Archive for the ‘Censorship’ Category

Oh, Frak Avoiding the Censors the SFF Way – tor.com

Every culture has its own set of taboos surrounding bodily functions, religion, and naming things. In Anglophone cultures, our taboos generally involve waste excretion, particular body parts, sexual acts, and Christian deities. But we can still talk about these things (with varying degrees of comfort) by replacing them with non-taboo words, or we can soften them to non-taboo forms by changing something about the word itself. This column will unavoidably include cusswords, though I will try to keep them to a minimum

Taboo words in English have non-taboo counterparts and, in many cases, elevated/clinical terms as well. (As a native US-English speaker, Im focusing on that variety, but Ill mention some British as well.) Take, for example, the word feces. Its a dry, clinical, neutral term for solid bodily waste. We also have crap, less clinical, slightly vulgar but still allowed on TV, poo or poop and all its variants, a childhood word, and the delightful, vulgar Germanic word shit. Each of these words has situations where its appropriate and inappropriate, and they all indicate something about the person using them (and the situation theyre in).

Medical records will use feces (or possibly stool, excrement, or excreta) but none of the others; when people step in dog feces on the street, they dont refer to it as dog feces, but use one of the other words, like dog crap, dog poo, doggy doo-doo, dog turds, or dog shit. Some of these things are more okay to say in front of a child than others, and one of them is too vulgar for broadcast TV.

When used as an exclamation or interjection, we dont use feces, turd, or doo-doo; these are strongly tied to the object. Instead, well say crap, shit, or poop, depending on our personal preferences and whos around us at the time. I try really hard to avoid cussing in front of my five-year-old niece, because shes a sponge for that sort of thing, and we dont need her to go to school sounding like a sailor.

We can also say shoot or sugar or something similar, where you can still recognize the vulgarity, but its been changed. When I was a young 3dgy teen, my mom would give me this Look and say, its gosh darn it. She still doesnt like me cussing, but Im 44 now, and here I am, writing about swear words.

Reading Shakespeare as a teen, I saw all these zounds! and the like, and had no idea what it meant, but, based on context, I could tell it was some sort of swear. I pronounced it rhyming with sounds, because thats what it looked like, but I later learned it was derived from Gods woundsand thus a blasphemous swear. Bloody also stems from religion: Gods blood. Jiminy cricket is also a deformation of a blasphemous swear, as are gee, geez/jeez, and a whole plethora of words.

As language users, we thus have a few tricks in our bag for how to avoid taboos, and we use them all the time. In many cases, we use avoidance words without even knowing that theyre avoiding something!

When script writers had to avoid bad words because of FCC broadcast rules, they could take a variety of tacks, just like we do every day. You get lots of oh, geez and shoot or freaking in your contemporary (and historical) fare, but in SFF-land, writers have another trick up their sleeves: alien languages, or even made-up future-English words. Thats where our fraks and frells come in (via Battlestar Galactica and Farscape, respectively). Sometimes you get other inventive ways of evading the censors, like Joss Whedon did with Firefly and having people cuss in Chinese.

Of course, now, with the rise of Netflix and Prime originals, people can swear to their hearts content. In the Expanse books, Chrisjen Avasarala uses fuck freely and creatively. In the SyFy seasons, she doesnt swear much, but once the show switched over to Amazon Prime, she now gets to use her favorite word almost as much as in the books. Its delightful to see this respectable grandmother and politician with a gravelly voice talking like a sailor, and I love it.

Of course, evading the censors isnt the only reason to deform taboo words. Some authors use invented swears as worldbuilding or because they arent as potty-mouthed as I am.

In his book The Widening Gyre, Michael R. Johnston has the main character comment that Kelvak, one of the non-human languages, is his favorite to curse in, because theres nothing as satisfying as the harsh consonants in the word skalk.

Theres something to that statement. The two most common vulgarities, shit and fuck, are characterized by a fricative at the word onset and a plosive as the coda. A successful deformation of these wordsone that leaves the speaker satisfiedfollows that pattern. Deformations that are closer to the original are also more satisfying. Shoot is more satisfying than sugar; frak is more satisfying (to me) than frell. Judas priest is more satisfying (and blasphemous) than jiminy cricket. The Kelvak word skalk starts with a fricative (albeit in a cluster) and ends with a plosive, so it feels sweary.

You could theorize that theres some sort of sound-symbolic connection with the fricative-vowel-plosive combination, where the plosive represents a closing or hitting, but that gets a bit Whorfian. We dont need psychological justification for it.

So: what are some of your favorite SFF swears and taboo deformations? Im partial to Bilairys balls! from Lynn Flewellings Nightrunner series, in which Bilairy is the god of the dead.

CD Covington has masters degrees in German and Linguistics, likes science fiction and roller derby, and misses having a cat. She is a graduate of Viable Paradise 17 and has published short stories in anthologies, most recently the story Debridement in Survivor, edited by Mary Anne Mohanraj and J.J. Pionke.

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Oh, Frak Avoiding the Censors the SFF Way - tor.com

800 and falling prey to crowd censorship – The New Indian Express

Tamil actor Vijay Sethupathis decision to opt out of 800, a biopic on Sri Lankan cricket player Muthiah Muralitharan, was not surprising, coming as it did in the aftermath of a week-long social media storm kicked up by the film and political fraternity. The actor put out a cryptic tweet on Monday, indicating that he is drawing stumps just when he was getting ready to spin a dream role. It came in response to a request from Muralitharan to step down and end the controversy.

The initial bouncer came from Tamil filmmaker Bharathiraja last week, when he asked the actor to junk the project, saying it was based on the life of the cricketer who had glorified the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka in 2009.

Soon, more voices in the gallery lent support to this cry. Muralitharan, a Tamilian whose ancestors had gone to Sri Lanka as plantation workers during the 19th and early 20th centuries, is seen to be a supporter of MahindaRajapaksa, the prime minister of Sri Lanka, and his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa, its current president. The plantation workers, referred to as estate Tamils, live in central Sri Lanka while the Jaffna Tamils or Eelam Tamils consider themselves descendants of the old Jaffna kingdom and mostly live in north and east Sri Lanka.

Though they are both Tamils, their caste dynamics and role in the political landscape are varied. Films as a medium of creative expression have now become frequent targets of crowd censorship. Trolling and hounding in social media has been dictating the narrative of art and the artists creative expression, and, unfortunately, been succeeding in its pursuit, the recent pulling down of a jewellery advertisement being a case in point.

The latest pressure on Sethupathi is no different, as it comes from chauvinists who claim to preserve native pride. The point being missed is that the biopic is on the sportsman, tracking his rise in becoming a world-class spinner who bagged a record 800 wickets in Test cricket, a feat that is yet to be matched. His journey involving hard work and determination would have been inspirational to the enthusiastic, cricket-crazy subcontinent. A final word to be noted is that Muralitharan is the mentor of IPLs Sunrisers Hyderabad team owned by the Sun Network, whose Kalanithi Maran is the grand-nephew of former CM M Karunanidhi.

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800 and falling prey to crowd censorship - The New Indian Express

Naver accused of excessive censorship of webtoons after string of controversies – The Korea Herald

After the success of K-pop, K-drama and even K-movies internationally, the letter K is now often placed in front of Korean products that make Koreans proud. K-quarantine was a word used in multiple headlines this year to recognize the relative success of Korea in containing the COVID-19.

However, there is one K- word that became widespread online this year that does the opposite: K-censorship is a derogatory term used to criticize excessive censorship in Korea.

Internet portal site Naver was plagued this summer by a series of scandals concerning violence and sexual references in some of its webtoons, resulting in the removal or re-editing of certain scenes. Each time, Naver Webtoon apologized and promised stricter guidelines for its webtoons.

But the result was not what readers had expected.

Naver Webtoon has a guideline that has been written while taking into consideration the standards set by the Publication Ethics Committee, the Korea Media Rating Board, the Korea Communication Standards Commission, and others. The guideline is not made available to the public, according to a Naver Webtoon Official.

Naver does not censor the final product unilaterally. It checks the work of the authors and make changes only in collaboration with the author. Yet, edited webtoons often come under criticism from both readers and authors.

Although Naver and the artists concerned intended to change scenes that highlighted female bodies or showed violence, some fans thought the censorship went too far.

The blade of a knife is gone after it was edited. (Naver Webtoon)

Readers displeasure about the scenes that had caused trouble in the summer can be felt in the comments and ratings of the webtoons. Popular webtoons that had consistently received high ratings of 9 out of 10 before the readers were disturbed by the stories, are now getting ratings below 5 on many of the controversial episodes. Additionally, comment sections are being filled with expressions of discomfort.

Recently, people are questioning excessive censorship after a scene featuring high school students drinking alcohol was changed to a scene of the students drinking soda and a scene showing some female characters were changed to make them less provocative.

Over 20,000 people up-voted comments on Episode 151 of The Girl from Random Chatting that mocked Naver Webtoon for making one of the characters drunk off of soda after alcohol was replaced by a soft drink.

A censored scene from Life Completely Ruined (Naver Webtoon)

Some webtoon artists lamented the whole censorship situation.

Its not that I dont understand Navers stance. These days, some readers have very high censorship standards. Its natural that big platforms like Naver are cautious. But, as an author, I question whether it is possible to keep the story going with these standards, said one author on his personal blog.

The author of The Girl from Random Chatting also said in a livestream that although he wanted to upload an uncensored version, he would be responsible for any criticism received and decided not to do so. He also mentioned that Naver is trying to protect the authors.

Naver Webtoon has over 67 million monthly users and grossed over 3 billion won ($2.65 million) in a single day in August.

Other authors, such as Joo Ho-min of Along With the Gods, say that the times are difficult for webtoon artists with all the censorship by readers.

Similar censorship occurred when the Juvenile Protection Act in 1997 caused many adult comics go out of business, prompting talented comic artists like Boichi, or Park Mu-jik, of Dr. Stone to move to Japan.

Naver officials said that the companys guidelines would continue to be adjusted to meet societys requirements.

By Lim Jang-won (ljw@heraldcorp.com)

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Naver accused of excessive censorship of webtoons after string of controversies - The Korea Herald

Conflicts of interest with Facebook censorship, the Atlantic Council, Burisma & politics: perspective – The Sociable

While receiving nearly half a million dollars from Burisma, the Atlantic Council partnered with Facebook to monitor election misinformation.

Then, last week Facebook suppressed negative press about Burisma under the watch of Facebooks election integrity leader, who is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who used to work for the former VP of the United States, Joe Biden.

Conflicts of interest abound between Facebooks censorship, the Atlantic Council, Burisma, and politics.

OAN journalist Jack Posobiec connected several of the dots succinctly in a Tweet on Thursday:

The Atlantic Council signed a deal to accept hundreds of thousands in funding from Burisma Holdings

Then the Atlantic Council partnered with Facebook to monitor election misinformation

Then Facebook censored the Burisma story

Pay attention

Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) October 22, 2020

Starting in 2016, Burisma would give the Atlantic Council $100,000 per year, Yahoo News reported in November, 2019.

The Atlantic Council told Yahoo News at the time that in addition to the $100,000 given annually by Burisma, the company also reimbursed speaker travel and event costs, which amounted to around [$50,000 to $70,000] per year,' which would put the total at around $450,000 as of the end of 2019.

On its own website the Atlantic Council lists Burisma on its list of contributors who doled out between $100,000 and $249,999 to the think tank in 2019 alone.

The Atlantic Council has a stellar reputation looking at innovative solutions to hard problems Facebook

While that was going on, Facebook announced a new election partnership with the Atlantic Council,on May 17, 2018.

The social media giant said that it was using the Atlantic Councils Digital Research Unit Monitoring Missions during elections and other highly sensitive moments, and that experts from theirDigital Forensic Research Labwill work closely with our security, policy and product teams to get Facebook real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world.

Facebook said the partnership would allow it to focus on monitoring for misinformation and foreign interference and also working to help educate citizens as well as civil society.

So, Facebook partnered with the Atlantic Council to monitor for misinformation during elections while the think tank was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Ukrainian energy company Burisma a company that had the son of the former United States VP on its board.

Then last week, Facebook censored the New York Post article that was critical of Burisma, to say the very least.

And the person leading Facebooks election integrity efforts, Anna Makanju, is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council whoused to be the special policy adviser for Europe and Eurasia (including Ukraine)to the former vice president of the United States.

When the New York Post published its smoking gun story on October 14, Facebooks communications director Andy Stone announced that the social media giant was already suppressing the story evidently before the article was even reviewed by Facebooks third party fact checkers.

While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebooks third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.

Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 14, 2020

To recap:

Do you see a pattern of conflict of interests?

And there it is.

The leaders of the Atlantic Council shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ukrainian oligarchs of the Burisma Group

Including Hunters boss Vadym Pozharskyi, who we now know met with Joe Biden while he was VP

This is what we call receipts. pic.twitter.com/i6DiPMR1vt

Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) October 22, 2020

The list of contributors to the Atlantic Council is extensive, with most of the big tech companies (Twitter, Google, Facebook, Microsoft), foreign and domestic organizations, banks, telecoms, governments, the US Marine Corps, and even Henry Kissinger all giving money to the DC think tank.

Facebook praised the Atlantic Council at the time of their partnership, saying that the DC think has a stellar reputation looking at innovative solutions to hard problems.

Facebooks partnership with the Atlantic Council to monitor election misinformation, the money the Atlantic Council received from Burisma, and the person in charge of election integrity having worked for Facebook, the Atlantic Council, and the former vice president, might be factors contributing to Facebooks suppression of the smoking gun story.

Senate Judiciary Committee considers subpoenas for Facebook, Twitter CEOs over censoring NY Post

Online censorship is toppling statues that havent been built yet: op-ed

Censor social media content & harvest data from banned accounts: House Intel witnesses testify on combating misinformation

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Conflicts of interest with Facebook censorship, the Atlantic Council, Burisma & politics: perspective - The Sociable

Jonathan Turley: Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Facebook, Twitter censorship scandal watch these 3 things – Fox News

The convergence of law and politics is a common occurrence in Washington. While law is used to ascertain truth, politics is often used to obscure it.

That is why the truth is rarely evident in looking at a scandal straight on.Rather it requires peripheral vision or analysis often what is not evident is what ismost enlightening.

This most famous example of such reasoning was found in Sir Arthur Conan Doyles story Silver Blaze, on Sherlock Holmess investigation of the disappearance of a racehorse.

The local inspector asked if there was any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?

ADRIANA COHEN: FACEBOOK, TWITTER'S THUGGISH CENSORSHIP AND ELECTION INTERFERENCE MEAN NO CITIZEN IS SAFE

Holmes responds, To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.

When the inspector objects, The dog did nothing in the night-time, Holmes replies, That was the curious incident.

There is always something a tad curious of Washington legal scandals in what has not occurred. That is why the latest Hunter Biden scandal is so curious.

When the story broke in the New York Post, the Biden campaign was faced with thousands of emails that purportedly showed clear support for allegations that Hunter Biden was given millions as part of an influence-peddling scheme related to his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.

There was ample reason to be skeptical about the sketchy account of a computer being left by Hunter Biden at a computer store with a man who cannot see beyond a couple of feet. And then there is the timing of disclosure just weeks before an election.

The problem was the absence of "barks" from the Biden camp.The computer files revealed a host of embarrassing pictures of Hunter Biden using drugs or exposed in other embarrassing ways. The emails contain dates and addresses that match up with confirmed records.

If they are fabricated, there were three barks that we would have expected within hours of the release.

Bark 1: This was not Hunter Bidens computer

The most obvious response would be that this is not the computer of Hunter Biden. After all, the computer store owner John Paul Mac Isaac who is legally blind said that he could not recognize the person who dropped off the laptop.

However, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has now stated, as a fact, that the laptop was left by Hunter Biden, in an inebriated, heavily inebriated state with the merchant. That does not purport with what Isaac said.

However, there remains the question of a laptop with a Beau Biden Foundation sticker on it with highly incriminating files.

Someone in the campaign must have called Hunter Biden and he had to have told them whether or not it was his laptop.

The response on ownership has been crickets for days.

Bark 2:These were not Hunter Bidens photosor emails

Even if the campaign cannot deny that the computer was Hunter Bidens, it could deny that these incriminating pictures and emails were his.

Again, crickets.

Note that if these are fabricated emails or pictures, this would be a seriousfederal crime and the basis for legal action.

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The Biden camp has no shortage of lawyers. Indeed, they have been signing up lawyers in droves in preparation for election challenges.

Yet, there is not a single allegation of fraud or fabrication after days of a brewing scandal.

Bark 3: This is defamation

Perhaps this bark is the most telling.If these emails or pictures are fabricated, it is a clear case of defamation and other tort actions.

It would seem that one of the hundreds of lawyers currently lined up by the Biden campaign would fire off an "intent to sue" letter.

Truth is a defense to defamation, so the letter might start with the earlier bark and deny that this was Hunter Bidens computer and these were Hunter Bidens file.

One big difference between the legal and political worlds is that in the latter there is no protection for the right to remain silent. In politics, scandals can be managed but not silently.

Instead of these obvious barks, the public heard something closer to a whimper: that the campaign could not find any notation on Vice President Biden's official schedule that he met with a Ukrainian figure connected to the payments to his son Hunter Biden.

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It would be a curious sight in itself for Bidens official schedule to include meeting with Ukrainian connected to Hunter. Many meetings are not part of an official schedule that staffers know is subject to official records laws for preservation and review.

That is what is so curious about the Hunter Biden story and, to move from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Lewis Carroll, it is becoming curiouser and curiouser.

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Jonathan Turley: Hunter Biden's laptop and the Facebook, Twitter censorship scandal watch these 3 things - Fox News