Censor Watch

Much Loved is a 2015 Morocco drama by Nabil Ayouch.
Starring Loubna Abidar, Danny Boushebel and Abdellah Didane.

A group of women in Morocco make a living as prostitutes in a culture that is very unforgiving toward women in that profession.

The star of a banned film on sex work in Morocco was savagely beaten in Casablanca last week, sparking an outcry on social media over social taboos that activists say can be enforced by violence.

Loubna Abidar, who portrays a Marrakech sex worker in Much Loved , a film by renowned French-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch that caused a stir in Morocco when a series of previews were released on YouTube, said police and hospital workers refused to help her. Instead they humiliated her, she said:

No [police officer] and no doctor would take care of me. Everyone mocked me and said, 'Finally, Abidar! You got beaten.

In a self-recorded video shared widely on social media this week, a bruised and bloodied Ms Abidar describes the ordeal, without offering much detail on the assailants.

Update: Banned film screened at Tunis film festival

29th November 2015. See  article from theguardian.com

A controversial film portraying prostitution in Morocco that was shunned in the Arab world has finally been shown, amid tight security, at the Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia. Fears of an attack by militants saw armed police and steel barriers around the cinema and each cinemagoer searched for weapons. 

Director Nabil Ayouch's Much Loved portrays the lives of four upmarket prostitutes working for tourists and wealthy clients in Marrakech was made on a shoestring, using unknown actors and a mostly female crew.

The film,  has provoked a storm of 'outrage' and violence. Ayouch and the cast had death threats, and the Moroccan government formally banned the film, accusing the direc- tor of staining the country's reputation. In June, the film was praised at the Toronto film festival for its unflinching appraisal of the lives of women on the margins of society, but at home a pressure group filed a lawsuit against the director. Actor Yousseff El-Idrissi, who plays a rich client in the film, told of being attacked by knife-wielding thugs.

Thoongaavanam is a 2015 India thriller by Rajesh M Selva.
Starring Kamal Haasan, Prakash Raj and Trisha Krishnan.

The British press have been mocking India over the last week with the news that the Indian film censor cut James Bond's kissing scenes in Spectre.

So perhaps as a little bit of a riposte, an Indian newspaper has pointed out an example where BBFC cuts were made for cinema release for a film that the Indian censors passed uncut.

Actually the claims in the Indian newspaper are slightly inaccurate, as the newspaper reports:

The Indian Censor Board has competition from unexpected quarters: their conservative British counterparts.

In the line of fire is Kamal Haasan's new thriller Thoongavanam that has been granted a 15+ certification by the British Censor Board. And that, too, only after the huge action sequence between Kamal Haasan and his leading lady Trisha was toned down. Kamal Haasan said:

It was very surprising. The Indian Censor Board had no objection to my taking on Trisha man-to-man...or man-to-woman in a one-to-one combat.

In fact the UK BBFC category cuts were required for a 12A rated 2015 cinema release. The BBFC would have passed the film 15 uncut but the distributors wanted a 12A, so accepted the cuts. The BBFC commented:

The distributor chose to remove shots of strong violence and bloodshed (in this instance, a scene of suffocation, shootings, sight of blood spurts and sight of bloody injury detail) in order to achieve a 12A rating. A 15 without cuts was available.

Last year, 1,209 people were found guilty of offences of internet insult under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.

It is a crime under the Communications Act to send by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other material that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character .

Statistics released by the Ministry of 'Justice' (MoJ) show that 1,501 defendants were prosecuted under the law last year - including 70 juveniles - while another 685 were cautioned. Of those convicted, 155 were jailed - compared to just seven a decade before. The average custodial sentence was 2.2 months.

The MoJ figures also revealed a rise in the number of convictions under the Malicious Communications Act, which states that it is an offence to send a threatening, offensive or indecent letter, electronic communication or article with the intent to cause distress or anxiety.

The controversial French comedian, Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, has been sentenced to two months in jail by a Belgian court for incitement to hatred over racist and antisemitic comments he made during a show. Dieudonné, who has faced similar cases in France, was also fined ?9,000 (£6,300) by the court in Liège.  The charges related to a show in Liège in 2012.

Earlier this month, the European court of human rights in Strasbourg ruled against Dieudonné in a separate case, deciding that freedom of speech did not protect racist and antisemitic performances.

In March, a French court handed Dieudonné a two-month suspended prison sentence and fined him heavily after he caused uproar by suggesting he sympathised with the attacks against the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and a Jewish supermarket in Paris. I feel like Charlie Coulibaly , he wrote on Facebook, a reference to Amédy Coulibaly, one of the attackers.

A poster promoting a Halloween event, seen in various locations around Norfolk in September and October 2015, stated, PRIMEVIL. SCREAMING WON'T HELP! ... 5 FRIGHTENING ATTRACTIONS! ... 13 NIGHTS OF TERROR! , and included an image of a clown with a painted white face. The clown's eyes were bright red with dark circles around which contained stitches. Its forehead also contained a number of stitches, and blood dripped from various parts of its face, including its mouth, which was black and appeared to have been cut open. It also wore a blood-stained ruff.

Twenty-three complainants, many of whom considered the image too distressing for children, challenged whether the ad was likely to cause fear or distress, and was therefore inappropriate for outdoor display in an untargeted medium.

ASA Assessment: Complaints upheld

The ASA noted that the ad had appeared on untargeted outdoor poster sites, and that a number of the complainants had reported their children becoming very distressed on seeing the image. We acknowledged that Norfolk Dinosaur Park Ltd had removed a number of the posters following complaints having been received directly by them.

We noted that the clown was leaning towards the camera and grinning with a menacing expression, that its eyes glowed red and blood dripped down its face, and that its eyes and forehead were stitched. We considered that the overall presentation of the image was likely to distress young children, particularly but not only in combination with the text PRIMEVIL. SCREAMING WON'T HELP! -- which was presented as though it was written in blood -- and that it was unsuitable for display in an untargeted medium where it was likely to be seen by them.

We considered the ad was likely to cause fear or distress without justifiable reason when displayed in an untargeted medium, and concluded that it had been irresponsibly targeted.

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Norfolk Dinosaur Park Ltd to ensure that their marketing was responsibly targeted and did not cause fear or distress without justifiable reason.

The "right to be forgotten" applies to any search engine accessible in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office has claimed. In a blog post earlier this month, ICO demanded:

In August we issued our first enforcement notice in this area , ordering Google to remove nine search results brought up by entering an individual's name. Google has so far responded constructively, and the links are no longer visible on the European versions of their search engine. However we consider that they should go a step further, and make the links no longer visible to anyone directly accessing any Google search services from within the UK (this would include someone sat a desk in Newcastle, but using google.com). This is a proper and proportionate reflection of what the EU Court of Justice ruling means in practice, and so we've clarified the original enforcement notice , with the original text remaining the same but with a new section added spelling out exactly what we expect of Google.

The BBFC has announced the appointment of David Austin OBE, as the new Director of the BBFC.

Mr Austin is currently Assistant Director at the BBFC, coordinating the BBFC's policy work and leading on its public affairs outreach. He is also responsible for managing the BBFC's research, communications and education programmes.

He will be taking up the post on 12 March 2016, when the current Director, David Cooke, retires.

David Austin said:

I am delighted to bring my expertise as both a Film Examiner and Assistant Director to the role of BBFC Director. It is vital for the BBFC to continue to consult the public regularly and to meet their expectations of both classification and the ease with which they expect to be able to access to classification information, enabling them to make informed decisions about what they and their family watch at the cinema, on DVD or Blu-ray and online.

Under David Cooke and in partnership with the home entertainment industry in particular, the BBFC has transformed its remit to reflect the needs of a digital society, bringing its expertise in child protection and information provision online. I am greatly looking forward to continuing to work with my colleagues at the BBFC, the Presidential Team, the Council of Management and the Board's advisory bodies and stakeholders to ensure the BBFC continues to act as an expert and trusted guide to film, DVD/Blu-ray and digital platforms.

David Cooke said:

I am delighted that the Appointments Panel, consisting of Graham Lee and Maggie Carver from the Council of Management and Patrick Swaffer and Alison Hastings from the Presidential Team, have appointed David. David has been a close colleague for over eleven years, and has pioneered many key initiatives such as our contract with the Mobile Network Operators, our partnership with international colleagues for classifying User Generated Content, and our partnership with the music industry and platforms for classifying physical and online music videos. I am sure that David will take the BBFC from strength to strength in serving the public, and the cause of child protection, in the internet age.

David Austin received an OBE in 1999 for his contribution to helping end conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. David joined the BBFC in 2003 as an Examiner following a career in the Diplomatic Service, serving in South Asia, Central Africa and the former Yugoslavia. He moved to the role of Assistant Director, Policy & Public Affairs in 2011, overseeing the most recent public consultation of the BBFC Classification Guidelines in 2013; the introduction of the BBFC Mobile Classification Framework used by UK Mobile Network Operators in 2013; and the BBFC's partnership with the UK music industry and Vevo and YouTube to bring age ratings to online music videos in 2015.

Graham Lee, Chair of the appointments panel and Chairman of the BBFC Council of Management said:

We are very pleased, that after a rigorous, open and transparent selection process, we have been able to appoint a candidate who has done so much in recent years to build and develop the important services carried out by the BBFC.

The post of Director was filled through open competition.

The BBC1 programme, The One Show , is being investigated by TV censor Ofcom over an politically incorrect gag about dwarves.

Jimmy Carr, who was on the show to promote his Greatest Hits tour, told viewers that he had once come up with a two-word gag. He said:

I tried to write the shortest joke possible. So, I wrote a two-word joke which was: 'Dwarf shortage. It's just so I could pack more jokes into the show.

He then looked directly at the camera and added:

If you're a dwarf and you're offended by that, grow up.

Two viewers complained to Ofcom, who uncharacteristically have decided to investigate the complaints. A spokescensor said:

We're investigating whether potentially discriminatory comments in this programme met generally accepted standards

Its not only British audiences that are viewing a censored version of the new James Bond film Spectre, but Indian audiences will also suffer an incomplete version.

Censors at the Central Board of Film Classification have given the film a UA (children allowed if accompanied by adults) rating after 4 cuts for language and kissing:

• Two cuts were made to shorten James Bond's kissing
• Two cuts were made to remove the words 'fuck' and 'arsehole'. (This seems to be a false accusation as the word 'fuck' doesn't actually get used in the film).

A source said:

Both of Daniel Craig's kisses with his co-stars have been reduced by 50 per cent. The censor board had nothing against James Bond kissing ...BUT... the length of the kisses were found to be unnecessarily excessive. We heard that Ranbir Kapoor's kissing scenes in Tamasha has also been reduced by half. We wonder how the Censor Board decides how much kissing is enough.

Update: Chief censor seems to act like a megalomaniac Bond villain

20th November 2015. See  article from timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Dissent against Censor Board chief Pahlaj Nihalani appears to be gathering strength with some members planning to make a formal representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and I&B minister Arun Jaitley. Members of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) have expressed concern at Nihalani's unilateral decision making style and cavalier attitude.

Board members said that cuss words were still being arbitrarily snipped from films (despite the Board's opposition) and decisions being made on films without taking the Board in to confidence. One member explained:

There are a few of us who feel that the chairperson has been working on his own accord without listening to anyone on the Board. This is unfair. We are planning to approach the PM and the I&B minister on the issue.

Nihalani has faced social media derision after the Board ruled kissing scenes of Daniel Craig with Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux in the new James Bond release Spectre as too extensive and had them trimmed by half.

Former I&B secretary and Board member Raghu Menon in a recent letter to fellow members said that he was disturbed at being treated in a cavalier and offhand fashion by Nihalani  and the utter insensitivity and disregard of the I&B ministry. He said:

I have closely observed and have been involved in the working of the CBFC for the last 20 years in various capacities when it was headed by luminaries like Shakti Samanta, Vijay Anand, Asha Parekh, Sharmila Tagore, Leela Samson etc, but never have I seen it sink to such levels of total disregard for the Board Members. It would be better to disband the Board if it is found to be so irrelevant.

Update: Skyfall too

22nd November 2015. See article from dnaindia.com

Chief Pahlaj Nihalani has been justifying his disgraceful Spectre cuts to Indian tabloids. He said that steamy scenes were also cut from the previous Bond movie Skyfall , but people made no fuss about it. So why is it an issue if the Board cut down the duration of kissing scenes in Spectre by 20 seconds, he asks.

Update: A better informed source

24th November 2015. See  article from movie-censorship.com

A better informed source reveals that the Indian film censor's dialogue cuts to Spectre were:

• 'idiot' instead of 'asshole'
• 'bighead and cats' instead of 'bastard and balls'.

A few viewers have vented their 'fury' at the BBC after this week's episode of Doctor Who showed a plane being shot out of the sky by a missile.

The super sensitive tweeters claimed the timing of the episode was insensitive given the terror attack on the Russian plane flying out of Egypt.

In the episode a shapeshifting alien takes the form of Clara Oswald and shoots at the plane with the with the intention of killing the doctor and all of the others on board The missile is seen hitting the plane before it explodes and is brought to the ground where viewers were shown the burning wreckage.

The Daily Mail dredged up a few trivial tweets:

• Surprised the BBC would show a plane being shot down given recent events #doctorwho
• Given the situation in Egypt, perhaps blowing up a plane on this week's episode of Doctor Who was not wise.
• Can't believe #doctorwho showed a plane being shot out of the sky given the current news #insensitive.

A BBC spokesman responded:

The episode was clearly signposted as science fiction set in a fantasy world and no one died in the scene.

Update: Official BBC response: Gotcha, it was a military aircraft, not a commercial airliner

10th November 2015. See  article from bbc.co.uk

Doctor Who
BBC One, 7 November 2015

Complaint:

We received complaints from viewers who felt that scenes showing the destruction of an aeroplane were inappropriate in light of recent events.

Response:

We're aware that elements of drama programmes can sometimes bring to mind real events, and we always think very carefully about this.

In this case, though, the story was presented as a science fiction fantasy, far removed from the real world. The episode didn't depict a passenger-carrying commercial airliner - it was a military aircraft on official business - and both the Doctor and his companion survived.

With this in mind we didn't feel the scenes would be outside of most viewers' expectations for the programme, but we appreciate the differing feedback we've received.

Update: Complaints to Ofcom will surely be made into paper planes for crashing into the waste bin

13th November 2015. See  article from independent.co.uk

TV censor Ofcom said it has received 30 complaints about the Doctor Who plane crash. No doubt these will soon be consigned to the waste paper bin.

Update: Ofcom reject complaints without investigation

24th November 2015. See  article from theguardian.com

Ofcom has decided against launching an investigation into the plane crash episode of Doctor Who. A spokesman said:

We received a number of complaints that it was insensitive to broadcast this episode, which featured a plane being shot down, so close to events in the Sinai peninsula. In our view, the science fiction nature of Doctor Who and the storyline created a sufficient distinction from recent events. We therefore will not be taking the matter forward for investigation.

In late September, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against two marketers of weight-loss supplements -- Roca Labs, Inc and Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA, Inc.

According to the FTC , Roca Labs, Inc "allegedly made baseless claims for their products, and then threatened to enforce 'gag clause' provisions against consumers to stop them from posting negative reviews and testimonials online."

The gag clause that the FTC refers to -- in which customers unwittingly sign away their rights to post online reviews after making a purchase -- is becoming increasingly common. And it's only one of several strategies that companies have used to suppress negative reviews of their products.

A bill that's picking up steam in the US Senate -- the Consumer Review Freedom Act -- directly addresses these gag clauses. But while it represents a step in the right direction, the bill fails to address other shady practices of the online review industry.

The messy world of online reviews

Who knows what to believe these days about the authenticity and veracity of online -- typically anonymous -- reviews, which assess everything from restaurants to physicians .

Some reviews are fake (known as " astroturfed " reviews) and some are real. Some might contain truthful and honest views, while some might be bought and paid for , which includes fake positive reviews posted by the companies themselves.

But either way, let's face it: most businesses, large and small, don't want you to post negative comments about their products or services on internet sites such as Yelp , TripAdvisor , Angie's List and the aptly named PissedConsumer.com . Even a short and damning tweet on your own Twitter account might tick off a business.

There's a reason businesses care. One study in 2014 found that 39% of consumers read online reviews on a regular basis, up from 32% in 2013. Another survey found that 61% of shoppers will read product reviews before making a purchase.

So, what's a company to do when faced with negative reviews, real or otherwise?

A typical strategy is to try to silence online critics by suing them for defamation and claiming the reviews contain false allegations .

In fact, some businesses may go even further and file meritless defamation cases against reviewers, hoping the high costs of litigation will squelch the critics and cause them to retract their comments. These baseless libel suits are known as SLAPPs -- strategic lawsuits against public participation.

A 2010 New York Times article first called public attention to the issue. It told the story of a young man who posted a negative review about a towing company and soon found himself facing a defamation suit, with the company seeking US$750,000 in damages.

Today, many states now have anti-SLAPP statutes that allow victims to quickly dismiss these frivolous cases, thus taking some sting out of defamation as a remedy for negative reviews.

Read the fine print

Now, there's a new technique that some thin-skinned businesses are adopting to prevent peeved customers for speaking out: the use of gag clauses , in which customers sign away their rights to criticize a company when they enter into a contract with it.

These gag clauses are usually buried in the fine print and often go unread. According to Chris Morran of The Consumerist , they're appearing in contracts for "everything from cheapo cellphone accessories, to wedding contractors, to hotels, to dentists, to weight-loss products, to apartment complexes."

A major problem, attorney Jonathan Tung observes, is that "there is no national consensus on whether such gags are legal or not," as "some courts have deemed such clauses unconscionable while other courts have been very reluctant to interfere, citing freedom to contract."

In other words, some courts consider gag clauses invalid and unenforceable, while others uphold them. A customer who violates a gag clause by posting a negative review of a company thus risks paying the company whatever amount was specified in the contract for breaking the gag clause.

Congress steps in

The US Congress has entered the fray with the Consumer Review Freedom Act of 2015 . Sponsored by Senator John Thune (R -- South Dakota), the bill renders contractual gag clauses void if they prohibit consumers from reviewing products or assessing performance, and if the clauses constitute "form contracts." (Many lawyers would term these adhesion contracts because the consumer has almost no power or leverage to negotiate a better deal.) The Consumer Review Freedom Act also gives the Federal Trade Commission the power to enforce the law on behalf of gagged consumers.

Here, Congress is following the lead of California, which in 2014 became the first state to adopt a statute forbidding businesses from gagging their customers. The measure is also supported by Yelp , where more than 90 million reviews have been posted.

A matter of contract, not the First Amendment

Surprisingly, perhaps, this is not a First Amendment free speech issue. The First Amendment certainly protects our ability to express our opinions, and opinions -- as opposed to false allegations -- are also typically shielded from defamation liability.

For example, posting online that a restaurant has "horrible service" or that it is "too loud" are matters of protected opinion. Conversely, claiming that the restaurant has "rats in the kitchen" or that it uses "stale products" in its recipes are factual allegations that, if false, are not protected.

But the First Amendment only protects speech from government censorship. The companies including gag provisions in their contracts are not government entities. Gag clauses thus are a matter of contract -- not constitutional -- law.

Although it has some quibbles with the language used in the Consumer Review Freedom Act, the Electronic Frontier Foundation says "it's great to see lawmakers addressing some of the most overtly unfair contract clauses."

There are, of course, many more problems with online reviews not addressed by the new bill, such as how to deal with completely fake and paid-for reviews. But some companies are taking action on their own.

In April, the Seattle Times reported that Amazon "sued three websites it accuses of purveying fake reviews, demanding that they stop the practice." It was only the first legal punch thrown by the giant Internet-based retailer. Last month, Amazon sued "more than 1,000 unidentified people selling fake reviews on its Web store."

Make no mistake: the Consumer Review Freedom Act is a great step forward for consumers who want to speak out, and it is wonderful to see Yelp supporting it . But by failing to address fake posts and preventing companies from filing SLAPPs, it only nibbles at the edges of the larger problems in the Wild West of online reviews.

Inside Amy Schumer (trailer)
Comedy Central, 5 September 2015, 22:00

A complainant alerted Ofcom to a trailer broadcast at 22:00 on Comedy Central for the new season of Inside Amy Schumer, which they considered to be too graphic in its language and description of sexual acts.

The trailer featured a group of men sitting around a table playing poker. A female character played by the comedian Amy Schumer entered the room with a plate of chicken wings, which she placed in the middle of the poker table. Before leaving the room she turned to one of the players, her husband, played by the actor Zach Braff, and put her arms around his neck before saying:

If nobody needs anything else, honey, I'm going to head upstairs, start lubing up, so you can blast my dirt-box with your thumb while you lobster hand me in the twat, okay? Seriously, I want you to thumb-dash that mudpit 'til I make a pig noise. Then you can shit on my tits while I call my mom.

Amy Schumer then addressed the other poker players ( You guys are always welcome here! ) before leaving the room. Zach Braff then paused for a moment, while all the other poker players looked down in an uncomfortable silence, and then reached for a chicken wing and said: Guess I should eat up... I gotta shit on those tits!

Ofcom considered Rule 2.3:

In applying generally accepted standards broadcasters must ensure that material which may cause offence is justified by the context...Such material may include, but is not limited to, offensive language,...sex,...discriminatory treatment or language (for example on the grounds of...gender.... Appropriate information should also be broadcast where it would assist in avoiding or minimising offence.

Ofcom Decision: Breach of rule 2.2

Although the Code requires that potentially offensive material is justified by its context, there is significant room for innovation, creativity and challenging material within comedy programming. However, broadcasters do not have unlimited licence in terms of offensive material. There may be circumstances in which relevant contextual factors (such as whether the editorial content is programming or a trailer, audience expectations, or warnings given to the audience) are not sufficient to justify the broadcast of offensive material.

Ofcom first considered whether the material in this programme had the potential to cause offence. We noted that in this trailer Amy Schumer used a number of highly graphic terms to describe various sexual acts such as: lubing up ; blast my dirt-box with your thumb ; lobster hand me in the twat ; thumb-dash that mudpit ; and shit on my tits . We considered that these various graphic, sexual references were clearly capable of causing offence.

We went on to consider whether the broadcast of these potentially offensive statements were justified by the context.

We assessed first the editorial context in which the trailer was broadcast. We noted this trailer was broadcast at 22:002, one hour after the watershed. We recognised that viewers of specialist comedy channels, such as Comedy Central, would have been likely to expect stronger and more challenging material to be broadcast at this time well after the watershed.

However, the content in this case was included within a trailer. Ofcom's research on offensive language notes that audiences consider offensive language less acceptable if it is included in trailers. This is because audiences do not choose to watch promotions for programmes. They come across them unawares. Viewers cannot therefore make informed choices to avoid offensive material in trailers compared to pre-scheduled programmes, and consequently audiences consider that the offensive language is imposed upon them.

Ofcom noted that this material was highly graphic in its use of sexual language, and that in our opinion the latitude given to licensees to broadcast highly offensive language in trailers (which are promotional and which viewers come across unawares) should be less than in programmes. We concluded that the content was so offensive that in our view it would have exceeded viewers' expectations even when broadcast at 22:00 (and afterwards) on a specialist comedy channel.

Breach of Rule 2.3

Update: South Park Trailer Too

27th November 2015. See  complaints bulletin [pdf] from stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk

Ofcom similarly whinged about the same channel's trailer for South Park shown at 10pm.

The trailer had a total duration of about 30 seconds. It featured a song celebrating South Park's new season, citing various situations that the characters had found themselves in previous episodes. The lyrics were as follows:

Do you recall when Cartman found out his mom was his Dad?
Or Kyle being turned into a human centi-pad?
Or how Butters became a pimp and took care of his hos?
Well, I got some good news for you; we're making brand new shows!
South Park's back for series 19, I can't fucking wait.
They've been on for nearly 20 years and they're still fucking great.
'I think I prefer Family Guy', some fucking asshole moans.
Well, why don't you go fuck yourself 'cos South Park's coming home!

Ofcom concluded:

Our view was that the offensive content within this trailer was not justified by the context and exceeded generally accepted standards. Consequently, the trailer breached Rule 2.3 of the Code.

Breach of Rule 2.3

The Parents Television Council announced the companies that it chose for its annual Best/Worst Advertisers List. The Best companies on this list have demonstrated willingness to support positive TV programming including TV shows that routinely feature sex, violence, and profanity, and have not responded to moralist calls to reevaluate their sponsorship behavior.

Some of those shows include: Family Guy , which over the past year has featured 'jokes' about sexually assaulting children; Wicked City , a serial killer-focused drama that routinely shows graphic violence and sex; Scream Queens , which shows graphic gore akin to R-rated horror movies.

PTC asks Americans to use this list as they begin their holiday shopping, to reward the good ones and avoid the bad ones.

INDUSTRY	Worst miserable gits	Best fun filled sponsors
Computers/Software	Google	Microsoft
Candy	Nestle; Mondelez International (Trident, Dentyne, Bubblicious, Toblerone)	Mars; Wrigley
Pharmaceutical	Sanofi; Johnson & Johnson	Bayer; Merck
Consumer Brands	P&G (Cover Girl, Luvs, Swiffer, Bounty, Tide, Crest, Pampers, Olay, Duracell, Gillette, Always, NyQuil)	Unilever (Dove, Axe, Lipton, Suave, Vaseline, Hellmann's)
Beverages	Coca Cola	Red Bull
Fast Food	Wendy's; Dunkin' Brands	McDonald's; Burger King; Yum!
Insurance	Prudential	Nationwide
Office Supply	Office Depot	Staples
Jewelry/Retail	Helzberg Diamonds	Kay Jewelers
Clothing/Retail	TJX (Marshalls, Home Goods, TJ Maxx)	L Brands (Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, La Senza)
General Retail	Sears; Walmart	Target; Best Buy

My Boomerang Won't Come Back is a comedy song from Charlie Drake dating back to 1961. It was controversial at the time but has just hit the news again after just being banned in Australia on grounds of political correctness.

The song is about an Aboriginal boy banished from his tribe because he can't use a boomerang and includes the lyrics:

In the bad backlands of Australia
Many years ago,
The aborigine tribes were meeting,
Having a big pow-wow.

My boomerang won't come back,
My boomerang won't come back,
I've waved the thing all over the place,
Practised till I was black in the face,
I'm a big disgrace to the Aborigine race,
My boomerang won't come back.

When the song  was played on ABC's radio station in Hobart, Tasmania, in September one listener complained that it was racist. Now the broadcaster's Audience and Consumer Affairs Department has upheld that complaint, saying:

The track as not in keeping with the ABC's editorial standards for harm and offence; there was no editorial justification for playing it.

The song was not on a regular ABC playlist but was aired because it was requested by a listener. This error was due to staff not being familiar with the track's lyrics.

The ABC apologised to the complainant, removed the track completely from the system and took steps to ensure that this would not happen again.

At the time of its 1961 release. The BBC refused to play the original version which contained the line: I've waved the thing all over the place/practiced till I was black in the face , so it was re-recorded as blue in the face .

Its lack of political correctness also means an Aboriginal meeting is described as a pow-wow , a term usually associated with Native Americans, while the chanting on the track sounds more African than Aboriginal.

 Polish police have arrested 12 people who tried to block the entrance to a theater performance they claimed to be pornographic.

Scuffles broke out late Saturday in Wroclaw when members of a Catholic organization tried to stop theater-goers from seeing Death and the Maiden , based on the work of Nobel Prize-winning writer Elfriede Jelinek.

The protesters objected to the presence on the stage of porn stars.

The government's new culture minister, Piotr Glinski, had previously called for the show to be canceled, noting the theater is sponsored by the state budget.

Organizers of an art fair in India say right-wing Hindu extremists have vandalised an exhibit of a Styrofoam cow that was suspended in midair using a balloon. The activists claimed that the installation was offensive.

R.B. Gauttam, an organizer of the Jaipur Art Summit, said that the exhibit was meant to highlight how cows suffer after ingesting plastic waste at India's many garbage dumps.

Europe is very close to the finishing line of an extraordinary project: the adoption of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a single, comprehensive replacement for the 28 different laws that implement Europe's existing 1995 Data Protection Directive . More than any other instrument, the original Directive has created a high global standard for personal data protection, and led many other countries to follow Europe's approach. Over the years, Europe has grown ever more committed to the idea of data protection as a core value. In the Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights, legally binding on all the EU states since 2009, lists the "right to the protection of personal data" as a separate and equal right to privacy. The GDPR is intended to update and maintain that high standard of protection, while modernising and streamlining its enforcement.

The battle over the details of the GDPR has so far mostly been a debate between advocates pushing to better defend data protection, against companies and other interests that find consumer privacy laws a hindrance to their business models. Most of the compromises between these two groups have now already been struck.

The result is a ticking time-bomb that will be bad for online speech, and bad for the future reputation of the GDPR and data protection in general.

The current draft of the GDPR doubles down on Google Spain, and raises new problems. (The draft currently under negotiation is not publicly available, but July 2015 versions of the provisions that we refer to can be found in this comparative table of proposals and counter-proposals by the European institutions. Article numbers referenced here, which will likely change in the final text, are to the proposal from the Council of the EU unless otherwise stated.)

First, it requires an Internet intermediary (which is not limited to a search engine, though the exact scope of the obligation remains vague) to respond to a request by a person for the removal of their personal information by immediately restricting the content, without notice to the user who uploaded that content (Articles 4(3a), 17, 17a, and 19a.). Compare this with the DMCA takedown notices, which include a notification requirement, or even the current Right to Be Forgotten process, which give search engines some time to consider the legitimacy of the request. In the new GDPR regime, the default is to block.

Then, after reviewing the (also vague) criteria that balance the privacy claim with other legitimate interests and public interest considerations such as freedom of expression (Articles 6.1(f), 17a(3) and 17.3(a)), and possibly consulting with the user who uploaded the content if doubt remains, the intermediary either permanently erases the content (which, for search engines, means removing their link to it), or reinstates it (Articles 17.1 and 17a(3)). If it does erase the information, it is not required to notify the uploading user of having done so, but is required to notify any downstream publishers or recipients of the same content (Articles 13 and 17.2), and must apparently also disclose any information that it has about the uploading user to the person who requested its removal (Articles 14a(g) and 15(1)(g)).

Think about that for a moment. You place a comment on a website which mentions a few (truthful) facts about another person. Under the GDPR, that person can now demand the instant removal of your comment from the host of the website, while that host determines whether it might be okay to still publish it. If the host's decision goes against you (and you won't always be notified, so good luck spotting the pre-emptive deletion in time to plead your case to Google or Facebook or your ISP), your comment will be erased. If that comment was syndicated, by RSS or some other mechanism, your deleting host is now obliged to let anyone else know that they should also remove the content.

Finally, according to the existing language, while the host is dissuaded from telling you about any of this procedure, they are compelled to hand over personal information about you to the original complainant. So this part of EU's data protection law would actually release personal information!

What are the incentives for the intermediary to stand by the author and keep the material online? If the host fails to remove content that a data protection authority later determines it should have removed, it may become liable to astronomical penalties of ?100 million or up to 5% of its global turnover, whichever is higher (European Parliament proposal for Article 79).

That means there is enormous pressure on the intermediary to take information down if there is even a remote possibility that the information has indeed become "irrelevant", and that countervailing public interest considerations do not apply.

It is not too late yet: proposed amendments to the GDPR are still being considered. We have written a joint letter with ARTICLE 19 to European policymakers, drawing their attention to the problem and explaining what needs to be done. We contend that the problems identified can be overcome by relatively simple amendments to the GDPR, which will help to secure European users' freedom of expression, without detracting from the strong protection that the regime affords to their personal data.

Without fixing the problem, the current draft risks sullying the entire GDPR project. Just like the DMCA takedown process, these GDPR removals won't just be used for the limited purpose they were intended for. Instead, it will be abused to censor authors and invade the privacy of speakers. A GDPR without fixes will damage the reputation of data protection law as effectively as the DMCA permanently tarnished the intent and purpose of copyright law.

About 200 people have compalied to the newspaper censor Ipso about a cartoon by Mac published in the Daily Mail. It featured caricatured refugees crossing the border into Europe, accompanied by rats scurrying across the floor.

The Daily Mail's managing editor's office said in a statement that:

As should be blindingly obvious, Mac's cartoon is a comment on the terrorist atrocities in Paris. The rats were intended to depict terrorists smuggling themselves into Europe amongst innocent refugees.

Richard Burgon, MP for Leeds East, wrote to the paper's editor, suggesting that the animation:

Appears to liken immigrants of the Muslim faith to rats. To me, and to many of my constituents, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, this cartoon appears to be Islamophobic,

And, what is more, comes at a time when our country's Muslim community - which was as shocked and saddened as we all were at the unforgivable atrocities in Pairs - feels under threat of demonisation.

The letter was published  by an unofficial group campaigning for Jeremy Corbyn to become UK Prime Minister (JeremyCorbyn4PM). The group tweeted:

Well done to @RichardBurgon for standing up to the @DailyMailUK over their disgraceful cartoon. Needed to be said.

The press censor Ipso confirmed it had received 200 complaints regarding the drawing.

The British Board of Film Classification (previously known as the British Board of Film Censors) was established in 1912 to ensure films remained free of indecorous dancing , references to controversial politics and men and women in bed together , amongst other perceived indiscretions.

Today, it continues to censor and in some cases ban films, while UK law ensures that, in effect, a film cannot be released in British cinemas without a BBFC certificate.

Each certificate costs around £1000 for a feature film of average length. For many independent filmmakers, such a large upfront can prove prohibitively expensive.

Luckily, there's a flipside to all of this: while filmmakers are required to pay the BBFC to certify their work, the BBFC are also required to sit through whatever we pay them to watch.

That's why I'm Kickstarting a BBFC certificate for my new film Paint Drying -- a single, unbroken shot of white paint drying on a brick wall. All the money raised by this campaign (minus Kickstarter's fees) will be put towards the cost of the certificate, so the final length of the film will be determined by how much money is raised here.

For instance, if we raise £108.59, the film will be one minute long. If we raise £526.90, it'll be an hour long. And so on.

I've shot fourteen continuous hours of footage, on crisp 4K digital video. This should provide enough material for the film, as long as this campaign doesn't raise more than £6057.

If the campaign surpasses that figure, I'll reshoot the film with a longer runtime -- which would also allow Paint Drying to overtake Jacques Rivette's Out 1 (with a runtime of 775 minutes) as the longest film ever rated by the BBFC.

The Advert Standards Authority for Ireland has banned another in long line of amusing and provocative advert from bookmaker Paddy Power. This time alluding to Calais immigrants jumping into trucks bound for the UK. The ASAI explained:

An advertisement which featured on social media channels included pictures of the following five sports stars, Andy Murray, Raheem Sterling, Mo Farah, Manu Tualigi and Eoin Morgan, they were shown on a truck side. The text read as follows:

IMMIGRANTS JUMP IN THE BACK! (BUT ONLY IF YOU'RE GOOD AT SPORT) PADDYPOWER

Complainants considered the advertisement to be in poor taste, offensive, racist, and exploiting the situation that immigrants in Calais currently found themselves in, i.e. jumping onto moving lorries to gain entry to the UK. One complainant considered that the advertisers were making a joke out of human tragedy, while another considered it was likely to inflame negative attitudes towards immigrants. One complainant queried the use of Andy Murray in the advertisement.

Complaints Upheld.

The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaints and the advertisers' response. They noted that the advertisers had targeted their followers on Facebook and Twitter with their advertisement. The Code provides that in assessing compliance, particular attention is paid to the media by means of which the marketing communication is communicated. In this case the Committee accepted that while the majority of Paddy Power followers on Social Media and Twitter would probably be aware of their edgy sense of humour, it was nevertheless inappropriate for advertisers to refer to vulnerable groups, in a manner that highlighted their current high profile difficulties, in marketing communications merely to attract attention.

Action Required: The advertisement should not appear in the same form again.

Posters for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, featuring the film's female lead Jennifer Lawrence in the role of Katniss Everdeen, have been hung prominently throughout Israel.

Except for in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak There, the posters only display the fiery crow that forms the background of the poster. The foreground of Jennifer Lawrence with a bow and arrow has been excluded.

The movie's Israeli PR firm acknowledged that the poster had been sanitized for the ultra-Orthodox audience. A spokesman said:

We discovered that public posters with the image of a female are often torn down in Jerusalem, while Bnei Brak does not allow posters with female images.

The Bnei Brak municipality said in a statement that a municipal regulation prevents the hanging of posters of women that might incite the feelings of the city's residents.

The Jerusalem municipality said that it does not limit the appearance of female images in posters, but Liron Suissa, VP marketing of the company responsible for the posters, Nur Star Media, said:

Unfortunately we are subject to unofficial coercion that forces us to be more careful, Suissa said. We have had endless vandalization, and clients prefer not to take the chance. We allow everything, but we recommend hanging another visual when necessary. The decision is the client's.

FHM and Zoo are to close by the end of the year, marking the end of lads' mags in Britain

Publisher Bauer Media described the closures, which are still subject to a consultation on the future of 20 jobs across the two titles, as a suspension, but the plan is to close both the print and digital versions of the magazines by 2016.

The closures reflect an overall decline in magazine sales, generally attributed to porn being widely available for free on the internet. Both titles have seen steep declines from their heyday. FHM's circulation fell to less than 67,000 for the first six months of this year, while Zoo was selling just over 24,000 copies per issue.

In line with its strategic aim to have more impact and be more proactive in how it regulates, the ASA is to start putting a stronger focus on those issues where there is the greatest potential detriment or harm. This will allow it to have the biggest impact on the issues that matter most, benefitting consumers, society and responsible advertisers alike.

In February the ASA announced the introduction of new Prioritisation Principles to guide its work. The principles were developed to help it decide what resource it should commit, or activity it should undertake, in response to issues identified through complaints (and other channels). From Monday, 23 November, it will be using those principles to help it decide when it will investigate issues that potentially break the rules and when it can deal with the issues by other means.

It's important to stress that, where a complaint indicates the rules have been broken, the ASA will always act. It has always varied its approach to complaint handling depending on the nature of the issues raised, resolving cases informally where possible and in so doing avoiding the lengthier process of formal investigation. However, it will now be making greater use of advice and guidance as an alternative to its existing investigation processes to help advertisers stick to the rules. The ASA is confident that responsible advertisers will follow that advice, and it's important that they do.

Most complainants and advertisers won't be affected by this policy because the best course of action in many cases will still be to deal with complaints as before, either by informal resolution with an advertiser or by a formal ASA ruling. Where this new policy does apply to a complaint, the ASA will write to the advertiser and complainant explaining its decision and the action it has taken.

By introducing the option of writing to advertisers who have potentially broken the rules instead of initiating an investigation, the ASA has developed an approach that allows it to act proportionately in response to complaints received whilst freeing up the time it needs to focus on the issues that matter most. Those issues might be dealt with through a formal investigation or by other means, such as sector wide work, as it continues to develop the processes needed to become a more proactive regulator.

There has been a bit of a debate in America about why Christianity, which would have formed a central part of the lives of the aristocracy in the early 20th century, is largely absent from the TV drama Downton Abbey .

Now the man tasked with ensuring the historical accuracy of the series has revealed why Downton does not do God. Alastair Bruce, who serves as the show's historical advisor , said that executives in charge of the series had ordered producers to leave religion out of it , for fear of alienating an increasingly atheistic public.

For instance, the Crawley family is never shown in the process of sitting down to dinner, with the action instead shown from part-way through the meal . This, Bruce said, was to avoid having to show the characters saying grace. Bruce explained:

In essence you hardly ever see a table that isn't already sat at. We never see the beginning of a luncheon or a dinner, because no one was ever allowed to see a grace being said , and I would never allow them to sit down without having said grace.

I think that the view was that we'd leave religion out of it, and it would've taken extra time too. I suggested a Latin grace, but they decided that was too far, and no one would've known what was going on.

Bruce said that he was even banned from featuring napkins folded in the shape of a bishop's mitre, for fear of breaching the religious edict:

Everyone panics when you try to do anything religious on the telly. I still wish we could've got some decent napkin folds , but I was always left with my triangle.

Peter Fincham, ITV's director of television also revealed that earlier in the year that the channel had considered renaming the series, because it featured the word Abbey in the title. He said:

I can remember discussions that almost seem comical now. We talked about the word Abbey. Would people think it would have nuns or monks in it and be a religious series? But we satisfied ourselves they wouldn't and did a bit of marketing around it.

The Muslim Council of Britain held a conference this week entitled Terrorism and Extremism -- how should British Muslims respond?

And the response seems to be to call for the censorship of reports about the terrorism and criminalisation of criticism of the extremism.

Calls were made for the UK's newspaper censor, Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), to censor press stories critical of groups of people rather than the current remit to investigate press stories that are unfair to individuals.

The Muslim Council of Britain both called for that to change, amid what some claim is slanted press coverage of Islamic issues. The coincil had previously criticized media coverage of issues such as that of Muslim grooming gangs , in which groups of men in areas such as Rotherham, Derby, Bristol and Oxfordshire were accused of raping thousands of children. Representatives of the MCB have said that linking the story to the Muslim faith was not fair.

Miqdaad Versi, Assistant Secretary General of the MCB, said that there is currently no recourse under the press standards code when a particular group is attacked by the media:

There's been many examples in the media, where we've tried to go to the code but we've not been able to, he said. If there is a way that a representative group can launch a complaint on that issue, that would be valuable.

One of the most high-profile cases in which IPSO rejected a claim of discrimination came last spring, and involved a column in the Sun newspaper about the migration crisis. Controversial columnist Katie Hopkins suggested that Europe should use gunboats to stop migrants crossing the Mediterranean, and compared those fleeing their home countries to cockroaches. But IPSO rejected complaints over her column, because it did not refer to specific individuals.

The conference also discussed the restoration of blasphemy laws, abolished in 2008 after they had largely fallen into disuse by then, given that the last successful prosecution was in 1977.

On the topic Keith Vaz MP, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, told Al Arabiya News that he would have no problem with blasphemy laws being reintroduced"

It should apply to all religions. If we have laws, they should apply to everybody. Religions are very special to people. And therefore I have no objection to them... but it must apply equally to everybody.

David Anderson QC spoke on the topic saying he would not object to a public debate over the issue, although had doubts over whether such laws should be reintroduced:

Personally I'm not sure whether I would welcome a blasphemy law, because I think we have to be free to make fun of each other. We even have to be free to offend each other, he said. [But] I would have no problem with the idea of a democratic debate on whether there is room for some kind of blasphemy law.

Miqdaad Versi said:

Muslim communities need to be able to respond to accusations Muslims, or against the Prophet, in a more effective way. Whether there should be legislation is something that really is a more complicated question.

Comment: One religion's blasphemer is another religion's saint

16th November 2015. See article from rorate-caeli.blogspot.com . Thanks to Alan

Here's a spectacular illustration of the big problem with blasphemy laws: religions contradict, and therefore blaspheme, one another.

This Catholic web site presents, and accurately translates into English, criticisms of Muhammad and Islam made by a priest who has been declared a saint. Notably, St john Bosco was a kindly and gentle old chap, deploring corporal punishment at a time when Dr Arnold of Rugby firmly believed in a good flogging in front of the assembled house. He observed:

"It would take too long to tell you all the stories about this famous impostor (...) Mohamed's religion consists of a monstrous mixture of Judaism, Paganism and Christianity. Mohamed propagated his religion, not through miracles or persuasive words, but through the force of arms. [It is] a religion that favors every sort of licentiousness and which, in a short time, allowed Mohamed to become the leader of a troop of brigands. Along with them he raided the countries of the East and conquered the people, not by introducing the Truth, not by miracles or prophecy; but for one reason only: to raise his sword over the heads of the conquered shouting: believe or die".

Petitioning Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General Matthew Hancock MP

The Freedom of Information Act established the broad principle that public bodies must release information if the public interest in doing so outweighs the public interest in it remaining secret.

We, the undersigned, urge the Government not to do anything which would detract from that principle.

In particular we urge you:

• to ensure that the Act continues to allow for the release of internal discussions at local and central government level when there is a public interest in doing so
• not to seek to create any new veto powers over the release of information
• not to introduce charges for Freedom of Information Act requests or appeals.

Any charges could dramatically undermine the ability of requesters, including regional press journalists and freelances in particular, to use the Act to hold authorities to account.

Investigative journalism is time-consuming, expensive and sometimes difficult to justify for news organisations which are under financial pressure. It needs to be nurtured and encouraged, for the benefit of society and democracy, not subject to Freedom of Information charges which would be effectively be a tax on journalism.

This petition was launched by Press Gazette as part of the Society of Editors' Hands Off FoI campaign. It also has the backing of the Campaign for Freedom of Information.

Sign the petition from change.org

The BBC responded to a complaint without informing viewers what the complaint was about. The BBFC said:

Strictly Come Dancing,
BBC One, 24 October 2015

Complaint:

We received complaints from viewers unhappy with Bruno Tonioli's use of strong language during this episode.

Response:

We're sorry for any offence caused by Bruno's remark during the live show. Bruno made the comment in the heat of the moment, and apologised immediately when he realised what he had said. Tess also apologised to viewers, as did the Strictly team on Twitter. The remark was removed from the iPlayer version of the show.

In fact Bruno said 'bollocks'. When passing his verdict on Jay and Aliona Vilani's dance, he shrieked: Oh yeah! those are the bull's bollocks! Tess Daly then apologised to viewers, telling them: I would just like to apologise for Bruno's language there, he got a little over-excited .

Update: Ofcom dismisses bollocks complaints

10th November 2015. See  article from telegraph.co.uk

The world 'bollocks' can be used before the watershed in some circumstances, the TV said, as it rejected complaints about a Strictly Come Dancing judge's use of the term:

Our research shows that in general audiences would tolerate this language before the watershed

Update: Ofcom makes a bollocks clarification

13th November 2015. See  article from christian.org.uk

Newspapers generally reported that Ofcom had dismissed complaints about the pre-watershed use of the word 'bollocks' with the inference that it was OK to use pre-watershed. However an Ofcom TV censor has written to the Times to clarify that in fact the word 'bollocks' is not OK before the watershed, it's just that the Strictly Come Dancing presenter grovelled enough that the programme was let off from the transgression of the censorship rules.

In a letter to The Times, Ofcom's Director of Content Standards, Licensing and Enforcement, Tony Close, explained the TV censor's decision:

In deciding not to pursue complaints about Strictly Come Dancing, we took into account the live, accidental nature of the incident and clear recognition by the other judges and presenter that this was unacceptable.

We also recognised the swift and sincere apology by the presenter.

We continue to enforce the watershed to protect audiences and will take swift, robust action when broadcasters get it wrong.

In an interview Breitbart News Daily, Tim Winter president of the US morality campaign, Parents Television Council, discussed how the Hollywood echo chamber is responsible for pushing increasingly violent and sexualized television programming at families and why adult-oriented cable channels like the FX Network should not be included in basic cable packaging. Winters whinged:

It used to be, when you turned on the TV, you could see something during most times of the day that the family could watch together. And sadly, that just isn't true anymore,

Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon spoke of TV programming during times when families now watch as being: so edgy, so in your [face], and anti-authoritarian. He asked Winter to explain why it is this way instead of being designed to keep families across America in the viewing audience.

Winter claimed:

The folks who program the cable networks, really are a small group of folks who are [well] acquainted with each other, and they mostly like the same thing, and they are able to program the way they want to program for themselves.

He pointed out that this poses a problem for families that subscribe to cable for an array of television programming like news and sports because channels which he claimed would have once been considered pornographic are now lumped in with certain standard news or sports packages. He repeated his commonly aired gripe:

If you want to get Fox News, you also have to take and pay for some of these pornographic channels.

Winter specifically cited the FX Network as a supplier of content that children should be shielded from. He said it contains some of the most violent and most sexually explicit content that the Parents Television Council has ever seen on basic cable.

Of course Winter had to get in a big but. He said it isn't about being a censor or a prude ...BUT... about letting children be children without simultaneously having them exposed to things that their parents are trying to shield them from seeing.

The co-founder of an Australian brewery is accused of insulting Indians and Hindus with a ginger beer label depicting two Hindu gods.

Jaron Mitchell, co-founder of Four Pines Brewing Company, spoke to TV station SBS following the launch of an online petition calling for his company to change the label on its Brookvale Union Ginger Beer.

The label features a figure with what appears to be the body of the goddess Lakshmi and the head of the god Ganesha.

The 200 signature petition, launched by Melbourne man Amit Singh, said the label was insulting to Indians and Hindus and called for the company to withdraw it. Rather ambiguously Singh told SBS:

There are a lot of people who worship these gods and this is just not acceptable.

Mitchell said the company had been engaged in community consultation for the past two years and redesigned the label once already. He claimed a recent offer to redesign the label for a second time with members of the Hindu community had not been taken up.

Mitchell said the company first received complaints about the label in 2013 when the professionally easily offended Rajan Zed pointed out the same issue. He said the company was still eager to engage in consultation and urged community members who would like to contribute to a redesign to come forward.

The Tory war on privacy

13th November 2015. See article from spiked-online.com

The Investigatory Powers Bill should be ripped up. By Tom Slater

What the Investigatory Powers Bill will mean for your internet use

10th November 2015. See  article from theregister.co.uk

So who REALLY knows what I access?

The Register details what ISPs will and will not be able to determine from your internet usage. However the article should be read with a little caution. Eg just because an ISP cannot determine which of your family members is accessing the websites on the log doesn't mean the authorities can't. In fact the bill mentions specific capabilities to use context and tracking cookies etc to determine which family member access which sites.

UK surveillance bill could bring very dire consequences , warns Apple chief

10th November 2015. See article from theguardian.com

Any back door is a back door for everyone, says Tim Cook of proposals to allow authorities to track citizens' internet use without requiring warrant

UK Surveillance Bill a Threat to Privacy

9th November 2015. See  article from hrw.org

Key aspects of the bill include:

• The bill would preserve current blanket data retention requirements for communications data and add a new requirement for communications service providers to retain users' "Internet connection records" for up to 12 months. As described in the government's explanatory notes, this requirement means that the government could get a list of all the websites a person visits or online services they use for up to a year. Even though this would not provide access to the specific pages of a website the person visited, it would be highly revealing of a person's online activity and could result in self-censorship with a chilling effect on free expression. It would also breach the right to privacy and to information, given that it applies to all users regardless of whether they are under suspicion. Intelligence agencies and police would be able to access such communications data without a warrant or review by a judge. Although judicial approval is required for police to gain access to journalists' sources, it would not be required for intelligence agencies to get this access.

Request Filters...

5th November 2015. See  article from theregister.co.uk

T he Snooper's Charter Bill reveals how the state will maintain a separate datebase entry for every internet user, even when they share an internet connection

Commenting on the government spin about the snooper's charter...

5th November 2015. See article from theguardian.com .

The surveillance bill is as big a threat to state security as to personal liberty. By Simon Jenkins

Surveillance Q&A what web data is affected – and how to foil the snoopers...

5th November 2015. See article from theguardian.com .

Critics call it a revived snooper's charter, because the government wants police and spies to be given access to the web browsing history of everyone in Britain.

However, Theresa May says her measures would require internet companies to store data about customers that amount to simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill .

Who is right? And is there anything you can do to make your communications more secure?

Will UK spy bill risk exposing people's porn habits? ...

5th November 2015. See article from bbc.co.uk .

So, the bill proposes the authorities be given the right to retrospectively check people's internet connection records without having to obtain a warrant.

That means, for example, they would be allowed to learn someone had used Snapchat at 07:30 on their smartphone at home and then two hours later visited Facebook's website via their laptop at work.

It may sound fairly innocuous - but of course many people have internet habits that are legal but nevertheless very private. So, is their privacy being put at risk?

The Daily Mail has tried to talk up a few trivial tweets about the new BBC 2 drama, London Spy. The newspaper claims:

An Ofcom investigation has been launched into a new BBC drama after viewers complained about its gays sex scenes and nudity.

London Spy, a new thriller, was broadcast across the UK at 9pm on Monday on BBC 2. The programme stars Ben Whishaw, who is also Q in the new Bond film Spectre.

After 25 minutes of the show he is seen in a steamy sex scene with Edward Holcroft. Metal sex toys, bondage gear and a sex dungeon were also on show, for the first episode which had a peak viewing audience of three million.

The show had 13 complaints from viewers who were shocked by what they saw on their screens. Some people also took to Twitter to express their opinions.

Christian group the Evangelical Alliance were also angered. A spokesman told The Sun : We should expect better from our publicly-funded broadcaster.

However PinkNews begs to differ. Claims that the show received thirteen complaints and that the show will be investigated, have been rubbished by Ofcom. PinkNews explains:

The broadcasting watchdog contacted PinkNews to reveal they are yet to launch an investigation -- after receiving just a single complaint.

We've received one complaint about London Spy on BBC Two. We will assess this complaint before deciding whether to investigate or not, an Ofcom spokesman told PinkNews.

The Message is a 1977 Lebanon / Libya / Kuwait / Morocco / UK historical biography by Moustapha Akkad.
Starring Anthony Quinn, Irene Papas and Michael Ansara.

This must-see epic depicts the birth of Islam. In the 7th century Mohammed is visited by Angel Gabriel who urges him to lead the people of Mecca and worship God. But they're exiled in Medina before returning to Mecca to take up arms against their oppressors and liberate their city in the name of God.

A Glasgow cinema that cancelled a screening of The Message, an Oscar nominated film portraying the life of the religious character Muhammad, has been urged to reconsider its decision.

About 100 complaints were made ahead of a scheduled showing of 1977 film at the Grosvenor Cinema next month. The complaints about the film's content, such as the portrayal of Muhammad's close companions by non-Muslim actors led to the cinema's decision to ban the showing. No doubt an unstated fear of trouble also played a part in the decision.

The Islamic Society of Britain has protested the Grosvenor's cancellation in the face of a small number of objections, which came in the form of an anonymous petition signed by 93 people, according to the Herald. A spokesman for the ISB said:

As Scottish Muslims we believe in the principles of freedom of speech and have worked for decades to promote the rights of people to make Islam relevant to British society. These protestors demonstrate the worst elements of our community, as they are imposing their beliefs on others.

We will not be bullied by these people. We are also appealing for the Grosvenor to stick to the original agreement, and show the film.

The National Secular Society has also written to the cinema to express its concern at what it called a climate of censorship brought on by the unreasonable and reactionary views of some religious extremists . NSS campaigns manager Stephen Evans said:

It's a sad sign of the times that such a small petition has forced the venue to cancel. We hope the cinema will change its position and not allow the weapon of offense to be used to restrict its freedom as a cinema to screen films and the freedom of audiences to watch them.

SNP MSP Humza Yusaf also denounced the decision, saying:

I am apalled that they have caved in the face of a few narrow-minded imbeciles.

A BBC radio DJ who said that breastfeeding in public was unnatural has been criticised by TV censor Ofcom for his highly offensive comments.

Alex Dyke told listeners of his daily show on BBC Radio Solent that he found it embarrassing to sit next to a breastfeeding mother on the bus.

Ofcom today announced that 45 complaints against Dyke had been upheld, saying that his views were likely to be perceived as misogynistic .

The comments breached rule 2.3 of the body's regulations, which states that potentially offensive material must be justified by its context. An Ofcom spokesman said:

We found this radio discussion broke our rules regarding offensive content. The presenter's statements were highly offensive, stereotyped women who breastfed and were likely to be perceived as misogynistic.

The BBC took various steps after the broadcast, including the presenter broadcasting an apology, further compliance training for the presenter, and tightening its compliance processes.

However the presenter had been permitted to broadcast highly offensive comments, with minimal editorial oversight.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 is a 2015 USA Sci-Fi adventure by Francis Lawrence.
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth.

The BBFC rated the cinema release as 12A uncut for moderate violence, threat.

The Daily Mail has a rather half-hearted knock at this 12A certificate:

With a bombing of families, monsters eating people alive and a public execution, it hardly seems ideal viewing for children.

But film censors appear to think otherwise, giving the latest instalment of The Hunger Games a 12A classification, meaning it can be seen by children of primary school age accompanied by an adult.

In one scene, the main characters are involved in a gruesome fight with monsters with no eyes and razor-sharp teeth during which one man is eaten alive.

In another, young families are targeted by bombs, disguised as gifts, causing mass death and destruction. Such scenes have fuelled the debate about whether 12A classifications give enough protection to young people.

The Daily Mail dragged up a few trivial sound bites from censorial campaigners, including a rare comment from Mediawatch-UK.

Claude Knights, of the charity Kidscape, said of the latest film:

I wonder why it wasn't given a more robust rating. Many parents wouldn't take their children to something like this, but because it's a 12A they might not be expecting it to be this way.

The danger is that these scenes become normal. They become desensitised and the level of gore and violence becomes normalised.

Vivienne Pattison, director of lobby group Mediawatch UK, said:

The industry is terribly keen to get things through as a 12A, as suddenly you've doubled your market potentially.

There have been quite a few 12A films recently that I just don't think you'd want to take an eight-year-old to see, although it's perfectly legal to do so.

More than 300 works are on display in Northern Ireland's biggest visual arts show, but a small area of one of them has sparked a clamour for censorship.

Christian Flautists Outside St Patrick's was the last painting by acclaimed Irish artist Joseph McWilliams, who died last month. He was posthumously awarded The Irish News Prize for the work. Close inspection of the painting shows a group of people in Klu Klux Klan hoods at the bottom left of the picture.

Two political parties, Traditional Unionist Voice and the Democratic Unionist Party have demanded the removal of the painting from the 134th Annual Exhibition at the Ulster Museum following complaints from the Orange Order. The group complained that a small blurred section depicts a number of Orangemen wearing Ku Klux Klan clothing . They deny it ever happened calling it deliberate demonization .

It has prompted calls from unionist political party Traditional Unionist Voice to remove the painting from display. The Democratic Unionist Party also criticised the work.

However the Royal Ulster Academy has refused to bow to these demands. Academy president Denise Ferran said the work would not be removed over the disputed square inch of a canvas that is seven foot by five foot as it would be an attack on artistic freedom.

The Academy has subsequently put up notices saying some people may be offended by the exhibition. Ferran said:

What we will not do is take the picture down. Once you go down that road, the problems will never cease. I'm delighted we're not a moribund crowd of old stooges. We are causing provocation, which is what an academy of artists should be doing.

A spokesman for the Orange Order said putting up the disclaimers was a necessary step and at least some acknowledgement of the genuine concerns of the institution and many in the wider community to the inaccurate and misleading nature of the painting in question . He added that the group had not called for the painting to be removed from display saying the Orange Order does not actively support censorship . A spokesman for the Order said its members were entitled to feel outraged that a major publicly funded facility should display such artwork which is deeply offensive to their traditions.

Two mainstream bookstores in New Orleans have filed suit against Attorney General James D. Caldwell and more than 40 district attorneys over House Bill (HB) 153. Primarily an anti-pornography measure, the Louisiana law requires anyone who publishes material harmful to minors on the Internet to verify web-surfers' dates of birth before allowing them access. But for independent bookstores like the plaintiffs, HB 153 poses a unique threat : deny minors access to their entire web catalog or face a $10,000 fine.

According to a Shelf Awareness report, HB 153 requires this of booksellers:

[To] either place an age confirmation button in front of their entire website, thereby restricting access to materials that may be appropriate for all ages, or attempt to review all of the books ... available at their website and place an age confirmation button in front of each individual page that might be inappropriate for any minor.

HB 153 considers material harmful to minors if :

• (a) The material incites or appeals to or is designed to incite or appeal to the prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of minors.
• (b) The material is offensive to the average adult applying contemporary community standards with respect to what is suitable for minors.
• (c) The material taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors

Owner Britton Trice notes that the Garden District Bookshop cannot possibly review the 1 million-plus titles on our website, and would therefore be forced to ban all minors from browsing the collection. But even bookseller sites that cater exclusively to older generations would be required to put age verification walls in place, because the $10,000 fine applies to any retailer that does not verify visitors' ages, regardless of whether any minors come to the website or not.

The Media Coalition, the ACLU, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund are named plaintiffs in the challenge, alongside the Garden District Bookshop and Octavia Books.

Daesh: Russia intensifies its air bombardment

Russians have been 'outraged' by cartoons making light of the Egyptian air crash which appeared in the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

One cartoon shows parts of the aircraft falling on an Islamic State militant. It is captioned: Daesh: Russia ntensifies its air bombardment.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the cartoons were somehow a blasphemy. He whinged

In our country, this would be called 'blasphemy.' It has nothing to do with democracy or with self-expression. It is just blasphemy.

My colleagues and I tried to find caricatures of the Charlie Hebdo journalists in the magazine, who were shot by terrorists. We were unable to find them. But if they were published, then it would also be blasphemy, well at least in our country.

Igor Morozov, a lawmaker from Russia's Federation Council, claimed the Sinai plane crash should not be ridiculed. :

I believe it is blasphemy and ridicules the memory of those who lost their lives as a result of this catastrophe. This should not be used by any media organizations in any form whatsoever or in any particular genre in which they may specialize.

In trying to be original, Charlie Hebdo have plunged everything into shock. Remember the tragedy which happened in January 2015 concerning the publisher. I think that the journalists are provoking acts of violence.

Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, wrote on her Facebook page:

Is anyone still Charlie?

Cuffs,
BBC One, 28 October 2015

Complaint

We received complaints from viewers who felt that some of the content of Cuffs wasn't appropriate for an 8pm time slot.

Response

Cuffs is an ambitious new drama for the 8pm slot on BBC One, and aims to reflect the reality of police work and the challenges facing the police force. This means it will sometimes tackle difficult issues. We took care to make potential viewers aware of the nature of the series, through trails and pre-publicity, so that people could make an informed decision as to whether they wanted to watch.

At the same time, we're aware of our responsibilities to our audience and, as with all programmes, a great deal of thought went into appropriate scheduling. The content and placing of Cuffs was carefully considered at a senior level and we felt it was not beyond general audience expectations for a drama of this nature at 8pm. That said, we accept that tastes vary enormously and that some viewers might have a different point of view.

A 'vile' cartoon published in the Daily Mail has sparked 'outrage', amid accusations that the drawing looked as though it should have been published in Britain's bygone racist era.

The Mac image, which also appears on the paper's website, references news that singer Tom Jones will undergo tests in a bid to discover whether he has black ancestry .

It depicts two white colonial-type explorers, one reading a newspaper with the headline 'Am I black?' asks Tom Jones , another approaching two black tribesmen with a test-tube, clutching a briefcase adorned with the words DNA tests . The cartoon caption reads:

The DNA matches - now just one more test... can you sing Delilah?.

The Huffington post dragged up a few angry tweets to show the 'outrage', eg:

How does the Daily Mail cover Tom Jones' alleged black ancestry? With a cartoon about black people in a jungle. Vile

A tweet and videos that appeared on the advertiser's website (as a pre-roll ad on YouTube and on the advertiser's YouTube channel) promoting wine, were seen between 12 August 2015 and 4 September 2015.

• a). The tweet from the Premier Estates Wine Twitter account, dated 11 August, stated Tweet 'I want to #TasteTheBush' and you could wine [sic] a case of wine!... . The tweet also included an image of a woman, from her chest to her mid-thigh, standing behind a table on which a glass of red wine was resting directly in front of her crotch. Overlaid text stated #TasteTheBush .
• b). The website for Premier Estates Wines www.premierestates.co.uk included a video on the News page of the site as part of a post entitled We Invite You to #TasteTheBush . It featured a woman in a kitchen holding a glass of red wine and talking about the positive attributes of Premier Estates Australian wines. After she had taken a sip she stated Luscious, earthy, bursting with fruit and spice. Australia practically jumps out of the glass . She then placed the glass on the table in front of her, directly in front of her crotch, before continuing In fact, some say you can almost taste the bush . She then looked awkwardly away from the camera before picking up her glass and walking away from the table.
• c) The video that appeared on the Premier Estates YouTube channel was identical to ad (b).
• d) A pre-roll ad on YouTube, was identical to ad (b). Issue

The ASA received eight complaints.

1. Five complainants, including Wine Australia, a statutory body within Australia whose role included promoting the consumption and sale of Australian wine overseas, challenged whether the ads (b) and (c) were offensive, because they were sexist and degrading towards women.
2. One complainant challenged whether ad (a) was offensive, for the same reasons.
3. Three complainants, including Alcohol Concern, challenged whether the ads were in breach of the Code because they linked alcohol with sexual activity.

ASA Assessment: Complaints upheld

1. Upheld

The ASA considered that most viewers would understand the claim ... some say you can almost taste the bush to be a reference to oral sex, particularly given that it was accompanied with the image of the wine glass positioned directly in front of the woman's crotch. The line appeared towards the end of the ad and, in conjunction with the image, which emphasised the sexual connation, created the final impression left by the ad. While the woman was immediately aware of the double-entendre and seemingly only mildly embarrassed as a result, we considered that it served to undermine her as, until that point, she had been portrayed as confident and in control while discussing the merits of the wine, in what appeared to be a relaxed and informal party atmosphere. For that reason, we considered that the ad presented the woman in a degrading manner, and concluded that it was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.

2. Upheld

We noted that the ad included a still from the video, which only showed the woman's arms and torso, with a glass of red wine resting on a table directly in front of her crotch, and the text #TasteTheBush overlaid. While we understood the claim was intended to be tongue-in-cheek and could be construed to relate to the qualities of Australian wine, as stated in point 1 above, we considered that recipients would understand the dual meaning and the clear reference to oral sex. We considered that the cropped image which concealed the woman's face accompanied by text that was also referring to her genitalia and oral sex, served to reduce the woman to merely a sexual object. In light of that, we considered that the ad presented the woman in a degrading manner and was likely to cause serious or widespread offence. Further, we considered that the fact recipients of the tweet were encouraged to re-tweet the claim themselves to partake in a competition was likely to amplify any offence caused. For those reasons we concluded that the ad was in breach of the Code.

3. Upheld

We considered that consumers would understand the claim #TasteTheBush , particularly when accompanied with an image of a woman standing behind a wine glass, which emphasised her crotch, to be a double-entendre referring to both Australian red wine, and female genitalia and oral sex. We also noted that the ads clearly promoted an alcoholic product and that an image of a glass of red wine was featured in each ad. Because the ads clearly referenced oral sex and featured an alcoholic product, we concluded that they linked alcohol with sexual activity and were in breach of the Code.

The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Premier Estates Wine to ensure their ads did not cause serious or widespread offence and to ensure they did not link alcohol with sexual activity in future.

Where to Invade Next is a 2015 USA documentary by Michael Moore.
Starring Krista Kiuru, Michael Moore and Tim Walker.

To learn what the USA can gain from other nations, Michael Moore playfully "invades" them to see what they have to offer.

Michael Moore is non to impressed by the MPAA R rating given to his latest documentary. Moore spoke of the R rating to Variety:

Moore listed the parts of the film that prompted the MPAA's ruling. The violence in the picture includes footage of law enforcement officers beating Eric Garner, a Staten Island man whose death last year helped spark a wider debate about police brutality.

The drug use is related to a section in the film on Portugal's decision to decriminalize narcotics -- a move that some suggest has led to a reduction in substance abuse.

The language stems from the use of 'fuck' by Icelandic citizens protesting the 2009 collapse of their banks.

And the nudity is a fleeting image of a naked man. That's from a vignette that shows how some Europeans are able to enjoy three weeks at a spa to treat stress thanks to government-backed healthcare.

Moore said he will not edit the film, and has appealed to have the rating lowered to a PG-13.

Internet and social media companies will be banned from putting customer communications beyond their own reach under new laws to be unveiled on Wednesday.

Companies such as Apple, Google and others will no longer be able to offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot decipher it when asked to, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Measures in the Investigatory Powers Bill will place in law a requirement on tech firms and service providers to be able to provide unencrypted communications to the police or spy agencies if requested through a warrant. A Home Office spokessnoop said:

The Government is clear we need to find a way to work with industry as technology develops to ensure that, with clear oversight and a robust legal framework, the police and intelligence agencies can access the content of communications of terrorists and criminals in order to resolve police investigations and prevent criminal acts.

That means ensuring that companies themselves can access the content of communications on their networks when presented with a warrant, as many of them already do for their own business purposes, for example to target advertising. These companies' reputations rest on their ability to protect their users' data.

Update: The impact of a ban on encryption

4th November 2015. See  article from publicaffairs.linx.net

Contrary to recent promises by Ministers that the government will not attempt to weaken or undermine encryption, the new obligation would require companies to ensure that they had the capability to decrypt any data they stored. This would particularly impact cloud-based companies like Apple and Facebook, which have won consumer trust for the integrity of their Facetime and WhatsApp communications services by designing them with encryption that protects customer data even from the company itself.

End-to-end encryption means, for communications, that the message is encrypted by the sender with a key known only to the intended recipient. Thus Alice can Facetime Bob safe in the knowledge that Apple cannot access the communication, even though Facetime communications need to be sent through servers run by Apple. End-to-end encryption also applies for data storage in the cloud: a business storing its corporate data in a cloud service like Amazon S3 or Google Glacier will encrypt that data with a key that it knows and Amazon or Google does not.

The ability to support end-to-end encryption has been a crucial factor enabling adoption of cloud-based services as a viable alternative to traditional applications run by corporate IT departments. Quite apart from any consumer backlash, prohibiting this capability would give pause to more security-sensitive businesses, that have a duty to protect the integrity of their customer data: if storing data in the cloud means exposing customer data to the cloud-service provider, use of cloud services becomes much riskier. Recent high-profile breaches at TalkTalk, Vodafone and credit-rating agency Experian have greatly raised sensitivity to risk.

A US domain registry xyz.com has put in a proposal to ICANN that would see it automatically censoring new domain names that match a Chinese government blacklist. Industry news site Domain Incite has reported that this puts perhaps close to 12,000 banned words and expressions onto the blacklist, thereby preventing terms such as the Chinese words for democracy and human rights from being registered within any of the company's top-level domains, which include .xyz, .college, .rent, .theatre, .protection and .security. This will apply not only to Chinese registrants, but to registrants worldwide.

In describing to ICANN the consultations that it has undertaken about these censorship plans, xyz.com blithely claims We believe that no parties have any legitimate reason to object to the introduction of this service . Chinese bloggers and dissidents, some of whom have received sentences as severe as life in prison for speaking out online, might beg to differ with this assessment.

Censorship of a domain name is not the same as censorship of the content hosted at that domain name (the Chinese government does both, but xyz.com's proposal only affects the former). Neither would the censorship plan prevent users from registering domain names from the government blacklist in any of other hundreds of top-level domains run by competing registries (though China will still block these from access by Chinese users), or registering trivial variants that avoid the blacklist. Even so, as ineffective as it may be, xyz.com's complicity in advancing the Chinese government's censorship of the Internet remains profoundly misguided, and contrary to their role as a provider of domain names to the world.

xyz.com's casual acceptance of Chinese censorship of its domain space provides an open invitation to China and other governments to apply more pressure on registrars and on ICANN itself to further limit the expression of speech through domain names. In the long term, this will only further erode the ability for users to express themselves online, by registering domain names that describe or complement speech hosted at that domain, or are a short and pithy speech act in themselves.

Update: Backing off

 4th November 2015

The CEO of .xyz has written to deny that any domains would be blocked by their registry, as their proposal had suggested. Whether this had been a miscommunication in the proposal, or is a reversal of their previous position, we welcome the now unambiguous statement by .xyz that Internet users in China and worldwide will be free to register strings that offend the Chinese government in any of the .xyz registry's top-level domains.

Gayby Baby is a 2015 Australia family documentary by Maya Newell.
Starring David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson and Lisa Hannigan.

The documentary film follows the lives of four kids whose parents all happen to be gay. As they each wrestle with the onset of puberty, the outside world wrestles with the issue of marriage equality and whether or not kids of same-sex families are at risk.

The New South Wales (NSW) Education Minister had banned schools from screening the film in August. Now documents obtained under freedom of information laws reveal that the NSW Government has received 85 complaints about the films.

In total, 55 messages were received congratulating the Premier and the Minister for their courageous decision and for being men of principle in preventing the film from being shown in school time, eg:

God bless you for standing up to protect our lovely children from those who in the name of the 'freedom to be naughty' would seek to enslave them into a lifetime of weird unproductive sexuality.

The others complained about the ban. One complaint read:

Today you did something unconscionable. Today you told thousands of children across this state that they should be embarrassed about who they are.  The ramifications of this are on your shoulders.

Fairfax Media revealed in September that the attack on the film was fuelled by a Presbyterian minister who had the scripture classes he oversaw at the school cut back last year.

The Times reports that new laws which have made it illegal to pay for sex in Northern Ireland have resulted in just one arrest.

Sex worker support groups said that the figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, proved that the measures could not be enforced.

The legislation, which came into effect in June means that sex workers are no longer able to make basic security checks such as getting to know who their customers are. Meanwhile it has the potential to destroy the lives of men and their families just for wanting to get laid.

Update: Populist law

4th November 2015. F rom thetimes.co.uk

The Northern Ireland justice minister has said he disagrees with plans to make it illegal to pay for sex in the Republic after The Times reported that just one man was prosecuted under similar legislation in the North.

David Ford said the laws, brought in after a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly in June, were the result of populism rather than practicalism and are not useful.

In this episode of the podcast the BBFC discusses the classification history of Steven Spielberg's second Indiana Jones film, Temple of Doom.

The film became part of classification history in the US when it was released with a PG rating from the MPAA. The film was considered by many to be too violent for PG and led to the introduction of the PG-13 to better fit films such as this.

In the UK the film was cut for a PG rating. Years later it was passed uncut with a 12 rating.

US police groups are calling for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight.

Local police organizations in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the National Association of Police Organizations recently joined the ranks opposing Tarantino after remarks the director made during a recent rally against police brutality. The National Association of Police Organizations said in a statement:

We ask officers to stop working special assignments or off-duty jobs, such as providing security, traffic control or technical advice for any of Tarantino's projects. We need to send a loud and clear message that such hateful rhetoric against police officers is unacceptable.

The contention arose when Tarantino attended the Brooklyn rally against brutality on Oct. 24 and told The Associated Press:

I'm a human being with a conscience. And if you believe there's murder going on then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I'm here to say I'm on the side of the murdered.

The Australian film censor has release the Annual Report for 2014 - 15. Notable perhaps for a reduction in X18+ (reserved for hardcore sex) certificates to just 3. And of course it is always traditional to list the handful of complaints about film classifications:

The Classification Board received 115 complaints about the classifications of films. This compares with 93 complaints in 2013-14.

There were 18 complaints about Fifty Shades of Grey . The complainants were of the view that the MA 15+ classification with consumer advice of Strong sex scenes, sexual themes and nudity was too low due to the depictions of implied sexual activity in the film.

There were 12 complaints about the film Paddington . The complainants were of the view that the G classification was too low due to the depictions of violence and scary themes.

The film Gone Girl , which was classified MA 15+ with the consumer advice Strong sexualised violence, blood, sex scenes and coarse language , attracted 10 complaints in the reporting period. The complainants believed the film's classification was too low due to the depictions of sex, violence and sexual violence in the film. Two complainants thought the consumer advice was insufficient.

There were eight complaints about Kingsmen: The Secret Service. The complainants were of the view that the MA 15+ classification was too low due to the depictions of violence in the film.

The film The House of Magic which was classified G with the consumer advice Some scary scenes received five complaints. The complainants felt that the classification was too low. The complainants considered that the film was too scary for young children.

Overall, the remainder of complaints were about a small number of titles.

Councils, the taxman and dozens of other public bodies will be able to search the internet and social media activity of everyone in Britain, The Telegraph can disclose.

Technology firms will be required to keep records of the websites and apps which people have used and details of when they accessed them for 12 months under new powers unveiled this week.

The new powers, contained in legislation which is published on Wednesday , will primarily be used by police and the security services in pursuit of suspected terrorists and serious criminals.

Nominally they will not be allowed to see which pages people have viewed or their searches while on the websites and apps, or the content of any messages, without a warrant, however it would seem likely obtaining a warrant will be a rubber stamp exercise.

The Telegraph understands that a total of 38 bodies will also be entitled to access the records for the purpose of detecting or preventing crime .

A government source claims that access will be limited, targeted and strictly controlled and overseen by a new Investigatory Powers Commissioner, but such 'oversight' has never ever done anything to reign in the authorities in any previous incarnation of snooping laws.

Ministers are also planning to introduce a new offence to deter the abuse of powers which will result in significant fines. Councils will also be required to get requests signed off by a magistrate before they are authorised, but it seems unlikely that a magistrate would ever side with anyone accused of a crime.

The authorities will be able to see which websites were visited, but not the exact page that they viewed.

The intelligence agencies, police and the National Crime Agency will be the obvious users of the capability but other bodies including the Financial Conduct Authority, HMRC, councils, the Health and Safety Executive and the Department for Work and Pensions will be able to access the information.

The Daniel Connection is a 2015 UK mystery thriller by Stewart Menelaws.
Starring June Brogan, Morgan Carberry and Lee Davis.

UK: Passed 12 for moderate violence, threat, Holocaust images after 25s of BBFC compulsory cuts for:

• 2015 Studio Scotland. video

The BBFC commented:

• Cuts required to remove incorrect and inaccurate use of BBFC ratings symbols and information.

Summary Notes

When her best friend, an underground journalist is mysteriously killed whilst investigating alien sightings, a feisty radio presenter realizes her own life is endangered as others around her disappear and the Federal Protection Force increase in power and control. Not knowing who to trust when she discovers film footage of a secret detention center and then a troubled detective offers to help her, she finds the same subjects keep coming to the fore. A mixture of ancient mysteries and conspiracy theories masquerading as science fiction. However, the more she digs, the more she realizes that the ancient prophecies foretelling the end of this world as we know it may be frighteningly accurate. This apocalyptic thriller is based on a best selling documentary, The Daniel Project.