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Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013

THE ART OF CENSORSHIP IN POSTWAR JAPAN, by Kirsten Cather. University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 342 pp., $45.00 (hardcover)

REDACTED: The Archives of Censorship in Transwar Japan, by Jonathan E. Abel. University of California Press, 2012, 376 pp., $44.95 (hardcover)

Censorship in Japan has long been hot-button topic for everyone from journalists reporting on the latest police porn crackdown to academics delving into wartime controls on artistic expression, but as Kirsten Cather notes in "The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan" her fluently written, industriously researched study of seven postwar obscenity trials the writer's intent is often to score points off the evil censors, not examine the actualities and implications of each side's argument.

Cather has thus set out to examine "the often-overlooked connection between the censor and critic, a link that is crucial to understanding the dynamic relationship of censor, artist and text in modern Japan." In these landmark trials, prosecutors have frequently played the role of, as Cather puts it, "narratologists, reception theorists, critics, editors, or even coauthors (or auteurs)," basing judgments on criteria that shift from case to case, era to era.

Following Japan's World War II defeat in 1945, the U.S.-led Occupation assumed the mantle of censor, while officially encouraging freedom of expression. But in the first postwar obscenity trial, which started in 1951 over an unauthorized translation of the D.H. Lawrence novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover," the Japanese prosecutors were firmly in charge, if at first hesitant about how exactly to proceed since the new constitution, written under Occupation aegis, expressly forbade censorship. They took recourse in Article 175 of the prewar Criminal Code, which defined "obscene objects" as those that "produce the sense of shame or disgust in human beings."

Naturally, the defense argued that the new constitution took precedence over a Meiji Era (1868-1912) statute, but the trial, as Cather describes in blow-by-blow detail, was hardly as simple as legally determining who was on first. By the time the Supreme Court handed down its guilty verdict in 1957, the Constitution-vs.-Article-175 debate had long been overshadowed by the judges' concern, backed by the prosecution's supposedly "rational" evidence (including lie detector tests purporting to measure sexual response), that the book indeed titillated readers in socially dangerous ways. "At the core of the guilty verdict," Cather notes, "was the fear that readers would uncritically identify with unscrupulous fictional characters." Lady Chatterley, c'est moi.

This landmark trial set a precedent that strongly influenced subsequent obscenity cases, despite differences in medium and shifts in social mores. Judges were concerned with protecting "innocent" readers or viewers, particularly if they were young and female. Also, realism, be it of imagery or description, continued to be cited as contributing to a work's perceived obscenity. Fiction, even of Lawrence's highbrow sort, was considered worse than "scientific" depictions, since a skillful writer could conjure visions in a reader's head more compellingly actual than any anatomical drawing. Lastly, the triumph of the "native" criminal code over the "foreign" constitution in the trial proved lasting.

Verdicts in succeeding obscenity trials were hardly uniform, however. Tetsuji Takeuchi's pioneering 1965 pinku (soft-core porn) film "Black Snow" was ruled obscene by the High Court, since the judges regarded its cinematic pornography as more dangerous than the printed variety, while dismissing its "redemptive" ending as too little, too late. On the other hand, a 1972-1980 trial prompted by four soft-core films released by the Nikkatsu studio under its Roman Porno label ended in victory for the defense. This time the prosecution overreached by indicting not only filmmakers, but also the industry self-censorship board Eirin, which had given their work its seal of approval. The High Court judges ended up acquitting everyone, while praising Eirin for maintaining a "minimum degree of sexual morality."

All this will be fascinating to not only students of censorship, but anyone interested in Japanese society's evolving attitudes toward freedom of expression including the freedom to be violently pornographic. Cather has succeeded admirably in presenting the complexity of an ongoing legal debate between censor and censored, as well as the social, political and cultural backdrop of her selected cases.

Go here to read the rest:
Complex tales of censorship in 20th-century Japan

The Southern Weekly newspaper, published in Chinas Guangdong province (Facebook)

Some Chinese journalists have stood up against state censorship and demanded the resignation of a propaganda chief after a New Year editorial calling for reforms was turned into a Communist Party tribute.

Thirty-five former journalists and 50 interns form the Southern Weekly newspaper in the eastern Guangdong province accused the local party propaganda chief Tuo Zhen of being "dictatorial" and called for him to quit, after the newspaper's annual feature was radically changed at the last minute.

Another 60 reporters signed a complaint letter, which accused Tuo of "raping" the newspaper's autonomy and added:

"If the media should lose credibility and influence, then how can the ruling party make its voice heard or convince its people?"

The original version of the Southern Weekly's traditionally bold New Year editorial called for democracy, freedom and the fulfilling of promises of libertarian reforms made by the 1982 constitution.

"The Chinese dream is the dream of constitutional rule," the original version read according to the newspaper's editors, Dai Zhiyong.

The tone of the article was first watered down by the newspaper's editorial staff in mutual agreement with the Party's censors, as part of the usual "editing" process.

The article was then twisted by a night blitz from the local censor office, leaving the journalists reportedly astonished, as they read the paper in the morning.

The new version was headlined "Dreams are our promise to what we need to accomplish" and claimed Chinese people were now closer to achieving their dreams thanks to the party leadership.

Go here to see the original:
China's Southern Weekly Journalists Stand Up Against “Raping” Party Censorship

BEIJING Chinese journalists reacted furiously Friday to what they said was heavy-handed official censorship of a New Years message from a popular Guangdong newspaper, setting up a crucial early challenge for new leader Xi Jinping.

The dispute began when the propaganda chief in the southern province, Tuo Zhen, apparently went behind the backs of the editors of the reform-minded paper Southern Weekly and directed that changes be made to the unsigned front-page piece. Tuo deleted some parts and inserted new passages in some places, adding factual errors after the papers top editors had signed off on the Jan. 2 article and gone home, several editors and reporters said later on their Twitter-like microblogs, called weibo.

Censorship of Chinas print media is a long-standing and ubiquitous practice, but having a government official actually rewrite an article before publication, and without consulting the editors, was considered an unusual intrusion even by Chinese standards.

The original message was titled Chinas dream, the dream of constitutionalism and it expressed the hope that China would become a country ruled by law and the constitution, according to the journalists. Only if constitutionalism is realized, and power effectively checked, can citizens voice their criticisms of power loudly and confidently, it said.

The version that appeared in the paper, however, was a sycophantic piece titled We are now closer to our dream than ever, which praised the work of the ruling Communist Party and omitted references to constitutionalism, democracy and equality.

Beijings censors tried to contain the resulting indignation by ordering all the weibo postings about the controversy deleted. According to the China Digital Times Web site, which tracks Chinese censorship issues, the Central Propaganda Department issued an urgent notice on Jan. 3 saying, Upon receipt of this message, controlling departments in all locales must immediately inform reporters and editors that they may not discuss the Southern Weekly New Years greeting on any public platforms.

The complaining journalists suddenly found their weibo posts deleted, and some had their accounts shut down.

But the controversy only intensified Friday with a rare open letter from a prominent group of former journalists affiliated with Southern Weekly calling Tuos actions dictatorial and also ignorant and excessive, according to a translation provided by the Hong Kong-based China Media Project, which studies mainland media issues. By late Friday, more than 50 former journalists had endorsed the letter.

The journalists letter directly criticized Tuo, a member of the Guangdong Communist Party Standing Committee with oversight of propaganda, saying, In this era in which hope is necessary, he is obliterating hope; in this era in which equality is yearned for, his actions are haughty and condescending; in this era of growing open-mindedness, his actions are foolish and careless.

The journalists added, If media lose all credibility and influence, then we ask, how is the ruling Party to speak? They also said that since Xis election, the general attitude at home and overseas ... has been one of optimism. But they asked whether the central government supported Tuos actions and demanded that he be deemed unsuitable for his position.

The rest is here:
Chinese journalists mount rare protest over an alleged act of government censorship

Google has quietly disableda feature that notified users of its search service in China when a keyword had been censored by the Chinese governments internet controls, according to censorship monitoring blogGreatFire.org. The blog reports that the change was made sometime between December 5 and December 8, 2012, with no official statement from Google to announce or explain its removal.

According to GreatFire.org Google has also deleted a help article which explained how to use the feature which it says indicates that Google is self-censoring in this instance, rather than being blocked by the government (which has happened in the past). Since the removal of the help article could only be done willingly by Google, the only explanation we see is that Google struck a deal with the Chinese government, giving in to considerable pressure to self-censor, it writes.

The blog argues that the move indicates a new development in the relationship between the Chinese government and Google since Google previously and successfully fought government attempts to censor its censorship notification feature, not to mention implementing the feature in the first place. Speculating on what might have caused Mountain Views change of heart, GreatFire.org writes:

How did the Chinese government force such a candid company to do its bidding? Perhaps thecomplete blocking of Google Searchon Nov 9 was part of it. Theblock was liftedafter less than 24 hours making the move look very peculiar. At the time we speculated that perhaps it was a test of a block-all-of-Google button, but this new theory of it being part of pressuring Google looks at least as likely. It may have been an instance of the government showing off its power to Google and using it as a leverage in their negotiations.

Also in November, thethrottling and partial blockingof Googles Mail service was stepped up considerably. In the end, Google may have decided that providing a restricted version of Google Search and a slow but usable Gmail to Chinese users is much better than being completely cut off.

Weve reached out to Google for confirmation that it has removed its censorship notification feature for users in China, and if it has self-censored in this instance to ask for its reasons for doing so. Well update this article with any response.Update:Google has now confirmed to TechCrunch that it has removed the notification feature.The company said it did not have a statement at this time.

Sources close to the matter suggest Google pulled the feature because it was making it more difficult for users to access its search services. The feature was originally conceived to counteract Chinese government internet controls which were reportedly blocking access to Google search for 90 seconds if a user attempted to search for a banned word.

By preemptively flagging banned words the hope was the notification feature gave users a chance to search for an alternative terms and thereby avoid being locked out of Google altogether. However, since the notification feature was implemented, access to Googles search engine in China has been blocked more often than usual presumably because the Chinese government was unhappy about the features existence meaning even fewer users were able to use Google search. Ergo: not the kind of outcome Google was hoping for.

Googles keyword censorship notification feature displayed the following message when a search result would be blocked by the Chinese government:

See the rest here:
Google Quietly Removes Censorship Warning Feature For Search Users In China (Updated)

The conventional wisdom in many circles is that Twitters biggest challenge lies in figuring out how to monetize its growing user base. And perhaps for the companys venture-capitalist backers or other startup founders, that is the most important question it has to answer but it is far from the only one. Recent events involving the French and German governments, and even the British legal system, have highlighted another crucial issue the network will have to struggle with, one that is arguably just as important to its future: namely, can it grow internationally and still maintain its self-professed status as the free-speech wing of the free-speech party?

As my GigaOM colleague Bobbie Johnson pointed out in a recent post, the French government has been making some strong and controversial statements about what it wants the company to do after an outbreak of homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic comments erupted on Twitter. The minister for womens rights, Najat Belkacem-Vallaud, wrote in a newspaper opinion piece that the government believes the service must respect the values of the Republic and take action to stop or censor hate speech. She said French authorities will be discussing how to do this with Twitter, and added (translation by Google):

Even before the work is started, it should already be possible to act to remove tweets that are clearly illegal and, at the very least, make access impossible, so that the damage already done [to homosexuals, etc.] do not persist or do not cause additional problems with young people attracted by the publicity given to this unfortunate story.

Since French laws make hate speech illegal (as similar laws do in a number of other countries, including Canada), the minister is really just asking Twitter to do the same thing the German government did: that is, to censor speech that contravenes the laws of the country. In the case of Germany, it was tweets by a neo-Nazi group, since expressing Nazi ideologies is illegal there. Twitter explained at the time that it had no choice but to obey the laws of the countries it does business in, but that it would try to limit the impact on free speech by only blocking access to those tweets for residents of Germany as permitted by the regional-censorship tools it announced about a year ago.

Although they havent gone as far as France or Germany, officials in Britain have also broached the idea of trying to restrict Twitter speech and for what they say are similarly virtuous purposes: after the riots in London last year, the government argued that much of the violence was driven by social media, including Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry instant messaging. The authorities held discussions with most of the major players about how (or whether) they should regulate such conduct, but in the end no action was taken. Twitter has also been involved in some of that countrys infamous super-injunction cases, where even the mention of an injunction is considered illegal.

In some ways, the German example was the most clear-cut case Twitter could possibly have wanted: it referred to specific speech expressing Nazi ideology that is illegal, and is relatively easy to nail down. But this ability opens a vast can of worms for a company whose CEO and general counsel have both repeatedly referred to it as the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.

In Turkey, for example, its illegal to say or do anything that is seen as insulting to Turkishness a law that the government has used to block YouTube videos, among other things. What if Turkey was to ask Twitter to block or ban tweets or accounts that engaged in anti-Turkish behavior? A similar kind of question came up during the recent hostilities between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, when both sides used Twitter to hurl threats at each other. What if Israel asked Twitter to ban or block Hamas accounts or tweets sympathetic to this illegal organization? What if Egypt had asked for censorship during the Arab Spring?

The racist and homophobic tweets targeted by the French government are an even slipperier slope: even if hate speech is against the law, what 140-character messages would fall into that category? Would simply using a hashtag like #SiMonFilsEstGay (If my son was gay) or #UnBonJuif (A good Jew) qualify? If Twitter was supposed to be removing or blocking access to specific tweets, how would it determine which were genuinely hate speech? Would it have a list of banned words, or run some kind of sentiment algorithm filter on the entire stream?

In a very real sense, what the French government seems to want Twitter to do or wants to help it do is virtually impossible. Twitter sees almost half a billion tweets every day, and has difficulty even providing a search function that works over a longer period than about a week. How could it (or anyone else) manage to filter through those millions of tweets to remove or block access to ones that expressed specific thoughts or opinions? And even if it could, would that be the right thing to do? Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian makes a persuasive argument that it would not, although others have argued that France should renounce the free-speech fetish of the U.S.

As it becomes an increasingly global media entity, however and one that controls its own platform, unlike the declining media giants of the past this is an issue Twitter is going to have to confront head on. And how it handles these kinds of censorship demands will say a lot about how much trust we can have in this digital free-speech machine.

Read more:
Twitter’s challenge for 2013: Resisting state demands for censorship