Paper Planes/Straight to Hell

Paper Planes by M.I.A

Using a sample from The Clash's Straight to Hell, M.I.A's Paper Planes was censored when it was performed by the artist in September on the Dave Letterman Show. The gunshots were removed by CBS management. This is the original video that MTV won't show.

"Soldier of Fortune: Pay Back" Banned in Australia

Blitz: The League, BMX XXX, Manhunt, Reservoir Dogs, 50 Cent: Bullet Proof and now Soldier of Fortune: Pay Back. All banned recently in Australia. The reasoning behind the banning of Soldier of Fortune is interesting. According to the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) the game was banned because

"Successfully shooting an opponent results in the depiction of blood spray,"
"When the enemy is shot from close range, the blood spray is substantial, especially when a high-caliber weapon is used, and blood splatters onto the ground and walls in the environment."
"The player may target various limbs of the opponents and this can result in the limb being dismembered."
"Large amounts of blood spray forth from the stump with the opponent sometimes remaining alive before eventually dying from the wounds."

Gory stuff no doubt but the tone of the OFLC report seems to be one of stark realism, to the point of suggesting that people are dying here (what does that "in the environment" mean??). This was the same approach to Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, a graffiti game banned in 2006 in Australia which the OFLC reported being due to

the realistic scenarios whereby the central character Trane acquires his knowledge of graffiti tips, techniques and styles - including meeting with five real graffiti artists who pass on details of tips and techniques

How did they manage to fit the 5 real graffiti artists into a computer console???

Google Censoring Sydney Images (Again)

The fine line between censorship and security lies between the forecourt and the botanical gardens in Sydney, Australia. This image was taken this morning with Google Earth and shows the border between the forecourt of the Opera House and the walkway to the Botanical gardens. There have been suggestions that Google has cesored sattelite images of Sydney around the Opera House due to the upcomming APEC summit to be held there (21 world leaders including George W. Bush). Google replied to the allagations with:

"This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with APEC," said Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin.

"We're re-sourcing our imagery for parts of Sydney as a result of a commercial issue with one of our suppliers, so some of the highest-res images have been temporarily replaced."

Looking at the above image it seems like a thick fog has descended over the Opera House, not so much a resolution downgrade.

Banned in Australia

I was chatting on Friday (a very pleasant staff get together) to some colleagues when I mentioned that there are many books, films, CDs, and websites banned in my homeland, Australia. Some of them were surprised, but Australia has recently reactivated sedition as a punishable offence and the general direction taken for freedom of expression in the Commonwealth of Australia is a sad affair. I remember seeing early Australian silent films from the National Film Archive that were risque even by today's standards. Today they would be banned. Here is some recent censorship from Oz:

Some Things Banned in Australia

Books:
E for Ecstasy
Ecstasy and the Dance Culture
Ecstasy Reconsidered
Ecstasy, Dance, Trance and Transformation
PiHKAL
Ancient and Modern Methods of Growing Extraordinary Marijuana
Legal Highs
Psychedelic Shamanism: The Cultivation, Preparation and Shamanic Use of Psychotropic Plants
Defence of the Muslim Lands,
The Ideological Attack,
The Criminal West,
Join the Caravan,
Jihad in the Qur’an and Sunnah,
The Absent Obligation,
Islam and Modern Man,
The Qur’anic Concept of War
The Peaceful Pill

Films:
Ken Park
Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma
Boise-Moi
Saddam Hussein’s Execution Video
The Gore Gore Girls
Caligula
Jihad of Terrorism

Video games recently banned in Australia:
50 Cent: Bulletproof
BMX XXX
Dreamweb
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude
Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure
Manhunt
NARC (2005 update)
Postal
Postal²
Phantasmagoria
Reservoir Dogs
Rule Of Rose
Singles: Flirt Up Your Life
Shellshock: Nam '67
The Punisher
Blitz: the League

People Banned in Australia:
Snoop Doggy Dog
David Irving
Dr Warren Hern
Rajendiram Sutharsan
Vietnamese Thang Long Water Puppet Troupe
Liberian youth soccer team
Four of Fiji’s Air Pacific staff members

Art Banned in Australia
Zanny Begg’s Checkpoint for Weapons of Mass Distraction

Photographs showing human rights abuses in East Timor by Indonesian forces, some included images of the 1991 Dili Massacre. The photos were to be displayed in the foyer of the Australian House of Parliament. During its installation in March of 1997, some members of the Australian Parliament ordered the photograph's removal.

Gillian Mear's play "Fineflour" and Churchill's play "Top Girls." A New South Wales review panel banned the plays from the New South Wales Higher School Certificate reading list. The officials suggested that Churchill's play is "dated," shows "contempt for religion," and" contains gratuitous violence."

Australian Centre for Photography exhibition, "Changeling: Childhood and the Uncanny".

Publications banned
Student paper Rabelais article The Art of Shoplifting


TV Programs
4th March 2002 Meet The Press with Tim Russert 'Arabs were not responsible for Sep 11'


Banned Websites:
“Written text, including books and extracts thereof, on Australian Web pages are to be subject to censorship using guideline designed and developed for movies from 1 January 2000. Material classified R is to be subject to an adult verification system, else illegal online. Material classified X is to be the equivalent of Refused Classification, that is, illegal online.”

•Propaganda Bought to you by the Mining Industry http://miningnsw.com.au/index.php

•Richard Neville’s www.johnhowardpm.org was taken down by the Australian Government in March 2006 after a satirical letter supposed to be written by the Prime Minister apologizing for the Iraq war was published on the site.

•The National Filter Scheme was announced by the Australian federal Government in June 2006. The 116 million dollar scheme includes the Protecting Families Online Internet filtering initiative. As well libraries are filtered by the Australian Government NetAlert Limited (http://www.netalert.net.au/).

•The Australian Government SurfWatch spiders the Web -- much like a search engine -- carrying out text-based analysis, often for sexually explicit words. If a disallowed string of words is found the product checks links from that site to other sites and does text-based analysis on those links as well. SurfWatch then blocks the ISP address of the site.


In recent years (ending June) the OFLC Classification Boards have rated:

• Publications
o 2003: 1705 (30 banned, additional 1414 banned in Queensland)
o 2002: 1516 (16 banned, additional 1261 banned in Queensland)
o 2001: 1832 (70 banned, additional 1541 banned in Queensland)

• Films for public exhibition (cinema films)
o 2003: 439 (0 banned, but Ken Park ban in sale/hire/video statistics)
o 2002: 437 (1 banned)
o 2001: 376 (0 banned)

• Films for sale/hire (generally videos, DVDs, etc)
o 2003: 2727 (10 banned - includes Ken Park, 336 X/banned in all States)
o 2002: 2788 (17 banned, additional 523 rated X/banned in all States)
o 2001: 2852 (85 banned, additional 933 rated X/banned in all States)

• Computer Games:
o 2003: 661 (2 banned)
o 2002: 747 (1 banned)
o 2001: 583 (0 banned)

Digg and the HD-DVD crack

I admire something about this statement:

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Following the linking to stories about the HD-DVD crack (as in code) Digg.com took down all references to it after getting cease and desist notices. A mass protest followed with thousands of entries posting the code on Digg.com.

And then last night:

Last night, the AACS LA's attempts to keep an HD DVD crack under wraps backfired in a spectacular fashion. Pandora's Box is now wide open and there's no going back now.

Democracy in action or mob rule? An interesting thing.

Internet Filtering and Censorship Podcast

Like manna from above:

Rob Faris, the OpenNet Initiative’s Research Director and John Palfrey, one of the project’s Principal Investigators, lead a discussion of Internet filtering and provided a glimpse of the results of ONI’s first global survey of Internet censorship.

Download the audio podcast (time: 1:08:57).

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