Google: Censorship Requests "Alarming"

Per HuffPo:

Google has received more than 1,000 requests from authorities to take down content from its search results or YouTube video in the last six months of 2011, the company said on Monday, denouncing what it said was an alarming trend.

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Many of those requests targeted political speech, keeping up a trend Google said it has noticed since it started releasing its Transparency Report in 2010.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect — Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," said Chou.

In the second half of last year, Google complied with around 65 percent of court orders and 47 percent of informal requests to remove content, it said.

(Emphasis supplied; more at the link.) It's even more alarming that it's reached the point that even Google finds it alarming.

Clay Shirky on PIPA and SOPA

Excellent overview of where these bills are coming from and what we should expect going forward, at TED.

Operation Bling

By embedding this video, we do not necessarily endorse any activity suggested therein to the extent, if any, prohibited by applicable law.

Censorship in Venice

For more, see Jacques Charlier 100 Sexes D'Artistes (French, English, and Italian versions available; click on the image for a larger version); via e-flux:

In a letter dated 18 March 2009, the [an agency of the City] of Venice announced the refusal of the project 100 Sexes d'Artistes by Jacques Charlier (which should have officially represented the French-Speaking Community of Belgium in the present Biennale) because "certain posters could offend the shared sense of public decency."

On 14 April1, we sent you a letter (in Italian) in which we posed the following questions:

• could you tell us where the "shared sense of public decency" begins and ends by indicating which of the 100 posters might be considered offensive?
• is the "shared sense of public decency" so fragile in Venice that it cannot tolerate the presence of a few posters dispersed around the city? And, in addition, are the same criteria applied to advertising, which is more invasive and sexist?
• finally, who decides what constitutes the "shared sense of public decency"?

We have received no reply as yet.



You may be aware that the project censored by the Biennale and by the City of Venice has since been presented in public space in nine European cities (Antwerp, Belgrade, Bergen, Brussels, Linz, Luxembourg, Metz, Namur and Sofia) where it was welcomed with the good humour appropriate to this project . . . .



However, thanks to the unconditional support of the Ministry of Culture and Broadcasting of the French-Speaking Community of Belgium and Wallonie-Bruxelles International, we are going to publish a book relating the incredible story of this double censorship.

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. . . we would be very happy to be able to include your answers in this publication . . .

Innocent Detainee Sues to Prevent Destruction of Evidence He Was Tortured

Former Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed has launched an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being held at the detention camp . . . .

The image, now held by the Pentagon, had been put on his cell door . . . . because he had been beaten so badly that it was difficult for the guards to identify him.

. . . . The photograph will be destroyed within 30 days of his case being dismissed by the American courts – a decision on which is due to be taken by a judge imminently . . . .

[Mohamed] says he needs the image as a crucial piece of evidence to fight his case against US authorities for unlawful incarceration and abuse. "That is one piece of physical evidence that I know exists of my abuse," he says in the statement . . . .

After being kicked and punched, he says his guards . . . . "slammed me and my Qur'an into the fence." After he objected, he says, they "slammed me into the fence again. . . . They then strapped me into a restraint chair and cut off half my beard. They then performed the humiliating 'anal cavity search', although it was painfully obvious that there was nothing to find." . . . at one point he screamed and . . . this "made them redouble their efforts and my situation got worse."

He adds: "One [military guard] took the heel of my hand and pushed my nose up violently. One soldier pulled on my jaw. They slammed my forehead down on the concrete floor. One grabbed my testicles and punched me."

More at the UK Guardian.

Bordeaux Porn

"[A]fter six years of investigations . . . during which no element was produced that could have fed the prosecution (the specialized unit for minors and the rectorship gave a favourable opinion) and after the attorney general of Bordeaux called for a not guilty decision in march 2008 [, a judge in Bordeaux has re-opened a decade-old child porn case against curators Marie-Laure Bernadac, Henry-Claude Cousseau, and Stéphanie Moisdon] . . . for having, within the exhibition entitled 'presumed innocent- contemporary art and childhood' . . . exposed 'violent and pornographic art works.'

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"For the first time in France, two museum directors and a curator are to be tried in a criminal court for exhibiting works of art that have already been shown throughout the world or put on view since the Bordeaux exhibition in art shows that have not elicited the least unfavorable reaction from the public. The thinking that went into preparing the incriminated exhibition, focused on a major subject of art history, was developed collectively and was shared by the relevant state oversight authorities."

(Thanks, e-flux!) I believe people in Bordeaux probably have access to the internets; since I'm showing this pic, guess they'll have to indict me, too.

Delvoye Work Banned from Shanghai Art Show,

. . . the SHContemporary. Wim Delvoye's work comprised a pen with several pigs tattooed with Walt Disney Co. characters and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA motifs.

Per Delvoye, the sole reason for the banning was that the tattooed pigs were deemed "not art." "We have collectors who've traveled to China all the way from Europe to see the pigs. They're very disappointed." More here.


(Image of framed tattoo on pigskin from Sperone Westwater.)

Fortunately, Delvoye has also tattooed a human, Tim Steiner; this work, which included the rights to require Steiner to exhibit himself and to receive the tattooed skin after his death, was sold to a collector for nearly $215,000 (b.t.w., Steiner got a cut, so to speak.)

Steiner is being substituted for the pigs; apparently, a tattooed human IS art. More here.

Artists Shepard Fairey & Robert Indiana Jailed

In case you missed it, the artists were held for 17 hours in Denver during the Democratic National Convention on charges of putting up unauthorized posters. More details here; Fairey's website here.

(Mural by Fairey with installation by Nic and Z.)

Whistle-Blowers' Site Taken Off-Line in the U.S.

. . . that is, the eminently useful Wikileaks. As reported by the BBC, the site, which "allows whistle blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents[,] has been taken offline in the US.

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"The site was founded in 2006 by dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

"It so far claims to have published more than 1.2 million documents."

Versions of the site hosted in other countries such as Belgium and India can supposedly still be accessed.

P.S.: Note to journalists: it's ok to have more than one sentence per paragraph.

UPDATE Feb. 29, 2008: Per the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the order that disabled the wikileaks.org domain name in the U.S. has, for now, been rescinded. EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman said, "[a]ttempting to interfere with the operation of an entire website because you have a dispute over some of its content is never the right approach. Disabling access to an Internet domain in an effort to prevent the world from accessing a handful of widely-discussed documents is not only unconstitutional -- it simply won't work." The ACLU has also intervened. Consider donating.