been in effect.

The censorship wrongly claimed by the congressmen was simply Liberty University exercising its editorial control over the Liberty Champion, the newspaper it owns, publishes and pays the staff. Even though most of that staff consists of student employees, it is not and has never been a student newspaper, Falwell said.

It is indeed a shame that two federal legislators can be so out of touch with the basic civics concerning the laws about which they wrote the secretary, Falwell added. Even so, Liberty University will respond to any inquiry of the Department of Education to set the record straight.

Richard Chumney covers breaking news and public safety for The News & Advance. Reach him at (434) 385-5547.

Richard Chumney covers breaking news and public safety for The News & Advance. Reach him at (434) 385-5547.

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Democrats accuse DeVos of ignoring claims of censorship, civil rights violations at Liberty University - Lynchburg News and Advance

The Athletic didnt publish any articles about Houston Rockets GM Daryl Moreys since-deleted Friday tweet in support of pro-democracy Hong Kong protestors, or about the subsequent manic attempts at damage control by the Rockets owner and the NBA, until a couple days after the controversy began. It was a long enough delay that readers began to take notice. One Athletic NBA writer, when asked about the lack of coverage, said it was because of the publications insistence on quality over quickness.

When the Athletic did get around to covering the fallout from Moreys tweet, though, they fell way short of getting it right. This article by senior NBA writer Joe Vardon is framed as a kind of explainer for the whole affair, but seems to take the Chinese establishments explanation for the outrage at face value. This had the unfortunate effect of presenting an authoritarian governments propaganda uncritically, and under the guise of neutral journalism. Heres a taste:

In America, whats happening in Hong Kong is about an erosion of civil liberties, like free speech. An invasion of privacy. Oppression. These are the kinds of things NBA players and coaches speak out against all the time, when they happen in America.

Boiling down a highly complex issue into a paragraph or two, though, in China, this isnt about civil liberty. According to Tsai, and others interviewed by The Athletic, its about national sovereignty, and about everyone playing by the same rules. Hong Kong is a part of China, and the people there should play by the same rules as the people on the mainland.

Where the article fails is not just in its inability to explain Hong Kongs uniquely autonomous existence within China, which is a complicated topic well beyond any NBA writers usual beat, but also in its over reliance on sources who present only the Chineses governments official point of view. Aside from the public statements of Morey and Adam Silver, only two other people are quoted in the entire 1,500-word article. One is the Facebook open letter of billionaire Nets owner Joe Tsai, who took it upon himself to speak for 1.4 billion Chinese citizens when he said that they stand united when it comes to the territorial integrity of China and the countrys sovereignty over her homeland. This issue is non-negotiable. The other quotes came from a guy named Sourabh Gupta, who is a senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, D.C. While that institutions name sounds nice and neutral, the organization itself is actually a think tank established to advocate for the Chinese governments claims to the South China Sea.

Typically, one might see these errors in judgement rebutted in the comments below the article. In this case, though, there is no comment section. Nearly 300 predictably opinionated and decently heated comments on the Vardon story appear to be archived herethey make for a loud if not particularly enjoyable read if you have the timebut presently, The Athletic has shut down the discussion on the site. On Vardons article, and two other articles about the NBA in China, The Athletics comment sections are completely disabled. Reached for comment, a spokesperson for The Athletic had this explanation.

After closely monitoring the comments section on this particular story, we decided to disable the feature as we believed much of the content to be in direct violation of our Code of Conduct Policy. As a precautionary measure given the highly sensitive nature of the topic, we preemptively disabled the comments section on the other two stories about the same subject. This is not the first time we have disabled comments on a story and have followed a similar approach in the past under similar circumstances.

The Code of Conduct, which the spokesperson included, can be summarized by its headers: No Assholes. No Hate. No Trolls. No Spam.

The Athletics subscribers arent thrilled about this move, and theyre making themselves heard elsewhere on the site. Though readers have been deprived of this particular outlet for their thoughts, comment sections on other Athletic articlestypically a place where 15 people congratulate the reporter on their storyhave instead been filled with aggrieved subscribers:

Shutting down a heated comment section is The Athletics rightevery publication can (and frankly should) moderate its comments to keep out bigots and trolls, if only as a courtesy to readers. But in this particular case, and in the context of the original article, it feels like an oafish and heavy-handed overreaction. To quietly snuff out any direct pushback against a clear reporting mistakeplus any conversation about the Hong Kong protests more generallyis a cowardly move. For a site that likes to advertise its comments as a sparkling oasis of polite debate, short-circuiting this kind of criticism is especially weak.

The good news, howeverand trust me, Ive learned this from experienceis that sports fans will never, ever shut up when they feel like theyve been denied an opportunity to make their opinions heard. The Athletics subscribers will, one way or another, find a way to get these takes off. When you see a furious debate about the one-child policy raging below a puffy profile of Al-Farouq Aminu, now youll know why.

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The Athletic Outrages White Men Everywhere By Censoring Their Opinions On China - Deadspin

Microsoft is introducing a number of new automatic message moderation success to automatically censor offensive content.

Announced through a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft will be introducing a new host of options to help players tweak their gaming experience.

Within your Xboxs settings, players will soon be able to change their message filtration to a number of options. Theres friendly, medium, mature and unfiltered. Different filters ban different words accordingly.

Messages that get caught in the censorship filter will be blocked from view. If a message contains offensive words the message will instead say, Potentially offensive message hidden.

With content filtration, its essential that every player has the ability to choose their own filtration level, and that the settings work for gamers of all ages,Xbox said.

We recognise that while some adults use profanity without any ill intent while gaming, parents with small children likely wont find this same experience acceptable. Similarly, there are differences between the everyday speech youd use with your friends and harmful insults that could negatively impact anyone. With this in mind, weve ensured our safety settings are configurable along a spectrum from most filtered to least filtered so you can choose what is best for you.

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New Xbox message moderation will automatically censor offensive content - MSPoweruser

David Gelernters public renunciation of Darwinism set off shockwaves in the halls of academia and in the public square (see here, here, andhere). Atheist evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne responded to Gelernters defection with an article for Quillette, David Gelernter is Wrong About Ditching Darwin.

For those unfamiliar with Coyne, he earned the title Censor of the Year from Discovery Institute for his bullying tactics against Ball State University physics professor Eric Hedin (pictured above). Coyne, a professor at the University of Chicago, targeted Hedin for teaching a class on the Boundaries of Science that discussed the less controversial evidence for design in nature. With his friends at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Coyne launched a smear campaign. They successfully pressured the university into canceling Hedins class and censoring any scientific discussions that were not consistent with Coynes atheistic philosophical framework. No faculty would be allowed to mention any evidence for design in nature unless it was interpreted in materialist terms.

In contrast, thanks to the Yale computer scientists academic standing, Coyne was unable simply to coerce Gelernter into silence. Instead, he had to resort to engaging the actual arguments. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, Coyne misrepresented the science related to the fossil record, protein rarity, and developmental mutations. Critics have regularly mischaracterized design arguments and misinterpreted the related scientific literature, albeit often unintentionally (here, here, here, and here). Yet, most have demonstrated the good sense to publish their critiques in journals or other publications sufficiently biased to not allow any opportunity for responders to correct the errors.

Coyne would have been better advised to follow their example. It would have been much safer to promote his disinformation against Gelernter through an outlet equally committed to defending the Darwinist status quo. Instead, he made the fatal mistake of publishing in Quillette which values open-mindedness and honest inquiry. Reflecting these values, the editors followed up by publishing a detailed response to Coyne by paleontologist Gnter Bechly, mathematician David Berlinski, and myself. This reply exposed Coynes gross misunderstanding of the underlying science.

Quillettes choice to post our response to Coyne undoubtedly came as a shock to him. I am sure he expected complete freedom to smear the reputation of a distinguished scientist and to take his usual liberty with the facts. Instead, his ignorance and bias were put on detailed display.

What might be even more disturbing to him is the possibility that Quillette has set a precedent. Perhaps in the future, design critics will be held accountable for disseminating false and misleading information. As news agencies and the public get a look at journalism that models intellectual honesty and scientific accuracy, returning to the status quo could prove increasingly distasteful. Critics might then feel more obligated to accurately present our arguments and evidence. However, holding themselves to higher intellectual standards poses the challenge that they might in the end not have much left to say.

Photo: Eric Hedin, via Biola University.

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Censors Silenced Eric Hedin, but They Couldn't Silence David Gelernter: Here's Why It Matters - Discovery Institute

The creators of South Park have offered a mock apology to China following reports thatthe US TV comedyhas been banned by Beijing.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone posted the statement on Twitter after learning that all episodes, clips, reviews and references to their show have been removed from Chinese streaming and social media platforms, saysThe Guardian.

We welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and hearts, they wrote. Long live the Communist Party!

The apparent ban comes after the South Park team poked fun at Chinese censorship in a recent episode titled Band in China. The episode, aired in the US last week, sees cartoon dad Randy Marsharrested, imprisoned and forced into labour and re-education after travelling to the Asian superpower to grow his marijuana business, the BBCreports.

In one scene, he is forced to read aloud a message that says: I am a proud member of the Communist Party. The party is more important than the individual.

He later has a conversation with Winnie the Pooh and Piglet - a reference to the ban on images of Pooh introduced by China in 2017 after the fictional bear was compared with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Some people said Pooh looked like the Chinese president, sowere illegal in China now, says Piglet.

Randy responds: What kind of madhouse is this?

As well as mocking the Chinese authorities, the South Parkcreators so-called apology also refers to theUS National Basketball Association (NBA), which has distanced itself from a pro-Hong Kong protest tweet sent by Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets.

Morey later backtracked, saying: I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives. Rockets player James Harden added: We apologise. We love China.

Chinese media and authorities have overseen a near blackout of the Hong Kong protests, with levels of censorship reaching new highs, says the South China Morning Post.

Its a new record, said Dr Fu King-wa, a Hong Kong university scholar examining the extent of censorship. You can see that the keywords [in censored posts] such as police, justice, they are all linked to protest in Hong Kong.For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the weeks news agenda - try The Week magazine. Get your first six issues free

So just how stringent is censorship in China?

China is ranked 177th out of 180 countries for press freedom by Reporters Without Borders(RSF).

Chinas state and privately-owned media are now under the Communist Partys close control, while foreign reporters trying to work in China are encountering more and more obstacles in the field, say the international non-governmental organisation. More than 60 journalists and bloggers are currently detained in conditions that pose a threat to their lives.

Content from Chinese media is vetted by the authorities before it can be published.

Beijing has also detained number of freedom activists and human rights defenders, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died in custody in 2017 after being refused permission to seek treatment overseas for liver cancer.

Thousands of websites are blocked in China, including Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

And a Chinese cybersecurity law passed in 2017 obligates all internet companies operating in the country to monitor and censor users content, saysAmnesty International.

Under tougher internet regulations, members of the public can now be jailed for the comments on a news item that they post on a social network or messaging service, or even just for sharing content, says RSF.

Last year, Chinas main messaging service, WeChat, introduced new terms of service allowing the platform to collect personal information and pass data on its 900 million users to the government by default.

A friend of mine just got his WeChat account blocked for three days after he had a conversation with his friend talking about Chinas legal system, and reform of the legal system, Chinese journalist Karoline Kan told the BBC in September.

Meanwhile, many websites that report on activities that the authorities want censored - for example, pro-democracy protests - have seen their journalists arrested and mistreated in prison.

Some Chinese users get around the censors by using VPNs, virtual connections that encrypt data and disguise what the user is looking at online.

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Chinese censorship: what is banned? - The Week UK

Almost 60 years ago, Lady Chatterleys lover brought sex and lust into the courtroom and changed the way we thought about censoring literature.

What is it about literature and censorship? Some of the most influential books ever written have been censored because someone thought they were an affront to common decency, whatever that means. John Miltons Areopagitica (1644) was banned for political reasons; Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) was banned for being racially insensitive; JD Salingers The Catcher in the Rye (1951) apparently undermined morality. Melvilles Moby Dick (1851), Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Baldwins Another Country (1962), Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Nabokovs Lolita (1955), all banned. As recently as 1987, Toni Morrisons Beloved (1987), Salman Rushdies The Satanic Verses (1988) and Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code (2003) were banned in some countries. In 2015 copies of Bret Easton Elliss American Psycho (1991) were confiscated from Australian bookshops because they werent shrink-wrapped.

So many books, so many bans.

One book had a massive impact on the public perception of censorship: Lady Chatterleys Lover, DH Lawrences most famous or perhaps infamous work, which was finally published in Britain in 1960, thirty-two years after hed finished it and thirty years after Lawrence himself died from tuberculosis at the age of 44.

Lady Chatterleys Lover was published in Italy back in 1928, but its sexual explicitness was quickly labelled unmitigated smut; the book was declared obscene and banned in Britain and the United States.

It wasnt Lawrences first brush with the censors. The Rainbow (1915), the novel that followed his remarkable 1913 work Sons and Lovers was also judged obscene and banned after publication. Copies of The Rainbow were unceremoniously seized and burned, the authorities outraged at Lawrences candour regarding sexual attraction and yearning. Such notoriety made it difficult for him to find a publisher for Women in Love, published in 1920, three years after hed written it. Next came Lady Chatterleys Lover.

The story revolves around Connie, the free-thinking wife of an aristocrat whose wartime injuries have left him paralysed from the waist down. She has a few flings, but when the new gamekeeper Oliver arrives on the estate, Connie is instantly aroused. Just the sight of him sensuous, muscular, masculine is enough. Oliver exudes the vitality her husband lacks. At first he rejects her advances, mindful of the social divide that separates them, but before long their encounters are pretty torrid, Lawrence describing fiery loins, helplessly desiring hands and orgasms. It was all a little too much for the establishment.

The novel is about sex and sexual desire, but its also about class and social divides and the very real search for intimacy. And importantly, its also about the aftermath of World War I, which left so many men crippled either physically, emotionally or both. As well, its said to reflect elements of Lawrences own situation with his wife Freida, a complicated relationship to say the least. Freida had affairs, claiming Lawrence was impotent; they fought, they made up. But were not going into that here.

For a week during late 1960, publishers Penguin Books had to fight at the Old Bailey for the right to publish Lawrences novel banned under the Obscene Publications Act as a cheap paperback, which would make it affordable for most people. The prosecution maintained the ban should stay, that its pornographic elements far outweighed any consideration of literary merit, and that the liberal use of certain Anglo-Saxon four-letter words was disgusting. They felt it was far too raunchy for the masses to read.

Naturally, the defence argued that the books literary qualities and the novelists status as an author of significance should take precedence over prudish notions of what constituted obscenity. The defence called some 35 witnesses, among them academics and writers (including noted authors EM Forster, Cecil Day-Lewis and Rebecca West) to attest to the literary and inherently moral value of the controversial book. An eminent bishop testified that Lawrences depictions of sex were the equivalent of an act of holy communion.

The prosecuting lawyer was a pillar of the priggish upper class, which was in many ways far more horrified by the notion of inter-class adultery than by the use of obscene language. Generally speaking, the legal profession at that time was overly concerned with public morality; lawyers felt they had a duty to protect the public from perceived filth. He read out many descriptions of lovemaking from the book clearly meant to shock listeners, but was informed by witnesses that such descriptions, including the use of the words fuck, shit, arse etc were entirely appropriate in the circumstances. His next question was met with absolute hilarity in the court:

Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters because girls can read as well as boys reading this book? Is it a book you would have lying around your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?

Not many people had servants in 1960; juries were made up of ordinary working people (this particular jury included a butcher, a labourer and a machinist), and how out of touch was this man who had seemingly only recently discovered that girls could read as well as boys? He misjudged that one; the jury took a mere three hours to determine that Lady Chatterleys Lover did not contravene the Obscene Publications Act.

The beginning of the 1960s saw conservative attitudes beginning to take a back seat. Young people were moving away from the staid and proper behaviour of their parents and grandparents. Outlooks were changing. Even attitudes towards the trial were liberal, some newspaper editorials suggesting the money spent on prosecuting a work of literature would have been better spent in the investigation of actual exploitative pornography.

But social change is slow and there were many who were thoroughly outraged by the decision. They lodged official complaints and there were incidents of book burning. Some worried their children would be corrupted by the book.

Reports say that three million copies of Lady Chatterleys Lover were sold in the few months following the trial, people keen to see what all the fuss was about and no doubt looking forward to some titillation. Over the years, Lawrences lurid descriptions of sex have lost some impact were almost bombarded with sex these days but as already touched upon, the novel isnt just about a blistering liaison. Lawrence examines the impact of industry in post-war England and has much to say on the apparent differences between the aristocracy and the working class. Its this, as much as his characterisations and explorations of what makes people tick that make him an author of renown.

Looking at the case now, its clear that Penguins victory had a lasting impact. For one thing, the governments jurisdiction over personal morality had weakened. Censorship was now being seen as an infringement of individual judgement and private ethics. Interestingly, in 1971 when the Australian-born editors of Oz magazine were tried and convicted under the Obscene Publications Act, their conviction was quickly overturned.

Lady Chatterleys Lover was in a way a victory for liberalism, the notion that a book could lead people to live a debauched lifestyle dismissed out of hand.

Can certain literature truly corrupt us? Or does it just make for expensive court cases?

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Lady Chatterley's censor: Almost 60 years ago, a court case looked to save us from ourselves - The Big Smoke Australia