Censor Watch

The owner of a popular cycling forum LFGSS has decided to close his business due to the enormous risks and expenses inherent in running a British business due to be suffocated by the misleadingly named Online Safety Act. He explains:

Reading Ofcom's tome of censorship rules and we're done... we fall firmly into scope, and I have no way to dodge it. The act is too broad, and it doesn't matter that there's never been an instance of any of the proclaimed things that this act protects adults, children and vulnerable people from... the very broad language and the fact that I'm based in the UK means we're covered.

The act simply does not care that this site and platform is run by an individual, and that I do so philanthropically without any profit motive (typically losing money), nor that the site exists to reduce social loneliness, reduce suicide rates, help build meaningful communities that enrich life.

The act only cares that is it "linked to the UK" (by me being involved as a UK native and resident, by you being a UK based user), and that users can talk to other users... that's it, that's the scope.

I can't afford what is likely tens of thousand to go through all the legal hoops here over a prolonged period of time, the site itself barely gets a few hundred in donations each month and costs a little more to run... this is not a venture that can afford compliance costs... and if we did, what remains is a disproportionately high personal liability for me, and one that could easily be weaponised by disgruntled people who are banned for their egregious behaviour... I do not see an alternative to shuttering it.

The conclusion I have to make is that we're done... Microcosm, LFGSS, the many other communities running on this platform... the risk to me personally is too high, and so I will need to shutter them all.

On Sunday 16th March 2025 (the last day prior to the Act taking effect) I will delete the virtual servers hosting LFGSS and other communities, and effectively immediately end the approximately 300 small communities that I run, and the few large communities such as LFGSS.

A screening of Last Tango in Paris in the French capital has been cancelled after threats of violence from women's rights protests

French Cinémathèque was due to show 1972 film that features a controversial scene filmed without actor Maria Schneider's prior consent. The cinema said it had dropped the film after receiving threats. Frédéric Bonnaud, the director of the Cinémathèque said:

We are a cinema, not a fortress. We cannot take risks with the safety of our staff and audience, Violent individuals were beginning to make threats and holding this screening and debate poised an entirely disproportionate risk. So, we had to let it go.

The controversial scene was simulated but Schneider, who was 19 at the time, said afterwards it had felt like a violation as it was sprung on her without notice or preparation. Her allegations were first made in the 1970s.

I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and Bertolucci, Schneider said four years before her death in 2011. She said the film had destroyed her life and had driven her to years of drug abuse. Bertolucci later responded to the allegations by insisting the scene had not been improvised on the day of shooting but acknowledging that Schneider had not been informed.

Judith Godrèche, an actor and leading figure in France's #MeToo movement, had been critical of the Cinémathèque's decision to screen the film without providing context to viewers.

Had it gone ahead, the screening would also have come towards the end of the Mazan mass rape trial, in which verdicts and sentencing are expected later this week.

Ofcom writes:

Today we are publishing our first major policy Statement for the Online Safety regime.

This decision on the Illegal Harms Codes and guidance marks a major milestone, with online providers now being legally required to protect their users from illegal harm.

Ofcom published proposals about the steps providers should take to address illegal harms on their services shortly after passage of the Online Safety Act in October 2023. Since then, we have been consulting carefully and widely, listening to industry, charities and campaigners, parents and children, as well as expert bodies and law enforcement agencies. With today's publication1, online providers must take action to start to comply with these new rules. The result will be a safer life online for people in the UK, especially children.

Providers now have a duty to assess the risk of illegal harms on their services, with a deadline of 16 March 2025. Subject to the Codes completing the Parliamentary process, from 17 March 2025, providers will need to take the safety measures set out in the Codes or use other effective measures to protect users from illegal content and activity. We are ready to take enforcement action if providers do not act promptly to address the risks on their services.

Analysis to follow but there are over 1000 pages to get through first!

An Instagram post by Jaded London, a clothing retailer, seen on 29 September 2024, featured two images. The first image featured a nude woman wearing a motorbike helmet and boots. She was placed between two motorbike wheels and was holding the front wheel, while her feet were on the back wheel. The second image featured a woman wearing a motorbike helmet, boots and a faux fur coat that was raised to expose her bottom. She was placed between two motorbike wheels and was holding the front wheel, while her feet were on the back wheel. A caption on the post stated Introducing our newest collaboration with @newrock. 4 styles. Hand crafted in Spain. Launching 3rd October. Stay tuned.

A complainant, who believed that the images objectified and sexualised women, challenged whether the ad was offensive and promoted a harmful gender stereotype.

Jaded London Ltd believed that the ad did not objectify or sexualise women. They said the purpose of the ad was to celebrate the strength of the female form and had received positive feedback from their customers, who they believed were predominately female. They said they wanted to ensure their customers felt respected.

ASA Assessment: Complaint upheld

The CAP Code stated that ads must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society, must not cause serious or widespread offence and must not include gender stereotypes that were likely to cause harm.

The women were seen holding the front wheels of a motorbike while their legs were on the back wheels, which meant that their bodies and arms were stretched out in a horizontal position. That gave the impression that they formed the main component of a bike. The ASA considered this suggested they should be viewed as parts of machinery and as objects, rather than as people. Both women were wearing motorbike helmets, meaning their faces were not visible. We considered obscuring the women's faces made their bodies the focus of the ad and further presented them as objects.

The women's bodies were positioned so their buttocks were in the place of the motorbike seat and both women's legs were bent at the knees. That had the effect of raising their buttocks in a manner which would have been understood as being sexually suggestive, as well as being a central focus of the ad. The woman's body in the first image was entirely naked, meaning her breasts and buttocks were exposed, which added to that sexual impression. The woman in the second image was wearing a faux fur coat. However, the coat was raised, which exposed both her legs and her buttocks and made them the focus of the image. We acknowledged that the raised coat could have been interpreted as a reference to a motorbike moving at speed as the wind blew the coat upwards. However, we considered exposing her buttocks in that manner gave the image a voyeuristic feel. We considered that by presenting the women as motorbikes, in conjunction with the nudity and sexually suggestive position in which their bodies were posed, the images featured the harmful gender stereotype that women were sexual objects.

Although the ad promoted a shoe brand, we considered the women's bodies were the focus of the images, not the boots, and the nudity was not relevant to the products. For those reasons, we considered that the ad objectified the women depicted and gave the impression that their bodies were sexual objects. We therefore concluded that the ad included a harmful gender stereotype and was likely to cause serious offence.

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Jaded London Ltd to ensure that future ads were socially responsible and did not cause serious offence, including by featuring a harmful gender stereotype by objectifying or sexualising women.

ReclaimTheNet has likened Meta's regime for punishment of transgressions against its rules to the re-education camps run by repressive regimes. The group writes:

Like law enforcement in some repressive virtual regimes, Meta is introducing the concept of re-education of 'citizens' (users), as an alternative to eventually sending them to 'jail' (imposing account restrictions) for first offences.

The same community standards now apply across Meta's platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads ,while the new rule means that instead of collecting a strike for a first policy violation, users who go through an educational program can have it deleted.

There's also probation...those who receive no strike for a year after that will again be eligible to participate in the remove your warning course.

Meta first introduced the option for creators last summer and is now expanding it to everyone. In announcing the change of the policy, the tech giant refers to research that showed most of those violating its rules for the first time may not be aware they are doing so.

This is where the short educational program comes in, as a way to reduce the risk of receiving that first strike, and Meta says the program is designed to help better explain its policies.

The re-education takes the form of an online training course allowing errant users to own up to their crime, explain why they did it, and no doubt promise to do better next time.

Hunter x Hunter Nen x Impact is a 2025 Japan 3 on 3 tage team fighting game by Eighting

Banned by the Australian Censorship Board in November 2024. The reasons have not yet been published. The Game was submitted to the censors for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5.