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HONG KONG The director of Far From Home, a short, intimate film about a family caught in the tumult of the 2019 antigovernment protests in Hong Kong, had hoped to show off her work at a local film festival in June.

Then the censors stepped in.

They told the director, Mok Kwan-ling, that her films title which in Cantonese could carry a suggestion of cleaning up after a crime must go. Dialogue expressing sympathy for an arrested protester had to be excised. Scenes of removing items from a room also had to be cut, apparently because they might be construed as concealing evidence.

In total, Ms. Mok was ordered to make 14 cuts from the 25-minute film. But she said that doing so would have destroyed the balance she had attempted to forge between the views of protesters and those who opposed them. So she refused, and her film has thus far gone unseen by the public.

It was quite contradictory to a good narrative and a good plot, she said. If a person is completely good or completely bad, its very boring.

In March, a local theater pulled the prizewinning protest documentary Inside the Red Brick Wall, after a state-run newspaper said it incited hatred of China. At least two Hong Kong directors have decided to not release new films locally. When an earlier film by one of those directors was shown to a private gathering last month, the gathering was raided by the police.

Directors say they fear the government will force them to cut their films and, potentially, put them in prison if they dismiss demands and show their work.

Under the national security law, Hong Kong is no longer Hong Kong, said Jevons Au, a director who moved to Canada shortly after the sweeping law was imposed. Hong Kong is a part of China, and its film industry will finally turn into a part of Chinas film industry.

Beyond the national security law, the government plans to toughen its censorship policies to allow it to ban or force cuts to films deemed contrary to the interests of national security. Such powers would also be retroactive, meaning the authorities could bar films that were previously approved. People that show such films could face up to three years in prison.

Part of the underlying goal of this law is to intimidate Hong Kong filmmakers, investors, producers, distributors and theaters into internalizing self-censorship, said Shelly Kraicer, a film researcher specializing in Chinese-language cinema. There will be a lot of ideas that just arent going to become projects and projects that arent going to be developed into films.

The new restrictions are unlikely to trouble bigger-budget Hong Kong films, which are increasingly made in collaboration with mainland companies and aimed at the Chinese market. Producers already work to ensure those films comply with mainland censorship. Likewise, distributors and streaming services like Netflix, which is available in Hong Kong but not mainland China, are wary of crossing red lines.

Netflix is a business first, said Kenny Ng, an expert on film censorship at Hong Kong Baptist Universitys Academy of Film. They show unconventional films, including politically controversial films, but only from a safe distance. I think Netflix has bigger concerns about access to commercial markets, even in mainland China.

Netflix representatives did not reply to requests for comment.

The most likely targets of the new rules, which are expected to be approved this fall by Hong Kongs legislature, are independent documentaries and fictional films that touch on protests and opposition politics.

For those independent filmmakers who really want to do Hong Kong stories in Hong Kong, it will be very challenging, said Mr. Au, the director who moved to Canada. They will have a lot of obstacles. It might even be dangerous.

The documentary Inside the Red Brick Wall was shot by anonymous filmmakers who followed protesters at Hong Kong Polytechnic University when they were besieged by police for two weeks in 2019. In addition to the film being pulled from the local theater, the Arts Development Council of Hong Kong withdrew a $90,000 grant to Ying E Chi, the independent film collective that released it.

The censorship office had initially approved the documentary for audiences over 18, but now some in the film industry believe it could face a retroactive ban.

Creators of the fictional film Ten Years, which examined the fears of vanishing culture and freedoms that invigorated the resistance to Chinas tightening grip on Hong Kong, say it could also be targeted under the new rules. The filmmakers had difficulties finding venues when the movie was released in 2015, but now it might be banned completely, said Mr. Au, who directed one vignette in the five-part film.

Kiwi Chow, who also directed part of Ten Years, knew that his protest documentary Revolution of Our Times had no chance of being approved in Hong Kong. Even its overseas premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in July required special precautions. It was shown on short notice near the end of the festival so Beijing couldnt pressure the organizers to block it.

Mr. Chow sold the film rights to a European distributor and, before he returned to Hong Kong, deleted footage of the film from his own computers out of fear he might be arrested.

Some of the subjects of the 152-minute film, including pro-democracy activists such as Benny Tai and Gwyneth Ho, are now in jail. Mr. Chow feared he, too, might be arrested. Friends and family warned him to leave the city, release the film anonymously or change its title. The title is drawn from the slogan Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times, which the government has described as an illegal call for Hong Kong independence.

But Mr. Chow said he ultimately went ahead with the film as he had envisioned it out of a sense of responsibility to the project, its subject and crew.

I need to do whats right and not let fear shake my beliefs, he said.

While he has yet to face direct retaliation, he said there were signs it could be coming.

When he attended a small, private showing of Beyond the Dream, a nonpolitical romance that he directed, the police raided the event. Mr. Chow and about 40 people who attended the screening at the office of a pro-democracy district representative were each fined about $645 for violating social distancing rules.

It seems like a warning sign from the regime, he said. Its not very direct. Its still a question whether the regime has begun its work: Has a case on me been opened?

Continue reading here:
How Hong Kong Censors Films in the Name of National Security - The New York Times

Avera's Dr. Michael Elliott joins us for a South Dakota COVID-19 update.

We wrap up our September spotlight with an in-depth conversation about libraries, censorship, and the First Amendment. Deborah Caldwell Stone is director of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom. She joins us during national Banned Books Week.

TheTriTonesof Mitchell won the South Dakota Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's Battle of the Bands on Friday. The event was restricted to high school musicians. TheTriTonesare a 10-member jazz fusion band.

Dr. Keith Mueller, the Gerhard Hartman Professor and head of the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Iowa, presents "Delivery of Health Care in Rural Areas" tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Sherman Center at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell. He joins us to discuss current challenges to rural health care service.

The World Archery Championships concluded in Yankton on Sunday. The Archery World Cup takes place tomorrow and Thursday at Riverside Park in Yankton with the top 32 archers in the world competing.

In the Moment airs live at 12CT/11MT. The audio from the day's show is attached soon after the show airs.

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Libraries, censorship, and the First Amendment | SDPB - SDPB Radio

Austin, TX, September 24, 2021 Two trade associations, NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), filed a lawsuit in a federal district court to strike down provisions of a new Texas law, passed in the Texas legislature as House Bill (HB) 20.

HB 20, which will become effective later this year unless enjoined by the court, requires increased transparency from major social media platforms and prohibits them from censoring users.

NetChoice and the CCIA, whose members include big tech companies such as Facebook and Google, contend that the regulations on the social media platforms are a violation of the businesses First Amendment rights to curate the content hosted on their sites.

Allowing HB 20 to take effect will inflict significant harm on Texans by threatening the safety of users, creators, and businesses that use these websites to reach audiences in a family-friendly way, said the president and CEO of NetChoice, Steve DelBianco, in a press release. No American should ever be forced to navigate through harmful and offensive images, videos and posts.

The lawsuit says that the big tech members of NetChoice and CCIA currently prohibit all sorts of speech that they deem harmful or objectionable or against their policies, including medical misinformation, hate speech and slurs (spanning the spectrum from race and religion to veteran status), glorification of violence and animal abuse, and impersonation, lies, and misinformation more broadly.

Though users must agree to such oversight by the platforms in the fine print of their terms of service, advocates of banning social media censorship argue that the regulation of hate speech without any clear standard of what constitutes it is dangerous.

An example of that counter-argument can be found in an amicus brief for another lawsuit from NetChoice against a similar Florida law, which was filed on behalf of the satirical website The Babylon Bee and its non-satirical sister-site Not the Bee.

The brief states, [I]n Twitters judgment, a politicians biologically correct statement that [a] man has no womb or eggs is hate speech, but a college professors profoundly racist statement, I block white people because [t]here is nothing white people can say and do that is creative, profound, and intimidating, is valuable discourse deserving to remain on the platform.

As of the publication of this article, the latter tweet remains uncensored on Twitter.

It appears that in Twitters judgment, biology is hate, but unadorned racismat least of a certain varietyis not, it remarks.

Proponents of the Texas law also argue that checks on social media platforms are necessary because those methods of communication have become a powerful aspect of modern discourse where the freedom of speech for individuals should not be stifled.

Twitter, Facebook and other massive platforms arent just any private companies, wrote Greg Abbott in a recent op-ed published in the Washington Post. They are our modern-day public square, and effectively control the channels we use for discourse.

Abbott and other supporters say the law doesnt interfere with the platforms ability to block criminal activity on their sites, or to remove content that incites violence or is illegal or obscene, but is necessary to shield everyday Texans from censorship despite the vast protections federal law has given to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

That law explicitly protects online platforms to be able to censor content that is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.

Unlike the Florida law, which could allow individuals to sue for monetary damages from the platform, lawmakers say that the Texas proposal threads a needle through Section 230 by only allowing the individual to sue to stop the censorship and costs and reasonable and necessary attorneys fees.

But when a similar proposal to HB 20 was being debated earlier this year, DelBianco appeared to testify against it and argued that Section 230 wont matter, but rather that the courts would ultimately strike it down on the basis of the First Amendment.

Whether the freedom of companies to censor what they please or whether individuals freedom of speech should be protected even on social media is a legal debate that will likely not go away anytime soon in the digital age, but now that ball is in the courts.

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Big Tech Sues Texas Over New Law Targeting Social Media Censorship - The Texan

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Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are fighting back against a new Texas "censorship" law. Trade groups representing the social media giants have sued the state of Texas over the law, arguing that it restricts the First Amendment rights of the companies in question.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB20 into law earlier in September. The law targets social media companies with 50 million users or more and prevents them from banning or blocking users based on their viewpoints. It also allows residents of Texas to sue the companies to reinstate their accounts. Supporters of the law say it will protect Texans "from wrongful censorship on social media platforms."

Catch up on the biggest news stories in minutes. Delivered on weekdays.

The suit, filed Wednesday in US District Court for the Western District of Texas, claims the law itself is violating the First Amendment rights of the companies in question and that the government has no right to prevent these companies "from exercising editorial discretion over content those platforms disseminate on their own privately owned websites and applications."

According to the complaint, the law would prohibit social media companies and content companies like YouTube from being able to remove disinformation and harmful content. They'd need to present it on the same footing as posts that don't violate the rules of the platforms.

HB20 "would unconstitutionally require platforms like YouTube and Facebook to disseminate, for example, pro-Nazi speech, terrorist propaganda, foreign government disinformation and medical misinformation," the suit states. "In fact, legislators rejected amendments that would explicitly allow platforms to exclude vaccine misinformation, terrorist content, and Holocaust denial."

A federal judge blocked a similar law from taking effect in Florida, claiming that the legislation on the whole was "viewpoint-based."

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.

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Facebook, Twitter and YouTube push back against Texas 'censorship' bill - CNET

Last week, Amazon.com prohibited ads on its website promoting the bestselling book BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution, a deep-dive into Black Lives Matter (BLM) organizations and their agenda to tear down Americas institutions and replace them with their version of a Marxist Utopia.

When The Heritage Foundation attempted to place ads to promote Heritage Senior Fellow Mike Gonzalezs BLM expos, Amazon said that the ad we created didnt comply with its Creative Acceptance Policies because it contains book/s or content that is not allowed. Content that revolves around controversial or highly debated social topics is not permitted.

Using that absurd standard, one of the worlds largest booksellers apparently wouldnt allow ads for the biggest bestseller in historythe Biblea book that stirs incredible debate and is considered controversial by those who dont believe it. Nor could anyone advertise books pro or con about federal spending, welfare, climate change, abortion, or COVID-19, for that matter.

Mr. Gonzalezs book is critically important to the debates were having in America today over racial issues, the teaching of American history, and our American identity. The book delves deeply into the backgrounds of the BLM leaders, showing them to be avowed Marxists who say they want to dismantle our Constitution, our social institutions, and our very way of life. They use social media to spread their message and organize not just marches and sit-ins but riots that have been exceedingly destructive, violent, and even deadly.

>>>Amazons Senseless Bid To Bury My Expos of Black Lives Matter

Americans deserve to know the difference between genuinely saying black lives matter and the radical Marxists behind the Black Lives Matter organizations who want to overturn society and sow deep divisions among the American people.

Thats why Heritage appealed Amazons decision and issued a forceful public statement in response. Amazon subsequently reversed its decision and will allow the paid promotion of the book to move forward.

An Amazon spokesperson said that the original decision to ban the promotion resulted from human error, not an automated decision by a computer or algorithm. While I appreciate the reversal of such an egregious decision, this incident is consistent with the trend of Big Tech companies to suppress conservative speech they disagree with.

The fact that this was the result of human error further demonstrates the need for Big Tech companies to establish clear and consistent rules and policies and then implement them fairly across the board. Private companies certainly have the right to pick and choose what products are advertised and sold on their platforms. But too often, these companies have vague and very subjective rules. They inconsistently enforce those rules to censor viewpoints they disagree with, and they lack genuine recourse for users who are suspended from their platforms and services.

Although Amazon reversed its decision, it apparently has the no controversial or highly debated social topics standard in writing that one of its employees was enforcing.

This episode is a reminder that while sometimes Big Tech can be pressured to respond in some instances of content suppression, there are many more instances where those without resources or a large enough public profile simply have to live with the arbitrary decisions made by these companies.

And its not just censorship. Some companies are prohibiting conservatives from using their digital services like banking, digital payments, email delivery, and online fundraising when their only sin is to have a political viewpoint that differs from the generally leftist viewpoint of Big Tech.

Thats why researchers at The Heritage Foundations Center for Technology Policy continue to recommend legislative and regulatory solutions to ensure that these companies are held accountable when they unfairly suppress speech or deny services. While respecting the private property rights of such companies, Heritage has put forward solutions to limit the nearly unchecked power of Big Tech and make them more accountable to the American people.

>>>When Government Demands Social Media Censorship, Americans of All Political Beliefs Lose

Those solutions include targeted reforms of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives these companies certain legal protections when hosting user-published content on their platforms. Other solutions include organizing grassroots efforts to push for transparency from tech companies and ultimately encouraging the creation of alternative tech products and services that dont discriminate.

Examples of Big Tech censorship are inescapable and irrefutable. Sometimes they are brazen and outright; other times, they are dressed up in vague platitudes about objectionable content. But the outcome is still the samevoices that these left-leaning companies dont agree with are deemed unacceptable and are silenced.

Big Techs influence over everyday American life continues to grow. We must establish clear standards for how these companies behaveand mechanisms to hold them accountable when they dont.

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Big Tech's Conservative Censorship Inescapable and Irrefutable - Heritage.org