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It is not unusual that during the publication of the tankobon of a work some changes are made to the chapters already published in the magazine. These changes, of course, also affect the most famous titles like the manga of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations. But what has been changed by the authors?

As proof of the frequency of these changes, the same Toyotaro made some corrections to Vegeta 's design in the latest saga of Dragon Ball Super. No wonder, then, that even the duo working on the Naruto sequel can make some changes in the process. These choices, in particular, are evident in a table in volume 10 of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, the same that we have proposed to you at the bottom of the news.

As noted originally by the user Spiraling Sphere in a Twitter post, you can observe how the clothing of Delta has been significantly changed. The very powerful and enormous Rasengan of the seventh Hokage, in fact, had not in the least scratched the clothes of the member of the Kara Organization. To give a sense of greater intensity of the attack, the sensei has shredded the tunic, thus removing the complaints to show Delta's injured body.

A small detail but that demonstrates the care of the authors in taking care of even the smallest details despite the numerous criticisms of the style of Mikio Ikemoto. And you, instead, what do you think of this slight modification? Let us know with a comment below.

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Has Volume 10 of Boruto: Naruto Next Generation removed the censorship? - Asap Land

U.S. Army sergeant Maatje Benassi was among several hundred U.S. service men and women who traveled to Wuhan to take part in the Military World Games in October.

But, according to a widely-believed conspiracy theory, the 52-year-old road racing cyclist carried something else with her on her trip to China: The coronavirus.

The story has no grounding in fact. It was a fairy tale dreamed up by U.S. conspiracy theorist George Webb in Washington, DC. But the Communist Party of China (CCP) has promoted it so aggressively within China that it has become accepted knowledge among the Chinese populace that the U.S. military imported the coronavirus to Wuhan and began the pandemic that has killed over 50,000 people and infected more than a million worldwide.

Its difficult to say how many Chinese people accept the conspiracy as true, but the CCPs promotion of the idea across social networks WeChat and Weibo, as well as amplification through state-run TV, has made it inescapable in Chinese society. Indeed, any Chinese person who disputes that narrative on social media can have their account shut down and their families arrested.

I couldn't argue against the posts that the virus was brought to China by the U.S. military even though I knew it was a lie because any evidence I post against the Chinese government propaganda will be deleted, the Wechat group can be deleted, my account will be suspended and I can put my family in danger, one Chinese American named Zhang, who did not want to be named over fears of retribution, told VICE News.

READ: China is now blaming a lone US cyclist for the coronavirus pandemic

Globally, Beijings efforts to deflect criticism and pin the blame on the U.S. have been hit and miss, but at home, the effort has been hugely successful. More than half a dozen China experts say there is widespread acceptance of the narrative which has found a receptive audience thanks to decades of anti-US indoctrination and a complete lack of an independent media or access to outside sources.

Sadly most Chinese people really believe the U.S. brought the virus to China and they call it USA virus, Lucy, a 45-year-old Chinese American who recently returned to China to take care of her parents, told VICE News. The CCPs anti-American propaganda is very successful.

Conspiracy theories around the origin of the coronavirus are not unique to China. We have seen everyone from celebrities sharing a video claiming Bill Gates created the coronavirus to Sen. Tom Cotton claiming the disease was deliberately created in a virology lab in Wuhan.

But what is unique to China is the inability for most citizens in the country to fact-check the claims being made by official CCP outlets, or to seek any independent information outside Chinas Great Firewall, which blocks access to most western news outlets and other sources of information, such as Google and Wikipedia.

READ: Here's how China is rewriting the history of the coronavirus pandemic to make itself the hero

Chinese citizens are fully aware that their government censors criticism of Beijing on WeChat and Weibo while pushing messages that portray it in a positive light. Theyre also aware of the consequences for challenging that or for seeking outside information.

When the government spreads disinformation about other countries and blocks counter-narratives, it is much easier for people to buy into governments narratives because you just dont have access to alternative sources of information, Yaqui Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, told VICE News.

And when it comes to claims about the U.S. Chinese people have been conditioned to believe the worst.

CCP disinformation about the U.S. is nothing new, through textbooks, movies and many other educational, cultural, and media productions, Beijing has been increasingly promoting the narrative that the U.S. is an imperialist power that wants to undermine the rise of China.

Chinese media doesnt need much effort to convince its people of that blatant lie that the U.S. army brought the disease to Wuhan, most Chinese people, after 70 years of anti-American propaganda, are already convinced the U.S. is an evil country and is responsible for many bad events in the world, Lucy said.

Inside of China the conspiracy spread rapidly through WeChat, a messaging app that is so deeply integrated into Chinese life that losing your account means losing access to banking, online shopping, ordering taxis and much more.

According to Zhang, the conspiracy theory was shared in multiple WeChat groups they were in, and in such a way that it looked like a coordinated effort.

A few weeks ago, I started to see posts about the virus was brought to China by the U.S. military, the source said. All the posts appeared in different WeChat groups at around the same time. Keep in mind most WeChat groups are completely independent of each other. For the same posts to show up in all the large WeChat groups at the same time, it has to have the government behind it.

The CCP has a huge amount of control over how WeChat operates and has already shown its willingness to use that power to control the coronavirus narrative.

It has banned WeChat users inside the country who have shared anything vaguely negative about the governments response to coronavirus, it has silenced overseas WeChat users without their knowledge, and it has ramped up the level of censorship on the topic of coronavirus as the epidemic escalated.

READ: Wuhan's crematoriums are filling thousands of urns with coronavirus remains each day

The fact China has not banned this topic from being discussed on WeChat shows that it is happy for it to continue to be disseminated.

The topic has been widely discussed on WeChat and Weibo, one Hong Kong-based social media researcher known by the Twitter handle Chelsea, told VICE News. The CCP doesnt censor the discussion of origin. As most Chinese think the virus is not from China. I think this is the direction that CCP want it to keep going.

The view is backed up by Victor Shih, a China expert at the University of California.

Although the Chinese government and Chinese tech companies have demonstrated numerous times that they have the capacity to stop rumors and forwards from going viral on WeChat using censorship tools, they have not chosen to stop this groundless theory from circulating among Chinese communities, Shih told VICE News.

But unlike previous anti-U.S. propaganda, this time around Beijing is also seeking to sow disinformation further afield. What is new this time is that China is doing this kind of disinformation externally, on Twitter, a platform blocked in China, and through its external-facing media outlets, Wang said.

Research published this week by the Stanford Internet Observatory shows that the seeds of the conspiracy go back at least to January, when news of the virus in Wuhan.

It is unclear when the conspiracy theory was first floated or by whom, but it had gained enough traction by the turn of the year that on Jan. 2, a Chinese-language YouTube channel shared a video dismissing the idea that the pneumonia in Wuhan was the result of U.S. genetic warfare.

READ: China is trying to rewrite the history of silenced coronavirus whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang

It was around this time that whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang tried to warn friends about a growing pneumonia-like virus spreading in his hospital in Wuhan before the government silenced him.

The researcher said that because platforms have pledged to remove disinformation related to the origin of the coronavirus, and our research started in mid-March, some materials could have been removed.

Throughout January and February, the conspiracy theory continued to filter through on platforms like YouTube and Twitter which are banned in China and the English-language versions of Chinas state-backed media also began boosting the unfounded claims.

Then, in March, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian gave the conspiracy the CCPs seal of approval, tweeting that It might be U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.

A week later he doubled down on the claim, citing Webbs conspiracy theory about Benassi being coronavirus patient zero, without a shred of evidence.

Beijings reason for persisting with these claims is simple.

While people are discussing and debunking these conspiracy theories, they are not talking about its initial failings in responding to the outbreak and the questions being raised over the veracity of the figures it has shared about the outbreak.

Propaganda like this largely serves the leadership's interests in that it takes attention away from other problems in China, one of the co-founders of GreatFire.org, an organization that tracks Chinas online censorship, told VICE News, using the pseudonym Charlie Smith. You and many of your peers are covering this story now instead of covering other, more truthful, and likely hurtful, stories. It's a waste of everyone's time except The Party's.

Cover: A couple wearing face masks arrive at the railway station in Wuhan, in China's central Hubei province on April 6, 2020. (Photo: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

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The Chinese Government Has Convinced Its Citizens That the U.S. Army Brought Coronavirus to Wuhan - VICE

Every day new initiatives are being announced to ensure people have the correct information on the COVID-19 pandemic, but who watches the watchers?

The BBC reported today that the UK government is cracking down on misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. This is taking the form of a rapid response unit within the Cabinet Office [that] is working with social media firms to remove fake news and harmful content. As ever harmful is undefined, but the government seems worried that people could die as a result of being misinformed.

Meanwhile an initiative started by the BBC, among others, called the Trusted News Initiative, has announced plans to tackle potentially harmful coronavirus disinformation. Most things are potentially harmful, surely, and theres something distinctly sinister about an organisation designating itself trusted. Surely thats for other people to decide.

During emergencies of this magnitude, the need for trusted, factual, evidence-based reporting is more crucial than ever, said Noel Curran, Director-General of the European Broadcasting Union, which calls itself the worlds leading alliance of public service media and is a member of the TNI.

Yet there is a tide of misinformation and bad information, driven mainly through online social platforms, which is threatening to undermine public trust and cause further anxiety for people. This initiative underlines the role of public service media in tackling misinformation head-on and delivering accurate content that audiences can safely rely on.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are all members of the TNI too and on top of this, they seem to be constantly rolling out initiatives of their own. Last week Nick Clegg, Facebooks VP of Global Affairs and Communications wrote about what the company is doing to ensure purity of information across all its platforms.

The most untainted source of COVID-19 information, according to Clegg, is the World Health Organization. So Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are now all spamming their users with top tips from the WHO, in many cases whether they like it or not. Until recently not many people would have contested claim that the WHO is the ultimate global authority on such matters the clue is in the name, right? but the tendency of its senior leadership to overtly kowtow to China, as in the clip below, is undermining trust in it.

Speaking of Twitter, it seems to be taking a strong position on the matter of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that also seems to have at least some positive medical effect on COVID-19. Twitter apparently doesnt like people bigging the drug up too much on its platform, even going so far as to take down posts from President Trumps Lawyer, Rudy Giuliani and the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, for extolling its virtues.

However, as Axios points out, Twitter is inconsistent in its implementation of this new rule, having recently permitted a tweet of clear misinformation from tech entrepreneur Elon Musk to stay up. This highlights the problem with this latest attempt at censorship, one shared with all others. The censorship decisions ultimately have to be made by humans and will therefore always be flawed.

Until recently very few people expected Twitter to be expert on the therapeutic qualities of hydroxychloroquine, yet now we do. Meanwhile Facebook has unilaterally anointed the WHO the Oracle of Healthy, despite its refusal to acknowledge Taiwan and many questions about its effectiveness in mitigating the catastrophe the world is now having to endure.

As for trusted sources, how much of the mainstream media can really be trusted? Very few publications dont have some kind of bias, with the US especially egregious in that respect. If President Trump suggested a new course of action, how sure can we be that CNN or the New York Times wouldnt dismiss it out of hand or that Fox News would subject it to proper scrutiny?

The thing is, Journalists are human too and no less prone to biases and prejudices than anyone else. At Telecoms.com we never expect our audience to unquestioningly accept everything we say and encourage stress-testing of our stories by investigating what else has been written on the matter. In fact, the more trusted a source of information claims to be, the more we would urge you to seek a second opinion.

As we have said previously, censorship is at best a game of whack-a-mole because you cant perfect speech. You cant have good speech without bad speech and attempts to eradicate the latter lead to no speech at all, at least none that you can hear in public. In practice censorship just drives banned speech underground, where it gains prominence and is subject to far less scrutiny.

There is currently an abundance of official information on the coronavirus pandemic, meaning supposed misinformation can easily be fact-checked by anyone with an internet connection. Nothing can be done about those who choose not to and attempting to protect such people from themselves through blanket censorship and culling of information sources is both futile and repressive.

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Social media censorship in the time of coronavirus - Telecoms.com

It is 40 years since Howard Brentons play The Romans in Britain, directed by Michael Bogdanov, opened at Londons National Theatre. Set in ancient Rome, it deals with themes of imperialism and abuse of power, and became infamous for a brief episode in its first act when actors Peter Sproule and Greg Hicks portrayed an act of male rape.

The play made legal and political history when morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse tried to prosecute Bogdanov using the Sexual Offences Act 1956, alleging that he had procured an act of gross indecency between two men by directing the two actors.

The controversy reflected the cultural wars of the time. Thirteen years before the play had opened, the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men. Yet as Geoffrey Robertson QC, who was a junior barrister for the defence, says, the attitude of the law was that it was not to be encouraged or legitimised.

Theatre censorship became less common after the Theatres Act abolished the lord chamberlains historic role of censor in 1968, but homophobic attitudes were still the norm. In 1976, Whitehouse, described by Robertson as the self-appointed conscience of the nation, sent her solicitor Graham Ross-Cornes to see The Romans in Britain, and then sought to bring her case.

The director of public prosecutions, Thomas Hetherington, advised the attorney general, Michael Havers, that the play did not contravene the Theatres Act. So Whitehouse tried another route and sought to prosecute Bogdanov under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. The legislation was designed to prevent men soliciting in public lavatories which is why, according to Robertson, the prosecution treated the National Theatre as a large public toilet.

Defence barrister Jeremy Hutchinson compiled a list of actors who were willing to give evidence for Bogdanov, while the prosecution only planned to call Ross-Cornes.

His evidence in the trial at the Old Bailey, Robertson says, prompted one of the most amazing piece of cross-examination ever heard. Giving his evidence, Ross-Cornes had not said where in the theatre he had been sitting.

Barristers are reluctant ever to ask a question in court to which they do not know the answer, and Hutchinson had to be persuaded to ask Ross-Cornes to mark on a map of the theatre where he had watched the production from.

The plan came back showing he had been sitting in the back row of the upper circle, 90 yards from the action. This exchange followed:

Hutchinson: You know that theatre is the art of illusion?

Ross-Cornes: If you say so, Lord Hutchinson.

Hutchinson: And as part of that illusion actors use physical gestures to convey impressions to an audience?

Ross-Cornes: Yes, I would accept that.

Hutchinson: And from the back row, 90 yards from the stage, you can be certain that what you saw was the tip of the actors penis?

Ross-Cornes: Well, if you put it that way, I cant be absolutely certain. But what else could it have been?

At this point Hutchinson balled up his fist, placed his hand by his groin and his gown over his hand, stuck out his thumb and made a thrusting action. He then asked: Are you sure you did not see the tip of the actors thumb? Ross-Corness subsequent admission that he might have been mistaken halted the trial.

As Robertson says, the case put an end to Whitehouses courtroom crusades. Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, meanwhile, says the cases impact went beyond the play itself: The failure of the prosecution was a huge victory, not just for LGBT+ people and the theatre world, but also against censorship and for liberal Britain. It struck a blow for gay visibility, against the homophobes and puritans.

But Lord Michael Cashman, the actor who played Colin Russell on Eastenders and portrayed the first ever gay kiss in a UK soap opera, says: The case was a very clear indicator that homosexuality would not even be tolerated, let alone expressed on a theatre stage.

He is unsure that the case accelerated the campaign for equality but says it was a vivid reminder that our rights were non-existent.

He says the support that the defence received from senior figures across the creative industries was heartening and encouraging, but adds: It must be remembered that they were defending not particularly homosexual issues but the right to artistic independence, as well as challenging the notion of censorship via the imposition of anothers perspective on morality.

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Landmarks in law: the controversial 80s play that defied gay censorship - The Guardian

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

David Cuillier, University of Arizona

(THE CONVERSATION) In times of mortal strife, humans crave information more than ever, and its journalists responsibility to deliver it.

But what if that information is inaccurate, or could even kill people?

Thats the quandary journalists have found themselves in as they decide whether to cover President Donald J. Trumps press briefings live.

Some television networks have started cutting away from the briefings, saying the events are no more than campaign rallies, and that the president is spreading falsehoods that endanger the public.

If Trump is going to keep lying like he has been every day on stuff this important, we should, all of us, stop broadcasting it, MSNBCs Rachel Maddow tweeted. Honestly, its going to cost lives.

News decisions and ethical dilemmas arent simple, but withholding information from the public is inconsistent with journalistic norms, and while well-meaning, could actually cause more harm than good in the long run. Keeping the presidents statements from the public prevents the public from being able to evaluate his performance, for example.

Truth and falsehood can fight it out

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics, updated in 2014 during my term as president, states that the press must seek truth and report it, while also minimizing harm.

When the president of the United States speaks, it matters it is newsworthy, its history in the making. Relaying that event to the public as it plays out is critical for citizens, who can see and hear for themselves what their leader is saying, and evaluate the facts for themselves so that they may adequately self-govern.

Thats true even if leaders lie. Actually, its even more important when leaders lie.

Think of libertarian philosopher John Miltons plea for the free flow of information and end of censorship in 1600s England. Put it all out there and let people sort the lies from the truth, Milton urged: Let her and Falsehood grapple.

If a president spreads lies and disinformation, or minimizes health risks, then the electorate needs to know that to make informed decisions at the polls, perhaps to vote the person out to prevent future missteps.

Likewise, theres a chance the president could be correct in his representation of at least some of the facts.

Its not up to journalists to decide, but simply report what is said while providing additional context and facts that may or may not support what the president said.

Maddow is correct that journalists should not simply parrot information spoon fed by those in power to readers and viewers who might struggle to make sense of it in a vacuum. That is why its imperative journalists continuously challenge false and misleading statements, and trust the public to figure it out.

Craving information

Those who would urge the medias censorship of the presidents speeches may feel they are protecting citizens from being duped, because they believe the average person cant distinguish fact from fiction. Communication scholars call this third-person effect, where we feel ourselves savvy enough to identify lies, but think other more vulnerable, gullible and impressionable minds cannot.

It is understandable why journalists would try to protect the public from lies. Thats the minimizing harm part in the SPJ code of ethics, which is critical in these times, when inaccurate information can put a persons health at risk or cause them to make a fatal decision.

So how do journalists report the days events while minimizing harm and tamping down the spread of disinformation? Perhaps this can be accomplished through techniques already in use during this unorthodox presidential period:

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Report the press briefings live for all to see, while providing live commentary and fact-checking, as PolitiFact and others have done for live presidential debates.

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Fact-check the president after his talks, through contextual stories that provide the public accurate information, in the media and through websites such as FactCheck.org.

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Call intentional mistruths what they are: Lies. With this administration, journalists have become more willing to call intentional falsehoods lies, and that needs to continue, if not even more bluntly.

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Develop a deep list of independent experts that can be on hand to counter misinformation as it is communicated.

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Report transparently and openly, clearly identifying sources, providing supplemental documents online, and acknowledging limitations of information.

The coronavirus pandemic is a critical time for the nations health and its democracy. Now, more than ever, we need information. As humans, we crave knowing what is going on around us, a basic awareness instinct, as termed by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their foundational book, The Elements of Journalism.

People arent dummies

Sometimes people dont even realize they need information until after they have lost it.

In his autobiography, the late Sen. John McCain wrote that upon his release after five years as a Vietnamese prisoner of war, the first thing he did when he got to a Philippines military base was order a steak dinner and stack of newspapers.

I wanted to know what was going on in the world, and I grasped anything I could find that might offer a little enlightenment, McCain wrote. The thing I missed most was information free, uncensored, undistorted, abundant information.

People arent dummies. They can decipher good information from bad, as long as they have all the facts at their disposal.

And journalists are the ones best positioned to deliver it.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read our newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/its-a-bad-idea-for-journalists-to-censor-trump-instead-they-can-help-the-public-identify-whats-true-or-false-134962.

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It's a bad idea for journalists to censor Trump instead, they can help the public identify what's true or false - goskagit.com