US Censorship News

David Lowery, the director of the new Disney live-action remake of Pete's Dragon has been interviewed by aintitcool.com . He spoke of a new contractual clause with Disney that prohibits the inclusion of scenes depicting tobacco smoking. He said:

And you can't have smoking anymore! The scene in that movie that had the biggest impact to me was Pinocchio smoking a cigar and turning red. When you sign a contract with Disney, the things it says your film cannot have are beheadings, impalement or smoking. Those are literally the three things you are not allowed to put into a Disney film.

...But yeah, they literally have those words in the contract as things you're not allowed to do and that rules out Pinocchio , which has the smoking.

US presidential nominee Donald Trump and the secret service demanded changes be made to two songs by rapper YG on his latest album released in June 2016 for anti-Trump lyrics, reported entertainment news outlet Vulture.

The two censored songs, FDT (Fuck Donald Trump) and Blacks and Browns, feature political lyrics that directly reference Trump and his actions and statements during the American presidential race. In the censored version of FDT there are now "awkward pauses" in the rapper's flow for the lines that he and the label were forced to remove.  Entertainment news Vibe featured an online radio interview by YG who explained:

The Secret Service called in on Universal and was like, 'Send me the lyrics to YG's album because we gotta see what he's talking about'. They did the whole album. That's why on 'FDT' on the album, it's parts of the song that I had to blank out. Then on the next song 'Blacks & Browns', when Sad Boy's spitting his shit -- he said some shit towards Donald Trump too -- they heard that, and we had to either change it or blank it out, so we put the static noise on top of that. But yeah, it was a real situation going on... Ever since John F. Kennedy got assassinated, they can't have no people promoting kill Trump, shoot Trump, pop Trump, all that. And we had those types of lines up in the song.

US Representative Jackie Speier ha brought to the House of Representatives floor a four-page bill that, if passed and signed into law, would make it a crime to distribute revenge porn defined as

A visual depiction of a person who is identifiable from the image itself or information displayed in connection with the image and who is engaging in sexually explicit conduct, or of the naked genitals or post-pubescent female nipple of a person, with reckless disregard for the person's lack of consent to the distribution.

Basically, all of that is a fancy way of saying that anyone posting NSFW images of another person without their consent, regardless of whether it's done with malicious intent or not, can be charged with a federal crime and, if convicted, serve up to five years in prison.

Speer explained the delay between her original announcement and actual introduction of the bill as follows:

It's a complex issue and we wanted to get it right. There were plenty of laws passed in states around the country that were problematic in nature. We wanted it to pass constitutional muster.

The bill allows for distribution of some specific types of naked photos without the subject's consent, such as in cases of public interest, or if the images are taken voluntarily in public or a commercial setting.

While many states have their own versions of revenge porn laws, advocates and victims have asked for a federal law that can send a stronger message and help in the prosecution of cases involving persons in different states.

Snapchat is an app that allows users to send images that only last for long enough for a quick look before being automatically erased. However it is trying to branch out a little and now offers editorial posts from companies such as Buzzfeed, Sky News and Cosmopolitan in its Discover tab.

The posts mostly contain news stories, videos and behind-the-scenes shots. But a Californian teenager, on behalf of his peers, has decided the content is too raunchy for kids. So he is suing the company, which has about 150m users, alleging:

Willful and intentional violations of the Communications Decency Act, specifically for intentionally exposing minors to harmful, offensive, prurient, and sexually offensive content, without warning minors or their parents that they would be exposed to such explicit content.

One post singled out include one from Cosmopolitan titled 10 things he thinks when he can't make you orgasm , another is titled People share their secret rules for sex .

A Snapchat spokesperson said:

We haven't been served with a complaint in this lawsuit, but we are sorry if people were offended. Our Discover partners have editorial independence, which is something that we support.