Tag: Censorship

Government Censorship

Frederick Douglass (d. 1895), the renowned American abolitionist wrote, “Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them . . . The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” I used that quote in my book, Transforming India, (click for a free download). Indians will submit to a lot, and have done so for centuries. The current oppressors are “democratically” elected. Allow me to quote from the book:
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Kanchan Gupta on the Govt’s Attempt at Censorship

Kapil Sibal’s uncivilized behavior has to have the backing and protection of the Queen Antonia Maino aka Sonia Gandhi. As @vinod_sharma pointed out, “Sibal can’t be head of Gestapo unless there is a Hitler who wants him to do whatever it takes promote & protect him. Why silence about that?” Kanchan Gupta writing in Mid-Day, “A brazen attempt at political censorship” notes that censorship is nothing new: the Congress party and the Nehru-Gandhi family have a history of trying to dictate to the press and muzzle free expression.
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Philip Pullman on Being Offended and Free Speech

Happy Birthday, April Fools! And for the birthday cake, we have a short YouTube video of Philip Pullman, author of the the novel The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. On March 28th, he was addressing an audience in Oxford. Here’s how Mr Pullman replied to one person’s charge that the title of the book to an ordinary Christian was offensive. Continue reading “Philip Pullman on Being Offended and Free Speech”

“This Page Intentionally Left Blank by the Government of India””

I don’t know what zone-h.org is. Someone pointed me to the site saying that he could not access it from India and believes that the government of India has banned it. He said that he has “heard (from a reliable source) a rumour that the Government of India has a fairly regular habit of issuing fiats to ISPs to block various websites that it feels are objectionable for some reason.”
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Hell and Censorship

News from Abroad

Gordon Dryden emailed me an update on the Hell billboards which I had written about in August 2005.:

Hell Pizza

Thus wrote Gordon:

Today, the New Zealand Council of Advertising Standards upheld, in part, a complaint against Hell billboards – with the photo of George W Bush, and saying “Even hell is too good for some bastards”.

Its ruling (seriously) did not find anything wrong with the reference to George B in that context but felt that the term “some bastards” might be offensive to some people.”

I think that putting the word “bastards” on a billboard where one may inadvertently see it is perhaps a bit much. Therefore I do not think removing the word amounts to censorship.
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