Monthly Archives: April 2021

A new West Virginia billproposes regulations against censorship of information by social media companies during an election, with some criminal and civil penalties" depending on the nature of the violation.

Known as House Bill 3307, the legislation looks to create two things: 1) the Social Media Integrity and Anti-Corruption in Elections Act and 2) the Stop Social Media Censorship Act.

The first act would require social media companies to make election-related content on their platforms transparent and provide political parties and candidates with equal opportunities to share information online without being affected by policy- or partisan-based censorship.

The second act would implement criminal and civil penalties for companies that delete or censor a user's religious or political speech.

A lot of this work started in coordination with Secretary of State Mac Warner as a result of the 2020 election, Delegate Daniel Linville, the primary sponsor of the bill, said. There was particular concern about Facebook putting out incorrect information about registering to vote and primary dates.

According to Linville, Facebooks election center promoted inaccurate details, prompting Secretary Warner to exchange several emails with the company to rectify the issue.

This incident, he said, led to a larger conversation about who receives information posted by Facebook and whether or not the company targets users based on specific demographics such as age, geographic area, political party affiliation or gender.

The incident also raised questions about how social media companies play a role in censoring information shared online by political candidates during an election.

The purpose of this bill is to ensure that users arent treated differently because of targeting by social media companies or censored because of their political or religious beliefs, Linville said.

To enforce its stipulations, the bill would require companies to share information such as election dates or voting sign-up instructions with the secretary of states office before it is published to ensure the information is correct.

But is it too invasive for government to have a say in what social media companies publish? ACLU-WV Policy Director Eli Baumwell believes the answer is in the affirmative.

One of the concerns about this legislation is that the secretary of state would be deciding whats true and whats not true, Baumwell said. You dont want to put the government in charge of deciding those things.

The legislation might also disincentivize companies from addressing issues such as the spread of disinformation or calls to violence.

Bills like this are largely in response to President Trump being banned from social media sites along with other politicians that engage in a similar rhetoric, Baumwell said. I dont think the answer is censorship. There are other options such as flagging information or providing fact checks.

As for enforcing criminal penalties to regulate social media companies, Baumwell said "this more than likely won't happen."

Until another reasonable option is found, he said, theres a lot more innovation that needs to be done.

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West Virginia Bill Sets Sights on Social Media Censorship - Government Technology

Why do we care? For one thing, these restrictions on free inquiry and expression cost Arab economies money. Recent estimates say brain drain costs Arab economies $1.5 billion annually. And among those leaving, academic professionals and students are among the most costly, due to the societal and personal investment in getting them to university and the profession in the first place, and to the multiplier return on those investments that would have been incurred over the course of a 30- or 40-year career.

Not included in these loss estimates are the perhaps equal or greater losses attributable to academic self-censorship by those who never leave. The 76 percent of researchers who report self-censoring their work represent a direct tax on intellectual output and creativity. If not brain drain, consider this brain dragthe lost personal, professional, and creative productivity that would have been, but for the rational fear of retaliation; fear that does not exist in places where academic freedom is well protected.

Beyond these considerable economic costs, academic self-censorship erodes the quality of research and teaching in Arab universities. This is because academic freedomthe freedom of teaching faculty and researchers to set the research agenda based on evidence, truth and reason and to communicate findings to colleagues, students and the publicis a guarantor of quality. Without academic freedom, teaching curricula and research agendas are subject to narrow interests, often political, sometimes commercial or communal.

Most broadly, academic freedom empowers the higher education community to serve the public good. When researchers and teaching faculty are free to share their knowledge and expertise, the public benefits. When they are free to ask questions about major challenges, wherever those questions lead, they can help to understand and address major issues like climate change, public health, economic development and disparity, legacies of discrimination, and more.

Asking such questions may be painful, but it can be good for society, if not for those in power who may benefit from the status quo.

Academic self-censorship is a brain drag on expertise, creativity and innovation within Arab higher education, and Arab societies generally. We must remove this drag by combatting the isolation and fear that fuels it, and by insisting that Arab states, higher education leaders and the public demand greater protection for academic freedom not just on paper, but in practice, and not just for the benefit of academics, but for the benefit of everyone.

Robert Quinn is the founding executive director of Scholars at Risk, an international network of higher education institutions and individuals dedicated to protecting the freedom to think, question and share ideas. All views expressed are the authors alone and do not represent the views of Scholars at Risk, its member institutions, staff or others.

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Academic Self-Censorship Is a 'Brain Drag' on Arab Universities and Societies - Al-Fanar Media

Irish author Lee Dunne, who died earlier this week, came to prominence after the publication of his book Goodbye to the Hill, published in 1965, an account of teenage sexual awakening in working class Dublin.

It caused a stir with its frank depiction of lust and a sexuality that seemed at odds with the idea of cowering obedience to Catholic stricture: in the privacy of a cinema with only a thousand people in it they forget exactly what it was the priest has said and they remember only that they want to touch and be touched and to get as much out of it as they can.

Although Dunnes book was not banned, and the stage version of it became one of Irelands longest running plays, the film version of it Paddy was banned in 1970 and was not issued with a certificate by the Irish film censor until August 2006.

A measure of the changed times was that at that stage the film was given a 12A rating by the censor John Kelleher who noted: By todays standards, there is nothing shocking in it. It is charmingly old-fashioned. But you have to remember it was banned in a different era, a very different time.

Almost all Dunnes 1970s novels were also banned in Ireland; what he called the cabbie books . . . about a team of randy cab drivers in England that were more interested in getting laid than in making money on the cab. The banning of them did not affect him as deeply; he acknowledged himself they were rubbish; written to order in 10 days each because the money was good.

With the passage of time there was a tendency to euphemise or make light of the censoriousness of that era. The same year that Dunnes first book was published, John McGaherns second novel The Dark was banned, and he lost his teaching job as a result. His writing sins were compounded by his marrying of divorced Finnish theatre director Annikki Laaksi in a registry office.

Later in life, McGahern preferred to highlight some of the humorous or farcical aspects of the furore. He liked to tell the story of the encounter he had with Dave Kelleher, the general secretary of the Into who, fortified with whiskey, told him: If it was just the auld book, maybe maybe we might have been able to do something for you, but with marrying this foreign woman you have turned yourself into a hopeless case entirely . . . and what anyway entered your head to go and marry this foreign woman when there are hundreds of thousands of Irish girls going around with their tongues out for a husband?

But in truth, it was a horrible episode and McGahern was ashamed that our own independent country was making a fool of itself yet again. He was publicly humiliated in his own land for writing about his own people and in particular, of physical and sexual abuse familial, societal and clerical and the torment of the confused teenager with sexual longings and an obsession with confession and damnation, torn between the possibility of a religious vocation or the lay alternative of the world, the flesh and the devil.

McGahern harboured no hatred of religion The Catholic Church in its origins is such a beautiful and great vision of truth and is big enough to contain us all but he did resent that the Church had surrounded sexuality with such a sense of sin, shame and fear. Lee Dunne felt likewise; interviewed by Julia Carlson in 1987 about censorship Dunne insisted the censorship mentality stemmed from shame relating to sex, guilt relating to sex, fear relating to sex. Censorship was engendered in us on a personal level Dont let people know your business.

Even in the year Dunne was interviewed, Alex Comforts The Joy of Sex, originally banned in Ireland in 1972 was re-banned, as according to Dunne, to openly admit that sex is wonderful and that it can be joyous and beautiful and affirming is really regarded with a great degree of suspicion, distaste and repugnance. As for the church, as Dunne saw it, its about control rather than love.

We have had no shortage of vindications of that assertion in recent decades; the level of control and lack of love in the historic treatment of perceived transgressors that has been laid bare is almost overwhelming.

As the playwright John Millington Synge, born 150 years ago today, was to discover, to even allude to the flesh his play The Playboy of the Western World in 1907 included the line, Its Pegeen Im seeking only, and whatd I care if you brought me a drift of chosen females, standing in their shifts [underwear] itself could generate menacing outrage that in the words of W B Yeats from the Abbey stage in response, would mar very greatly . . . the reputation of the country for fair play.

The rest is here:
Diarmaid Ferriter: We should not minimise the censoring of Lee Dunne - The Irish Times

SIFFs midnight screenings comprise some of my favorite experiences in a movie theater (usually The Egyptian) over the last two decades. That made looking at the 2021 Fests crop of WTF (Weird! Terrifying! Fantastic!) entries a bit of a bittersweet experience.

But glass half full, the WTF selections for SIFF 2021 offered an abject lesson in how much savvy and deep love SIFFs Curatorial Staff puts into their cult and midnight movie screenings. And all the strange upsides of a virtual festivalexercising complete control of your viewing environment, freedom to pause if needed, being able to watch festival films more than once without having to wait for the second screeningapply, in spades.

Censor (2021 | United Kingdom | 84 minutes| Prano Bailey-Bond)

One movie Im sure as hell going to watch more than once if possible is Censor, British director Prano Bailey-Bonds feature film debut. It isnt just that it cannily mines the 1980s Video Nasties witch hunt, one of the strangest, scariest chapters in British film and censorship history. Bailey-Bonds arresting cinematic eye and confident directorial hand incorporate elements of Argento, Cronenberg, and Polanski into something that pulses with its own strange life. It also indulges a pinch of noted Italian degenerate Ruggero Deodatos pointed snuff-film aesthetic, to chilling effect. If you need easy exposition and answers in your horror, stay away. Me, I kinda loved it.

Phantasmagorias (2021| Various Countries | 106 minutes | Various Directors)

The chills, and the WTF moments, came in bursts and slow burns alike in Phantasmagorias, SIFF 2021s WTF Short Film Program. This formats especially well-suited for home viewing, of course, with most of the shorts clocking in at about 10-15 minutes each. Couple this with the fact that the overall quality was good-to-amazing, and it genuinely felt like an embarrassment of riches.

Amidst an already strong package overall, three Phantasmagorias selections really stood out: Look What You Have Done!, a genuinely unnerving and nightmarish French-language psychological chiller; a gloppy, gory, unabashedly odd bit of body horror out of China called Bubble; Dar-Dar, a visually mesmerizing dark fairy tale from Errementari director Paul Urkijo Alijo; and The Haunted Swordsman, American filmmaker Kevin McTurks remarkable Japanese fable dramatized by a cast of detailed marionette puppets.

Get the Hell Out! (2021 | Taiwan | 96 minutes | I-Fan Wang)

The closest thing to a disappointment among the WTF entries was Get the Hell Out!, which played like a jittery sorta-spoof of Train to Busan. This Taiwanese rom-zom-com buzzes along with an infectious sense of fun and a slew of cant-miss ingredientssome great laughs and throwaway gags, a fun and likable cast, and some hilariously excessive gore and gut-munching. Alas, director I-Fan Wang navigates the shenanigans with the hyperactivity of a sugar-stoked grade schooler, an approach that exhausted the hell out of me, even as it undercut the character development.

Too Late (2021 | USA | 80 minutes | D.W. Thomas)

Theres just something about the metaphoric richness of Faust and its symbolic progeny that endures, and Too Late served up a genuinely funny variation on the oft-told story. Ron Lynch of Bobs Burgers fame plays Ron Devore, a legendary standup comic/comedy show host who periodically transforms into a grotesque, carnivorous monster. His assistant Violet (Alyssa Limperis) fills in for Faust here, waiting on Devore hand and foot and procuring him the odd standup comic snack in the hopes of furthering her career. Too Late doesnt bring anything revelatory to the table, but its a sometimes hysterical and surprisingly sweet horror-comedy thanks to Limperiss winning presence and an ensemble brimming with comedy talent (Fred Armisen, SNL alum Brooks Whelan, standup Barbara Gray, etc.).

Strawberry Mansion (2021 | USA | 91 minutes | Albert Birney, Kentucker Audley )

Last but most definitely not least, Strawberry Mansion offered a fanciful, odd, and unashamedly romantic contrast to the gore, darkness, and scares that dominated most of SIFFs 2021 WTF iteration. Kentucker Audley (who also co-directed with Albert Birney) plays James Preble, a government auditor charged with surveying, and taxing, the dreams of elderly Isabella (Penny Fuller). True to its subject matter, its a dreamlike little fable that draws from bits of Kurt Vonnegut, Charlie Kaufman, and Philip K. Dick, with visual style and vivid imagination that transcend its modest indie budget. Films that wear their quirkiness and heart-on-sleeve sentiment with this kind of affecting ease have a way of acquiring fervent cults. Sign me up as a member hereand yes, Im kinda aching to see it again.

Keep up with us during the festival on Twitter (@thesunbreak) and follow all of our ongoing coverage via our SIFF 2021 page.

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SIFF 2021, WTF Division: Censor, Strawberry Mansion, Too Late, Get the Hell Out!, and the Horror Shorts program - The SunBreak

In 2019, Norwegian director Anders Hammer traveled to Hong Kong to document the demonstrations that erupted after a bill was introduced allowing criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

It was the beginning of the end for Hong Kong's political independence.

Hammer's documentary short, Do Not Split, takes viewers into the streets as protesters go head to head with the police in a desperate fight to preserve their freedoms.

Do Not Split, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, has garnered glowing reviews and an Academy Award nomination. The film is also one reason why the Oscars won't be broadcast live in Hong Kongfor the first time in more than half a century.

"The Communist Party's propaganda department issued the order to all media outlets" not to broadcast the Oscars in real time, according to anonymous sourcescited by Bloomberg. Along with Do Not Split, censors object to the nomination of Beijing-born director Chloe Zhao, who is up for best director for her film Nomadland, and was once hailed as "the pride of China." But then it came out that in a 2013 interview with Filmmaker magazine, Zhao recalled the China of her youth as "a place where there are lies everywhere."

"Beijing is known to react," explains Hammer. "They will take action in many different ways if they feel that something is going against their plan."

Ironically, Beijing's actions are having the opposite of their intended effect.

"We have had so many more media requests after this became a news story," says Hammer. "In that sense, I think that Beijing is helping the aim of this movie, which is to bring attention to the critical situation in Hong Kong."

Produced by Meredith Bragg.

Photo Credits:Li Gang / Xinhua News Agency/Newscom;Winson Wong/SCMP/Newscom;John Angelillo/UPI/Newscom;WENN / WENN English Top Features/Newscom;Hahn Lionel/ZUMA Press/Newscom;ABA/Newscom; Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom;WENN / WENN English Top Features/Newscom;Winson Wong/SCMP/Newscom;Rafael Ben-Ari/Rafael Ben Ari/Newscom;Chinee Nouvelle/SIPA/Newscom;Matthias Balk/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom

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China Censors the Oscars To Block a Hong Kong Protest Film - Reason