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Wikipedia's days may be numbered in Russia, as Moscow's long-standing bid to replace the online encyclopaedia comes to fruition.

A "new version of history is taking shape", on RuWiki, said The Economist, as an expert said that Russia's internet is starting to resemble the heavily censored and closely controlled version in China, where Wikipedia is blocked.

RuWiki is "mostly a straightforward copy" of Wikipedia, but the "most sensitive moments of history" have been "left out or rewritten". It "might be called Orwellian", if only the author "were not himself occasionally censored". The rewriters "hack their way through the sensitive zones of Putinist ideology", producing mangled rewrites on topics including "LGBT rights, oral sex" and "Soviet history".

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Russian "atrocities" in Bucha, near Kyiv, in 2022 are "reimagined" as a "Ukrainian and Western disinformation campaign" and the execution of nearly 22,000 Polish officers in 1940 is rewritten to "cast doubt on the archive documents proving it was done by Soviet secret services".

RuWiki takes a "different direction" from its inspiration, said PC Gamer, portraying a world where the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin "just happened to explode in mid-air". The article on the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal "goes to great lengths" to "express Russia's official stance" on the episode.

According to an analysis of the site by an independent Russian media outfit, the vast majority of the new edits are being made during weekday working hours, which might suggest teams of paid writers are performing the edits, rather than the Wikipedia model of volunteer editors.

Wikipedia has "faced trouble" from the Kremlin since the start of the Ukrainian war in 2014 , said The Economist, and is now one of the few surviving independent sources of information in Russia.

Following a state crackdown on online news media after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Vladimir Putin gave his approval to new alternative platforms. Things stepped up a gear last year, when "glitzy ads" for RuWiki appeared across Moscow, said The Economist.

"Heavy investment" in the project suggests that Wikipedia's "days are numbered". So, although the Russian internet "isn't yet built like the Chinese one", said Sergei Leschina, a former member of the Russian Wikipedia team, "it's the direction we are heading, and quickly".

Since 2015, Wikipedia has been banned in China and in its place is Baidu Baike, a Chinese-language internet encyclopaedia. Unlike Wikipedia, it complies with the Chinese Communist Party's demands for censorship "so it's easy to see why it's the government's preferred (and homegrown) option", said The Independent.

There has also been censorship of Wikipedia by governments in other countries including Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

In another example of information censorship, Hamichlol, meaning "the entirety", is an online encyclopaedia for Haredi Jews, which mainly censors any mention of homosexuality, content that contradicts a creationist world view, and behaviours deemed immodest.

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RuWiki: Russian Wikipedia rival that censors everything from Ukraine to oral sex - The Week

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The standards we use to analyze films for appropriateness have evolved in the last century. In the 1900s, there was no such thing as a PG-rated movie or a Viewer Discretion Advised warning. In fact, movies werent categorized at all. But in the early 1900s, movies started to be monitored with a harsh eye that cut vast sections from films before they made it to the theater, and other films were banned entirely.

Movies spread throughout the U.S. during the turn of the century. While many audiences were enthralled by the new means of entertainment, some critics believed that the popularity of films, especially those featuring law-breaking, was responsible for the growing rates of crime. In particular, the governments of several major cities cast the blame for acts of illegality at the feet of film producers.

Chicago was the first city to take action against the film industry. In 1907, the city enacted a local government code requiring film distributors to submit their movies to a board for review. Many cities around the U.S., including New York City, followed suit over the next couple of years. Since each city had different ideas of what was immoral, many different cuts of the same film could be found in theaters around the country.

Chicagos own Film Censor Board, run by the Chicago Police Department, was one of the most notorious of the movie monitors. Throughout its tenure in the film oversight business, which began with its formation in 1907, the board made many strange and arbitrary choices and let itself be corrupted at almost every turn. And yet it laid the groundwork for the movie ratings we know today.

In 1913, Chicago P.D.s Second Deputy Superintendent Major Metellus Lucullus Cicero Funkhouser began serving as the citys chief censor. Funkhousers team, which included several ex-convicts (who had been hired in the hope that they could return to being productive members of society), combed through hundreds of films between 1913 and 1918, according to the Chicago Tribune. After viewing the films, they wrote reports to tell filmmakers which sections were inappropriate and needed to be removed. The filmmakers then made the required changes or risked having their film banned from Chicago theaters.

The board used many topics as evidence for banning a film, and Funkhouser quickly gained a reputation for being harsh when it came to content. He even chose to remove dancing from all films. He told the Exhibitors Herald in 1918 that showing dancing was dangerous because it encouraged teenagers to go to dance halls, which were the source of much crime and immorality.

While the dancing restriction seems strange today, some of the things the board flagged would still be censored or age-restricted in modern cinema, including sex, nudity, and large amounts of violence.

However, many of the boards reasons for banning material stand out today. Among their strangest decisions were the restriction of: Awake, America, Awake (protests and political criticism), Marked Cards (a man cheating at cards), Shackled (a woman who was not married), Chains of the Past (a theft), The Ordeal of Rosetta (women in a bar), Selfish Yates (the word hell), The House of Hate (fire), Baree, Son of Kazan (a boxing match), and Smashing Through (a bathroom). Films were also banned for depicting characters who were Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Indigenous, and for showing people of different races interacting.

In addition to implementing harsh restrictions, Funkhouser had also hosted parties at the censorship office, in which the scenes that had been banned from movies were strung together and shown as extended naughty features. This hypocritical practice caused many citizens to file complaints, which led to an investigation by the Chicago Civil Service Commission, according to the Chicago Tribune. After the investigation had concluded, the CCSC filed 41 civil charges against Funkhouser. Amongst the charges were failure of supervision, mismanagement of funds, and conduct unbecoming a police officer.

However, the charges against Funkhouser didnt just relate to his work as chief censor. They also covered the vast corruption within the censorship office. In their filing, the CCSC alleged that Funkhouser had knowingly allowed his employees to commit crimes, while also ordering his employees to stalk public figures such as the Chief of Police.

Funkhouser and the rest of the board denied the accusations, alleging that he had been framed. Funkhouser appeared in court on June 24, 1918. Ultimately, Funkhouser was convicted and dismissed from the office of Chief Censor. He died two years later.

After Funkhousers dismissal, the censorship boards role diminished. The position of chief censor was retired permanently, while the board lost its power to national film review organizations, including the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, established in 1922, which was followed by the Production Code Administration (PCA), established in 1934, which was followed by the introduction of the content warning banner For Mature Audiences Only, which was first used on the poster for Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The Supreme Court decision Freedman v. Maryland in 1965 defanged movie censorship laws. In 1968, the PCA was formally retired, and the Code and Rating Administration was established. In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. California that obscenitys definition in film was in part dependent on community standards. Thus, the court ruled that films could avoid sweeping censorship as long as they were appropriately categorized and adhered to the rules of a specific rating. These events led to the modern rating system, with the General (G), Parental Guidance Suggested (PG), Parental Guidance Strongly Suggested (PG-13), Restricted (R), and Adults Only (X) categories. The No One 17 and Under Admitted (NC-17) rating replaced the X rating in 1990. Despite the many social and legal changes, Chicagos film censorship board would not be dissolved until 1984.

None of these vast changes in film history might have happened if it werent for the Chicago Police Department and its infamous censorship board.

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Dirty Cops and Dirty Movies: Chicagos Notorious Film Censors - The Saturday Evening Post

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) likely violated federal antitrust laws when it used its tremendous market power in the advertising world to encourage the demonization of news websites, platforms, and podcasts it deems guilty of wrongthink, a new report published by the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday found.

Shortly after Rob Rakowitz co-founded GARM in 2019 with the World Federation of Advertisers, he complained that [p]eople are advocating for freedom of speech online and using a radical interpretation[] of freedom of speech. To curb this First Amendment phenomenon and prevent it from going global, he called for an uncommon collaboration to rise above individual commercial interest.

For an organization reliant on speech and persuasion in advertising, GARM appears to have anti-democratic views of fundamental American freedoms, the report warns.

GARM claims to safeguard the potential of digital media by reducing the availability and monetization of harmful content online using a Steer Team of four major advertisers (Proctor & Gamble, Mars, Unilever, and Diageo), the worlds largest media buying agency (GroupM), and three trade associations.

GARM also includes the so-called Big Six as members. In the advertising industry, the Big Six refer to the biggest ad agency holding companies around the world. Together, these companies hold nearly every major advertising agency, the report notes.

Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits organizations like GARM from conspiracy against commerce or restraint of trade. House Republicans, however, warned the ongoing collusion between GARM and the worlds largest advertisers inevitably results in unjust viewpoint censorship of popular dissidents over their First Amendment-protected speech.

When Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into X, GARM, at the behest of Rakowitz, organized a boycott among its members to prevent advertisers from spending their money there. Rakowitz denied his role in the coordinated campaign against Musks free speech efforts in a transcribed interview with Republican investigators, but documents obtained by the committee indicate he took credit for Twitters revenue decline.

Steer Team member Unilever also complained to Rakowitz about issues with the platforms overtly partisan takes (e.g., Hunter Biden laptop expos.)

GARM applied similar tactics against The Joe Rogan Experience in 2022 after Steer Team member Joe Barone of GroupM determined that advertisers and platforms like Spotify should be concerned about the alleged misinformation about Covid-19 shots touted by the top podcaster. The committee noted that GroupM knew there was no brand safety concern because it did not buy advertisements on Mr. Rogans podcast, but it still sought to silence Mr. Rogans views anyway by bringing their concerns to GARM.

Coca-Cola also approached GARM about Spotify and Rogans show. Rakowitz indicated he could not collectively tell every GARM member what to do because it gets us into hot water by way of anticompetitive and collusive behaviors, so instead, he advised GARM members individually what to do, effectively aligning all GARM members.

Mr. Rakowitzs power comes from the members of GARM and their advertising dollars. Because power lies with the members, when members communicate an opinion to Mr. Rakowitz, he is likely to communicate that opinion on to the platforms. Ultimately, when platforms receive the message from Mr. Rakowitz, the companies have the choice to cede to his demands or risk losing their advertising revenue, the report notes.

GARM doesnt simply use its own influence to convince companies to turn against dissenters. The organization also pushes companies to use rankings from government-backed censors like Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and NewsGuard, which repeatedly blacklist conservative outlets such as The Federalist, to determine who bears the brunt of their coordinated boycotts.

News outlets like The Daily Wire, Breitbart, and even Fox News that might cross the line by offering what the committee called disfavored views were also heavily surveilled and scrutinized by Steer Team members like GroupM who used emails to discuss their hatred for the publications conservative roots.

The cherry on top of all of GARMs scheming was when the organization pushed Facebook for coordinated action around the upcoming elections similar to the actions the platform took during the COVID-19 pandemic to censor speech. Steer Team member Unilever even pressured Facebook to censor one of former President Donald Trumps 2020 campaign ads discussing Sleepy Joe.

GARM and its members weaponize their power to influence elections through pressuring platforms to label content as misinformation, the report notes.

Republican investigators said that GARMs collusive conduct to demonetize disfavored content is alarming.

The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms, the report concludes.

The House Judiciary published the report the same day it hosted a hearing exploring collusion in the Global Alliance for Responsible Media and whether existing civil and criminal penalties and current antitrust law enforcement efforts are sufficient to deter anticompetitive collusion in online advertising.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.

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Report: Globes Largest Companies Colluded In Likely Antitrust Violation To Censor Conservatives - The Federalist

The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, received criticism from researchers after it labeled a link by the investigative journalism group Bellingcat about Russias attack on a childrens hospital in Kyiv as potentially spammy or unsafe.

In their latest research, Bellingcat identified a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile that struck Ukraine's largest children's medical center, Okhmatdyt, during an attack on Kyiv over the weekend that killed 33 people, including 5 children.

Bellingcats investigation debunked claims from pro-Russian accounts that denied responsibility for the attack and sought to shift the blame for the incident onto Ukraine, researchers said.

Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based organization made famous for its use of open-source intelligence and crowdsourcing, has uncovered stories dealing with issues like the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Despite its reputation, X marked the link to the groups latest research as unsafe, saying that it could lead users to violent or misleading content or to a website that misleads people, disrupts their experience, or steals their personal information.

The platform did not reply to a request for comment.

Bellingcat said that it reported the problem to X but, as of the time of writing, the link is still labeled as spam. This hasn't been the case on other social media platforms, researchers added.

The groups founder, Eliot Higgins, said in a post on X that the latest article about the Russian bombing of a children's hospital is the only Bellingcat link that shows the warning.

You have to wonder if this is deliberate censorship from the so-proclaimed free speech absolutist, Higgins said.

According to him, this is not the first time Bellingcat has been censored on X in the Musk-era. Last year, X seemed to shadow-ban the group after their post saying that the alleged perpetrator of the Texas mass shooting had far-right leanings.

Musk questioned this statement, accusing the outlet, without evidence, of "specializing in psychological operations."

Following this standoff, X limited the reach of Bellingcat, as its main account temporarily didnt appear in the apps search tool.

Xs latest decision to label Bellingcats article as unsafe plays into Russian disinformation campaigns surrounding the hospital attack.

Following the strike, several Russian social media accounts, including that of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, began to claim that the missile that hit the hospital was American-made and that it had been launched from a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile system.

Russian propagandists have also tried to portray the attack as a legitimate response to alleged Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian facilities.

Russian media widely circulated footage and images of the missile seconds before it hit the hospital, and some local military bloggers even published misleading posts falsely claiming that it was a Ukrainian air defense missile and not an attacking Russian Kh-101 missile, according to a report by the U.S. nonprofit Institute for the Study of War.

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Daryna Antoniuk

is a reporter for Recorded Future News based in Ukraine. She writes about cybersecurity startups, cyberattacks in Eastern Europe and the state of the cyberwar between Ukraine and Russia. She previously was a tech reporter for Forbes Ukraine. Her work has also been published at Sifted, The Kyiv Independent and The Kyiv Post.

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Bellingcat warns of censorship on X after research on Russian attack is labeled spam - The Record from Recorded Future News

If you dont live under a dictatorship, you expect to have certain rights and freedoms: to enjoy a Western Bacon Cheeseburger during any of Carls Jr.s posted business hours, to sing along to Chappell Roan as loud as you want in your own home and to express yourself however you want, as long as youre not hurting anybody (probably with Chappell Roan lyrics).

Still, supposedly free countries have ruled against artists rights to free speech, free song, free painting, etc.

When rapper BG was released from prison on weapons charges in 2023, one of the conditions of his parole was the submission of any song he intended to record or perform to the government to make sure it wasnt inconsistent with the goals of rehabilitation. Specifically, hesnot allowed to glorify gang life or violence, soooo hes supposed to just get a new job or something. His lawyers are challenging the requirements on First Amendment grounds, but they totally arrested him for performing such songs with Boosie and Gucci Mane, so yes, apparently, they can do that.

In 1989, 2 Live Crew released the albumAs Nasty As They Wanna Be, whose cover featured four nearly naked pairs of womens butts and whose contents upheld this thematic tone. There were probably 12 albums on the shelf just like it this was the 1980s, after all but a Florida judge declared the album obscene, and the group was arrested for performing the songs in a Broward County strip club. Yes, the boob store was deemed an inappropriate place for lyrics about boobs. They were eventually acquitted, but not before dealing with the only reason theyre known today.

Today,The Well of Loneliness would be considered a fairly standard historical romance whose love interests happen to be two women, but it was a pretty big deal in 1928. After it was declared obscene by the British government, author Radclyffe Hall rallied her famous friends to defend the books literary merit, butthey mostly noped out on her. Virginia Woolf herself wrote that she was relieved such a defense wouldnt be permitted because she thought the book kind of sucked. Hall had more luck getting the book published in America, where she gained famous supporters like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who Virginia Woolf also thought kind of sucked.

Naked people rubbing butts has been the most popular subject in art for as long as art has been made, but cave paintings be damned, you couldnt do it in 1966 England. Thats where Stass Paraskos wascharged with lewd and obscene conduct for a Leeds museum exhibit that depicted cartoonish figures in various states of sexy times. He became the last artist successfully prosecuted under those particular laws, but he did have to pay 25 pounds for the trouble, which was probably an artists entire annual income back then.

WhenThe Little Review began publishing James JoycesUlysses in serial form in 1918, the U.S. Post Office responded byburning every copy of the magazine featuring the story that entered the country. You might be thinking, Well, hey, its a little confusing, but its notthat bad, but the issue wasnt quality. In particular, a scene in which protagonist Leopold Bloom masturbates while a young woman exposes herself to him got its publishers arrested and eventually convicted on the grounds that the story could deprave and corrupt young minds.

The novel wasnt published in the U.S. again until 1933, when it was unbanned as a result of theUnited States v. One Book Called Ulysses. We really dont name our court cases sassily enough anymore.

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5 Times the Courts Chose Censorship - Cracked.com