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March 23, 2023, 2:11 PM ET

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A record-breaking 1,269 demands were made to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since the American Library Association began collecting data over 20 years ago, the association said.

A record 2,571 unique books were targeted for censorship in 2022, a 38% increase from 2021 when 1,858 titles were targeted.

"Of the overall number of books challenged, 90% were part of attempts to censor multiple titles," the ALA said. "Of the books challenged, 40% were in cases involving 100 or more books."

In 2021, there were 729 attempts to ban or restrict library materials, up from 156 attempts in 2020, according to the ALA.

"Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color," the ALA said in a press release.

The most frequently challenged title was challenged 151 times. While 144 titles received nine or more challenges.

This is an uptick from data collected between 2011 to 2020, when the most frequently challenged title of the year received an average of eight challenges.

"Overwhelmingly, we're seeing these challenges come from organized censorship groups that target local library board meetings to demand removal of a long list of books they share on social media," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

"Their aim is to suppress the voices of those traditionally excluded from our nation's conversations, such as people in the LGBTQIA+ community or people of color," Caldwell-Stone said.

The books challenged include 550 children's titles and 1,604 young adult titles.

Of the reported book challenges, 58% targeted books and materials in school libraries, classroom libraries or school curricula.

"ALA began documenting the book challenges reported to us over two decades ago because we want to shine a light on the threat of censorship facing readers and entire communities. Book challenges distract from the core mission of libraries: to provide access to information," ALA President Lessa Kanani'opua Pelayo-Lozada said in a statement. "While a vocal minority stokes the flames of controversy around books, the vast majority of people across the nation are using life-changing services that public and school libraries offer. Our nation cannot afford to lose the library workers who lift up their communities and safeguard our First Amendment freedom to read."

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Record number of demands made to ban or censor books in 2022: Report - ABC News

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was initially approved by Chinese officials to screen at more than 30 cinemas in Hong Kong and Macau on Thursday. But days ahead of the screening, the film's distribution company was told it was no longer allowed to show the slasher film starring a murderous Winnie the Pooh. Chen Cici/AP hide caption

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was initially approved by Chinese officials to screen at more than 30 cinemas in Hong Kong and Macau on Thursday. But days ahead of the screening, the film's distribution company was told it was no longer allowed to show the slasher film starring a murderous Winnie the Pooh.

A gory, microbudget slasher film in which the beloved children's book character Winnie the Pooh is a murderous psychopath has been pulled suddenly from theaters in Hong Kong and Macau.

While the plot may not be everyone's cup of tea, there is concern that the decision to spike the British movie has less to do with the film's goriness and more to do with Beijing's suppression of civil liberties in Hong Kong and specifically, the government's efforts to block an unlikely symbol of protest: the crop-top-wearing, pant-less bear.

"Winnie the Pooh has become a symbol for dissidents in China," says Rongbin Han, an associate professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia. "So now the character alludes to Xi Jinping himself and the president doesn't like this."

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, written and directed by British filmmaker Rhys Frake-Waterfield, has become something of an internet sensation, exceeding all expectations with releases across Latin America and Asia. It was scheduled to start screening at more than 30 cinemas in Hong Kong and Macau on Thursday, but the distributor said all showings have been called off.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey will be canceled in Hong Kong and Macau, VII Pillars Entertainment said in a statement on Facebook.

The company added that the film "failed to meet the audience" and asked for the public's forgiveness. They offered no additional explanation and company officials did not respond to NPR's questions.

The last minute removal from theaters marks the second time that the release of a Winnie-the-Pooh-based film has been blocked in China. But why?

The connection between Chinese leader Xi and Pooh can be traced back to 2013, when people on social media compared a photo of Xi and former President Barack Obama walking side by side to an image of Pooh and Tigger. The meme took off and for several years, government critics appropriated the character to make fun of Xi or lambaste his policies.

That prompted Beijing to censor the Chinese name for Winnie the Pooh and animated gifs of the chubby, somewhat dopey bear on social media platforms in 2017.

The University of Georgia's Han explained that it's not Pooh that's objectionable to Xi and the authoritarian regime, but the fact that critics are using the bear as a stand-in to denounce the government's policies.

That's why, he says, "the censorship machine" is constantly looking for perceived criticism, which often takes the form of seemingly benign images, coded plays on words, or no words at all. For instance, in November in a rare show of public protest, Chinese dissidents marched through the streets holding up blank sheets of paper, sending a silent message of defiance to the authorities.

Han noted that images or objects with Pooh's likeness are still permitted in China, but online is a different story. "Anywhere that online dissident groups are mobilizing, that's what triggers the nerve of this state," he said.

Given the history with the character, Han said he is surprised that the film got past the Chinese government's censorship system in the first place. Domestic and foreign films are all subjected to a strict pre-publication review system, and the government retains the right to ban any film that doesn't comply from being shown in theaters or even from streaming online within the country.

Michael Berry, director for the University of California Los Angeles Center for Chinese Studies, told NPR that a film like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey would be up against a number of hurdles regardless of the Xi connection.

"Firstly there is a quota system in China that strictly limits the number of foreign films distributed; because of this quota, most studios submit big tentpole films like Marvel and DC superhero movies or big-budget war films. Smaller films often have trouble getting access to the market," Berry said.

The UCLA professor also noted that China doesn't usually welcome horror films because the country has no rating system. The thinking is that all films should technically be suitable for general audiences. "That provides inherent challenges when it comes to the horror genre," he said.

For now, audiences in Hong Kong and Macau will have to wait for the possibility of watching a bloodthirsty Winne the Pooh.

But as one would-be fan remarked, it may be coming to a streaming service near you.

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Why China has a history of censoring Winnie the Pooh - NPR

Oh, bother. Winnie the Pooh has found himself in another sticky situation.

Just two days before a British horror flick starring a murderous version of the famous talking yellow bear was set to hit cinemas in Hong Kong, its distributor abruptly announced with great regret that the films scheduled release in the city as well as in the neighboring Chinese enclave of Macau had been cancelled.

VII Pillars Entertainment told Screen Daily that they were notified without explanation that 32 theaters across both territories would not go ahead with screenings of filmmaker Rhys Frake-Waterfields Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey as previously planned. We are pulling our hair, of course, very disappointed, a spokesperson told Reuters.

One screening organizer, Moviematic, posted an Instagram story that said the release was called off due to technical reasonsa rationale Frake-Waterfield disputes. They claim technical reasons, but there is no technical reason, he told Reuters. The film has showed in over 4,000 cinema screens worldwide. These 30+ screens in Hong Kong are the only ones with such issues.

The cancellation has raised fresh concerns of increasing censorship in Chinas so-called special administrative regions. I assume #CCP and their #HongKong quislings worry that viewers might think it wasnt a movie but a documentary about #XiJinping, tweeted Benedict Rogers, the London-based founder of Hong Kong Watch, an organization monitoring human rights in the Chinese territory.

A protester holds a poster of Xi Jinping and a Pooh plush during a demonstration in Bangkok, where the Chinese leader was attending APEC in November 2022.

Varuth PongsapipattSOPA/LightRocket/Getty Images

The cartoon bear had previously been blacklisted in mainland China after critics of President Xi Jinping frequently pointed out the characters resemblance to the leader. The ruling Chinese Communist Party scrubbed pictures of Pooh off its restricted cyberspace in 2017, and the next year it blocked a Disney-produced live-action Pooh film.

Hong Kong, a former British colony that has touted greater Western-style freedoms under a one country, two systems policy since being ceded to China in 1997, has mostly enjoyed screening films with comparably less oversight until recently. After Beijing passed a controversial national security law in 2020 that covers even territories outside its jurisdiction, Hong Kong implemented censorship rules to comply with the policy, though the local government has claimed that it does not stifle free speech or freedom of expression.

Hong Kongs censorship board denies that the Pooh slasher was suppressed. The citys regulatory Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration told TIME that the film passed the local screening assessment and had already been issued the required certificate of approval to be released. The arrangements of cinemas in Hong Kong on the screening of individual films with certificates of approval in their premises are the commercial decisions of the cinemas concerned, it added.

Kenny Ng, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist Universitys Academy of Film, tells TIME that the pullout could be self-censorship due to the political climate rather than overt censorship imposed by authorities. The act of withdrawing a licensed film from public exhibition may not be too surprising in the current situation or indeed has become a decent way of respecting the red line, he said in an email. Surely any reference, however vague and imaginative, to political leaders in films are taboos in cinema today.

Would-be viewers may not be missing much, according to critics, who universally panned the film. Still, poor reviews havent stopped the movie from raking in big bucks at box offices in markets where it was released: since its debut in January, the low-budget Blood and Honey has earned more than $3.6 million worldwide.

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'Winnie the Pooh' Movie Pulled from Hong Kong Cinemas, Raising Censorship Concerns | Time - TIME

The Simpsons appears to have predicted the unfortunate reality of a parental uproar at a Florida charter school.

Years ago, in the animated sitcoms ninth episode of its second season (1991), titled Itchy & Scratchy & Marge, Marge Simpson is horrified by the violence depicted on her childrens TV show Itchy & Scratchy.

After failing to convince the production company to tone down the violence, she forms an angry mob named SNUH (Springfieldians for Nonviolence, Understanding, and Helping) to join her in protesting the shows studio.

Meanwhile, Michelangelos David is sent around on a tour of the US, with an expected stop in the Simpsonss city of Springfield, angering members of SNUH.

They urge Marge to protest the famed sculpture, claiming its offensive and inappropriate. However, Marge, being an artist herself, insists its a masterpiece. Shes later pointed out for her hypocrisy in differentiating what art should be censored.

Marge eventually concedes to give up on her anti-TV violence campaign; Michelangelos David is brought to the city and freedom of expression wins the day.

Over two decades later and the events of the cartoon appear to have played out in the US city of Tallahassee, although ending in greater consequences.

Hope Carrasquilla, a Florida charter school principal, has been forced to resign after three parents complained that their children were upset by images of Michelangelos David shown in their sixth-grade history class, according to reports from local outlet Tallahassee Democrat.

One parent reportedly branded the statue pornographic, saying they wish they had been informed ahead of time that their children would be shown such images.

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The news comes amid the states attack on public education, drag shows, abortion and more. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is currently fighting to ban, what he considers, the woke indoctrination of public schools.

Through his approved legislation, the state would review reading materials and limit classroom discussion of gender identity, and race books could be pulled indefinitely or temporarily from the curriculum.

At the moment, DeSantis will likely be former President Donald Trumps Republican party nominee rival in the 2024 election.

Visit link:
The Simpsons eerily predicts parents demands to censor Michelangelos David in school - The Independent

BEIJING - Search giant Baidu's lacklustre unveiling of its chatbot exposed gaps in China's race to rival ChatGPT, as censorship and a US squeeze on chip imports have hamstrung the country's artificial intelligence ambitions.

The highly anticipated preview of "Ernie Bot" last week was limited to a pre-recorded demonstration with simple questions to summarise the plot of a sci-fi novel and solving a straightforward algebra equation -- to avoid politically and factually incorrect answers.

From cloud computing to autonomous driving, none of the array of services Baidu had earlier promised its Ernie Bot could do were on display.

The firm's shares plunged as much as 10 percent during the unveiling, although they rallied the following day on positive reviews from brokerages including Citigroup, whose analysts were among a small group of people invited to test the bot.

A flurry of Chinese companies including Alibaba, JD.com, Netease and TikTok-parent Bytedance have rushed to develop services that can mimic human speech since San Francisco-based OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November, sparking a gold rush in the market.

Google on Tuesday invited people in the United States and Britain to test its AI chatbot, known as Bard, as it continues on its own push to catch up.

The popularity of ChatGPT in China -- where users have to scale Beijing's internet firewall using virtual private networks (VPNs) and foreign phone numbers -- has left Baidu and others scrambling to regain its dominance on home turf.

"OpenAI probably spent as much time just testing GPT-4 as Baidu spent building Ernie Bot," said Matt Sheehan, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"China's tech ecosystem doesn't have a tradition of funding open-ended research that doesn't have a clear path to profitability."

- Chip supply -

Ernie Bot is fluent in Mandarin, as well as other regional languages including Hakka spoken in South China and Taiwan, and targets the Chinese market with more than one billion internet users.

A headache for developers is Beijing's heavy-handed censorship of anything seen as challenging the Communist Party -- including a one-time purge of Winnie-the-Pooh after the cartoon bear was compared to Xi Jinping.

When asked if the president of 10 years is "a good leader", one of China's best-performing publicly available ChatGPT-style models, developed by Beijing's Tsinghua University, says: "The input may contain ethical content. Please try a different input."

The strict restrictions on the Chinese internet mean companies have "significantly less data resources for training purposes compared to Western competitors", Lauren Hurcombe, a technology lawyer at DLA Piper, told AFP.

Ernie Bot has not yet been launched for public use.

China has announced ambitious plans to become a global leader in the field of AI by 2030, and consultancy group McKinsey estimates the sector could add about $600 billion every year to China's gross domestic product by then.

Most of the growth will come from producing driverless cars, adding more robots to assembly lines and healthcare breakthroughs, according to McKinsey, and the government has also used AI to beef up its mass surveillance programme.

However, Washington has moved to suffocate China's technology ambitions, blocking through sanctions its access to high-grade chips, chipmaking equipment and software used to design semiconductors.

This has made it difficult for Chinese companies to buy chips including Nvidia's A100 and its successor H100, considered the gold standard for large-scale AI training systems.

"There is a real question whether a domestic supply can be generated in the short term," Hurcombe said.

- AI gap -

But the effect of the US measures will take time to make a dent because Chinese companies rushed to stockpile high-end chips before Washington announced the export controls in October.

Baidu has its own chip design arm, Kunlun, and the company says it is capable of mass-producing a seven-nanometre chip that is partly used to power its AI systems.

Dou Shen, head of Baidu's AI Cloud group, shrugged off questions about the impact of the US restrictions during a call with investors in November, saying: "We think the impact is quite limited in the near future."

For years, China has bragged about filing more artificial intelligence patent applications than the United States.

But the average number of citations of its patents -- an indication of the importance and originality of its inventions -- lagged behind the United States and other developing countries in 2020 and 2021, according to Stanford University's AI Index 2022 report.

The United States also had twice as many AI startups as China, and had three times more private investment flowing into the sector in 2021, according to the report.

The Chinese government's top-down approach to spurring innovation has failed to deliver results.

The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, established in 2018, introduced a ChatGPT-like product two years ago.

Wu Dao was described by its creators as "the world's largest" AI language model with 1.75 trillion parameters, which is significantly larger than OpenAI's previous GPT-3 model with 175 billion parameters. But it never really caught on.

The rest is here:
Chip war and censorship hobble Chinese tech giants in chatbot race - Bangkok Post