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Under censorships nefarious grip, cinema becomes not just a driver of social justice but a sophisticated tool of oppression.

There is, however, a positive side effect of censorship: Sometimes it inspires filmmakers to be more experimental, innovative and free-thinking. Case in point: Poland after World War II.

Under the Communist regime, Polish authorities raged war on moviemakers who tried to reveal that the states ballyhoo about progress was nothing more than propaganda. Any critique of the Soviet Union or the Polish Peoples Republic was silenced. For a new generation of filmmakers, young people disillusioned by the sacrifices made during the war, these laws became an invitation to rebela cinematic revolution handed to them on a silver plate.

Polish censors, under the primary censorship board at Gwny Urzd Kontroli Prasy, Publikacji i Widowisk (i.e. the Main Office for Control of the Press, Publications and Public Performances), were highly literary, capable of deciphering even the most sophisticated subversions in books, newspapers and other written formsbut they were quite impotent when it came to evaluating images. So beginning in 1957 with Andrzej Wajdas Kanal, Polish films started to develop and expand upon an intricate cinematic language of metaphors, allegories, symbols, poetic imagery and other means of non-verbal expression. In Kanals devastating final act, the dying fighters of the Warsaw Uprising represent different parts of Polish society, past and present. For censors, this sequence may have seemed like a condemnation of the insurrection.

Polish filmmakers were forced to learn how to say something without saying it directly, how to depict a reality that did not officially exist, says Ryszard Lenczewski, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of Pawe Pawlikowskis Ida (shot together with ukasz al). Lenczewski began his career in 1970s, when the battle for Polish cinema was raging on many fronts. This was a responsibility we all felt: to create layered images, images with double meanings that dared viewers to interpret them differently.

Andrzej Wajdas 1958 film Ashes and Diamonds

Viewers were depended upon to be active participants, decoding hidden meanings. It was all in the detailslike using wider lenses to show things you would not be able to show any other way. Something may be occurring in the background, slightly blurred. Sometimes all the film needed was to not include something or someone in the frame. Or to show a person in an unbalanced manner, i.e. a drunken assistant to a town mayor in Ashes and Diamonds.

That film, Wajdas 1958 masterpiece shot by cinematographer Jerzy Wjcik, is filled with symbols and layered imagery portraying everything wrong with post-war Poland. It made the censors heads spin. They knew the material was dangeroussome of them tried to stop it from reaching a wider audiencebut ultimately had to back off. Unsurprisingly, some messages were too cryptic for international audiences to decipher. Yet a universal cinematic language resonated for viewers in different parts of the globe. In the films most famous scene, the protagonist lights glasses of vodka as if they were candles, and the world understood the symbolism.

Censors, perturbed by the growing international acclaim, grew more paranoid. After we finished The Wedding, the censors held the material for two or three weeks without uttering a word of explanation, remembers Sawomir Idziak, camera operator under cinematographer Witold Sobociski on that Wajda film. The Oscar-nominated cinematographer (Black Hawk Down) started his career at the end of 1960s. They supposedly watched the film shot by shot, comparing it to the novel by Stanisaw Wyspiaski on which it was based to see if something was added or missing in an attack of the Communist order.

Idziak shot Krzysztof Kielowskis 1988 film A Short Film About Killing. I shot the film in this hideous yellow-greenish color to subtly hint at the directors idea that the country could be a killer, just like the main character. I remember one reviewer in Cannes writing that because the screen assumes the color of urine, it encapsulates the reality of Communist Poland. That was beautiful.

Krzysztof Kielowskis A Short Film About Killing, shot by Sawomir Idziak

The paradox was that state funding of these films and the censors decisions on how they should be seen were intrinsically linked. The government valued art, and wanted to produce films, yet wanted art to be propagandisticso instead of denying moviemakers the ability to create movies, officials chose to marginalize those that they didnt agree with, or those who they suspected of being subversive. Polish films were huge outside of PolandAmerican auteurs like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola saw them as masterpiecesbut their directors sometimes had to be content for the titles to, domestically, only reach a handful of city intellectuals who were opposing the regime anyway, as Idziak puts it. The truth is, many of these internationally applauded films, now classics, were commercial failures in Poland.

2017 marks the 28th anniversary of the fall of Communism in Poland, and the beginnings of a differentperhaps harsher and less forgivingtype of censorship: the dictates of the commercial market. Yet Idziak and Lenczewski, both distinguished film educators, consider this a good test for their countrymen.

We had to work with many limitations and yet we managed to speak our own voices, says Idziak. Now, the limitation is only within yourself. MM

Darek Kuma is a cinephile, film journalist, translator, freelancer, husband, father and Camerimage Film Festival programmer, not necessarily in that order.

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Turning Censorship Into Symbolism: How State Censorship Defined and Strengthened Post-War Polish Cinema - MovieMaker Magazine

(Last Updated On: March 29, 2017)

In order to appease the growing trend of third-wave feminist requests to censor the sexuality of fictional female characters, many developers have opted to cover up cleavage, make sure that the women in fantasy games are fully clothed with realistic designs, and remove things like jiggle or boob physics to placate SJWs, similar to Mortal Kombat X. Well, the developer of the action-RPG Kings Raid, Vespa Inc, received a lot of backlash after they attempted to censor and cover up their female characters.

Censored Gaming covered the incident, showcasing how many of the female characters in the game were covered up from head to toe to either hide cleavage, or add extra articles of clothing to lessen the sex appeal of the character illustrations and in-game models.

A large enough segment of their fans rebuffed this decision, complaining about Vespa censoring the characters in Kings Raid, the mobile hack-and-slash RPG.

The complaints were made in such abundance that just a day after the update was released, Vespa made a post on Facebook on March 24th, 2017 stating

We are aware that the update on March 23 has upset many of our Raiders, especially regarding the change brought to the Heroes appearances. As it is our ultimate goal to support and enhance the players experience, we have decided to take your voices to revoke some of the changes to the Heroes appearances.

They showed an image of the characters that were censored in the previous update, and how they were going to uncensor them in the following update, following the fan complaints.

As you can see, not only did they alter the games anime-style illustrations but they also modified the characters 3D meshes, covering them up and attempting to make them more conservatively dressed.

The backlash over the censorship rippled through the reviews of the game as well, with people complaining about the change.

While a lot of fans thanked Vespa for uncensoring the characters, others complained that the game should be censored and that they also need to remove one of the staple features in Kings Raid: the boob physics.

One of the people on the Google Play store going by the handle of Narendra MC wrote

Well, in overall its good. I just saw some comments about censorship and i really think that it doesnt really matter to people who arent a bunch of horndogs. I support censhorship as it reduces the possibility of people becoming more attracted in to sexual stuff.

The Facebook page where the announcement was originally made is now a full sociopolitical argument over censorship, female sexuality and identity politics.

Many male Asian gamers like the boob physics and cleavage. Many European and North American gamers are complaining about the sexualization of the characters and saying that the original art caters toward perverted gamers. Awais from Ontario, Canada wrote

They didnt even do anything wrong. Cant believe how ridiculous most of you adults were over a little censoring. Absolutely ridiculous how no one appreciates a company for finally focusing less on satisfying the perverted gamers Nope, but its alright because as long as you get to drool over pixel tits, theres nothing wrong right? Shameless community cant think outside theyre horny little bubbles.

As evidenced on the Facebook page, Awais was clearly in the minority with his beliefs and was shouted down by a lot of other gamers.

Additionally, Censored Gaming pointed out that Vespa never actually stated the reasons as to why they made the change in the first place.

The Western release of Kings Raid is rather recent, though. It launched back in the middle of February, 2017. The Asian version of the game was available since the middle of last year in 2016. The game was quite popular for bringing hardcore hack-and-slash action to mobile devices with PS2-quality graphics and a lot of fan-service.

As showcased in the video below from Android Gameplay, the in-game characters, illustrations and dialogue sequences were filled with plenty of fan-service, lots of cleavage and jiggle physics.

Vespa may have weighed the complaints of Western gamers versus Eastern gamers and attempted to make the change. However, if the gamers who actually bought microtransactions are the ones who enjoyed the fan-service, then Vespa may have decided to revert back to the uncensored version of the game to appease the people who actually put money in their coffers.

However, all of the above is just speculation when it comes to the reasons behind Vespa uncensoring Kings Raid. Unless the company decides to share their reasons such as the Dragon Heroes developers who were forced by Google and Apple to censor their game we dont actually know why they censored and then uncensored the game, but it was pretty obvious a significant portion of the community was not happy with the censorship.

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King's Raid Devs Remove Censorship Following Fan Complaints - One Angry Gamer (blog)

Twitter has upped its censorship game and is now blocking certain terms from showing up on the platforms built-in search engine. The added filters are part of the companys plans to reduce harassment on the service. Some of these filters were deployed earlier this month when users were given the option to mute certain types of accounts.

As with previous efforts to convert Twitter into a safe space, free from wrongthink and uncomfortable opinions, the company that once branded itself as the free speech wing of the free speech party has offered little transparency on the terms it filters out of its search engine. Furthermore, its enabled by defaultand the settings to disable safe search are hidden away on the Search page, so you wont find them with the rest of your account preferences.

Users on the platform were quick to discover how looking up certain terms returnedzero results. Examples of prohibited terms include porn, BDSM, sex, and kink. Other censored words include hentai, and nsfwneither of which show up in the search results. Curiously, racial slurs like the n-word and terms like jihad still show up unfiltered.

Over the weekend, the terms marijuana and cannabis were also filtered out out the search engine. Butcomplaints may have prompted the platform to uncensor the term, as it now shows up.

The filtering system doesnt even work as its developers intendedsensitive terms are filtered out on the Latest tab, but youll still find some of them in the Top tab. Twitters censorship is confusing and lacks the transparency necessary to be useful to users.

Twitter is well within its rights to implement safety features, but so far, theyve only hurt usability. After all, who uses Twitter search to look for porn?

Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at@stillgray on Twitterand onFacebook.

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Twitter Censors Search Terms, Offers No Transparency and Mixed ... - Heat Street

#HandsOffSocialMedia: A PROPOSAL to regulate social media has been put forward by minister of state security, David Mahlobo and citizens are outraged.

An online petition by the Right 2 Know (R2K) Organisation against the proposal has garnered nearly 1,000 votes by South Africans who believe their freedom of speech under threat.

The independent courts, a vibrant civil society and critical media are essential to the democratic process, especially when state entities fail to act with integrity, transparency or accountability. It is the executives paranoia and abuse of power that undermines democracy and creates instability.

R2K has already raised concerns that SAs state-security structures have abused their surveillance powers and shown a disregard for democratic process. Mahlobos regime change mantra is part of a recycled narrative where members of the security cluster have tried to paint their critics as threats that must be targeted, read a statement by R2K.

People have taken to Twitter to express their opposition to the proposal with the hashtag #HandsOffSocialMedia.

Government wants to prevent the word of the common people so corruption can continue to rape our land. #Durban2022 #HandsOffSocialMedia

— Yashik Singh (@yashiks) March 13, 2017

https://twitter.com/Jiggasyd/status/841238372614057984

Better yet use those funds against some of the fiscal activities...unemployment... tertiary education funding #HandsOffSocialMedia

— Lotus? (@PhumiG) March 7, 2017

Social media law specialist, Emma Sadleir even commented on the situation:

In sum: The answer to bad speech, is more speech #HandsOffSocialMedia @DJFreshSA

— Emma Sadleir Berkowitz (@EmmaSadleir) March 8, 2017

The campaign packaged the plan to regulate social media among other bills as affronts to freedom from censorship.

It comes on the back of a range of existing, deeply problematic censorship policies, including the Film and Publication Boards internet censorship regulations, the draft Hate Speech Bill, and the new Cybercrimes Bill, which would hand the keys of the internet to David Mahlobo.

Regulation of social media already exists platforms like Twitter and Facebook have added self-regulation measures to empower users to take action against online harassment and cut down on the spread of fake news and propaganda. These systems are flawed, and users need to be empowered to engage with content critically and decide for themselves whether to trust the content they access.

Giving state security any role in regulation is a sure path to internet censorship.

What do you think about the proposal? Talk to us.

Do you have more information pertaining to this story? Feel free to let us know by commenting on our Facebook page or you can contact our newsroom on 031 903 2341 and speak to a journalist.

DID YOU KNOW? Click on the words highlighted in red to read more on this and related topics. To receive news links via WhatsApp, send an invite to 061 876 3179 The Southlands Sun is also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest why not join us there?

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#HandsOffSocialMedia as 'internet censorship' bill booed - Southlands Sun

Columnist Ali Spies revealed last week in The Standard that her COM 115: Fundamentals of Public Speaking instructor, purportedly acting on instructions of the Department of Communication, rejected her proposal to research, compose and deliver a brief speech about Planned Parenthood in the United States. The instructor asserted that the topic has ... too much controversy ... and implied that, while some controversy might be acceptable, too much controversy is off-limits. Spiess Department of Communication instructor censored Spies. Dr. Shawn T. Wahl heads the MSU Department of Communication.

George Anastaplo, a professor of law at Loyola University in Chicago, wrote that censorship is ... the changing or the suppression or prohibition of speech or writing that is deemed subversive of the common good. In other words, our universitys Department of Communication determined before Spies had begun to research her topic that mere mention of the topic would subvert the well-being of our academic community. Without further explanation, we can only speculate in our collective bafflement how the history of Planned Parenthood could possibly subvert the moral or physical welfare of our academic community.

The Department of Communications intellectual tyranny is not unique. A member of the Department of English censored me several semesters ago. In a fiction writing class, I submitted a story that included horrific violence to be discussed and evaluated by my classmates and instructor during our next class.

The instructor inexplicably failed to read the entire piece until just before class, although all of my classmates had read it. Rather than proceed, the instructor blindsided me and told the class that my story was inappropriate for class discussion.

The instructors censorship struck me as particularly hypocritical, given not only the graphic sex and violence in some of the published short stories the instructor had assigned the class to read, but also the instructors reading aloud to the class a lengthy and particularly graphic episode of deviant sex excerpted from one of those assigned short stories. The smug instructors hypocrisy is now part of a successful, if mediocre, academic career.

Given the Department of Communications irrational fear of controversy, its rewriting of Emma Lazaruss sentiment on the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty, might well read:

Give me your apathetic, your indolent,

Your texting masses yearning to shop,

The benighted spawn of your vacuous world.

Send these, the complacent, directionless to me,

I lift my middle finger to their delusive dreams!

Censorship at a university is an abuse of power and a corruption of authority; it is a tool of bullies and despots whose victims are never the same. This toxic silencing stunts the intellectual growth of students and abuses them to such a degree that, out of paranoia, they self-correct whenever they feel theyve entered uncharted territory. They fear rocking the boat; their souls are crippled and their respect for instructors of all ranks becomes wary and stressful.

If Einstein had been intimidated effectively by mediocre instructors, would it have delayed special relativity or general relativity? If incompetent, self-hating instructors had strong-armed Lincoln, would he have authored the Emancipation Proclamation? Is it unreasonable to hope that theres a special place in Hell for I darent eat a peach instructors who hog-tie youths exuberant and yeasty passions for learning?

Whether the above incidents of censorship are anomalies or part and parcel of university dry-rot and mediocrity needs to be investigated, but first, Missouri State President Clif Smart and Wahl each needs to apologize to Spies for permitting censorship to exist on their collective watch. Since Spiess experience is now quite public, both Smarts and Wahls apologies should also be public; our academic community demands redress.

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Censorship: Is it happening at MSU? - Standard Online

Two media associations have called on the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) to review its committee's order to black out Voice TV's broadcasts for seven days, saying it harms media freedom.

The call was made by the Thai Journalists Association (TJA) and the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association (TBJA), which released a joint statement Tuesday.

They made the call a day after the NBTC board decided to punish Voice TV, which belongs to the Shinawatra family, for airing content that violated the NCPO's announcements Nos.97 and 103, and Section 97 of the NBTC Act more than 10 times last year.

The NBTC said the content was inappropriate and could lead to social divisions.

The associations said they oppose the committee's decision to suspend the channel's licence for seven days.

They said the suspension order could affect media employees who may have nothing to do with the TV content or were unaware of the anchors' actions.

If the committee had suspended particular programmes, the impact would be felt only by those producing the programmes, but the suspension of the channel's licence would have a larger impact, they said.

The NBTC is an independent agency which provides licences to the TV operators and regulates them.

If it uses its power carelessly, media freedom could suffer, they said.

The committee cited complaints from the media monitoring panel of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) in making its order, which suggested the committee was susceptible to allowing those in power to damage the agency's independence, they said.

The move will undermine the credibility of the NBTC and affect the freedom of its regulated media outlets, they said.

The committee's resolution also conflicts with both the 1997 and 2006 constitutions, which safeguard those in the media who deliver news or opinions in compliance with their career ethics.

The charters bar any orders which force the closure of media outlets to infringe on their freedom, according to the associations.

They said that in the case of Voice TV, any problematic programmes could be considered on a case-by-case basis and power should not have been used to suspend the TV licence.

Authorities also have the right to file police complaints against TV channels, if their broadcasts affect national security, infringe on people's privacy or defame them, they said.

Meanwhile, NCPO spokesman Winthai Suvaree insisted the temporary suspension of Voice TV's licence has nothing to do with the NCPO and the council did not request the NBTC to act on the matter.

"That is up to the NBTC to consider, which was made according to its own process," said Col Winthai, adding the suspension may have resulted because earlier warnings to the channel went unheeded.

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Media groups rap Voice TV censorship - Bangkok Post

People in the Chinese megacity Chongqing could be fined for using VPNs to jump over the countrys Great Firewall that blocks access to forbidden websites from Google to Facebook.

The punishment would be meted out to people using virtual private networks to access banned sites for commercial purposes, but Amnesty International said the wording was vague enough that it could affect any business or individual.

Photo: Marc Oh.

Anyone who skirts censorship controls in the southwestern metropolis of 30 million people will receive a warning to disconnect from the internet, the Chongqing government said Monday.

Those who make a profit of more than 5,000 yuan ($730) while using VPNs will be fined 5,000-15,000 yuan, according to the updated internet security regulation which came into effect in July but only announced this week.

The move is a departure from authorities previous approach of reinforcing the governments Great Firewall to block VPN providers, who provide virtual tunnels that allow users to evade Chinas vast censorship system.

It looks like such practices might be extended to other parts of China if Chongqing police succeed in punishing people using VPNs, Amnesty Internationals China researcher Patrick Poon told AFP.

In January Beijing launched a campaign to crack down on such tools.

While China is home to the worlds largest number of internet users, a 2015 report by US think tank Freedom House found that the country had the most restrictive online use policies of 65 nations it studied, ranking below Iran and Syria.

But China has maintained that its various forms of web censorship are necessary for protecting its national security.

Sites blocked due to their content or sensitivity, among them Facebook, Twitter, Google Search and Gmail, cannot be accessed in China without VPNs.

The national VPN crackdown and Chongqing campaign come after the passing of a controversial cybersecurity bill last November that tightened restrictions on online freedom of speech and imposed new rules on service providers.

Earlier this month, Beijing said it would push a China solution to global cyber governance after releasing a strategy paper outlining a vision of the web where individual countries control the information that flows across their borders.

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Chongqing citizens using VPNs to skirt censorship controls to face fines, govt says - Hong Kong Free Press