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Justin Chaffee

Anyone disturbed or surprised by the content and presentation of Logan has never read any of the comics/graphic novels involving this character, aka Wolverine.

Concerned moviegoers should understand producers of previous films involving Marvels popular foul-mouthed, cigar-toting antihero were not only doing audiences a huge favor by omitting the realistic gore that would result from Logans slicing and dicing, but also protecting their own budgeting-butts, bub. Ever bothered to track the body count in other movies?

Logan is a womanizing, problem-drinking, pro-bone-oh curbside-ampu-surgeon. Mutate this with a soft spot for defenseless loners and a rageful disposition toward oppressive organizations, and the result is a perfect role model for any Generation X-er.

Previous films subtly portray the heros true attributes and abilities as best as PG-13 ratings would allow. In X-Men: First Class, 20th Century Fox grants Wolverine the only allowable f-word, in his brief 60 seconds on screen. The new release comforts true fans in that Hollywood is finally growing a pair (of claws) to show audiences the real Logan through Logan.

American censorship is just a manifestation of unnecessary fear. It was culturally necessary that the conservative, home-schooling mom accidentally took her kids to see Sausage Party, before realizing its content was not suitable for her family. She should have done her research first.

How does she protect her children from hearing what some people publicly blast through the car radio? A theater accidentally showing a red-ban trailer in front of a family feature holds slightly different circumstances, yet all children grow up and will experience similar themes in the real world eventually. These types of mistakes just expedite the process.

Its a brave new world, again. Endless possibilities.

Justin Chaffee is a resident of Winchester and Newport News.

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Commentary Open Forum: The real 'Logan' Movie slices through censorship - The Winchester Star

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Mashable first reported on the feature when one of their contributors attempted to view the profile of tech analyst Justyn Warren but was unable to determine why or how the account was flagged. Warren was notinformed that his profile was hidden, nor understood exactly why Twitter imposed the measure on his account. Warrens tweets seem to contain some swearing, but nothing serious enough to seem to warrant a sensitive content warning. His profile has since been unflagged.

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Soon enough, there were reports of other accounts being grayed out:

Twitter claims that this new feature is to make the experience safer for users, and that it follows similar steps to their other safety features. Media, such as photos or videos,can already be reported as sensitive, with Twitter having the ability to mark an entire users media posts as sensitive permanently if they so choose. However, this new step verges away from stopping everyone immediately seeing pornography or graphic images to something potentially more worrying.

Abhimanyu Ghoshal writing atTheNextWeb posited some of the negative outcomes, imagining if a potential employer looked up your profile and found that it was greyed out; its possible they could get the wrong impression about your online presence. Or, if you had an important idea to share, but people couldnt see your tweets because you cursed once [Twitter] needs to be careful that it doesnt end up censoring its users and stifl[ing] free speech.

Twitters safety features are done via an opt-out system, whereby users have to go into their profile and deliberately change their settings in order to ensure that they see everything they want to. There is merit to allowing people to avoid things they do not want to Gab, the free speech alternative to Twitter, implemented a word-filtering feature that Twitter lateradopted but this was the choice of the users, and not forced upon them as default.

This is not the first time Twitter has implemented new features that tend towards censorship. If accounts are seen to have potentially abusive behavior, they are locked out for a certain period of time.In February, Twitter announced safer search results, filtering out sensitive tweets, and collapsing abusive tweets from being seen as replies underneath a tweet.

Jack Hadfield is a student at the University of Warwick and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @ToryBastard_ or on Gab @JH.

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Twitter Tests Censoring Entire User Accounts over 'Sensitive Content' - Breitbart News

On the occasion of World Day Against Cyber Censorship, ProtonMail and Amnesty International join forces to show how internet restrictions affect people around the world.

As the worlds largest encrypted email provider, ProtonMail is the privacy tool of choice for journalists, activists and privacy conscious everyday users. Today when logging into their inboxes, ProtonMails 2 million users from 150 countries will see Amnesty Internationals latest findings on cyber censorship.

The internet is a powerful tool for free speech and activism, but in the wrong hands it can also be a tool for repression.

The internet is a powerful tool for free speech and activism, but in the wrong hands it can also be a tool for repression. Amnesty International has documented cases of advanced "techno-censorship" across the world, as governments race to find new tools and tactics to silence dissent. The range of cyber censorship and surveillance tactics being employed by governments is getting more sophisticated with each passing year, with dire consequences for freedom of expression, said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Head of Technology and Human Rights at Amnesty International.

Amnesty International and ProtonMail want people who believe in a free internet to take action. The tech firms developing the architecture of the internet need to build in stronger security, with end-to-end encryption for example, that we can use to protect our rights to privacy and free speech online. The decisions made about the nature of the internet will affect our societies for a generation to come.

The decisions made about the nature of the internet will affect our societies for a generation to come.

Each year governments around the world are increasingly restricting internet freedom. With the use of IP address blocking today Turkey and Saudi Arabia block over 50,000 and 400,000 websites respectively; including news and social media networking sites. Chinas Great Firewall continues to restrict internet to over 800 million users.

Cyber censorship not only steals peoples rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future.

Cyber censorship not only steals peoples rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future Dr. Andy Yen, co-founder and CEO ProtonMail.

It is becoming an increasingly common practice for governments to shut off the Internet during moments of unrest and protest, such as Ethiopia did on more than one occasion in 2016. Last year several governments also shut down encrypted messaging apps, like Signal in Egypt and Whats App in Brazil.

Cyber censorship is further exacerbated by the indifference from some of the biggest tech companies towards their users privacy. Last year, Yahoo confirmed that it cooperated with the NSA to implement a special surveillance software to scan all its users emails for the agencys use.

On 21 October 2016, Amnesty International warned that tech companies like Snapchat and Microsoft are failing to adopt basic privacy protections on their instant messaging services, putting users human rights at risk. Only 3 of 11 tech firms examined in Amnesty Internationals Message Privacy Ranking provide end-to-end encryption by default on all their messaging apps.

Today we are changing our login page to stimulate a debate about online privacy, digital freedom and cyber censorship. Many of our users are journalists, dissidents and everyday users who have experienced internet restrictions in one way or another and who have turned to encrypted email to secure their communications, said Dr. Andy Yen, ProtonMail co-founder and CEO.

Cyber censorship not only steals peoples rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future. Earlier this year ProtonMail launched a Tor hidden website to combat censorship and today we are happy to highlight the brave work Amnesty international is doing to protect civil liberties online.

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Amnesty International and ProtonMail join forces to fight cyber censorship - Amnesty International

The social networking website Twitter has put new measures in place to try to stop users from being harassed or from seeing things that offend them.

Some free-speech activists are worried that the changes could lead to unpopular ideas being censored.

The measures were announced last week. They include hiding possibly threatening messages even if no one has complained to the company that the person who sent them is abusive.

In a statement announcing the change, the company said, Were working to identify accounts as theyre engaging in abusive behavior -- even if this behavior hasnt been reported to us."

The company said it would take action only when it strongly believes abuse has taken place. It uses software to identify abuse.

Risk to free speech?

But some free speech supporters are worried about the changes.

Suzanne Nossel is the executive director of the free speech activist group PEN America. She said Twitter is considering taking action, in her words, where there is really no problem that needs to be solved. To take action when there hasnt been a complaint raises the concern of whether there will be mistaken blocking of accounts or suspending of accounts, she said. That raises a risk.

Twitter has been pressured to deal with abusive speech in the past few months after some famous people complained about long-term, planned abuse campaigns.

Actress Leslie Jones left Twitter for a brief time last year after she received many racist messages and death threats. Several months after she met with the head of Twitter, the company announced it had developed new ways to deal with abusive messages.

Those ways included strengthening the ability of users to stop receiving messages that had certain words or expressions in them, and expanding the ability of users to report abuse.

Twitter also retrained its workers on how to deal with online abuse.

Esha Bhandari is a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Unions Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. She told VOA that she supports these kinds of changes, which permit users to have more control over what messages they see and from whom they receive messages.

She said the ACLU encourages companies to focus less on ways it can stop abuse and more on tools that allow users to control their experience on the platform."

Low-quality tweets and safe search function

But some tools launched by Twitter give the company a lot of power to decide what messages are seen. In February, the company began hiding what it called potentially abusive or low-quality tweets. The messages will still be able to be seen, but only if people search for them.

VOA asked Twitter many times for more information on how it decided which messages are low-quality. Twitter did not answer our questions.

Also in February, Twitter introduced a safe search function that removes messages that have potentially sensitive content from search results. VOA also asked the company how it identified this kind of message, but Twitter again did not answer our questions.

Global town square

As a private company, Twitter is not forced to permit free speech. However, spokespeople say the service permits free expression. And they say they believe in speaking truth to power.

PEN America and the ACLU support this role. Nossel and Bhandari say they consider Twitter a kind of global town square, where everyones voice has equal weight.

Bhandari said, As a practical matter, decisions made by Twitter have a huge impact on the messages that we receive, and I hope that Twitter and other companies take those responsibilities seriously."

Nossel noted that Twitter has financial reasons to be careful as it seeks to balance free expression and stopping abuse.

The power and influence of their platform depends on the free flow of ideas, so I think there are commercial reasons why they would not want to limit (free speech), Gnossel said. And I think for their users, they do have a kind of softer, implicit contract that they are going to be a platform in which you can express things freely.

Im Ashley Thompson.

VOA News Writer Joshua Fatzick reported this story from Washington. John Smith adapted the story for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

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account n. an arrangement in which a person uses the Internet or e-mail services of a particular company

complain v. to say or write that you are unhappy, sick, uncomfortable, etc., or that you do not like something

engage in phrasal verb to do (something)

encourage v. to make (something) more appealing or more likely to happen

allow v. to make it possible for someone or something to have or do something

focus v. to direct your attention or effort at something specific

racism n. the belief that some races of people are better than others

potentially adv. capable of becoming real

function n. the special purpose or activity for which a thing exists or is used

platform n. something that allows someone to tell a large number of people about an idea, product, etc.

practical adj. likely to succeed and reasonable to do or use

impact n. logical and reasonable in a particular situation

implicit adj. understood though not clearly or directly stated

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Twitter Fights Abuse, But Free Speech Activists Worry About Censorship - Voice of America

Taiwan's universities are reeling from accusations that they are indulging in widespread academic censorship to secure lucrative fee-paying exchange students from the Chinese mainland.

This week the Ministry of Education launched an emergency probe of pledges allegedly signed by universities with their Chinese counterparts to uphold Chinas official view on Taiwans status and avoid teaching sensitive content like Taiwanese independence.

The controversy has struck at a particularly sensitive time, with the island nation smarting from a strong rebuke last weekend by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who warned that China would not tolerate any activity attempting to separate Taiwan from the motherland.

Taiwan, a democracy of 23 million, has its own parliament, military and foreign policy, but Beijing views it as a renegade province that will eventually be reunited with the mainland by military force if necessary.

The Education Ministry refused to confirm press reports that at least 80 out of 157 universities may have compromised their academic independence to attract Chinese students, until it completes its full investigation next week.

But Yang Min-ling, head of the ministrys International Department, warned that any institution found guilty of violating laws governing cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China could face fines of up to $16,000.

Fearful that Beijing is trying to erode their jealously guarded academic liberties, Taiwanese professors and students are in revolt.

A new campaign against political restrictions on academic freedom by Professor Fan Yun, who teaches sociology at National Taiwan University, has been supported by professors and students from over 20 institutions.

Universities are supposed to protect the democratic values of a society, says Fan.

I visit Hong Kong universities and whats happening there is quite depressing. They already lost the freedom to talk about what they want to. So I hope that we are overworried, but we dont want to wait until its too late, she argues.

We still want to facilitate academic exchange with China, but we have to have our bottom line.

With Taiwans low birth rate fueling fears of a future shortfall in students, however, that line appears to be flexible for many universities competing for funding. Taiwan, which has a glut of universities, gratefully receives over 30,000 Chinese exchange students every year.

The latest controversy began at Shih Hsin University in the capital, Taipei, after it revealed that in letters to some mainland Chinese students it vowed to avoid sensitive subjects.

A spokesman, Yeh I-jan, argued that the letters were nonbinding and only necessary for about 5% of the institutions annual 1,500 Chinese students.

Shih Hsin and other universities claim such documents are a formality to placate the Chinese authorities, denying that teaching standards are compromised. But Yeh did recall several instances where Chinese students had complained about the content of lessons and stopped attending.

Young activists in both Hong Kong and Taiwan have irked Beijing in recent years by pushing for greater autonomy or even independence. In 2014, hundreds of students formed the Sunflower Movement and occupied Taiwans parliament to protest Chinas political influence.

Lin Fei-fan, one of Sunflowers leaders, is alarmed that the letters issued by universities have both violated Taiwans academic freedom and burdened visiting Chinese students with self-censorship. But he also sees an opportunity.

This incident actually gives us a rare chance to rethink how a democratic Taiwan can engage with an authoritarian and inimical neighbor country through education exchange, he says.

Concerns about China using its overseas students for political leverage have occurred elsewhere.

In San Diego, Chinese students protested against a decision by the University of California to invite Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in the U.K. is said to have warned students at Durham University against engaging with human-rights activist, Anastasia Lin.

Its part of how they want to promote their cultural and social agenda in other societies, particularly in Taiwan, said Hsu Yung-ming, a legislator with the government-aligned New Power Party.

We worry that our universities maybe have some under-the-table compromise with China.

But Jason Hsu, a legislator from the opposition party, the Kuomintang, warned the government against a kneejerk reaction.

While opposing pledges to Chinese universities, Hsu believes that the Ministry of Education probe, with the threat of financial penalties, is also overreaching.

He asks: Do we want zero students from China in Taiwan, or do we want to promote more exchange and understanding towards each other? I think I would vote for the latter.

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Taiwan's Need For Chinese Students 'Leading to Censorship' | Time ... - TIME