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Censorship of images was widespread in the Soviet Union. Visual censorship was exploited in a political context, particularly during the political purges of Joseph Stalin, where the Soviet government attempted to erase some purged figures from Soviet history, and took measures which included altering images and destroying film. The USSR curtailed access to pornography, which was specifically prohibited by Soviet law.

Soviet law prohibited the creation and distribution of pornography under Article 228 of the criminal code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and analogous legislation adopted by other republics of the Soviet Union.

While nude shots appeared in a number of Soviet films before the glasnost reform of the 1980s, the 1988 film Little Vera was the first to include an explicit sex scene.[1]

Pornographic images and videotapes were smuggled into the Soviet Union for illegal distribution. In addition to the anti-pornographic law, such smuggling was prohibited by legal provisions giving the Soviet state the exclusive right to conduct foreign economic trade.

Yezhov is clearly visible to Stalin's left. The photo was later altered by censors.

This image taken by the Moscow Canal was taken when Nikolai Yezhov was water commissar. After he fell from power, he was arrested, shot, and had his image removed by the censors.

Yezhov was born in Saint Petersburg on May 1, 1895, and from 1915 to 1917 Yezhov served in the Tsarist Russian army. He joined the Bolsheviks on May 5, 1917, in Vitebsk, a few months before the October Revolution. During the Russian Civil War 19191921 he fought in the Red Army. After February 1922, he worked in the political system, rising in 1935 to the Central Committee of the Communist Party; in the next year he became a secretary of the Central Committee. From February 1935 to March 1939 he was also the Chairman of the Central Commission for Party Control.

In 1935 he wrote a paper in which he argued that political opposition must eventually lead to violence and terrorism; this became in part the ideological basis of the Purges.[2] He became People's Commissar for Internal Affairs (head of the NKVD) and a member of the Presidium Central Executive Committee on September 26, 1936. Under Yezhov, the purges reached their height, with roughly half of the Soviet political and military establishment being imprisoned or shot, along with hundreds of thousands of others, suspected of disloyalty or "wrecking." Yezhov was blamed for these "excesses" and on April 10, 1939, he was arrested. On February 4, 1940, he was executed.[3]

On May 5, 1920, Lenin gave a famous speech to a crowd of Soviet troops in Sverdlov Square, Moscow. In the foreground was Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev. The photo was later altered and both were removed by censors.

Leon Trotsky (Russian: e ) was a Ukrainian-born ethnically-Jewish Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was an influential politician in the early days of the Soviet Union, first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army and People's Commissar of War. He was also among the first members of the Politburo.

He became an enemy of the State and was erased from Soviet history after leading the failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing bureaucratization of the Soviet Union. Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and deported from the Soviet Union in the Great Purge. As the head of the Fourth International, he continued in exile to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and was eventually assassinated in Mexico by Ramn Mercader, a Soviet agent who used an ice axe to fatally stab Trotsky.[A 1][4] Trotsky's ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a variation of communist theory, which remains a major school of Marxist thought that is opposed to the theories of Stalinism.

On November 7, 1919, this image was snapped of the Soviet leadership celebrating the second anniversary of the October Revolution. After Trotsky and his allies fell from power, a number of figures were removed from the image, including Trotsky and two people over to Lenin's left, wearing glasses and giving a salute. Lev Kamenev two men over on Lenin's right was another of Stalin's opponents and below the boy in front of Trotsky, another bearded figure, Artemic Khalatov the one time Commissar of publishing, was also edited out.

Kamenev was born in Moscow, the son of a Jewish railway worker and a Russian Orthodox housewife.[5] He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1901 and its Bolshevik faction when the party split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in August 1903.[6] He climbed the ranks of the Soviet leadership and was briefly the nominal head of the Soviet state in 1917 and later chairman (19231924) of the ruling Politburo.

After Sergei Kirov's murder on December 1, 1934, which precipitated Stalin's Great Purges, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their closest associates were once again expelled from the Communist Party and arrested in December 1934. They were tried in January 1935 and were forced to admit "moral complicity" in Kirov's assassination. Zinoviev was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Kamenev to five years in prison. Kamenev was charged separately in early 1935 in connection with the Kremlin Case and, although he refused to confess, was sentenced to ten years in prison.

In August 1936, after months of careful preparations and rehearsals in Soviet secret police prisons, Zinoviev, Kamenev and 14 others, mostly Old Bolsheviks, were put on trial again in the Moscow Trials. Kamenev and all the others were found guilty and were executed by shooting on August 25, 1936.

Taken in 1917, the signs have been changed

On November 7, 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Provisional Government (Russia was still using the Julian Calendar at the time, so it is still called the October Revolution). The October Revolution ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February of that year, replacing Russia's short-lived provisional parliamentary government with government by soviets, local councils elected by bodies of workers and peasants. Liberal and monarchist forces, loosely organized into the White Army, immediately went to war against the Bolsheviks' Red Army.

During the Revolution a number of pictures were taken of successful fighters celebrating their victories. These were often used as postcards after the war. The background of the original image includes a store that says in Russian, "Watches, gold and silver". The image was then changed to read, "Struggle for your rights", and a flag was changed to more clearly read, "Down with the monarchy long live the Republic!".[7]

Alexander Malchenko has been edited out.

The Union for Struggle of the Liberation of the Working Class (Russian: ), a St Petersburg-based organization, was founded by a number of Russian revolutionaries including Mikhail Kalinin and Lenin. They would eventually merge with other groups to lay the foundation for the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDRP).[8]The RSDRP formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party.(It would later split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions, with the Bolsheviks eventually becoming the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.)

This picture, taken in February 1897, records a meeting of the St. Petersburg chapter of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class. Shortly after the picture was taken the Okhrana arrested the whole group. The members received various punishments, with Lenin being arrested, held by authorities for fourteen months and then released and exiled to the village of Shushenskoye in Siberia, where he mingled with such notable Marxists as Georgy Plekhanov, who had introduced socialism to Russia.

Standing at center is Alexander Malchenko. At the time of this picture he was an engineering student and his mother would let Lenin hide out at her house. After his arrest he spent some time in exile before returning in 1900 and abandoning the revolution. He moved to Moscow, where he worked as a senior engineer in various state departments before in 1929 being arrested, wrongfully accused of being a "wrecker" and executed on November 18, 1930. After his arrest and execution he was airbrushed out of all reproductions. In 1958 he was posthumously rehabilitated and reappeared in reproductions of the image.

After cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko died in a training accident in 1961, the Soviet government airbrushed him out of photographs of the first group of cosmonauts. As Bondarenko had already appeared in publicly available photographs, the deletions led to rumours of cosmonauts dying in failed launches.[9] Both Bondarenko's existence and the nature of his death were secret until 1986.[10]

As Berlin fell in the closing days of the World War in Europe, Red Army photographer Yevgeny Khaldei gathered some soldiers and posed a shot of them hoisting the flag (called the Victory Banner) on the roof of the Reichstag building. The photo represented a historic moment, the defeat of Germany in a war that cost the Soviet Union tens of millions of lives.

After taking the symbolic photo, Khaldei quickly returned to Moscow. He further edited the image at the request of the editor-in-chief of the Ogonyok, who noticed that Sen. Sgt. Abdulkhakim Ismailov, who is supporting the flag-bearer in the photo, had a wristwatch on each arm, indicating he had been looting. Later Soviet sources claimed that the extra watch was actually an Adrianov compass[11] and that Khaldei, in order to avoid controversy, doctored the photo to remove the watch from Ismailov's right wrist. Khaldei also copied smoke in the background of another photo to make the scene more dramatic.

The photo was published 13 May 1945 in the Ogonyok magazine.[15] While many photographers took pictures of flags on the roof it was Khaldei's image that stuck.[15]

More:
Censorship of images in the Soviet Union - Wikipedia

Freedom to read can never be taken for granted. Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are banned at the border. Books are removed from the shelves in Canadian libraries, schools and bookstores every day. Free speech on the Internet is under attack. Few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read.

Each year for Freedom to Read Week, the Freedom of Expression Committee publishes a review of current censorship issues in Canada, featuring provocative news articles, interviews with champions of free speech, and a Get Involved section with activities designed for classroom instruction and discussion.

Go to Freedom to Read Kits

This selective list, prepared by the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council, provides information on more than 100 books, magazines, graphic novels and other written works that have been challenged in the past decades. Each challenge sought to limit public access to the work in schools, libraries, or bookstores. Some challenges were upheld; others were rejected. Some challenges remain unresolved.

Go to Challenged Works List

Ce document constitue une compilation non-exhaustive de 643 auteures et de 1222 uvres diffuses en franais qui ont fait lobjet de tentatives de censure, russies ou non, de 1685 nos jours au Canada. Des liens vers plusieurs milliers dautres titres sont galement fournis dans les Sources, en annexe.

Go to Index

Cette liste de ressources comprend livres, articles, brochures, priodiques et autres sources dinformation sur la censure et la libert dexpression.

Go to Documents en franais sur la libre expression et la censure au Canada

The Canadian Library Associations Advisory Committee on Intellectual Freedom, in partnership with the Book and Periodical Councils Freedom of Expression Committee, developed an annual survey to investigate challenges to books, magazines and DVDs in Canadian public libraries. The results of the most recent surveys are posted here.

Go to Challenges to Publications in Canadian Public Libraries

We strive to keep accurate, up-to-date records of challenges to print materials in Canada. When a book is challenged in your school or community, use our case study form to let us know what happens.

Go to Report a Challenge

Outside Canada, would-be censors attack and ban the works of Canadian authors. Here are two examples.

Go to Challenges toCanadian Publications Abroad

Read more:
Censorship in Canada - Freedom to Read

Choe Ryong Hae, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived for an event in Pyongyang last year. The U.S. on Monday put sanctions on Mr. Choe, a top North Korean official, and two others. Photo: Wong Maye-E/Associated Press

The U.S. Treasury Department put sanctions on three senior North Korean officials who it said lead government departments involved in government-sponsored censorship.

The Treasury put sanctions on Choe Ryong Hae, who is seen as the No. 2 official with control over the North Korean Workers Party, the government and the military; Jong Kyong Thaek, the minister of state security in North Korea; and Pak Kwang Ho, director of the ruling partys Propaganda and Agitation Department.

These sanctions demonstrate the United States ongoing support for freedom of expression, and opposition to endemic censorship and human rights abuses, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

North Koreas mission to the United Nations couldnt be reached for comment.

The sanction designations come alongside a U.S. State Department report on human-rights abuses and censorship in North Korea.

That report highlighted the role of groups comprised of North Korean government officials responsible for implementing censorship and restricting foreign media access. The groups conduct warrantless searches, inspection or confiscation of computer content, and the kidnapping of foreign citizens supporting human rights in the country, the State Department said.

It also cited a software-based censorship system that makes it impossible to view foreign media on all domestic mobile phones.

Write to Samuel Rubenfeld at samuel.rubenfeld@wsj.com

Read more:
U.S. Targets North Korean Censorship With Sanctions - WSJ

In December 2015, thousands of tech entrepreneurs and analysts, along with a fewinternational heads of state, gathered in Wuzhen, in southern China, for the countrys second World Internet Conference. At the opening ceremony the Chinese president, XiJinping, set out his vision for the future ofChinas internet. We should respect the rightof individual countries to independently choosetheir own path of cyber-development, said Xi,warning against foreign interference in other countries internal affairs.

No one was surprised by what they heard. Xi had already established that the Chinese internet would be aworld unto itself, with its content closely monitored and managed by the Communist party. In recent years, the Chinese leadership has devoted more and more resources to controlling content online. Government policies have contributed to a dramatic fall in the number of postings on the Chinese blogging platform Sina Weibo (similar to Twitter), and have silenced manyof Chinas most important voices advocating reform and opening up the internet.

It wasnt always like this. In the years before Xi became president in 2012, the internet had begun to afford the Chinese people an unprecedented level of transparency and power to communicate. Popular bloggers, some of whom advocated bold social and political reforms, commanded tens of millions of followers. Chinese citizens used virtual private networks (VPNs) to access blocked websites. Citizens banded together online to hold authorities accountable for their actions, through virtual petitions and organising physical protests. In 2010, a survey of 300Chinese officials revealed that 70% were anxious about whether mistakes or details about their private life might be leaked online. Of the almost 6,000 Chinesecitizens also surveyed, 88% believed it wasgood for officials to feel this anxiety.

For Xi Jinping, however, there is no distinction between the virtual world and the real world: both should reflect the same political values, ideals, and standards. To this end, the government has invested intechnological upgrades to monitor and censor content. It has passed new laws on acceptable content, and aggressively punished those who defy the new restrictions. Under Xi, foreign content providers havefound their access to China shrinking. They are being pushed out by both Xis ideological war and hisdesire that Chinese companies dominate the countrys rapidly growing online economy.

At home, Xi paints the wests version of the internet, which prioritises freedom of information flow, as anathema to the values of the Chinese government. Abroad, he asserts Chinas sovereign right to determine what constitutes harmful content. Rather than acknowledging that efforts to control the internet areasource of embarrassment a sign of potential authoritarian fragility Xi is trying to turn his vision ofaChinanet (to use blogger Michael Antis phrase) into a model for other countries.

The challenge for Chinas leadership is to maintain what it perceives as the benefits of the internet advancing commerce and innovation without letting technology accelerate political change. To maintain his Chinanet, Xi seems willing to accept the costs in terms of economic development, creative expression, government credibility, and the development of civil society. But the internet continues to serve as a powerful tool for citizens seeking to advance social change and human rights. The game of cat-and-mouse continues, and there are many more mice than cats.

The very first email in China was sent in September 1987 16 years after Ray Tomlinson sent the first email in the US. It broadcast a triumphal message: Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world. Forthe first few years, the government reserved the internet for academics and officials. Then, in 1995, it was opened to the general public. In 1996, although onlyabout 150,000 Chinese people were connected tothe internet, the government deemed it the Year of the Internet, and internet clubs and cafes appeared all over Chinas largest cities.

Yet as enthusiastically as the government proclaimed its support for the internet, it also took steps to control it. Rogier Creemers, a China expert at Oxford University, has noted that As the internet became a publicly accessible information and communication platform, there was no debate about whether it should fall under government supervision only about how such control would be implemented in practice. By 1997, Beijing had enacted its first laws criminalising online postings that it believed were designed to hurt national security or the interests of the state.

Chinas leaders were right to be worried. Their citizens quickly realised the political potential inherent in the internet. In 1998, a 30-year-old software engineer called Lin Hai forwarded 30,000 Chinese email addresses to aUS-based pro-democracy magazine. Lin was arrested, tried and ultimately sent to prison in the countrys first known trial for a political violation committed completely online. The following year, the spiritual organisation Falun Gong used email and mobile phones to organise a silent demonstration of more than 10,000 followers around the Communist partys central compound, Zhongnanhai, to protest their inability topractise freely. The gathering, which had been arranged without the knowledge of the government, precipitated an ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and a new determination to exercise control over the internet.

The man who emerged to lead the governments technological efforts was Fang Binxing. In the late 1990s, Fang worked on developing the Golden Shield transformative software that enabled the government toinspect any data being received or sent, and to block destination IP addresses and domain names. His work was rewarded by a swift political rise. By the 2000s, he had earned the moniker Father of the Great Firewall and, eventually, the enmity of hundreds of thousands ofChinese web users.

Throughout the early 2000s, the Chinese leadership supplemented Fangs technology with a set of new regulations designed to ensure that anyone with access to Chinas internet played by Chinese rules. In September 2000, the state council issued order no 292, which required internet service providers to ensure that the information sent out on their services adhered to the law, and that some domain names and IP addresses were recorded. Two years later, Beijing blocked Google for thefirst time. (A few years later, Google introduced Google.cn, a censored version of the site.) In 2002, the government increased its emphasis on self-censorship with the Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for Chinas Internet Industry, which established four principles: patriotic observance of law, equitableness, trustworthiness and honesty. More than 100 companies,including Yahoo!, signed the pledge.

Perhaps the most significant development, however, was a 2004 guideline on internet censorship that called for Chinese universities to recruit internet commentators who could guide online discussions in politically acceptable directions and report comments that did notfollow Chinese law. These commentators became known as wu mao dang, or 50-cent party, after the small bonuses they were supposedly paid for each post.

Yet even as the government was striving to limit individuals access to information, many citizens weremaking significant inroads into the countrys political world and their primary target was corruptlocal officials.

In May 2009, Deng Yujiao, a young woman working inahotel in Hubei province, stabbed a party official to death after she rejected his efforts to pay her for sex andhe tried to rape her. Police initially committed Dengto a mental hospital. A popular blogger, Wu Gan, however, publicised her case. Using information gathered through a process known as ren rou sousuo, orhuman flesh search engine, in which web users collaborate to discover the identity of a specific individual or organisation, Wu wrote a blog describing the events and actions of the party officials involved.

In an interview with the Atlantic magazine at the time,he commented: The cultural significance of fleshsearches is this: in an undemocratic country, the people have limited means to get information [but] citizens can get access to information through the internet, exposing lies and the truth. Dengs case beganto attract public support, with young people gathering in Beijing with signs reading Anyone couldbeDeng Yujiao. Eventually the court ruled thatDeng had acted in self-defence.

During this period, in the final years of Hu Jintaos presidency, the internet was becoming more and more powerful as a mechanism by which Chinese citizens heldtheir officials to account. Most cases were like that of Deng Yujiao lodged and resolved at the local level. Asmall number, however, reached central authorities inBeijing. On 23 July 2011, a high-speed train derailed inthe coastal city of Wenzhou, leaving at least 40 people dead and 172 injured. In the wake of the accident, Chinese officials banned journalists from investigating, telling them to use only information released from authorities. But local residents took photos of the wreckage being buried instead of being examined for evidence. The photos went viral and heightened the impression that the governments main goal was not toseek the true cause of the accident.

A Sina Weibo polllater blocked asked users whythey thought the train wreckage was buried: 98%(61,382) believed it represented destruction of evidence. Dark humour spread online: How far are wefrom heaven? Only atrainticket away, and The Ministry ofRailways earnestly requests that you ride theHeavenly Party Express. The popular pressure resultedin a full-scale investigation of the crash, andinlate December, the government issued a reportblaming poorly designed signal equipment and insufficient safety procedures. Asmany as 54 officials faced disciplinary action as aresult of the crash.

The internet also provided a new sense of community for Chinese citizens, who mostly lacked robust civil-society organisations. In July 2012, devastating floods inBeijing led to the evacuation of more than 65,000 residents and the deaths of at least 77 people. Damages totalled an estimated $1.9bn. Local officials failed to respond effectively: police officers allegedly kept ticketing stranded cars instead of assisting residents, andthe early warning system did not work. Yet the realstory was the extraordinary outpouring of assistancefrom Beijing web users, who volunteered theirhomes and food to stranded citizens. In a span of just 24 hours, an estimated 8.8m messages were sent onWeibo regarding the floods. The story of the floods became notonly one of government incompetence, butalso oneof how an online community could transform intoareal one.

While the Chinese people explored new ways to use theinternet, the leadership also began to develop a tastefor the new powers it offered, such as a better understanding of citizens concerns and new ways to shape public opinion. Yet as the internet increasingly became a vehicle for dissent, concern within the leadership mounted that it might be used to mobilise alarge-scale political protest capable of threatening thecentral government. The government responded withastream of technological fixes and political directives; yet the boundaries of internet life continuedto expand.

The advent of Xi Jinping in 2012 brought a new determination to move beyond deleting posts and passing regulations. Beijing wanted to ensure that internet content more actively served the interests of theCommunist party. Within the virtual world, as in thereal world, the party moved to silence dissenting voices, to mobilise party members in support of its values, and to prevent foreign ideas from seeping intoChinese political and social life. In a leaked speechinAugust 2013, Xi articulated a dark vision: Theinternet has become the main battlefield for thepublicopinion struggle.

Early in his tenure, Xi embraced the world of social media. One Weibo group, called Fan Group to Learn from Xi, appeared in late 2012, much to the delight of Chinese propaganda officials. (Many Chinese suspected that the account was directed by someone in the government, although the accounts owner denied it.) Xi allowed avisit he made to Hebei to be liveblogged on Weibo bygovernment-affiliated press, and videos about Xi, including a viral music video called How Should IAddress You, based on a trip he made to a mountain village, demonstrate the governments increasing skillatdigital propaganda.

Under Xi, the government has also developed new technology that has enabled it to exert far greater controlover the internet. In January 2015, the government blocked many of the VPNs that citizens hadused to circumvent the Great Firewall. This was surprising to many outside observers, who had believed that VPNs were too useful to the Chinese economy supporting multinationals, banks and retailers, among others forthe government to crack down on them.

In spring 2015, Beijing launched the Great Cannon. Unlike the Great Firewall, which has the capacity to block traffic as it enters or exits China, the Great Cannon is able to adjust and replace content as it travels around the internet. One of its first targets was the US coding andsoftware development site GitHub. The Chinese government used the Great Cannon to levy a distributed denial of service attack against the site, overwhelming itwith traffic redirected from Baidu (a search engine similar to Google). The attack focused on attempting toforce GitHub to remove pages linked to the Chinese-language edition of the New York Times andGreatFire.org, apopular VPN that helps people circumvent Chinese internet censorship.

But perhaps Xis most noticeable gambit has been toconstrain the nature of the content available online. InAugust 2013, the government issued a new set ofregulations known as the seven baselines. The reaction by Chinese internet companies was immediate. Sina, for example, shut down or handled 100,000 Weibo accounts found to not comply with the new rules.

The government also adopted tough restrictions oninternet-based rumours. In September 2013, the supreme peoples court ruled that authors of online posts that deliberately spread rumours or lies, and wereeither seen by more than 5,000 individuals or shared more than 500 times, could face defamation charges and up to three years in jail. Following massive flooding in Hebei province in July 2016, for example, thegovernment detained three individuals accused of spreading false news via social media regarding the death toll and cause of the flood. Some social media posts and photos of the flooding, particularly of drowning victims, were also censored.

In addition, Xis government began targeting individuals with large social media followings who might challenge the authority of the Communist party. Restrictions on the most prominent Chinese web influencers, beginning in 2013, represented an important turning point in Chinas internet life. Discussions began to move away from politics to personal and less sensitive issues. The impact on Sina Weibo was dramatic. According to a study of 1.6 million Weibo users, the number ofWeibo posts fell by 70% between 2011 and 2013.

The strength of the Communist partys control over theinternet rests above all on its commitment to prevent the spread of information that it finds dangerous. Ithas also adopted sophisticated technology, such as theGreat Firewall and the Golden Shield. Perhaps its most potent source of influence, however, is the cyber-army it has developed to implement its policies.

The total number of people employed to monitor opinion and censor content on the internet a role euphemistically known as internet public opinion analyst was estimated at 2 million in 2013. They are employed across government propaganda departments, private corporations and news outlets. One 2016 Harvard study estimated that the Chinese government fabricates and posts approximately 448m comments on social media annually. A considerable amount of censorship is conducted through the manual deletion of posts, and anestimated 100,000 people are employed by both the government and private companies to do just this.

Private companies also play an important role infacilitating internet censorship in China. Since commercial internet providers are so involved in censoring the sites that they host, internet scholar Guobin Yang argues that it may not be too much of astretch to talk about the privatisation of internet content control. The process is made simpler by the fact that several major technology entrepreneurs also hold political office. For example, Robin Li of Baidu is a member of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, an advisory legislature, while Lei Jun, founder and CEOof mobile phone giant Xiaomi, is arepresentative ofthe National Peoples Congress.

Yet Xis growing control over the internet does not come without costs. An internet that does not work efficiently or limits access to information impedes economic growth. Chinas internet is notoriously unreliable, and ranks 91st in the world for speed. As New Yorker writer Evan Osnos asked in discussing thetransformation of the Chinese internet during Xistenure: How many countries in 2015 have an internet connection to the world that is worse than itwas a year ago?

Scientific innovation, particularly prized by the Chinese leadership, may also be at risk. After the VPN crackdown, a Chinese biologist published an essay thatbecame popular on social media, entitled Why Do Scientists Need Google? He wrote: If a country wants tomake this many scientists take out time from the short duration of their professional lives to research technology for climbing over the Great Firewall and toinstall and to continually upgrade every kind of software for routers, computers, tablets and mobile devices, no matter that this behaviour wastes a great amount of time; it is all completely ridiculous.

More difficult to gauge is the cost the Chinese leadership incurs to its credibility. Web users criticising the Great Firewall have used puns to mock Chinas censorship system. Playing off the fact that the phrases strong nation and wall nation share a phonetic pronunciation in Chinese (qiangguo), some began usingthe phrase wall nation to refer to China. Those responsible for seeking to control content have also been widely mocked. When Fang opened an account onSina Weibo in December 2010, he quickly closed the account after thousands of online users left expletive-laden messages accusing him of being a government hack. Censors at Sina Weibo blocked Fang Binxing as asearch term; one Twitter user wrote: Kind of poetic, really, the blocker, blocked. When Fang delivered a speech at Wuhan University in central China in 2011, a few students pelted him with eggs and a pair of shoes.

Nonetheless, the government seems willing to bear the economic and scientific costs, as well as potential damage to its credibility, if it means more control over the internet. For the international community, Beijings cyber-policy is a sign of the challenge that a more powerful China presents to the liberal world order, which prioritises values such as freedom of speech. It also reflects the paradox inherent in Chinas efforts topromote itself as a champion of globalisation, whilesimultaneously advocating a model of internet sovereignty and closing its cyber-world to information and investment from abroad.

Adapted from The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping andtheNew Chinese State by Elizabeth C Economy, publishedby Oxford University Press and available atguardianbookshop.com

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Censorship is the suppression or deletion of material, which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.

Typically censorship is done by governments, religious and secular groups, corporations, or the mass media, although other forms of censorship exist. The withholding of classified information, commercial secrets, intellectual property, and privileged lawyer-client communication is not usually described as censorship within the censoring community, though can be by outside observers. The term "censorship" often carries with it a sense of untoward, inappropriate or repressive secrecy.

Censorship is closely related to the concept of freedom of speech. It is often associated with human rights abuse, dictatorship, and repression.

The term "censorship" is often used as a pejorative term to signify a belief that a group controlling certain information is using this control improperly or for its own benefit, or preventing others from accessing information that should be made readily accessible (often so that conclusions drawn can be verified).

The rationale for censorship is different for various types of data censored. Censorship is defined as the act or practice of removing obscene, vulgar, and highly objectionable material from things we encounter every day. Whether it is on TV, in music, books, or on the Internet censorship is an inescapable part of our lives. There are five main types of censorship:

In wartime, explicit censorship is carried out with the intent of preventing the release of information that might be useful to an enemy. Typically it involves keeping times or locations secret, or delaying the release of information (e.g., an operational objective) until it is of no possible use to enemy forces. The moral issues here are often seen as somewhat different, as release of tactical information usually presents a greater risk of casualties among one's own forces and could possibly lead to loss of the overall conflict. During World War I letters written by British soldiers would have to go through censorship. This consisted of officers going through letters with a black marker and crossing out anything which might compromise operational secrecy before the letter was sent. The World War II catchphrase "Loose lips sink ships" was used as a common justification to exercise official wartime censorship and encourage individual restraint when sharing potentially sensitive information.

An example of sanitization policies comes from the USSR under Joseph Stalin, where publicly used photographs were often altered to remove people whom Stalin had condemned to execution. Though past photographs may have been remembered or kept, this deliberate and systematic alteration to all of history in the public mind is seen as one of the central themes of Stalinism and totalitarianism.

The content of school textbooks is often the issue of debate, since their target audience is young people, and the term "whitewashing" is the one commonly used to refer to selective removal of critical or damaging evidence or comment. The reporting of military atrocities in history is extremely controversial, as in the case of the Nanking Massacre, the Holocaust (or Holocaust denial), and the Winter Soldier Investigation of the Vietnam War. The representation of every society's flaws or misconduct is typically downplayed in favor of a more nationalist, favorable or patriotic view.

Religious groups have at times attempted to block the teaching of evolution in publicly-funded schools as it contradicts their religious beliefs or have argued that they are being censored if not allowed to teach creationism. The teaching of sexual education in school and the inclusion of information about sexual health and contraceptive practices in school textbooks is another area where suppression of information occurs.

In the context of secondary-school education, the way facts and history are presented greatly influences the interpretation of contemporary thought, opinion and socialization. One argument for censoring the type of information disseminated is based on the inappropriate quality of such material for the young. The use of the "inappropriate" distinction is in itself controversial, as it can lead to a slippery slope enforcing wider and more politically-motivated censorship. Some artists such as Frank Zappa helped in the protest against censorship. Although they usually failed, they did put up an argument against the censorship of other material.

An example of such censorship is, ironically, Fahrenheit 451. The book was themed against censorship, but changed heavily. A Ballantine Books version which is the version used by most school classes[2] contained approximately 75 separate edits, omissions, and changes from the original Bradbury manuscript.[clarify]

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Scientific studies may be suppressed or falsified because they undermine sponsors' commercial, political or other interests or because they fail to support researchers' ideological goals. Examples include, failing to publish a study which shows that a new drug is harmful, or truthfully publishing the benefits of a treatment while failing to describe harmful side-effects. Scientific research may also be suppressed or altered to support a political agenda. In the United States some government scientists, including NASA climatologist Drew Shindell, have reported governmental pressure to alter their statements regarding climate change.[3]

American musicians such as Frank Zappa have repeatedly protested against censorship in music and pushed for more freedom of expression. In 1986, Zappa appeared on CNN's Crossfire to protest censorship of lyrics in rock music, saying that harm will be done or unrest caused if controversial information, lyrics, or other messages are promulgated.

In countries like Sudan, Afghanistan and China, violations of musicians rights to freedom of expression are commonplace. In the USA and Algeria, lobbying groups have succeeded in keeping popular music off the concert stage, and out of the media and retail. In ex-Yugoslavia musicians are often pawns in political dramas, and the possibility of free expression has been adversely affected.

Music censorship has been implemented by states, religions, educational systems, families, retailers and lobbying groups and in most cases they violate international conventions of human rights.[5]

Copy approval is the right to read and amend an article, usually an interview, before publication. Many publications refuse to give copy approval but it is increasingly becoming common practice when dealing with publicity anxious celebrities.[6] Picture approval is the right given to an individual to choose which photos will be published and which will not. Robert Redford is well known for insisting upon picture approval.[7] Writer approval is when writers are chosen based on whether they will write flattering articles or not. Hollywood publicist Pat Kingsley is known for banning certain writers who wrote undesirably about one of her clients from interviewing any of her other clients.[7]

Censorship is regarded among a majority of academics in the Western world as a typical feature of dictatorships and other authoritarian political systems. Democratic nations are represented, especially among Western government, academic and media commentators, as having somewhat less institutionalized censorship, and as instead promoting the importance of freedom of speech. The former Soviet Union maintained a particularly extensive program of state-imposed censorship. The main organ for official censorship in the Soviet Union was the Chief Agency for Protection of Military and State Secrets generally known as the Glavlit, its Russian acronym. The Glavlit handled censorship matters arising from domestic writings of just about any kind even beer and vodka labels. Glavlit censorship personnel were present in every large Soviet publishing house or newspaper; the agency employed some 70,000 censors to review information before it was disseminated by publishing houses, editorial offices, and broadcasting studios. No mass medium escaped Glavlit's control. All press agencies and radio and television stations had Glavlit representatives on their editorial staffs.

Some thinkers understand censorship to include other attempts to suppress points of view or the exploitation of negative propaganda, media manipulation, spin, disinformation or "free speech zones." These methods tend to work by disseminating preferred information, by relegating open discourse to marginal forums, and by preventing other ideas from obtaining a receptive audience.

Sometimes, a specific and unique information whose very existence is barely known to the public, is kept in a subtle, near-censorship situation, being regarded as subversive or inconvenient. Michel Foucaults 1978 text Sexual Morality and the Law (later republished as "The Danger of Child Sexuality"), for instance - originally published as La loi de la pudeur [literally, the law of decency], defends the decriminalization of statutory rape and the abolition of age of consent laws,[8] and as of July 2006, is almost totally invisible throughout the internet, both in English and French, and does not appear even on Foucault-specialized websites.

Suppression of access to the means of dissemination of ideas can function as a form of censorship. Such suppression has been alleged to arise from the policies of governmental bodies, such as the FDA and FCC in the United States of America, the CRTC in Canada, newspapers that refuse to run commentary the publisher disagrees with, lecture halls that refuse to rent themselves out to a particular speaker, and individuals who refuse to finance such a lecture. The omission of selected voices in the content of stories also serves to limit the spread of ideas, and is often called censorship. Such omission can result, for example, from persistent failure or refusal by media organizations to contact criminal defendants (relying solely on official sources for explanations of crime). Censorship has been alleged to occur in such media policies as blurring the boundaries between hard news and news commentary, and in the appointment of allegedly biased commentators, such as a former government attorney, to serve as anchors of programs labeled as hard news but comprising primarily commentary.

The focusing of news stories to exclude questions that might be of interest to some audience segments, such as the avoidance of reporting cumulative casualty rates among citizens of a nation that is the target or site of a foreign war, or the values of natural methods in the prevention, treatment, and curing of disease, is often described as a form of censorship. Favorable representation in news or information services of preferred products or services, such as reporting on leisure travel and comparative values of various machines instead of on leisure activities such as arts, crafts or gardening has been described by some as a means of censoring ideas about the latter in favor of the former.

Self-censorship: Imposed on the media in a free market by market/cultural forces rather than a censoring authority. This occurs when it is more profitable for the media to give a biased view.

In this form of censorship, any information about existence of censorship and the legal basis of the censorship is censored. Rules of censoring were classified. Removed texts or phrases were not marked.[clarify]

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In this form of censorship, censors rewrite texts, giving these texts secret co-authors.[clarify]

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Under US law, the First Amendment protects free speech and freedom of the press to some degree. Radio broadcasts are under constant scrutiny. This amendment does not mention many things, one being obscenity (a term usually applied to sexual material), but the common interpretation ignores this aspect using the argument that there is no social value deemed applicable to it. This applies only to the government and government entities; private corporations are under no such restriction.

Main article: Censorship of maps

Google Earth censors places which may be of special security concern. The following is a selection of such concerns:

Censorship in the Internet - In January 2007, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge issued an order to Brasil Telecom and Telefonica preventing public access to an intimate video of model Daniela Cicarelli and her boyfriend Renato Malzonithe on the YouTube site. Cicarelli and Malzoni had sued YouTube the previous year and got an injunction for the removal of the video, but it was still appearing. YouTube staff were eventually able to prevent the video from appearing on their site.[9]

Wikipedia itself is unavailable to Internet servers in certain countries, such as Iran, China, and North Korea, due to Internet censorship. [10]

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