The Malaysian Home Ministry website has just published new censorship guidelines for films this week. Restrictions around profanity and displays of intimacy between adults have been relaxed, if they are “appropriate” to the context of the film. However the Board still remains firm on nudity, sex and negative depictions of Muslims, unless the filmmaker is wishing to “depict a person’s transformation from being evil to good”.
An amendment to youth welfare legislation set to go before the Tokyo Metropolitan General Assembly today could potentially ban all provocative visual depictions of “nonexistent minors”. The action is part of an attempt to crackdown on child pornography, but Japanese Manga artists and the online community have criticised lawmakers actions. They claim that such terms are open to interpretation, and would infringe on their freedom of expression.
A recent report by the OpenNet Initiative has revealed that search terms in both Arabic and English relating to homosexuality are censored in some Middle Eastern countries. The study showed that the level of censorship on Microsoft’s Bing ranged from ‘substantial’ to ‘pervasive’ and ‘selective’ in Algeria, Syria, Jordan and United Arab Emirates. Other sexually explicit search terms were also found to be censored.
A college lecturer is facing disciplinary action after showing erotic material to his students. John Ozimek wonders what the problem is (more…)