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KUALA LUMPUR, April 11 (Bernama) -- A Community Communication Centre programme coordinator failed to set aside a charge alleging that she had screened a documentary that had not been approved by the Film Censorship Board.

Lena Rasathi Hendry was charged in the Magistrate's Court last Sept 19 for screening an uncensored film, 'No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka' at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Chamber of Commmerce Hall at Jalan Maharajalela here at 9 pm on July 3, 2013.

The charge under Section 6(1)(b) of the Film Censorship Act 2002 carries a jail term of up to three years or a fine of up to RM30,000 or both, upon conviction.

She subsequently filed a motion to the High Court to strike out the charge on grounds that it violated Article 10 and Article 8 of the Federal Constitution.

On Nov 25, she was granted a stay of her case, pending outcome of the application.

High Court Judge Kamardin Hashim in dismissing Lena's application today, said the imposition of restrictions by the Film Censorship Board was not ultra vires under Clause 10(2)(a) of the Federal Constitution and was emphasised in Clause (4(1) of the same Constitution.

"The onus is on the applicant to show how her rights had been violated or how she was discriminated against under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution. Her reluctance to do so will only end in a full stop for her application.

"The issue is, how are we going to monitor the contents of a film if it is not first screened by an independent body like the Board. Hence the practicality of Section 6(1)(b) of the Film Censorship Act 2002," said the judge.

Kamardin also ordered the case to proceed in the Magistrate's Court.

Meanwhile, counsel Edmund Bon said he would appeal to the Appeal Court against the decision.

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Programme Coordinator Fails To Strike Out Censorship Charge

BEIJING Several apparent suicides by Chinese officials in the past three weeks, including the deaths of two senior figures, have sparked public debate and questions, as well as a fresh round of online censorship.

Was President Xi Jinpings anti-corruption drive putting so much pressure on members of the ruling Communist Party that some were driven to take their own lives? Was it all just a coincidence? Or does a life of deceit and hypocrisy eventually take its toll?

Chinese media reported Thursday that Xu Yean, 58, a deputy director in the State Bureau for Letters and Calls, was found hanged in his office this week.

Xus department handles the citizens petitions and complaints against local government officials. Although Xu had not been publicly linked with any corruption investigation, a senior colleague was fired and placed under investigation in November for a severe violation of party discipline.

At the time, Yu Jianrong, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted as saying on social media that the department had become one of the most corrupt sectors of the government, often using its power to extract bribes from local officials to silence complaints.

He Gaobo, a local official responsible for building safety in the city of Fenghua in the eastern province of Zhejiang, was found dead in a suspected suicide Wednesday, five days after an apartment building collapsed in the city.

Local news media reported that the building had been declared unsafe months before but that no action had been taken to repair it. Three people involved in the buildings construction have been arrested in that case, news media reported.

On April 4, senior policeman Zhou Yu was found hanged in a hotel room in the central Chinese city of Chongqing. Zhou was a major figure in a crackdown on organized crime in the city under the leadership of Bo Xilai, a senior Communist Party leader who has since been imprisoned for corruption. Zhou was reported to be depressed about health issues related to diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver.

A senior official at the state-owned power-generation company Datang was reported to have died in suspicious circumstances March 29, after being unwell and depressed, although the company denied that his death was a suicide.

Perhaps the most sensational death of all was that of Li Wufeng, 56, who was known as Chinas top Internet cop and was reportedly involved in maintaining a system of online censorship known as the Great Firewall of China. Li was said to have jumped to his death March 24 from the sixth floor of the office building where he worked after constantly being in a bad mood, local news media reported.

Read more:
Mysterious spate of apparent suicides by Chinese officials sparks debate, censorship

Censorship across the country is on the rise with as many as 52 instances being recorded in the first quarter of 2014. Releasing data on censorship for the first three months of this year, media watch group, The Hoot, said this averaged a little less than one a day.

The agents against free expression were not just the state or fringe groups. The list is fairly long and includes courts, student organisations, State governments, publishing houses, the Lok Sabha Secretariat, the Central Board of Film Certification, a lawyers association, Hindu groups including the Shiv Sena, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu Jan Jagruti Samiti the Information & Broadcasting Ministry, Tamil groups and individual industrialists.

Under attack were books, newspapers, films, Facebook posts, telecasts, staging of plays and the exhibition of films. As per The Hoots Free Speech Hub Tracker, the most newsworthy blackout was by the Lok Sabha Secretariat of the discussion on the contentious Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill.

The Hoot also flags the invocation of the colonial vintage sedition law against 67 Kashmiri students of a Meerut-based university for allegedly raising pro-Pakistan slogans during an India-Pakistan cricket match. Another highlight of the list is the withdrawal of American Indologist Wendy Donigers books by two publishers Penguin and Aleph after a Delhi-based group, the Shiksha Bachao Andolan (SBA), objected to them on the ground that they included derogatory references about Hinduism.

While Penguin withdrew Ms. Donigers book The Hindus: An Alternate History from India after pursuing the case filed by the SBA for a couple of years, the Aleph Book Company agreed to do the same with her book, On Hinduism, after it was threatened with legal action.

Also, according to The Hoot, the first quarter saw several films contesting bans on screening, three of them at the behest of right wing or pro-Hindutva groups. In one instance, in which RSS workers stopped the screening of the Kashmiri documentary film, Ocean of Tears, in Thrissur, Kerala, the police removed the protesters from the theatre hall. But in the same district, a Dalit musician was barred from performing at the famous Guruvayoor Temple. In Mumbai, Shiv Sainiks stopped a press conference by a Pakistani Sufi music group.

The list also includes an attack on the Caravan magazines offices for publishing an interview with Samjhauta Express blast accused Aseemanand, besides industrialist Shiv Nadar and Union Minister Praful Patel who succeeded in stopping the publication of uncomfortable biographies.

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Instances of censorship on the rise: The Hoot

Whooping cough first sickened the Illinois high school cheerleaders, then it struck the football players, the cross-country team and the band.

As it spread within the Chicago suburb of McHenry County in late 2011, another outbreak took place -- on social media. A small business called Sickweather LLC said it detected the online flare-up on Twitter Inc. (TWTR) and Facebook Inc. (FB) postings in early October that year. Thats about two weeks before local health officials issued a public statement.

Now, U.S. agencies want to expand their use of social media to spot potential biological attacks and outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases, including the new H7N9 avian flu that has killed dozens of people in China.

Thats the Holy Grail, said Mark Dredze, an assistant research professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a Sickweather adviser. Wed love these systems to tell us theres a brand new disease and its going to be a big thing.

The online disease trackers have had mixed results, with academics criticizing a tool by Mountain View, California-based Google Inc. (GOOG), the worlds biggest Internet search engine, for overestimating the number of U.S. influenza cases in recent years.

The system, dubbed Google Flu Trends, relied on search terms. It was never intended to be used on its own, said Matt Mohebbi, a former company engineer who helped create the tool.

Kelly Mason, a Google spokeswoman, said the company is open to feedback on how it can refine Flu Trends to help estimate influenza levels and complement existing surveillance systems.

Companies such as Sickweather and Boston-based Epidemico Inc. are trying to get past the noise on the Internet. They rely on computer algorithms to scan social media and news articles for references to disease like whooping cough. They try to screen out unrelated posts that might use sick (when they mean cool or insane) or Bieber fever (obsessed with pop star Justin Bieber).

The work also involves humans, in case the filters dont catch everything and the algorithms exaggerate illness reports.

The big advantage of social media is you can get a lot more data, and you can get it more quickly and more economically, said Henry Niman, a biomedical researcher and president of Pittsburgh-based Recombinomics Inc., which analyzes viral evolution and the spread of disease. It is a matter of fine-tuning that data so you come up with results that are more reliable.

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Disease Outbreak Warnings Via Social Media Sought by U.S.

Time and time again business owners ask me how to find the time to do social media. Does it distract you from your "day job"?

It seems very easy to start using it, get distracted and then lose time reading/ replying to other items and still not have got any value. Thats when I thought that social media is like a weapon of mass distraction, always able to draw people away from their day job.

How to find the time for social media

Control and some form of discipline is essential to make it work, along with very clear objectives (who your audience is, what youre trying to achieve). Then its possible to develop regular habits, and a routine (that works for you) making results lots easier.

Some background rules

There are three simple rules that work for me, and others have adopted very similar approaches based on time management techniques. What works for you?

What might go in your routine?

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Originally posted here:
Is Social Media just a weapon of mass distraction?