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Joy Behar was just a little too quick with a rare swear Wednesday for the censors delay.

The View crew was wrapping a segment about Twitter possibly bringing back Donald Trump when something hit the fan and whoever had their finger on the bleep button was a step slow. It wasnt clear how wide the FCC no-no word was broadcast, but it was clearly heard in realtime at TheWrap, and captured in the (NSFW!) video above.

He can say stupid things anywhere, Behar said, then adding over crosstalk: Yeah. Exactly. The previous tweets were all dumb shit!

The bleep or as it is these days, a block of silence hit the moment Behar bit down on the t. By the time the audio returned, Behar was already backtracking as her co-hosts realized what shed just said.

Behar may have been doing the math on what the folks at the FCC known to be sticky about the so-called seven dirty words will think of the escaped s-bomb.

I didnt say it, I didnt say it, she insisted, referring to the thing shed just said.

ABC did not immediately return messages left for comment Wednesday.

Andi Ortiz contributed to this story.

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Joy Behar S-Bomb Slips Past Censors on The View - TheWrap

What is Censorship?Censorship is the act of altering, adjusting, editing, or banning of media resulting from the presumption that its content is perceived to be objectionable, incendiary, illicit, or immoral by the presiding governmental body of a specific country or nation or a private institution. The ideology and methodology of Censorship varies greatly on both domestic and international levels, as well as public and private institutions. Governmental Censorship

Governmental Censorship takes place in the event that the content, subject matter, or intent latent within an individual form of media is considered to exist in contrast with preexisting statutory regulations and legislation. In many cases, the censorship of media will be analogous with corollary laws in existence. For example, in countries or nations in which specific actions or activities are prohibited, media containing that nature of presumed illegal subject matter may be subject to Censorship. However, the mere mention of such subject matter will not always result in censorship; the following methods of classification are typically enacted with regard to a governmentally-instituted statutory Censorship:Censorship within the Public SectorThe public sector is defined as any setting in which individuals of all ages inhabit that comply with legal statutes of accepted morality and proper behavior; this differs by locale the nature of the public sector is defined with regard to the nature of the respective form of media and its adherence to legislation:The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sanctioned by the federal government of the United States in order to regulate the activity taking place in the public setting-based mediaCensorship and IntentWith regard to Censorship, intent is legally defined as the intended result for which one hopes as a result of their participation in the release or authorship of media; typically, proponents for individual censorship will be required to prove that the intent latent within the media in question was enacted knowingly and deliberately in any lack of adherence to legislationCensorship and Privacy

With Regard to censorship, privacy is a state in which an individual is free to act according to their respective discretion with regard to legal or lawful behavior; however, regardless of the private sector, the adherence to legislation and legality is requiredPrivate and Institutional Censorship

Private institutions retain the right to censor media which they may find objectionable; this is due to the fact that the participants in private or independent institutions are defined as willing participants. As a result, upon joining or participating in a private institution, the individuals concede to adhere to applicable regulations:

In many cases, the party responsible for an institutions funding may reserve the right to regulate the censorship of media undertakenThe modernization of censorship laws within the United States, the Federal Government will rarely call for specific, nationalized Censorship unless the content is agreed to be detrimental to the public wellbeing; in contrast, an interest group may choose to censor media that they feel may either deter or contradict their respective ideologies

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Understanding Censorship - Censorship - LAWS.com

Last summer, as protests gathered steam in Cuba, the internet shut down. The general consensus was that the government had instituted the blackout to smother protests. Whether it worked or not is still under question, but that hasnt stopped internet censorship from spreading and not just among undemocratic governments.

Even some of the purportedly freest countries on Earth are increasingly being tempted to use censorship, especially as a blunt tool for unplugging the internet for all. And increasingly, this is now giving way to the surgical precision of specialized, cheap, off-the-shelf products that can help trace and silence specific groups, messages, or individuals.

In this sense, Latin America is a perfect testing ground. Its a region where the majority of states are technically democracies, but where governments slip towards authoritarian methods to get things done from time to time. Governments are using facial recognition technology that disproportionately hurts Black citizens or spying on opposition journalists, sometimes with the broad support of their own citizens.

But, as a global investigation undertaken by Rest of World revealed this week, the silencing goes beyond disruptive internet kill switches or the infamous, and expensive, Pegasus software used for years by governments across the world and Latin America. Today, far more sophisticated and affordable tools exist. These include deep packet inspection, known as DPI, which allows data and the way it moves on the internet to be read by an outside entity.

These rather shady-sounding tools often have legal and legitimate uses, either because of security concerns or because they can help ameliorate the efficiency of traffic. Its what makes this sort of software so problematic; it is a neutral tool that could prevent child pornography or make your Netflix run faster. It can also shut down and silence a governments political opposition.

The concern around these tools also goes beyond the usual suspects (like Cuba or Venezuela). As digital censorship becomes more accessible, more seemingly benign democracies with easy access to this software and with legal measures to use them may be tempted to deploy them improperly. Over the past three years, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, and Nicaragua have all passed laws that allow for digital censorship and surveillance in one form or another. It takes just one government official with an authoritarian bent to turn these systems into tools of censorship and repression.

It is not only the governed that are worried though. As government institutions like Mexicos Secretariat of the Economy to Argentinas Senate know, non-state actors are also showing how vulnerable even the most powerful states can be on the internet. In Brazil, a famous group of hackers worked their way into the Ministry of Healths website a number of times. The Brazilian government was lucky; the groups intent was simply to make a point about how vulnerable everybody really is on the internet:

This site remains absolutely shit and nothing has been done to correct it, the hackers wrote on the Ministry of Healths site.

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Censorship has never been so democratic - Rest of World

Silencing dissent has an ignoble and inglorious history reaching far back to ancient times. Socrates was made to pay the ultimate price for corrupting the minds of youth in fourth century BC Athens. According to the American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom, there has been a 60% increase in book challenges in 2021 compared to 2020. The office tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. According to the ALA most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBQ+ persons. Over the same period, a total of 26 states have banned books. Texas leads but sadly PA ranks second behind Texas in banned books 456 bans in 16 school districts.

In 1982, the Supreme Court provided clear guidance regarding censorship. It upheld First Amendment rights of students including the right to access information and ideas and affirmed that school boards cannot remove books simply because it or someone doesnt like its ideas, and, in this way, attempt to establish what is orthodox teaching. It also focused on the need for adherence to procedures to removing books. And to ensure First Amendment Rights, formal procedures have developed for parents and school boards to use when the need arises. Unfortunately, over the past year 98% of efforts to remove books violated these procedures.

It is of interest to note that authoritarian regimes tend to suppress politically unwelcome books while democratic countries are obsessed with problems of decency and immorality. (Harris, B; Banning Books: Media Law and Practice, June 1988.) While todays ban the books fever is as fierce and destructive as in years past, it is also cynically deceptive. Over the past year, book banning is characterized by an effort to stop students from learning while using the foil of restoring parental control.

Disruptions in the wake of the Trump administration, the arrival and lingering persistence of the pandemic together with cancelled school days, and heightened fears following the murder of George Floyd have all created a cauldron of bewilderment, belligerence, and violence. According to the Gettysburg Times, at a July 31, 2021, meeting of the Gettysburg Area School District Board, a member of a national organization known as Moms for Liberty accused the board of instructing students in CRT, i.e., Critical Race Theory. Republican Glenn Youngkin successfully used the foil of parental control to subvert instruction in CRT and won election as governor. Youngkins victory resonated widely among Republicans and resulted in calls by people like Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to create a Parents Bill of Rights. An examination of claims suggests that most people who try to ban books dont even read the literature they hope to ban (Banned Books, a Study of Censorship: Banned Books Literature and Digital Diversity, northeastern.edu). Importantly neither Virginia nor Pennsylvania mandate instruction in CRT!

The pandemic has been hard on teachers, school boards, and parents. Is it not time for all to take stock and refocus on the needs of our children? Recent polling shows that a vast majority of voters, Democrats (70%), Independents (58%), Republican (70%), oppose removing books from public libraries while 74% of polled parents express a high degree of confidence in the decisions made by school libraries (Hart Research Associates and North Star Opinion Research on behalf of the American Library Association). The recent uptake to ban or remove books from school libraries is the result of a small cohort of parents funded and supported by far-right organizations who are driven to full-throated public displays before school boards while bypassing the classroom teacher.

Teachers know how important parental involvement is and perhaps, if there were more systematic avenues for parents to become involved, we would not see a drop in public-school enrollment PA saw a drop of 5.3%. (Digest of Educational Statistics) Few if any schools provide funding for parental involvement strategies, leaving it up to individual teachers to carry the burden. At the same time, if parents would rely upon the proven goodwill of teachers and their commitment to their students, we would not be witnessing the very tragic loss of teachers across the country. In PA, there has been a 66% drop in new teaching certificates over the past 11 years. (Testimony by PA Deputy Sec. of Ed.)

No one suggests that engaging parents is an easy job, yet everyone knows how critical their involvement is for the academic success of their children. If parents had a better understanding of the challenges facing school administrators and teachers, fewer would listen to the far-right messaging. Our future and indeed the future of democracy depends upon success in our classrooms. If anger and belligerence are the only things we bring to school board meetings, our future is in question.

Tony McNevin is a member of the Democracy for America Education Task Force. He resides in Gettysburg.

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Censorship: The child of fear and the father of ignorance - Gettysburg Times

In mid-April, Florida rejected fifty-four math books for classroom use, claiming they made reference to critical race theory and other prohibited topics.

What is novel for people to understand is that this is being organized and perpetrated at a level weve not seen before.

It seems that some publishers attempted to slap a coat of paint on an old house built on the foundation of Common Core and indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students, asserted Floridas Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. The rejected textbooks were not named and no examples of how they managed to run afoul of state educational standards were given.

The episode, which brought national ridicule to DeSantis and Floridas increasingly right-wing politics, is just one of a rapidly growing number of censorship actions being taken by local and state officials across the country.

PEN America, a nonprofit that works to defend freedom of expression, reported that during a recent nine-month period there were 1,586 instances of books being banned, involving 1,145 unique titles. According to the report, these bannings took place in eighty-six school districts in twenty-six states, representing 2,899 schools with a combined enrollment of more than two million students.

What is novel for people to understand is that this is being organized and perpetrated at a level weve not seen before, Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America, tells The Progressive. Its part of a movement adjacent to politics but very much part of an effort to gin-up outrage over books in schools in an election year.

Whether the books deal with race, sex, or gender, Friedman notes, the same lines or images are being used to remove those books, and [they] are being targeted across state lines.

Right-wing censorship efforts are focusing on classic works such as Harper Lees To Kill A Mockingbird, John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men, and Art Spieglmans Maus, and Ruby BridgessRuby Bridges Goes to School. Many others deal with LGBTQ+ and gender identity issues, including Maia Kobabes Gender Queer, and Justin Richardsons And Tango Makes Three. The New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project has also come under widespread critical attack because of its alleged reliance on critical race theory, as have books by anti-racism writers and activists Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ibram X. Kendi. Even Toni Morrissons classic book Beloved has been pulled from the shelves.

Most distressing, according to PEN America , is that it is not just the number of books removed that is disturbing, but the processesor lack thereofthrough which such removals are being carried out. Two-fifths of the bans are tied to orders from state officials or elected lawmakers to investigate or remove books in schools, while nearly all (98 percent) of the 1,586 instances of banned books identified by PEN America involved departures of best practice guidelines designed toprotect students First Amendment rights.

Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who now teaches at New York Law School, tells The Progressive that many of these actions likely violate the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that governs expression in schools and libraries.

Our Constitution does not permit the official suppression of ideas, the court ruled in that case, Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico. Local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those booksand seek by their removal to prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.

Texas, with 712 instances of book censorship, is the number-one state in which these bans have occurred, followed by Pennsylvania and Florida with 456 and 204, respectively.

Last December, Representative Matt Krause, Republican of Texas, sent every school district in the state a list of 850 books he believes should be removed from libraries for allegedly containing material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.

Strossen sees this as evidence of a coordinated campaign: They are armed with a playbook and say, heres what you can do to challenge decisions that are being made about the curriculum, about library books, she says. And they get people, usually a relatively small number or percentage of the community, who are disproportionately active.

Strossen notes that Jerry Falwells Moral Majority was one of the groups that played this role in the 1980s. Todays book censorship campaign is being promoted by groups including Moms for Liberty, No Left Turn in Education, and Parents Defending Education.

Censorship battles have long been a feature of U.S. political life.

In the late nineteenth century, Anthony Comstocks anti-obscenity campaign culminated with the U.S. Congress adopting the 1873 Comstock Act, the federal laws that banned illicit materials distributed through the mail. In the 1910s, near the end of his life, Comstock claimed that he had destroyed 3,984,063 photographs and 160 tons of obscene literature. These laws would remain in force until the 1950s.

The 1920s were marked not only by the Palmer Raids and the deportation of anarchists, but also by the banning in New York of James Joyces Ulysses, and D.H. Lawrences Lady Chatterleys Lover, and of Sinclair Lewiss Elmer Gantry in Boston, among other titles. It also saw Catholic leaders promote state censorship bills in an effort to clean up Hollywood movies.

In the post-World War II era, the United States has faced two perceived enemies: communism and obscenity. The U.S. Congress, both the Senate and House, led the nations battle against sin, sex, and subversion. Federal efforts against alleged immorality involved pocket-book pulp fiction as well as comic books, Bettie Page photos, and depictions of homosexuality. It was an era that saw schools host comic book burnings.

In 1979, Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, which joined the American Family Association and Morality in Media (a.k.a. the National Center on Sexual Exploitation) in a campaign against obscenity in books and other media. Among the books banned during the 1980s were F. Scott FitzgeraldsThe Great Gatsby, Alice WalkersThe Color Purple, and John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men. In addition, the FBI initiated a program of library surveillance to check on the identities of people examining potentially controversial materials.

There were also campaigns to block exhibitions of artistic works by Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano (i.e. his work Piss Christ) as well as the theatrical screening of Martin Scorseses The Last Temptation of Christ.

Todays censorship wars are part of the larger culture wars driven by white evangelical Christians. Members of this group, in large part members of the Republican activist base, are waging an apparently coordinated campaign against reproductive choice, LGBTQ+ rights, and the teaching of what is falsely labeled critical race theory.

Whats key right now is engagement, PEN Americas Friedman says, when asked what people can do to resist this censorship wave. It comes down to affirming a simple message: We dont believe in banning books. We believe in freedom of speech. We believe in freedom of access to information. How this is regulated in schools needs to reflect those principles.

This is a very simple, non-partisan message, he adds. Its not a message about left or right or LBGTQ+ or race, but rather a fundamental belief that we shouldnt be banning books in this country.

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The New Censorship Wars - Progressive.org - Progressive.org