Music News

Journalist Ella Whelan is arguing that censoring the classic Christmas song, Fairytale in New York is a form of cultural vandalism.

The Spiked Online contributor was speaking to Newstalk Breakfast after BBC Radio 2 became the latest station to censor the song.

She said her biggest problem with the decision is the suggestion it was taken at the behest of a young generation that's 'more sensitive' than those of us horrible old people to questions of gender and sexuality.

Censoring Fairytale of New York has become as much of a Christmas tradition as hanging up stockings and putting the tree up, she said. It's getting ridiculous now.

Meta's oversight board has told Instagram to reinstate a clip of drill music originally removed from Instagram at the request of the Metropolitan police.

The clip, a short excerpt of the song Secrets Not Safe by Chinx (OS) , was removed after the Met flagged the track to Meta, arguing that it could lead to retaliatory violence in the context of the London gang scene.

The force told Meta it contained a veiled threat, referencing a shooting in 2017, and as a result the company manually removed 52 posts containing the track and automated systems removed it a further 112 times.

Now, the oversight board says those removals were a mistake. The track does not break Facebook or Instagram's rules, it argues, and basic principles of free speech, equality and transparency were breached in allowing a police operation to censor a musician in secret.

As part of its investigation into the removal of the track, the oversight board filed multiple freedom of information requests with the Met police, finding that the force had filed 286 requests to take down or review posts about drill music in the 12 months from June 2021, and that 255 of those had resulted in the removal of content.

Sony Music Korea has censored a music video to cover up the braided hairstyle of a K-pop girl band member following ludicrous claims of 'cultural appropriation'.

The controversy started last month when Hani, a member of the group EXID, wore braids in a promotional photo for their new single Fire .

Western K-pop 'fans' piled on to social media to criticise Hani's hair, claiming it's a form of racism for any non-black person to braid their hair.

Sony decided to censor the hairstyle by blurring it.

Turkish singer Gulsen has been arrested and accused of suupsedly inciting hatred over a joke she made about religious schools. In April, the singer joked a member of her band's perversion was due to him having attended one.

Despite the comments being old, they recently went viral online, drawing criticism from religious conservatives.

Gulsen, who is likened to a Turkish Madonna, had apologised on social media. Writing on Twitter and Instagram, the singer said that while she was defending freedom of expression with her joke between colleagues she apologised to everyone who was offended.

She is being held pending trial.

In January 2022, an Instagram account that describes itself as publicising British music posted a video with a short caption on its public account. The video is a 21-second clip of the music video for a UK drill music track called Secrets Not Safe by the rapper Chinx (OS). The caption tags Chinx (OS) as well as an affiliated artist and highlights that the track had just been released. The video clip shows part of the second verse of the song and fades to a black screen with the text OUT NOW. Drill is a subgenre of rap music popular in the UK, with a large number of drill artists active in London.

Shortly after the video was posted, Meta received a request from UK law enforcement to remove content that included this track. Meta says that it was informed by law enforcement that elements of it could contribute to a risk of offline harm. The company was also aware that the track referenced a past shooting in a way that raised concerns that it may provoke further violence. As a result, the post was escalated for internal review by experts at Meta.

Meta's experts determined that the content violated the Violence and Incitement policy, specifically the prohibition on coded statements where the method of violence or harm is not clearly articulated, but the threat is veiled or implicit. The Community Standards list signs that content may include veiled or implicit threats. These include content that is shared in a retaliatory context, and content with references to historical or fictional incidents of violence. Further information and/or context is always required to identify and remove a number of different categories listed at the end of the Violence and Incitement policy, including veiled threats. Meta has explained to the Board that enforcement under these categories is not subject to at-scale review (the standard review process conducted by outsourced moderators) and can only be enforced by Meta's internal teams. Meta has further explained that the Facebook Community Standards apply to Instagram.

When Meta took the content down, two days after it was posted, it also removed copies of the video posted by other accounts. Based on the information that they received from UK law enforcement, Meta's Public Policy team believed that the track might increase the risk of potential retaliatory gang violence, and acted as a threatening call to action that could contribute to a risk of imminent violence or physical harm, including retaliatory gang violence.

Hours after the content was removed, the account owner appealed. A human reviewer assessed the content to be non-violating and restored it to Instagram. Eight days later, following a second request from UK law enforcement, Meta removed the content again and took down other instances of the video found on its platforms. The account in this case has fewer than 1,000 followers, the majority of whom live in the UK. The user received notifications from Meta both times their content was removed but was not informed that the removals were initiated following a request from UK law enforcement.

In referring this matter to the Board, Meta states that this case is particularly difficult as it involves balancing the competing interests of artistic expression and public safety. Meta explains that, while the company places a high value on artistic expression, it is difficult to determine when that expression becomes a credible threat. Meta asks the Board to assess whether, in this case and more generally, the safety risks associated with the potential instigation of gang violence outweigh the value of artistic expression in drill music.

In its decisions, the Board can issue policy recommendations to Meta. While recommendations are not binding, Meta must respond to them within 60 days. As such, the Board welcomes public comments proposing recommendations that are relevant to these cases.

Respond via article from oversightboard.com

A music video by Thai activist rap collective Rap Against Dictatorship has been blocked on YouTube in Thailand following an alleged legal complaint from the government.

The Patiroop (Reform) video, which was originally released in November, was filmed during the country's anti-government protests in Bangkok demanding royal reforms. The video featured the rap group walking with fellow supporters and protestors, and featured clips of the Grand Palace in the Thai capital.

On January 4 2022, Rap Against Dictatorship announced they had discovered the video's ban from YouTube in Thailand:

Our music video 'Reform' was ordered to be banned by the government, which notified YouTube to restrict access.

Since the video's release, it has garnered over 9 million views on YouTube (from outside of Thailand).

On 7 July 2022, Patiroob was again blocked on YouTube as a result of a Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MDES) petition to the Court that it should be prohibited under the terms of the Computer Crime Act.

According to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), the Court agreed that the song's lyrics, which seemingly allude to both the prime minister and king, have a bearing on national security. They also ruled that the song, which promotes the idea of equality, was filled with obscene language.

According to the ruling, the music video also elicited comments from netizens about the monarchy that were likely to affect public sentiment and national security. The Court dismissed arguments that the song was in keeping with constitutional freedoms of expression and that it was a creative work of benefit to society, saying that liberty must not cause damage to others, especially figures many people respect.

After the ruling, R.A.D. posted on its Facebook page that it would remove the Patiroob music video and song from all its public platforms.

Trevor Phillips has attacked the BBC for censoring the word 'nigger' in Bob Dylan's anti-racism protest song Hurricane .

The former race equality chief said it was incredibly patronising of the BBC to let black artists on urban radio station 1Xtra use the word, but then censor other musicians. He described the decision of Radio 6 Music bosses to edit out a line of the Dylan song featuring the word as absurd and insulting.

Bob Dylan's anti-racism protest song Hurricane is about the boxer Rubin Carter, who was wrongly convicted of murder. It had the line:

And for the black folks he was just a crazy nigger

removed when it was broadcast on Tom Robinson's 6 Music show, Now Playing, on April 24. T

A listener pointed out that the song itself was an impassioned anti-racist account of a notorious miscarriage of justice and that the line you fellows deleted is very much a key moment in the story. Phillips appeared on a Radio 4 show to discuss the issue and was scathing about the way the BBC had behaved. He told the programme:

Bob Dylan has used that word for a particular reason in one of his most powerful pieces of work --which by the way is a profoundly anti-racist piece of work and for somebody, who frankly shouldn't be there to judge a genius, to tell me I'm too fragile to listen to what Bob Dylan has done with his work of art -- I think this is both absurd and insulting and actually not what the BBC is there to do.

Elvis Costello has revealed he will no longer perform his biggest hit, Oliver's Army, and has also asked radio stations to stop playing the song.

Written about the conflict in Northern Ireland, the lyrics contain the racial slur 'white niggers' used to describe Irish Catholics. The song about the army and imperialism has recently fallen foul of cancel culture owing to his barbed inclusion of the word to describe a British private:

Only takes one itchy trigger,
One more widow,
one less white nigger.

Costello explained the decision to the Telegraph:

If I wrote that song today, maybe I'd think twice about it, he says. That's what my grandfather was called in the British army -- it's historically a fact -- but people hear that word go off like a bell and accuse me of something that I didn't intend.

On the last tour, I wrote a new verse about censorship, but what's the point of that? So I've decided I'm not going to play it. When the song is broadcast on the radio the offending word is often bleeped out which, says Costello, is a mistake. They're making it worse by bleeping it for sure. Because they're highlighting it then. Just don't play the record!

Costello added that radio stations will do him a favour by not playing the track again.