Archive for the ‘Censorship’ Category

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Leakyboob says censor others, but not us.

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

Founder of the website theleakyboob.com, Jessica Martin-Weber, has been fighting  censorship of her Facebook page that deals with women’s breast issues.   I wrote about this controversy earlier this month.

From Houston Press:

FB recently took down her Leaky Boob page, saying it violated its terms of service. In other words, it showed boobs. (Leaky ones, we assume.) After howls of protest, they’ve reinstated it, although Martin-Weber is not yet satisfied.

She wants to be assured the reinstatement is permanent.

But what is Jessica Martin-Weber’s stance on censoring other nudity?

“The main issue is that Facebook appears to have no way of differentiating between spring break pictures and breast health content,” she says. “I don’t want to see pictures with sexual content on Facebook, and I’m glad they work hard to keep that content off their site. But, there is a clear difference between photos and information about breastfeeding and breast cancer awareness and girls gone crazy.”

So, she’s all in favor of censoring nudity as long as her stuff isn’t targeted.

Of course, people are entitled to their own opinions on what constitutes good nudity and what is bad nudity, and Facebook is certainly free to make its own rules (including whether to ban breast feeding pictures).   Furthermore, people are free to use Facebook or not.  But, I also reserve the right to be critical of Facebook (and others such as Apple with their iPod) for their stand on an outright ban on material they deem to be taboo rather than making an attempt to accommodate those with interests that fall outside the range of what’s socially permissible for 4th graders.

Posted in Censorship, Nudity | 3 Comments »

Smithsonian censors gay art exhibit

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC sponsored a an art exhibit called “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,”  which focused on gay artists of the past century.  Things went well for a while, but then…

From HuffPo:

Nearly six weeks into the show’s run, some members of Congress led by GOP Leader Congressman John Boehner, encouraged by the ire and financial backing of certain religious zealots, decided that one work, in particular, must be removed from the exhibit, David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly. Without even a moment of public discourse, the Smithsonian team ‘stepped and fetched.’

As in every case of art, he who pays the piper, calls the tune.  When the artists rely on government handouts, they shouldn’t be surprised when government officials impose restrictions as demanded by favored interest groups, in this case Catholic League president William Donohue, who dubbed the video “hate speech”.  Hate speech is, of course, a term used to summarily dismiss expression in a way that discourages debate.  After all, who could possibly support hate speech.

The arts could survive just fine without government financial support and if some work needs government support to exist, then I question its value and why I should be forced, through my taxes, to subsidize something that no one else cares about or likes.

Another problem with government support of the arts is that the government  becomes the arbiter of what constitutes legitimate art.   Artists then tend to tailor their work so as to not be excluded.  In that way the government suppresses what it doesn’t like and encourages artists to express what is politically acceptable.

It’s a disgrace that Congress would fund a museum that excludes First Amendment protection.  If they want to be in the museum business, they should perhaps consider incorporating a higher level of integrity into that endeavor than they are used to with everything else they do.  A lot higher.

Posted in Art, Censorship, District of Columbia, LGBT, Politics, Relgious Zealotry | 1 Comment »

Facebook targets breastfeeders again

Friday, January 7th, 2011

The social netwroking site, Facebook, is again in the news for deleting pages that deal with the socially unacceptable topic of breast feeding.

From the New York Times:

This past weekend, Facebook deleted the page for The Leaky B@@b, a breast-feeding support group where thousands of women come to ask questions and trade answers. It was the latest in an ongoing series of skirmishes between Facebook and nursing mothers — specifically those who have posted photos of their children breast-feeding.

This is nothing new for Facebook.  I wrote about a similar incident back in April.

Apparently Facebook is not really very consistent or systematic in the process by which they purge material they don’t like:

Soon things got interesting. Martin-Weber issued a statement asking for her page back, and also demanding that Facebook stop treating breast-feeding as an obscenity. Facebook, in turn, appears to have deleted the pages of several women who were members of the original group. On Tuesday the Leaky B@@b page was reinstated, and Facebook called the deletion a mistake.  Then, that same night, it was deleted again. Yesterday afternoon it was back. Last I checked, though, while one of the protest groups, TLB Support, is still in existence, the other, Bring Back the Leaky Boob has disappeared. A third page, Bring Back the Leaky Boob — Again, seems to have popped up in its place.

My main concern over cases like this is our increasing dependency on networking sites like this that impose arbitrary rules that are enforced inconsistently.  Being private companies, they certainly have the right to decide how their sites are run, while we as customers can go elsewhere of we don’t like their policies.  The problem begins when some tragedy triggers a paranoid response that gives the government an excuse to pass legislation that forces internet companies to police the content on their networks.

If you remember, just before Craigslist capitulated to the intimidation campaign demanding the removal of their adult services section, Congress held a hearing about whether sites like Craigslist should be held accountable for content they carry.  By doing so, private companies would immediately be forced to eliminate any content that might expose them to civil suit or criminal prosecution whether that content was protected by the First Amendment or not.  In other words, simply by making private companies responsible, the government could sidestep any need to prove the content was in actual violation of the law.  Companies are not bound by the First Amendment and their strategy would necessarily be to err on the side of caution.

Personally, I think this is inevitable.  It’s just too easy and attractive an option for the government not to exploit it.  It’s only a matter of time.

Posted in Censorship, Nudity, Obscenity, Women's Rights | 3 Comments »

New revisionist edition of Huckleberry Finn

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Mark Twain’s book, Huckleberry Finn is one of those literary works that is perpetually under attack for being racially offensive.  Despite its acclaim as a literary classic, demands for its removal from school reading lists are so common as to not even be newsworthy anymore.

But, forget all that.  Publisher NewSouth Books  now intends to improve the book by printing an edition that will purge the word “nigger” and replace it with “slave”.

The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it.

Alan Gribben is an Auburn University (Montgomery) professor and the author of several books about Twain.

There have been numerous complaints that this amounts to censorship and all the internet polls that I’ve seen show that 85-93% of people oppose the alteration.  To me it smacks of revisionism and reminds me of Winston Smith’s job at the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s book, “Nineteen Eighty-Four“.  His job was to review historical records and alter them to fit the government’s preferred version of events.  Of course, NewSouth Books is not the government, but they are responding to social pressures which can be even more powerful than government.  From the public response, it would seem they missed the mark, but there is no doubt that the word “nigger” has become so taboo that you would be hard pressed to find it mentioned in mainstream news articles covering this story even though the story is, in fact, about that very word.  In other words, they won’t even print the word they’re discussing for fear of offending someone.  That parnoid approach to journalism is reminiscent of the media’s fear of printing cartoons depicting the prophet Mohamed and underscores the need for nontraditional news outlets (now provided by the internet).

On the other hand, if this puts the book into the hands of kids who would not otherwise be allowed to read it due to forces beyond their control (overprotective parents and the school boards they frighten), then maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

Actually, nothing makes a book more appealing that banning it.  Censorship almost always results in increased exposure and interest in uncensored versions of books, movies, and the arts.

The real problem here is that we are raising a generation of children who are being inculcated with the idea that a mere arrangement of letters is something to be feared independent of the context.  Of course, that fits in quite nicely with the belief that it’s perfectly permissible to outlaw imagery that portrays verboten sexual fantasies.  And these children will grow up with a view that freedom of expression should be restricted because of the potential for harm.

There is no such thing as a little censorship.

Posted in Bad Words, Books, Censorship, United States | 5 Comments »

Virginia DMV sees child sex everywhere

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

This license plate was found by Mr D. B. Smit of the Virginia DMV to be in violation of their license plate guidelines after a complaint was received from an “anonymous citizen”.

From jalopnik.com:

A man in possession of the world’s greatest license plate has lost his battle with the Virginia DMV, who ridiculously claim it encourages oral sex with kids instead of just cannibalism.

The website also includes a copy of the letter from D.B. Smit of the DMV to the holder of plates demanding that he return them.

Dear Mr D.B. Smit:

Congratulations!  You have managed to take an innocent bit of benign humor (something the world could use more of) and magically transformed it into an example of paranoid absurdity that only an idiot state bureaucrat is capable of.   When advanced alien life forms visit earth and declare that the only way to save it is to destroy it, they will probably be thinking of assholes like you.

Posted in Censorship, Child Molestation, Humor, Paranoia, Virginia | 5 Comments »

Sydney Children’s Hospital steps on its own dick

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

A charity event at the Sydney Children’s Hospital fell apart after hospital officials rejected one of the exhibited works by artist, Del Kathryn Barton.  The offending piece is a photograph of the artist’s six year old son naked from the waist up.

While the decision cost the hospital a $200,000 from the proceeds of exhibit, the real stunner is that the hospital embarrassed itself so thoroughly in front of the entire world by abandoning the exhibit to begin with.  The degree of paranoia associated with child nudity has soared way beyond the bounds of rationality into the land of utter lunacy.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Tamara Winikoff, the executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, said decisions such as this were ”absurd and tragic”.

She said that since the Henson scandal, when photographs of youths and children by Bill Henson, one of Australia’s most famous artists, prompted media outrage and a police investigation, authorities were scared to associate themselves with any images of children.

”In our zeal to protect children we are erasing them entirely,” she said.

She said nudity was being conflated with pornography, even though representations of nudity had been part of Australia’s artistic tradition throughout history.

I posted briefly about Australia’s reaction to Bill Hensen back in January, 2010 (3rd item down).

The Henson scandal came after similar incidents during the previous two decades in the US where groups – often Christian – attacked artworks, which prompted failed police actions.

Christian groups in the U.S. attacking art?  I’m stunned!  I guess they must only believe in the part of the First Amendment that pertains to their religious proclivities.

Posted in Art, Australia, Censorship, Nudity, Relgious Zealotry, United States | 4 Comments »

FCC suffers setback in its censorship crusade

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

The Second Circuit ruled against the FCC and its attempt to fine ABC $1.4 million for showing actress actress Charlotte Ross nude in a scene of the TV show “NYPD Blue”.

From thewrap.com:

In overturning the citation, the court said the FCC’s “indecency policy” violated First Amendment rights and was constitutionally vague.

As we know, the FCC is the branch of the federal government in charge of making television safe for children by ensuring it never targets an audience above the third grade.

The Parents Television Council, condemned the decision:

“Once again the Second Circuit has proclaimed that it knows better than the Supreme Court, the Congress, the FCC, and the overwhelming majority of the American people. Regardless of one’s political viewpoint – left, center or right – this may well be the most egregious example of ‘legislating from the bench’ that our Federal Court system has ever witnessed,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

Mr. Winter apparently doesn’t understand that most children have only two parents and raising them is not the fucking responsibility of “the overwhelming majority of the American People”.    One of the problems with democracy is that people think it can be used as a hammer to forge everyone into conformance with one social standard as determined by the loudest of moral crusaders.  Guess what. Mr Winter.  No one’s kid suffered irreparable brain damage at the sight of Charlotte Ross’s ass.  In fact, their lives were probably enriched by it.

I found the clip on youtube last night, so if I remember when I get home, I’ll add it to this post.  For the record, Charlotte Ross has a damn nice ass.

[UPDATE  1/6/11]  I couldn’t find any clips without some added commentary, but this shows the essentials

Posted in Censorship, FCC, United States | 2 Comments »

Is Judd manipulating the law for fame and glory?

Sunday, December 26th, 2010

If you’ve been keeping up with this story, you know that Polk County, Florida, Sheriff Grady Judd had Colorado resident, Phillip Greaves, arrested last Monday for mailing a book called “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct” to Florida cops.

It should be noted that Greaves is not accused of pedophilia or any other act of injuring a child.  He simply wrote a book that discussed the topic.

And the man who had him arrested?  Well here is what Sheriff Judd says about the case:

“This has nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with obscenity,” Judd said. “We had a law in Florida that applied. We only needed jurisdiction.”

So, not only is Sheriff Judd completely ignorant of the historical conflict between obscenity laws and free speech, he sees absolutely nothing wrong with enforcing Florida state laws on Colorado residents.

When it comes to egotistical idiocy, Judd is clearly off the charts.  And, of course, who pays for that idiocy?  Well, certainly not the idiot.  Nope.  Phillip Greaves must sit in jail waiting for court system to throw out the charges, which is a near inevitability.  But  Judd will be a hero because there is no such thing as being too hard on anyone accused of a crime against children.  Innocence or guilt does not factor into the lynch mob mentality which is the force that modulates the public in cases like this.

Finally, as reported in AVN, in order to extradite Greaves, it was necessary to charge him with a felony, but his book apparently doesn’t violate any of the felony provisions of the law under which he was charged.  In order to rise to the level of a felony, the book would have to include pictures of actual children.

This apparent manipulation by Florida law enforcement of its own statutes could undermine the case and lead to even bigger headaches for the County.

Judd in his rush to exploit the sensational story to his own ends might wind up being sued (which really only penalizes the taxpayers).

The story, said Walters, was a national one even before Judd stuck his nose into it, which he probably did for the very fact that it was national. But the national appeal of such a case could also provide Greaves with a legal defense team that he could never in his life afford. He will probably be forced to use a public defender at first, said Walters, but soon, he expects to see a team of top drawer First Amendment lawyers descend upon the state and offer Greaves their services.

As is often the case, the porn industry is at the forefront of the fight to defend the First Amendment from those who would gladly trample it to satisfy their own narrow moral or political agenda.

In the end, as I have often written, the First Amendment contains no exceptions for obscenity.  The Supreme Court pulled obscenity exemption out of its collective ass.  It’s like saying that the First Amendment protects free speech unless its really offensive to enough people, in which case we will pretend there is no First Amendment.  The fact is, of course, the First Amendment is designed specifically to protect offensive speech.

Posted in Censorship, Colorado, Florida, Obscenity, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Rights of the Accused | 6 Comments »

Three Hot Babes debate the UK’s Porn Block

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Reason Magazine’s Katherine Mangu-Ward and Safety101.org’s Cris Clapp Logan discuss the UK’s plan to block all internet porn on RT’s Alyona Show.

Gotta love the characterization by Cris Clapp Logan (at 1:45) that porn is a “mental health issue”.  Ms Mangu-Ward does a nice job of pointing out that “voluntary” compliance is ensured by threats of legislation to make it mandatory.

This video talks about the apparent requirement that internet users specify precisely which adult sites they want access to rather than just being able to turn the blocking completely on or off.  If that is indeed the case, that means the government will have a data base that lists every porn someone visits.  If that doesn’t generate a huge public uproar, then the UK is a completely lost cause in the fight for internet freedom.

The question is asked whether something like this could find its way to the U.S.   Well, think about it.  We’re banning toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals.  Not only could this type of blocking be introduced to the U.S., but it would probably also block violence, smoking, profanity, drug use, drinking, etc.  The possibilities are endless.

By the way, internetsafety101.org is better known as Enough is Enough which was started by Donna Rice Hughes, famous for her adulterous affair in 1984 with front running presidential candidate Gary Hart and now less famous for her moral crusade against pornography.

Posted in Censorship, Pornography, United Kingdom | 8 Comments »

Conflating speech and behavior

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

One of the common characteristics of moral crusades is that the boundary between speech and behavior is often lost.  A recent case in point came after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks when someone’s lack of support for the U.S. response to that attack automatically branded them as being an enemy (George W. Bush: “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists”).

Even more common is the assumption that merely refusing to mimic the  popular condemnation of an act, necessarily means that person is willing to engage in it.  Examples of such witch hunts include McCarthyism in the 40s and the daycare sex abuse hysteria of the 80s and 90s.  Historically such cases are almost universally recognized as having been driven by an irrational mob mentality.  But when they are in full swing, they attract huge popular support by people who believe they are the righteous protectors of civilization.

Such has been the recent case with the media fueled social crusade against Craigslist and others.  One of those “others” is Phillip Greaves whose name made it into the headlines recently when he offered a book on amazon.com called “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct”. As I wrote back in November, Amazon was pressured to remove the book which it finally did after some token resistance.

Mr Greaves was arrested on Monday.  The Citizen Media Law Project provides an interesting characterization of the event:

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd had Mr. Greaves arrested in Pueblo, Colorado on obscenity charges.Lets remember that Grady Judd’s jurisdiction is home to meth labs, cops who diddle children, and a pretty high incest rate.

Despite the “real crime” in his jurisdiction, Judd instructed his detectives to request an autographed copy of the book. Mr. Greaves obliged and Judd used that as his justification for having Greaves indicted on obscenity charges in his little caliphate of inbred-methistan.

Remember, this is simply for expressing his thoughts about about pedophilia.  I have not read of any evidence that Mr Greaves has ever harmed any child.

Greaves told ABC News last month he wasn’t trying to promote pedophilia and was not himself a pedophile: “I’m not saying I want them around children, I’m saying if they’re there, that’s how I want them to [behave].” (source)

The entire article, written by Marc J. Randazza, is well worth reading for its uncompromising support for free speech and for the author’s clear understanding that behavior and speech are different things.  While criminal behavior can be prosecuted, simply talking about it is protected by the First Amendment.

The implications of this arrest should outrage you far more than any child molestation incident. That is not to minimize child molestation, nor is it me just trying to be provocative. If a child gets molested, our republic stands. If petty little white-trash sheriffs like Grady Judd can find a book they don’t like and have the author hauled off to jail for it, the First Amendment means nothing. Judd’s offense is compounded by the fact that Mr. Greaves does not live in Florida and has no connection to Polk County except that he mailed a book there at the express request of a law enforcement officer who was clearly trying to manufacture jurisdiction.

I like Mr Randazza’s writing style.  He is outraged (as all of us who value the First Amendment should be).

Posted in Censorship, Florida, Obscenity | 1 Comment »

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