How cute is this guys? Microsoft, that lovable computer company founded by goofball and Seinfeld-lover Bill Gates, just secured a patent for auto-beeping out curse words. Like in Arrested Development! So now Microsoft owns the rights to that bleeping noise? What good will that do?
Oh:
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Speaking of trying to be a working reporter in Beijing, a few of the 20,000 journalists covering the Olympics have been checking in with us about their Internet access. Perhaps you've heard China is filtering the web?
While The Drudge Report is operational and The Huffington Post is not, we're also told Jossip is A-OK, while MyDD.com is "sometimes available," XTube.com "won't even load," and one fella's "[sister's] blog on Blogger is banned."
From trying to restrict the locations where television networks could broadcast from, to filtering journalists' Internet access, and roughing up Japanese reporters following a supposed terrorist attack, China is making very good on its promise to respect the freedoms enjoyed by the media during other Olympic Games.
Backtracking off previous backtracking, the International Olympic Committee says it never reached a deal with China to permit Internet filtering, and says all along it's insisted there must be unrestricted access to the web just as there was in previous host cities. They're blaming the mix up on a miscommunication; IOC president Jacques Rogge made his statement in English, which isn't his first language. So now that the IOC's position on censorship has been cleared up, where does the media's Internet access stand? CONTINUED »
NBC News staffers have been able to log on to Amnesty International! Despite China's attempts to censor the media's Internet access, the smarties from 30 Rock decided to skip the official Main Press Center and International Broadcast Center, where the competition is set up, and is instead work out of the Beijing International Convention Center. The next place China will install web filtering? The Beijing International Convention Center.
Worth noting, of course, is that NBC is the official broadcaster for the 2008 Olympic Games, so either they got special treatment, or they're waving a big middle finger at the Chinese government after paying $1 billion for TV licensing rights.
The Chinese government has admitted to censoring the media's Internet access at the Beijing Olympics — and the International Olympic Committee decided it's not such a big deal.
When reporters first started noticing they weren't able to access sites "that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse," China said the problem had to do with the websites' hosts, not their countrywide filters.
They're done playing that charade, and owning up to the restrictions. CONTINUED »
Olympics reporters in Beijing hoping to sign on to the website of, say, Amnesty International shouldn't even bother; China has blocked it, along with any website relating to "cult" Falun Gong, and perhaps anything else the government deems unacceptable. Not that China is acknowledging it might be filtering the Internet access of the Main Press Centre and International Broadcast Centre, nor the Athletes' and Media Villages, which have opened in advance of the Aug. 8 opening ceremony. All of this has led the International Olympic Committee to begin investigating potential censorship by China, which promised media outlets the same reporting freedoms they enjoyed at previous games. But no matter what the IOC finds, China isn't going to admit it's done anything wrong. Rather, it's the fault of the websites you're all trying to visit — they probably didn't validate their HTML or something! CONTINUED »
Seven hundred years later, the matter of Janet Jackson's Super Bowl nipple may finally be put to rest. And CBS won't be paying for it. A federal appeals court has shot down the FCC's $550,000 fine against the network for its part in Nipplegate, when, during the 2004 football halftime show, Justin Timberlake revealed to 90 million people that Jackson has at least one of something that everybody has two of. The three-judge panel declared the FCC "deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so 'pervasive as to amount to "shock treatment" for the audience.'" Also: That nine-sixteenths of one second of bare breast, despite being TiVo-able and replayed endlessly by horny 13-year-olds, wasn't such a big deal.
So, NBC, how's your plan for broadcasting 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage across your 500 different television properties going? With just 19 days to go, we hear you've sold 90 percent of your ad inventory for the games, but we've been hearing that for awhile now.
Sure, most of your programming time will be a cakewalk: Point the camera at Michael Phelps crotch as he dives into the pool; point the camera at Paul Hamm's crotch as he bounds across the gymnastics floor.
But what to do if, say, something controversial — and this means more than your standard doping accusations — happens in Beijing? Like if an athlete starts carrying on about Tibet, or the Chinese authorities crack down on a human rights protest outside Olympic Village, or the Today show's license to broadcast live from Tiananmen Square suddenly gets revoked? You still going to abide by Business As Usual?
NBC News president Steve Capus insists, "If there’s news, we’re going to cover it."
This is funny. Not because we don't believe NBC News' crackteam of reporters will try to do their jobs as best they can, because they will.
Rather, look to corporate overlord GE, who has a lot riding on these Olympics games. And not just the $1 billion in ad revenue. CONTINUED »
Monsier R, nee Richard Makela, is a French rapper who might be sent to jail for doing the sort of thing that American rappers do all the time. A court recently agreed to consider a complaint lodged by a conservative MP against Monsieur R. Why? Because the rapper referred to France as a “slut” in the song “FranSSe” off of his latest album, Politikment Incorrekt. The actual offending lyrics are ‘”France is a bitch, don’t forget to fuck her till she’s exhausted/You have to treat her like a slut, man.” At another point, Mr Makela says: “I piss on Napoleon and on General de Gaulle.”‘ Mon Dieu!
China has given the OK to 247 video-sharing sites to resume operations after shutting them down earlier this year. Curiously not making the cut? Tudou.com, Youku.com and, yes, 56.com. [Variety]
"China's YouTube," the website 56.com, has been offline since June 3, with this notice, which says something about a service upgrade, the only evidence it even existed. Some might point the government's regular crackdown on Internet content, which runs afoul of its standards policies, now extending to online video. Or maybe they're just getting a head start on keeping any unauthorized Olympics broadcasts off any site that isn't stamped with NBC's seal.
"Media regulator Ofcom has fined MTV £255,000 for broadcasting "highly offensive language and material" pre-watershed.
"These included the pre-9pm broadcast on MTV Networks Europe's UK channel TMF of an Aphex Twin video featuring offensive words including "motherfucker" and a daytime trailer for a Jodie Marsh reality show featuring the phrase "fucking wanker".
"Ofcom has imposed the hefty fine for "widespread and persistent" breaches of its broadcasting code by MTV Networks Europe channels MTV UK, MTV France, MTV Hits and TMF.
"The regulator said MTV had, in some cases, "repeatedly" broken the pre-watershed content ban." [Guardian]
In not entirely surprising news, Russia's Communist party has condemned the fourth installment of Indiana Jones, courtesy its "crude anti-Soviet propaganda that distorted history"; they've called for it to be banned from Russian cinemas. It might have a little something to do with Harrison Ford playing the role of a 1957 archeologist who's facing off against Cate Blanchett's evil KGB agent character. (Jones has previously battled the Nazis, Egyptians, and Bedouins.)
Says Viktor Perov, a Communist Party member in Russia's second city of St Petersburg: "What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathized when Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have no shame." [Reuters]
He then went on to criticize Sex and the City for promoting the idea that women could wear dresses, bags, and heels instead of traditional sarafans, rubashkas, and kokoshniks. And also for scaring kids with Communists.
Cranky former Democrat Joe Lieberman last week called on YouTube to remove videos from what he called Islamic terrorist organizations. If they can keep The Daily Show clips off the site, why not calls for the end of the Western world?
YouTube has at last publicly answered the politico's request, and it reads something like this: Go away.
Funny, coming from a company owned by Google, which has no problem turning in its users when international authorities come calling. CONTINUED »
Heavens to Betsy, the military is about to lose their porn! If Georgia's republican congressman Paul Broun has his way, the House will pass his legislation to ban Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse from being delivered to U.S. bases. In fact, he says, the Military Honor and Decency Act already bans it, but last year a loophole was formed when a Department of Defense committee ruled those magazines aren't pornographic. [Military.com, via Savage] Please just don't ban legitimate magazines, which have a much more appropriate place with our men in uniform, like Out, The Advocate, and Inches.
Late yesterday, YouTube pulled the anti-Scientology video from actor Jason Beghe, which was posted by videographer Mark Bunker. Naturally, that's sent the legions of ex-Scientologists, who cutely refer to the cult as "Co$," for "Church of $cientology," into a panic, believing the Google-owned YouTube caved to the church's almighty power — and ability to craft a tersely worded letter.
Or maybe YouTube canceled Bunker's account because of previous copyright violations, according to one theory making the rounds. It's not like Beghe's video is gone from the video site; just search for his name and you'll pull up another copy.
But ousting the original certainly becomes easier if the church can point out its publisher's account is also housing copyright-violating material.
Some Jews are upset the New York Times-owned classical radio station WQXR refused a 60-second paid commentary placement about "bombings carried out against Israel by the militant Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas." Counters the radio station: The ad doesn't make clear the missiles it's talking about aren't being aimed at any part of the station's listening area. [
Apr 8, 2008 · posted by david · Link · Respond
Writing an article about television censorship and the use of naughty words, Washington Post scribe Lisa de Moraes finds herself in the unusual position of discussing what, exactly, the FCC has such a problem with — while her own newspaper won't let her use certain words (or, actually, letters) to describe the situation. Awkward!
On the April 10 episode of "30 Rock," the staff of the late-night show "TGS" has become obsessed with a new reality hit called "MIL[letter that's been deemed too naughty for The Washington Post when it follows M, I and L] Island."
For the uninitiated: MIL[WaPo Scarlet Letter] stands for Mothers I'd Like to [have sex with].
In this episode of "30 Rock" — which NBC says also is titled "MIL[WaPo Banned Letter] Island" — network bigwig Jack (Alec Baldwin) is watching the riveting finale of this reality-series hit, pitting the final two contestants, Debra vs. Deborah, when he is blindsided by a blind item in a newspaper gossip column. In it, a network staffer calls him a "Class A moron" and adds, "That guy can eat my poo." [WaPo]
"F" = Not allowed
"Poo" = Totally kosher
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