Mediaboss Marketing

In recent weeks, Auraria Higher Education Centers botched handling of a confrontation over an art piece containing adult content has been seething within the Arts Building. But now, accusastions of censorship have caused the controversy to boil over.

A mixed media piece of art titled Garbage Vagina was put up on one of the Post Artwork Here wallsnow the Post Approved Artwork Here wallsin the Arts Building as an attempt by artist Estee Fox to be a part of the showcasing of artwork students on campus can create.

It was a serious subject that I was painting, but it was my own personal expression, said Fox, a Metro junior seeking a BFA with an emphasis in painting. Garbage Vagina depicts a blacked out face on a body with garbage discharging from female genitalia, which holds artistic meaning open for interpretation beyond its initial adult content.

A Metro club got all the administrations to approve of putting up boards for students to elect to hang up their own artwork whenever they wanted without ever going through anybody, said Fox. So that is when I put it up.

Shortly after Fox put up her piece, some students took it into their own hands to censor Foxs artwork. The first attempt by a student involved ripping down Garbage Vagina and leaving a message on the back reading, Not here. People bring their innocent children into this building. Show some fucking courtesy.

In a second effort to remove the piece, another student posted a page long letter near the artwork expressing how the piece offended the student and that Garbage Vagina should be put in an area where people can choose to view it instead of in a public hallway. However, the Post Artwork Here walls were originally intended to be an area designated with the intent to showcase student artwork away from the public.

In the third censorship attempt, a student stabbed a several paged manifesto with a large flip-out knife onto Garbage Vagina covering the woman, shocking Fox at the way it had escalated to an angry threat instead of a civilized attempt to send a message about their objection. The first page read, While the First Amendment guarantees the unhindered expression of creativity, it does not guarantee that expressions validity, quality, or gravitas.

Censorship to me isnt about intimidation. Its about expressing your opinionand an opposing opinionand trying to work to control that together to come to an agreement, as opposed to threatening, said Michael Brohman senior instructor of sculpture at CU Denver. What happened with Estee is more of a threat with a knife. Threat and intimidation as opposed to a planned out sit-down-and-talk your differences over.

Subsequently, Fox filed a BETA report and police report, only to find that no one from administration contacted her during or after the occurrence. A few weeks later, Fox decided to take down Garbage Vagina herself.

The Institute for Womens Studies and Services approached me and asked me to hang it up in their gallery, so we put the painting back up in their building, said Fox. Then we had a brown bag discussion, so I invited people to come and talk to me about the issues and censorship and the painting. The conversation that was happening around it was really good and healthy.

Read more from the original source:
Art censorship stifles speech

Russias Ministry of the Interior plans to set up special centers to assess hate-mongering and extremism in mass media, including online publications, YouTube, and Facebook pages, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said on Friday, according to Ria Novosti.

Nurgaliyev wants to open a center in each Russian district. Two already operate in Moscow and St. Petersburg. "We are working on creating special interregional centers with expertise in electronic media, printed, audio and video features to check them for any indications of extremism," he told Gazeta. The monitoring will be done by bureaucrats who are part of the presidential administration.

The initiative is the latest in the governments crackdown on extremism on the Internet. And while politicians and activists alike believe it needs to be dealt with, this measure seems to have touched a nerve with everyone. So much so that even those expected to implement it have washed their hands of it.

I'm afraid it may create the total surveillance of the Russian segment of the internet," Pavel Chikov, a lawyer and head of Agora human rights watchdog, told Gazeta. He said the initiative would lead to political censorship and an increase of criminal cases against bloggers on "invented accusations connected to extremism," something Russia has been accused of before.

Duma members were also skeptical, saying it was unclear how plenipotentiaries, who are political institutions, were supposed to help fight extremism.The plenipotentiaries themselves seem surprised, too. "This idea is definitely not ours. This is important, but the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications already do this expertise," a Far Eastern representative said.

More From Business Insider

View post:
Russia's Interior Minister Pushes For Extreme Internet Censorship Measures

Summary: Under the banner of anti-porn: Egypts boldest move to filter the internet, UK violates broadband user privacy, Wikipedias rules are bent.

All happens where tech meets sex.

Egypt has moved to enforce broad internet censorship, Wikipedia has another embarrassing edit war and a UK broadband provider is ordered to turn over alleged downloaders and more.

UK pornographer exposes privacy of broadband downloaders

A UK ISP - behemoth providor O2 - has been forced by the courts to hand over the details of over 9,000 alleged downloaders.

The people suspected of downloading porn files produced by Ben Dover / Golden Eye Productions have stood accused of illegally downloading its films and now their priviate digital footprints (and names and addresses) have been given to Dover.

Golden Eye (acting on behalf of 13 porn companies) originally demanded the details of those it suspected of using peer-to-peer networks to illegally download the copyrighted content.

It also had a draft warning letter set to send, demanding 700 ($1,120) from each and every alleged downloader. If all of those accused paid the settlement fee, it would amount to 6.3 million ($10m).

This all rings similar to the failed American porn file-sharing mass lawsuits - except unlike the UK, US defendants had strong advocates fighting to safeguard their privacy, and their innocence.

Reference for US cases: Every Inch Counts: Porn Filesharing Lawsuits Crest 30K Defendants

The rest is here:
Sex Tech: Egyptian Porn Censorship, UK Filesharing Travesty, Wikipedia Sex Wars

Vol. 21 No. 13 | 28 March 2012 Headlines ________________________________________

International: Index on Censorship opens up archive to mark 40th birthday, announces free expression award winners

Syria: On eve of peace plan, three more journalists killed

Bahrain: At least 31 extrajudicial killings since official commission of inquiry, says Bahrain Center for Human Rights

Sri Lanka: State media outlets label journalists "traitors"

Mali: Independent media one of the first casualties in coup

Kazakhstan: IFEX members help get editor out of jail

Europe and Central Asia: Reporters Without Borders demands access to Europe's migrant detention centres

Free Expression Spotlight ________________________________________

INTERNATIONAL: INDEX ON CENSORSHIP OPENS UP ARCHIVE TO MARK 40TH BIRTHDAY, ANNOUNCES FREE EXPRESSION AWARD WINNERS Index on Censorship is celebrating 40 years of existence, and wants you to be a part of it. In honour of the 40th anniversary, Index's publisher Sage has opened up the Index archive to the public for 40 days starting this week. Plus, hot off the press: the winners of Index's Free Expression Awards! Read more>>

View original post here:
IFEX Communiqué Vol 21, No 13

The Catholic Church has never had a particularly easy relationship with science. After all, this is the institution that sentenced Galileo Galilei as a heretic for his theories on the universe during the Roman Inquisition. Two thousand years later, the church forgave Galileo and called the whole misunderstanding a tragic mutual incomprehension but it remains safe to say the Vatican doesnt have a great track record when it comes to empirical open-mindedness.

So onlookers were surprised when the Vatican announced it would be hosting a global conference on the highly controversial issue of stem-cell research in Rome over four days in late April. The church held a similar conference in 2010 and 2011, which focused on its recommendation that stem-cell research should be limited to adult cells that can be harvested from live donors, not embryonic cells that destroy the source. But this years conference schedule featured some of the worlds foremost experts in embryonic research as keynote speakersleading some scientists to think that the Vatican might actually be looking for enlightenment on the topic.

That was not exactly case. Instead, the Vatican seems to have hoped that by including embryonic researchers in the program, it would appear that these scientists actually endorsed the Vaticans stance.

It might have worked to some extent, but after some of the speakers declined to censor their speeches, the Vatican abruptly canceled the conference altogether. According to the conference website, the event was canceled due to serious economic and logistic-organizational reasons that have completely jeopardized the success of the 3rd International Congress on Responsible Stem Cell Research. The scientists who were planning to attend say they are being stifled instead. I think the only interpretation is that we are being censored, Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Francisco, said in a statement. It is very disappointing that they are unwilling to hear the truth.

Just what was the Vatican thinking? Inviting embryonic stem-cell researchers to a conference and then denying them the right to talk about their field of expertise was a major gamble. Had the speakers agreed to avoid reference to embryonic research, it would have given the disingenuous impression that they endorse the Holy Sees recommendation on adult stem-cell research only. Did the Vatican really think they could control the scientific community? Apparently so. Father Scott Borgman of the Pontifical Academy for Life, which co-organized the conference, had reportedly asked the speakers to limit their discussions to adult stem-cell research only. George Daly, a leading embryonic researcher with the Childrens Hospital in Boston, says he was actually told not to make embryonic researchhis field of expertisea focal point of his talk. When he told Borgman that he would still be touching on the topic in a historical context, higher-ups in the Vatican reportedly panicked. I had been encouraged to think that the Congress would be a forum for discussion of many areas of common interest to the Vatican and stem cell scientists, regardless of the disagreements over embryonic stem cells, Daly told The Daily Beast. We should all agree that clinical trials of new medical treatments based on stem cells should proceed according to rigorous principles to ensure patients are kept as safe as possible and free from exploitation. And we should all agree that premature claims of therapeutic efficacy and direct marketing of unproven interventions to vulnerable patients is a threat to legitimate attempts to develop experimental stem cell medicines.

Pope Benedict looks on during the mass in solemnity of the chair of St. Peter with new Cardinals in St. Peter's basilica at the Vatican on February 19, 2012. The Vatican stands by its decision to cancel the controversial conference as having a purely business motive. , Alberto Pizzoli, AFP / Getty Images

With the cancelation of the event, discourse between the two diverse entities will not have a venue. One Vatican official told the Catholic News Service that many of the Vaticans leaders were secretly glad the conference failed. I am infinitely relieved that the church has avoided a major blunder which would have confused the faithful for decades to come, the unnamed source said. The Holy Spirit has certainly shown to be present through those faithful members who drew attention to the ambiguity of the choice of speakers. I hope and pray that a review will be affected of the basis on which these congresses are planned.

Some stem-cell researchers are also relieved the conference wont go on. I personally am very uncomfortable with a scientific meeting run by a church, and one at which only certain types of science and scientists are allowed to attend, blogged Paul Knoepfler, an associate professor of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy at UC Davis School of Medicine who blogs about stem cell research at IPCell.com. Also I cant help but wonder, what would be the reaction if someone like Daley spent a few minutes of his talk discussing his embryonic cell research in a very nonconfrontational way? Would he be tasered or drop through some trap door straight to Hell?

Still, Knoepfler was hopeful. I view the canceled Vatican stem-cell meeting as a missed opportunity for a very much needed, open dialogue about stem cells, he told The Daily Beast. More specifically, I believe the reasons for the cancellation reflect an anti-scientific attitude by the highest level of Vatican leaders. More simply put, the attitude might be summed up by the phrase If you do not think like us, you are not welcome at our meeting, and well go so far as to cancel the whole thing to avoid your presence.

Inviting embryonic stem-cell researchers to a conference and then denying them the right to talk about their field of expertise was a major gamble.

Visit link:
Vatican’s Stem-Cell Censorship Sham