Free Speech & Cancel Culture

A display at The Curve Gallery in London's Barbican Centre will be taken down in the wake of a censorship row after Barbican staff asked a speaker to avoid the topic of free Palestine at a recent talk. The art display is from the Resolve Collective group.

In an Instagram post, the collective said it was cancelling the display because of an act of anti-Palestinian censorship. The decision partly stemmed from the cancellation of a talk on 15 June between the Egyptian researcher Nihal El Assar and Elias Anastas, the co-founder of the Palestinian radio station, Radio Alhara. The livestreamed discussion on the radical possibilities of radio was part of Resolve Collective's them's the breaks series of programmed events.

Shortly before the event was due to begin, the Barbican shared an editorial note with the speaker asking him to avoid spending too much time discussing free Palestine. The Barbican then clams that a 'technical failure' brought the event to an abrupt close.

The French Connection is a 1971 USA action crime thriller by William Friedkin.
Starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider and Fernando Rey.  

Not cut by the BBFC or MPAA, but hit the news in 2023 when cut seemingly by Disney for a racial slur in a version used for streaming.

Summary Notes

William Friedkin's gritty police drama portrays two tough New York City cops trying to intercept a huge heroin shipment coming from France. An interesting contrast is established between 'Popeye' Doyle, a short-tempered alcoholic bigot who is nevertheless a hard-working and dedicated police officer, and his nemesis Alain Charnier, a suave and urbane gentleman who is nevertheless a criminal and one of the largest drug suppliers of pure heroin to North America. During the surveillance and eventual bust, Friedkin provides one of the most gripping and memorable car chase sequences ever filmed.

Versions

uncut run: 103:52s pal: 99:43s		UK: Uncut and BBFC 18 rated for strong violence and language: 2014 Twentieth Century Fox DVD 2008 Walt Disney Studios HE (RB) Blu-ray at UK Amazon #ad 2008 Walt Disney Studios HE R2 DVD at UK Amazon #ad 1997 Twentieth Century Fox VHS 1992 CBS/Fox VHS 1987 CBS/Fox VHS 1971 20th Century Fox cinema release
cut 6s		US:  Cut in 2023, presumably by Disney, for streaming on DIsney+ and the Criterion Channel The cut was to remove a 6s dialogue exchange between the detectives Jimmy Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Cloudy Russo (Roy Scheider), which contains the word 'nigger': Doyle: You dumb guinea. Russo: How the hell did I know he had a knife? Doyle: Never trust a nigger. Russo: He coulda been white. Doyle: Never trust anyone.

Balancing the fundamental principles of free speech and expression with the regulation of technology, platforms, and content to promote fairness and safety presents a significant challenge to the censorship loving EU.

The European Union is striving to introduce new censorship rules during the trilogue discussions on EU Political Advertising regulations.

On the surface, it appears to be an attempt to introduce transparency, scrutiny, and accountability into the digital systems that are now deeply intertwined with our political processes. However, the current proposals, aimed at encompassing all aspects of digital political engagement, reveal mechanisms that will undermine freedom of speech.

As it stands, the proposals would cover any content with a political nature that could be considered advertising. This means that a journalist reporting on national elections and covering manifesto launches or policy initiatives could be classified as a political advertisement and subjected to these new rules.

Organisations like Index on Censorship, which express views on government actions through articles like this, could face moderation, regulation, and potential censorship.

Even well-known voices championing important issues, such as Greta Thunberg, could find themselves subject to European regulations for every tweet, Facebook post, or snap they share.

This not only stifles organisations' willingness to intervene or comment but also significantly narrows political debate. By covering anything that could be deemed a political advertisement, it encroaches on the private lives of citizens and compromises a free and independent press.

Another concern is the proposed flagging system, allowing anyone to flag content for platform review to determine if it falls under the new regulation. Platforms would be required to review flags within 48 hours. However, this transfer of responsibility to the opaque internal workings of tech giants raises questions.

How will they determine what constitutes political advertising, and why should they possess such power? Imposing an arbitrary 48-hour limit on this process may result in the removal of thousands of voices and opinions, particularly from marginalised communities, as platforms fear legal repercussions and penalties for non-compliance.

Google has banned a controversial game called Slavery Simulator (Simulado de Escravidao) from its app store, after it caused a bit of an outrage in Brazil.

The game, which allowed players to buy and sell slaves, was launched by Magnus Games on 20 April. The game was downloaded about a 1,000 times before it was banned.

In a description of the game, the developer boasted that users could exchange, buy and sell slaves. It also allowed players to inflict various forms of torture on them. According to images of the game, users were offered a choice to either liberate the enslaved characters or use slaves for your own enrichment.

Social media users in Brazil expressed their 'fury' over the game, and a number of prominent politicians urged officials to hold tech companies to a higher standard. Brazil's Ministry for Racial equality said it had arranged a meeting with Google to help build anti-racist content moderation policies. It added that the developers would be held legally responsible.

Monty Python stars John Cleese and Eric Idle have been woring on new scenes and plotlines for a stage show based on the classic 1979 film Life Of Brian .

Cleese, the prime mover in the revival, said:

I think Life Of Brian is our best film. We are going to do it in London in the second half of next year and I've changed certain things.

One exchange which has had to come out is the discussion between People's Front of Judea members Stan (played by Idle) and Reg (Cleese). Stan says that he wants to be known as Loretta and to have babies. It's every man's right to have babies if you want them, says Stan. Reg counters: But -- you can't have babies. At which Stan responds: Don't you oppress me.

Cleese told an audience at his one-man show last week that when the scene (co-written with the late Graham Chapman) was performed at a read-through for the new show in New York last year, doubts emerged:

At the end, I said to the American actors: 'What do you think? And they said: We love the script, but you can't do that stuff about Loretta nowadays.

So here you have something there's never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I've heard of, and now all of a sudden we can't do it because it'll offend people. What is one supposed to make of that? But I think there were a lot of things that were actually, in some strange way, predictive of what was actually going to happen later.

The stage show will open with a scene written by Palin which never made it into the movie.

 

Offsite Comment: The neutering of Monty Python

25th May 2023. See article from spiked-online.com

Trans activists are even more censorious than fundamentalist Christians.

A theatre presentation is causing controversy in London after one performance has been designated as only open to audience members identifying as  black.

The Theatre Royal Stratford East has warned white visitors against attending the July 5 performance of Tambo & Bones - a production which explores 300 years of African American history. The theatre is designating this performance as a Black Out.

Those running the event said they are hosting the one-off Black Out event during the play's month-long run in a bid to create a safe, private space for an all-black-identifying audience to look at race-related issues. Although organisers said on the theatre's website that no one is excluded, it has been made clear on promotional material that white people are not wanted at the production that night.

Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Festus Akinbusoye, Britain's first black PCC, condemned the event, claiming it set a poor and dangerous precedent. Speaking to The Telegraph, Akinbusoye strongly urged organisers to cancel the Black Out event. He said:

Society is richer and stronger when an understanding of each other's cultures and stories are shared and heard. However I believe the Black Out concept runs contrary to this education and enrichment ethos.

Former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips described the Black Out as completely lawful. He said:

I think it's fine, for several reasons. There is not a 'ban on white attendees. It's completely lawful. It is one night out of many. There are other performances designated for specific audiences.'

Mark Steyn
GB News, 4 October 2022, 8pm - 2am

This programme included an interview between presenter Mark Steyn and a guest, Dr Naomi Wolf. During the interview, Naomi Wolf made serious claims about the Covid-19 vaccine, including that its rollout amounted to a pre-meditated crime – mass murder – and was comparable to the actions of doctors in pre-Nazi Germany .

Ofcom received 422 complaints that alleged these comments were dangerous and included misinformation that went unopposed.

Ofcom investigated under Rule 2.1 of the Code which states that

Generally accepted standards must be applied to the contents of television and radio services…so as to provide adequate protection for members of the public from the inclusion in such services of harmful and/or offensive material.

We took into account that Naomi Wolf was presented as a figure of authority, with particular knowledge and expertise in the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines. We considered that this would have lent greater credibility to her claims that amounted to the promotion of a serious, unchallenged conspiracy theory. We were particularly concerned about the significant and alarming claim that mass murder was taking place through the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccinations. We found that comments made by Naomi Wolf had the potential to impact on viewers’ decisions about their health and were therefore potentially harmful.

We were concerned that Naomi Wolf was given the opportunity to present her claims without challenge or other contextualisation, for example through other contributions in the programme or by the presenter who appeared to support many of her comments. There was also no scrutiny of the evidence she claimed to hold to support her claims. We concluded that the programme did not provide adequate protection to viewers from the potentially harmful content, in breach of Rule 2.1 of the Code.

Ofcom has made clear that, in line with the right to freedom of expression, broadcasters are free to transmit programmes that include controversial and challenging views about any topic, including Covid-19 vaccines or conspiracy theories. ...HOWEVER..., alongside this editorial freedom, the Code imposes a clear requirement that if the broadcast of any content – an unchallenged conspiracy theory, in this case – has the potential to be harmful, the broadcaster must ensure that its audience is adequately protected.

This breach of Rule 2.1 of the Code follows another recent breach also involving potential harm to viewers (under Rule 2.2). Ofcom is requesting that GB News Ltd attends a meeting to discuss its compliance approach in light of these two significant Code breaches.

The Guardian newspaper generally sees its writers as the high priestesses of PC but somehow got it a little wrong and published a cartoon that made fun of Jewish stereotypes.

A controversial image by Martin Rowson showed a grinning caricature of Richard Sharp, who recently resigned from the BBC after a damning report about stinky goings ons, with what experts described as a string of antisemitic tropes.

To be fair some of those tropes are not immediately obvious to those unversed in subtle symbology.

The cartoon depicted the former Goldman Sachs banker carrying a box from the bank stuffed with a squid and what appeared to be gold coins. While the squid seemed to be a reference to Goldman Sachs -- once described by Rolling Stone magazine as a great vampire squid -- it is also a common antisemitic motif used to depict a supposed Jewish conspiracy, according to Dave Rich, an author who specialises in antisemitism.

Critics also highlighted that the cartoon appeared to feature a bloodied pig's head and Rishi Sunak portrayed as a puppet. Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Antisemitism, said:

It is extraordinary that so many classic anti-Jewish motifs were squeezed into one cartoon, without The Guardian editors objecting.

Of course it seems perfectly OK to insult Boris Johnson in whatever extremes the Guardian deems fit

Tim Minchin, the comedian behind the Matilda musical, has described editing Roald Dahl's books to better suit modern audiences as a slippery slope . The British-Australian composer and entertainer, who wrote the music for the musical based on Dahl's book, said removing outdated language in the author's works set a precedent for needing to change all texts that might offend people and warned they could need to be constantly updated to keep up with changing sensibilities. He explained in an interview with the Guardian's Saturday magazine:

It seems there's an incredible slippery slope problem with editing texts,  I mean, my initial reaction, when I heard about it? 'Now we'll have to get all the rapes out of all the history books. Then the world will be a better place.'

It's not actually about morality. It's about keeping the property, owned by the Dahls and Netflix, contemporary --  It's an interesting part of modern progressivism, that a huge amount of change is happening because corporations have identified where their bottom-line is best served.

Problem one, as I see it: If you do this once, you'll have to do it to all texts ever, taking out all the words that might upset people.

Problem two: You'll have to change it all again in five years when the new words you put in are out of vogue. So that's two slippery-slope problems. You're standing at the top of a double slide. And now you're spraying soap on the fucking things, he said.

The state has set up a databasing system to record criminal transgressions of people in Britain. But the police have taken it upon themselves to unilaterally use this system to record non criminal incidents where people have been accused of transgressing against woke censorship rules eg by criticising transgender dogma. Worse still, these transgressions are recorded merely on claims by the easily offended and are not necessarily investigated by the police to ensure voracity. Hence the claims can easily be used by people to settle scores or further grudges. Such unverified complaints turn up on official records checks when people are vetted for a job such as teaching.

The courts have criticised the police for the recording of these non-crime hate incidents (NCHI) as unlawful, and the government has also chipped in with guidelines for NCHIs to try and prevent abuse. However the police are having non of it, and are continuing on with their use more or less ignoring the court and government criticism.

The College of Policing is a taxpayer-funded quango that provides national advice to forces. In response to the court and government criticism it has been required to update its own manual for officers on how to record NCHIs, in a document called authorised professional practice (APP).

But it has been accused of deploying an "Orwellian" and "woke spin" it has decided to ignore ignore government instructions in its new draft. In the Home Office code, there are 11 scenarios provided where officers should or should not record an NCHI, 63% of which advise explicitly not to record one. However, the college's new guidance has only eight scenarios, all different to the Home Office ones, just 12.5% of which advise explicitly not to record.

Seven out of eight of these were in the college's old guidance. This was found in 2021 to be unlawful in the Court of Appeal and to disproportionately interfere with free expression in its section on how police should record incidents. It followed a High Court victory for Harry Miller, a former constable who successfully sued after Humberside Police officers visited his workplace and recorded an NCHI because of a "transphobic" limerick he shared on Twitter.

Miller, founder of Fair Cop, a group scrutinising police political correctness, told The Telegraph:

The police will not be schooled in the Home Office guidance once the APP comes out, they will be schooled in the guidance given by the College of Policing, which will mean we are exactly where we were before.

The College of Policing has taken an overtly political stance. The Home Office's examples were all very sensible and corrected the previous mistakes, but they will once again be shelved for the approved ideology of the College of Policing.

Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Common Sense Group of 60 Tory MPs, said the College of Policing has long been a cause for public concern and called to clear out some of the bad apples that are there before they affect the whole of policing's reputation:

Policing only works by consent and the nonsense we hear from the College of Policing risks that consent, so this is another example of politically correct nonsense, perpetuating the appalling practice of arresting people for what they believe and think.

To say it is Orwellian is an understatement; I think George Orwell will be spinning in his grave.

Jeeves and Wooster books have been censored to remove prose by PG Wodehouse deemed unacceptable by the publishers, Penguin.

Original passages in the editions of the comic novels published since 2022 have been purged or reworked. These censored editions can also be identified by a disclaimer reading:

Please be aware that this book was published in the 1930s and contains language, themes and characterisations which you may find outdated.

In the present edition we have sought to edit, minimally, words that we regard as unacceptable to present-day readers.

Wodehouse has become the latest author to have their work altered, after novels by Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie were purged of words deemed at odds with modern sensitivities.

In the 1934 novel Right Ho, Jeeves , a racial term used to describe a minstrel of the old school has been removed.

In Thank You, Jeeves , whose plot hinges on the performance of a minstrel troupe, numerous racial terms have been removed or altered, both in dialogue spoken by the characters in the book, and from first-person narration in the voice of Bertie.

 

Offsite Comment: How dare they rewrite PG Wodehouse?

17th April 2023. See article from spiked-online.com by Simon Evans

No one has the right to meddle with his pristine and perfect prose.

The Connecticut state legislature plans to pass Senate Bill 6410, which would see the creation of a censorship board. The board would study online harassment of individuals and government officials and recommend laws to censor speech. The board would have nine members, four of them from the minority Republican Party and presumably five from the Democratic Party.

The bill states:

Such assessment shall include, but need not be limited to,

1. short term and long term effects of harassing behaviors online on elected officials, public officials and residents of this state,

2. what state or municipal action is needed to address negative online behaviors that consider a citizen's right to freedom of speech versus an individual's right to be free from harassment including, but not limited to, potential changes in state law concerning additional penalties or enforcement of online harassment, and

3. establishing guidelines for the reporting of online harassment of elected state and municipal officials that find a balance between making elected officials accessible to the people whom they serve and protecting them from abusive, offensive, or threatening online harassment.

The bill was approved by a committee on March 17 and now awaits a vote in the house.

Ludicrous new rules on the brink of becoming law will enable medics to sue the NHS if a patient insults them, allow bar staff to take legal action against landlords if they are offended by drunk punters, and let baristas take coffee shop owners to a tribunal if they overhear offensive remarks made by customers.

Senior Tories warn the proposed law will lead to an explosion of litigation and force business owners to run their establishments like a police state. Tory backbenchers accused the Government of taking their eye off the ball by supporting a mad Private Member's Bill, sponsored by two Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, on course to become law within weeks.

The Bill was waved through the Commons without a vote during a Friday sitting when most MPs were back in their constituencies. The Worker Protection Bill will make employers liable for staff being harassed by third parties such as customers or members of the public. It introduces a legal requirement for companies and public bodies to take all reasonable steps to prevent this.

Lorely Burt , the Lib Dem peer and co-sponsor of the Bill, claimed it would offer new protections to retail staff who face racist abuse from customers, NHS workers who are subject to homophobic harassment by patients, and pub staff who are harassed by drunken customers in relation to their sex, all of whom currently have to rely on the good will of their employer in taking steps to protect them, rather than the law.