Sexually explicit Sunday Sport ads banned despite 'censorship' claim

Two sexually explicit ads for telephone chat lines on the back page of the Sunday Sport have been banned by regulators, despite claims from the advertiser that the move would amount to censorship. The ads were illustrated with pictures of women in the process of undressing and with their breasts partly exposed, and were accompanied by taglines including “XXX Sex Stories” and “Filthy Sex Chat with Hot TGirls!”. This sort of adult content may obviously be exposed to children, therefore it is an issue of the matter that people at such young ages being caught with inappropriate material is unhealthy, whether it was intentional or not.

• 'Daily Sport' and 'The Sun' are known for their explicit content
• Other newspaper companies such as 'The Guardian', 'The Telegraph', 'Times', 'Independent', etc display coherent, appropriate 'hard news' 

The fact that children being exposed to content obviously not suitable for their age, not just through E-media, the free Internet but even by a more 'selective' content such as newspapers is unhealthy. To an extent this sort of desensitizes these young audiences' view of the particular adult content, which is again unhealthy as they're so used to it. The publisher of the Sunday Sport argued that the newspaper was clearly targeted at adults and it had run similar ads before and had received no complaints. This is quite a plausible argument, since newspapers are a dying media, therefore the margin between e-media, more likely to be accessed by younger people and occupied by it due to New Digital Age and it's influences makes a difference in the sense that they're likely to not encounter the content on newspapers, given they most very likely do not watch news, let alone read newspapers.

"Facebook friends of Syrian refugee marrying female British aid worker from Calais Jungle"

The story of a Syrian refugee who contacted British aid worker, 17 years his senior, was reunited using Facebook. They last studied together in Syria, and so suspicions grew from friends whether their love was genuine, that refugee Hamoude Kahlil was simply using Sarah for citizenship. The fact of Sarah Gayton (as pointed out by the article) lives in a £800,000 home in Chiswick, west London, perhaps makes their assumptions more plausible, yet still discriminating and prejudice in a way.

• Over 3 million refugees have fled from Syria
• 6.6 million are displaced
• estimated 20,000 Syrian refugees in UK

Point being, social network Facebook has helped these two reunite and keep in touch, genuine love or not it is not anybody's business, and they do not pose a threat. What however poses a threat are for example Islam extremists/radicals/ISIS, who shamelessly put up posts of recruitment, therefore from any humane point of view people have every right to say there is a moral panic and that this form of contact is an issue. Prime examples include from late last year, November 2015, where two teens fled Austria to join ISIS, and were later 'beaten to death for trying to escape from Syria'. A similarly shocking story which also happened most, most recently in August this year, was when an ISIS bride, only 17 from the UK, was killed while again trying to flee from Syria. 

Bottom line of things, ISIS and these young girls had been together, influenced by the power of social networks like Facebook, and perhaps as a result Facebook will need to better their monitoring. 

How has

How has news changed over the past 20 years?

News, in terms of their tangible sources such as newspapers are a dying media in modern day, however about more or less 20 years ago they were a significant part in peoples' consumption, just before the New Digital Age stepped in and changed the dynamics of news. This new digital age has pioneered the meaning of 'free news' and peoples' consumption as a whole, now in the modern age people have a more convenient access to news, whether it's accessing it from their smartphone, computer, tablet, etc. Now, news is even free, so people are more knowledgeable of how the world works and the things around them. Other features of online news and e-media that ease people is also the translation, foreign readers can now be able to consume news at the same level of any civilised English speaker, and are not restricted in any way of their rights to know something. 

As of even more, now in the modern age the consumers could also create content for their consumers, meaning they are allowed to act as a 'citizen journalist', where they capture videos or images relevant to a news as any normal citizen, not working or influenced by a specific institution/company they're working for. This adds different aspects and views to any story, a prime example was the raging of the #BlackLivesMatter campaign, Alton Sterling was seen to be shot by an officer simply by resisting, but as we gain more knowledge about the situation, we later learn that Sterling was armed. Conclusively, the point here is that people now aren't being forcefully fed news by the media, they are now able to chose and have a plausible opinion based on what they're seen so far on their own as human beings. This is especially a benefit because as we know the media can be devilishly deceptive and turn a story around, just to make a headline and sell their news.  

"Celebrity Big Brother leaked video appears to prove show is scripted":

While Celebrity Big Brother was being aired LIVE the video linked above apparently shows what is to be accidental leaked footage of the show being scripted. Big Brother’s voice over announced further instruction to the finalists after contestants were to sleep. “This is Big Brother: Housemates, just listen to Big Brother again,” the announcement said. “Big Brother will tell you that tomorrow is a really, really, big day for all of you, and it will start quite early and end quite late.

“So what Big Brother would suggest is that you all wash your teeth, get whatever washing you need done and then call it a night relatively quickly.”

What blew it for the fans was this:

 “Great take guys,” Norwood said as he bounced back out of bed. "Great take."

However, later on there were plausible explanations for this, such as the footage being simply wanted to be used for production/editing purposes. "The show isn't fake. What they did was for production/editing purposes only, for the final show. On the final clip of house action during the live final, they like to show big brother saying good night, as they all go to sleep. Obviously in reality, they all sleep at different times. So they did this. It's for production only, similar to them adding music, replays of past convo's and onscreen name tags. It does make them look silly but doesn't make the show fake."

Whether this scene was scripted or not, or the entire show for matter, Celebrity Big Brother still has produced entertainment for their viewers, and that is what matters more in my opinion, but some fans have taken their beloved show for resentment and expressed their grief on Twitter.

"Are mobiles changing how we shop?":

The article discusses how mobiles once changed peoples' social lives and work ethics, but now it has taken its toll against people's wallets and as a result, changing peoples' buying habits too. Tina Spooner, chief information officer at IMRG claims smartphones manage too much of peoples' lives, therefore it is no surprise that people use it for almost everything too that's possible with it. It is simply more convenient, maybe too much that it makes people lazy.

•  49 per cent of online sales came through traditional computers
• 51 per cent of online sales between November and January in the UK involved hand-held devices rather than traditional computers or laptops.

Online shopping comes with consequential risks such as getting your credit card stolen if a user enters it on a non-trusted site or has their machine infected. Another reason to not shop online is also that it undoubtedly has made buyers lazier, perhaps made them even easier to want to spend money, necessary or not simply from online convenience. Pictures can also deceive people, in the shopping sense that when it arrives it looks different or doesn't fit a certain function, leaving consumers unsatisfied. This is apparent with clothing shopping, where for example a certain size may not be what it is labelled at etc. Conclusion: recommend to shop for clothes in stores!

 

The impact of Google:

1. ) As we know, newspapers are a dying media and this is the apparent cause for not even revenue being generated in order to compensate for other starting costs, and as a result Google has declined the newspaper industry.
2. )   'Google critics note how much advertising money has disappeared from the newspaper business over the past decade or so — more than $40 billion, or about 60 percent of the ad revenue the industry generated at its peak in 2000, according to figures from the Newspaper Association of America — and they draw a direct line connecting that with the in advertising revenue that Google brings in every year from AdWords.'
3. ) After the year 2000, the age of the online has taken its toll against newspapers, simply from the fact that online is more convenient and sometimes free. Illustrated by the graph, within a decade from 2000 to 2010 newspapers have gone from $58 million to $20 million and lower.
4. ) The world and its structure is always evolving and changing, so it would be unfair and cynical for any newspaper institution to say that Google captured their market. 
5. )  

BSKYB- Owned by Rupert Murdoch
Sky was also found by Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch is the CEO of news corporation.
Also the CEO of Fox news.
Sky UK Limited is a telecommunications company which serves the United Kingdom. Sky provides television and broadband internet services and fixed line telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom.

Murdoch- News corp UK:

• Times - paywall
• Sun
• 2014: 1/3 newspaper market

Mail online : 18 billion users/month

TV news : politically neutral

"What does a feminist internet look like?"

The article demonstrates the vulnerability feminists face, and at an online level it is worse.

The article discusses and displays figures such as 'a 10% increase in number of prosecutions for violence against women and girls in England and Wales" in a year. As well as 'more than 6,500 individuals had been subjected to 10,000 aggressive and misogynistic tweets over a three-week period in the UK, and 80,000 people had been targeted by 200,000 such tweets internationally." Feminists are triggered by these statistics and intend to change it, and as the article writes, an organisations by the name 'AWIDForum' brought together feminists around the world to imagine feminist futures. 

• 10% increase in number of prosecutions for violence against women and girls in England and Wales
• more than 6,500 individuals had been subjected to 10,000 aggressive and misogynistic tweets over a three-week period in the UK
• Globally, women spend 5.88 hours, compared to men who spend 4.75 hours

Probably most of the time when a male says something that may seem derogatory and ridicule women, it was just to get a reaction out of them and while some take it for a joke, some don't and take it for more than what it meant out to be. However, distinctively there are more consequential cases of misogyny where feminists have earned their right to have a say, such as intentionally victims being harassed by people on a sexual level, e.g. leaving a sexual comment under an individual picture, or sharing their picture without consent. So in my opinion, it is sometimes necessary and sometimes unnecessary to take action as a feminist, depending on the severity of the situation.

"Nudity and Facebook's censors have a long history"

The article discusses how Facebook sometimes censors nudity, abiding by the law, which sometimes can be the case regarding political affairs such as a completely nude girl in the southern Vietnam napalm attack. The article also discusses other content such as breastfeeding, which is regarded as nudity by Facebook, but allows other graphic content such as animals in context of food processing or hunting as it occurs in nature. 

Facebook's explanation to this was that pictures are processed by automated machines, therefore they have no human intervention and judgement on it's appropriateness. 

• Facebook doesn't allow natural things such as breastfeeding, but allows graphic images of animal being processed for foods and hunted
• Facebook uses automated processing, so there is no human intervention to give a judgement on the picture

I personally think for example, political pictures should not be carelessly be taken down, therefore to avoid this publishers will need to censor areas of the picture that violate guidelines THEN post them. Or entirely, they could post the picture on another platform, but as it is for now, they must abide by the rules of the media they're currently using. 

What does a feminist internet look like?

Chitra Nagarajan