It never, ever, fails. The moment you have some new social network that pokes its head up into the Web someone out there will take the time to setup a fake account of a prominent person and then go all satirical with it.

In this instance the social network was the still in beta-invite only network Pinterest and the target of satire was none other than Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. The account on Pinterest was originally called MittRomneyGOP and in the fashion of Pinterest you could find such items as Pellegrino and expensive caviar pinned to the wall.

Well apparently this didn’t sit too well with the Romney campaign who within 24 hours of finding out about the Pinterest account contacted the company to deal with what they perceived as being a ‘identity’ problem in that the account was very misleading and a request to have the name of the account changed to fakemittromney.

Eric Spiegelman, the humorist behind the fake account, apparently resisted any attempts to agree to the change at which point Pinterest went ahead and made the change anyway, which as Spiegelman pointed out totally destroyed any of the links from before the change.

Here is the email exchange between Eric Spiegelman and Enid Hwang Community Manager for Pinterest about the matter (courtesy of Gawker).

First up the letter to Spiegelman from Pinterest

From: Enid Hwang
Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 9:51 AM PST
Subject: Pinterest: “MittRomneyGOP” username
To: Eric Spiegelman

Hi Eric,

I’m Enid, the Community Manager at Pinterest. As you might have guessed, I’m writing regarding your username “MittRomneyGOP.” We were recently contacted by officials from Mitt Romney’s campaign because they feel it’s very misleading and they’re requesting that it be changed to “fakemittromney.”

We actually really appreciate political commentary on Pinterest – and I know your account is clearly satirical – but we’re a young company so we don’t have a feature/process in place for “verified accounts” (such as Twitter) which would make the purpose of your account immediately obvious to any user on the site.

If you don’t mind changing your username, let me know. Or, you can just go ahead and make the switch yourself at: https://pinterest.com/settings. We’ve been brainstorming alternatives and unfortunately we feel changing your profile picture or adding a byline on your “bio” section on Pinterest may not be sufficient because that information isn’t included with all pins that propagate through the site.

We’re also really open to discussing the issue more with you, so you can reach me directly at [REDACTED] if you have any questions.

I’m sorry for the trouble and again, don’t hesitate to call if you’re concerned about this!

—
Enid

community manager . pinterest.com/enid . @pinterest

This is Eric’s reply to that above email

From: Eric Spiegelman
Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:14 AM PST
Subject: Re: Pinterest: “MittRomneyGOP” username
To: Enid Hwang

Hi Enid,

Obviously I understand your concern. And I can imagine as a new company (one that’s really doing a great job), you’d prefer not to have hassles like this. But at the same time, you’re a publishing entity that’s more or less open to the public, and I can’t in good conscience change my parody at the request of the subject of that parody. It should be obvious to the Romney campaign that nobody sees this as official, and that I am exercising my Free Speech rights in making fun of Gov. Romney’s utter tone-deafness when it comes to matters of privilege and class inequality.

That being said, I understand that you are well within your rights to delete my account. But I really hope you choose not to.

You have a wonderful service in Pinterest, and I wish your team all the best, however you proceed with this.

Best,
Eric

Enid’s followup email to Eric

From: Enid Hwang
Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:24 AM PST
Subject: Re: Pinterest: “MittRomneyGOP” username
To: Eric Spiegelman

Hi Eric,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly: We have no intention of deleting your account. It’s satire and it should stay! We’ll change the username (this doesn’t affect your boards, pins, or anything else about your profile settings) and we feel that’s sufficient. Once we institute verified accounts this, and any future issues, will be taken care of universally. That’s our responsibility so sorry again for having you caught in the middle of it.

I really appreciate your note (and compliments!) and thanks so much for your understanding,

Enid

And Eric’s final email back before Pinterest went ahead and changed the account name anyway.

From: Eric Spiegelman
Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:40 AM PST
Subject: Re: Pinterest: “MittRomneyGOP” username
To: Enid Hwang

No, I mean, I’d prefer you don’t change my username either.

I have a sneaking feeling this might not be done with yet but we’ll see.

Pinterest’s first satire account raises the ire of Mitt Romney’s campaign is a post from: The Inquisitr

Iran has announced a ban on dolls from The Simpsons franchise, claiming the legendary cartoon series has a morally corrupting influence on Iranian youth. Dolls of Homer, Marge, Bart and other characters from the show join the likes of Barbie, who was banned in the Islamic Republic last month.

Mohammad Hossein Farjoo is the man who leads the agency behind the ban. Farjoo, whose full title is ‘Secretary for Policy Making at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Tehran,’ told the Sharq newspaper:

“The Simpsons dolls are merchandise from an animated series, of which some episodes are even banned in Europe and America. We do not want to promote this cartoon by importing the toys.”

I’m not personally aware of any Simpsons episodes banned in the U.S. or Europe, and Farjoo didn’t expand on this. Regardless, America’s yellowest family won’t be seen on Tehran store shelves in the near future. Merchants in Tehran have confirmed that Simpsons merchandise is getting harder to obtain from wholesalers. Stores in the city, reveal the vendors, now rarely display such toys.

Barbie was banned last month because of what Iranian officials deemed to be her provocative body shape (which is actually anatomically freakish). Farjoo cheerfully pronounced at the time:

“Imports of all kinds of dolls that display full adult figures are banned because they promote Western culture.”

That said, superheroes such as Superman and Spiderman are a-okay in Iran, because they fight for the oppressed – much like the Iranian government. Or maybe not …

Iran Bans ‘Simpsons’ Dolls is a post from: The Inquisitr

I am pretty sure that we can expect a disclaimer about how this is a bug and will be dealt with immediately, at least we hope it is a bug, but Tom Cheredar over at VentureBeat is reporting that users if iTunes Match are finding that songs in their collections that have ‘explicit’ lyrics are getting replaced with ‘clean’ versions.

Now the iTunes Match service is something fairly new from Apple and allows members to have legal access to any songs currently in your iTunes music library and for $25 per year you can download your songs from Apple’s cloud to any device running the iOS 5 operating system. It is here where the “glitch” is showing up in that only ‘clean’ versions of the songs are being downloaded, not your “explicit” versions that you wanted to listen to.

Apparently it has been confirmed that this has happened in regards to songs by Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Ice Cube. There have been several blogs that have reached out to Apple for confirmation but we are still waiting to hear back.

However as Tom Cheredar points out in his post on the news this bug does show that this isn’t a true cloud storage solution as what you download should be exactly what you uploaded. I think it also points out once more Apple’s puritanical tendencies but we’ll have to wait and see just how they spin this one to really decide.

[Opps Dept.] iTunes Match is swapping clean versions of songs for the ‘dirty’ ones is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter is quite the social network. 140 character blasts that has revolutionized how we communicate and how we get our news. Dick Costolo, the CEO of Twitter and who used to own Feedburner which was then sold to Google, talked about politics, censorship, and the inevitable IPO.

Recently, they’ve come under fire after they announced they can now censor tweets on a country-by-country basis. This upset a lot of people and the timing was bad, really bad. The news came shortly after SOPA was pulled from Congress and the vote for PIPA was delayed. Because of the censorship news, people started the #TwitterBlackout hashtag as well as others, to protest their decision and were said to boycott the site for a whole day.

This was last Saturday and it’s still unsure how many actually participated in the boycott. Anyways, Facebook is said to be filing for their IPO this week. One question that is being asked is when will Twitter IPO or will they this year?

Via PCMag:

“Costolo hinted that Twitter will also likely need to go public at some point, but said he is not worrying about that right now. Asked directly whether there is going to be an IPO for Twitter in the future, Costolo went quiet for several seconds before saying “I choose not to answer that question.”

Fair enough. In regards to censorship, Dick had this to say:

“There has been no change in our stance or attitude or policy with respect to content on Twitter,” Costolo said. He added that Twitter believes “this is the most honest, transparent, and forward-looking way for a company to deal with the myriad of complex issues around the world that you experience when you have to operate in these countries.”

“Twitter needs to have such a policy to operate in certain countries, Costolo said. The move is not an attempt, however, to expand Twitter into China, where the social media site is currently blocked.”

What are you feelings about Twitter and the ability to censor tweets if required by law?

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Speaks Out On Censorship And IPO is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you live in India and are eagerly awaiting the Hollywood remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you may be waiting a while. Censors in the country have called for the removal of “explicit” scenes from the film, which stars Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig.

One Indian censor official has asserted that certain scenes in the film “should be blurred” before the David Fincher-directed film is released there. JP Singh, an official at India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), harrumphed:

“Bare bottom and bare-breast scenes are not allowed in India. We objected to several scenes in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and wanted them to be blurred.”

Sony Pictures is not playing ball, however – the Indian arm of the studio has said it won’t compromise on the film’s content.

The flick is based on Stieg Larsson’s best-selling thriller, and has so far raked in $185 million worldwide. Its banning in India, where Hollywood still plays a distant second to Bollywood, is unlikely to dent its box office performance too much. That could explain why Sony is happy to stand firm.

A statement from the movie powerhouse said the decision of the censors would be respected, but did not allude to the film being altered:

“[Censors have] adjudged the film unsuitable for public viewing in its unaltered form. While we are committed to maintaining and protecting the vision of the director, we will, as always, respect the guidelines set by the board.”

Unless one side backs down – a highly unlikely situation, it would seem – the film will remain unreleased in the world’s second most populated country.

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Blocked by Indian Film Censors is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter has recently come under fire after announcing that they will now be censoring tweets on a country-by-country basis if required by law. With censorship still on many people’s minds, this has raised many suspicions and caused users to voice their opinions.

Now, the reality is that the social network wants to branch out into more and more countries Worldwide. Other governments are serious about censoring certain information and in order for them to be better accepted, they need to provide the ability to censor information if authorities require it.

People find this to be a violation of freedom of speech and, well, they’re protesting.

Via Los Angeles Times:

“Twitter faced a growing backlash on Friday, less than a day after it announced that it can now block specific tweets from being published in specific countries that legally require such censorship. On Friday, a day after the country-specific plan was announced, #TwitterBlackout and#TwitterCensored were trending topics on the hugely popular social network.”

“In the case of #TwitterBlackout, thousands of users from around the world threatened to boycott using the service on Jan. 28, with the hactivist group Anonymous among those calling on tweeters to skip the site for a day. The group Reporters Without Borders issued a letter on its website to Twitter’s executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, asking him to “reverse a policy that violates freedom of expression.”

We’ll see what happens over the weekend there’s sure to be details on how many participated in the boycott.

How do you feel about Twitter censoring information?

Twitter Users Threatening To Boycott After Censorship News is a post from: The Inquisitr

Should Amazon refuse to sell certain titles of books because some customers find the content offensive? According to Milli Hill of Somerset, United Kingdom, a parenting columnist for Somerset Life Magazine and blogger for The Mule, the answer is a resounding yes.

Hill is the creator of an online petition entitled “Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO: Refuse to carry books which advocate the physical abuse of children.” The petition urges Amazon (both .com and .co.uk) to stop allowing books that purportedly advocate, endorse, and advise parenting techniques that involve the physical abuse of children as a disciplinary technique. Examples of some titles targeted by the petition include To Train Up A Child by Michael and Debi Pearl, Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp, and Don’t Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman.

Part of Hill’s argument for having the books removed from sale on Amazon is that such content is “offensive,” which is contrary to Amazon’s Content Guidelines. Furthermore, the petition argues that books that advocate the physical, and possibly abusive, discipline of children could be considered breaking the law:

It may well also be illegal, as it seems to go far beyond the ‘reasonable chastisement’ currently sanctioned by law in the UK, (where this petition originated) and in many US States. Not only is beating on a regular basis with a rod likely to leave a mark, which is illegal in the UK, it is also likely to amount to inhuman or degrading treatment, which is a breach of human rights.

Hill is asking for 15,000 signatures on the petition. Many leading experts in children’s rights, psychology, child development, and religious child maltreatment have already signed the petition.

To garner more support for the petition, The Mule is running a Facebook Action Day campaign today on Friday, January 27, 2012. Amazon has yet to respond to the petition. The Facebook campaign aims to get more signatures for the petition and to increase the pressure on Amazon to take notice.

But should Amazon take notice? Is Hill’s petition beneficial and necessary, an attempt to protect children from abusive disciplinary techniques? Or does the petition amount to censorship, banning the sale of certain books that one group of people considers offensive?

Petition To Remove “Offensive” Books From Amazon, Protecting The Children Or Blatant Censorship? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter who has over 200 Million users, announced on their blog today that if required by law, they can censor tweets and even on a country-by-country basis. Being that the word censor is involved, this is sure to spark some controversy and debate amongst the Internet community.

With SOPA and PIPA still on many people’s minds, censorship is a touchy subject. People want and require a free Internet and that means freedom of speech is an obvious right. And with the recent protests, people have shown they will fight for that. With that said, users of the social network shouldn’t be too worried about the whole situation.

Via Twitter:

“As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.”

“Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it up in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.”

Sounds scary at first, but Marketing Land goes on to explain more.

“So far, Twitter tells me that virtually all of the tweets it has had to pull have been due to complaints filed through the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  That will continue to be the case going forward, and any request made under US laws to remove content will continue to pull that content from Twitter worldwide. However, now if Twitter gets a request to remove content under the laws of another country, it can react to remove that content just for people in those particular countries.”

They’ve been pulling piracy or copyright related content for a while now. This announcement simply means that they may begin disclosing DMCA takedowns, similar to what Google does in search. This new process could also be to help protect the social network if they are to expand in other countries.

“What’s new is that eventually, Twitter may expand to having staff based in other countries. That makes the company more liable to legal actions in those countries, so it needs a way to comply with those legal demands. The new “Country Withheld Content” change gives it a framework to do so.”

How do you feel about Twitter censoring content that the law requires? Good or bad?

Twitter Can Censor Tweets If Required By Law, But Users Shouldn’t Be Too Worried is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Stop Online Information Act (SOPA) which was announced by Texas Republican Lamar Smith in October has come under a great deal of fire in recent weeks. Sites from Wikipedia and Google to Reddit and Craigslist have argued that they may not have existed today had they been launched in a SOPA dominates world. Other opponents of the bill argue that Lamar Smith, the mastermind behind the bill didn’t take more than half a second when drafting the bill to realize how easily it could be manipulated by larger corporations in their never ending attempt to shut down bloggers, small scale news sites and any other web properties that cast their organizations in a negative light.

The entire premise of the bill came into question towards the end of last week when Lamar Smith announced that the Domain Name System blocking portion of the bill would be removed for fear that it would be abused.

If you’re unfamiliar with that portion of the bill it was a key component of SOPA which gave full authority to the courts in blocking foreign websites accused of copyright infringement.

In the meantime SOPA is now left with one major portion in place, the ability for the U.S. government to track funds and cut-off payment options to illegal sites overseas. To punish those sites where it would hurt the most the bill would also require Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines to remove all links to foreign sites that infringe on copyright laws.

The problem with blocking simple links to a website by order of the court is the fact that such linking and spreading of information is protected under freedom of speech laws. As Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told CNN on Tuesday the knowledge database could be fined or shut down simply for pointing an encyclopedic link back to the Pirate Bay if the site is found to be in violation of SOPA.

In the meantime the massive amount of man hours that would be required to police social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and police knowledge databases such as the non-ad space sponsored Wikipedia could put many small, medium and even some large scale websites out of business.

As Smith recently stated:

“Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while some of America’s most profitable and productive industries are under attack.”

Yet it’s Smith that still doesn’t get how much support has been gained around killing SOPA. When asked about Reddit, Wikipedia and other sites going dark today in protest of the bill he wrote:

“It’s a vocal minority. Because they’re strident doesn’t mean they’re either legitimate or large in number. One, they need to read the language. Show me the language. There’s nothing they can point to that does what they say it does do. I think their fears are unfounded.”

For the record Reddit receives more than 2 billion pageviews per month while Wikipedia users number in the hundreds of millions.

When speaking about his draft of SOPA Lamar Smith claims that not a single internet professional can point to any wording in the bill that would jeopardize the bill.  As DigitalTrends has pointed out that’s simply not true, in fact 83 of the internet’s “pioneers’ have said the bill will have far reaching negative impacts.  According to the group SOPA “will risk fragmenting the Internet’s global domain name system (DNS) and have other capricious technical consequences”

Among those programmers are TCP/IP co-designer Vint Cerf, HTTP/1.1 protocol standards editor Jim Gettys and Leonard Klienrock, one of the very creators of ARPANET. In other words the very guys who invested the internet and it’s standards are scared of the bills far reaching consequences.

Lamar Smith can’t even get the support of former Department of Homeland Security representative, the very agency he now serves. According to former agency Assistant Secretary Stewart Baker SOPA will “do great damage to Internet security, mainly by putting obstacles in the way of DNSSEC, a protocol designed to limit certain kinds of Internet crime,” among other repercussions.

Even Lamar Smith’s home state of Texas has turned their backs on the representative.  Company’s operating in the state include Rackspace, Facebook and eBay, all company’s that oppose SOPA based on it’s ability to censor the internet and cause unfair pressures in an already crowded web space. Business owners in Texas that rely on the web contend that Mr. Smith’s bill would cause greater economic damage, particularly to Texas’ growing technology sector. Other businesses and representatives in the state argue that online pirates would simply find new ways to evade the law as they have since the advent of the internet. Rackspace, one of the company’s rallying against Lamar Smith has offices located in Texas and with more than a quarter of their business partners located overseas it’s easy to see why they would fight against Smith and his SOPA initiative.

There are laws in effect that already protect the MPAA and RIAA, for example the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. While that bill may not be as effective in combating foreign infringing websites it was least gives website owners the benefit of the doubt and time to respond to accusations, something SOPA fails to accomplish on even the most basic level.

Lamar Smith Is Fighting A Losing Battle Over SOPA is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Supreme Court has been talking all day about ending the government’s historic rule over television content, specifically regarding the removal of “indecency” rules that affect prime-time television. Despite the rumblings, the Court generally seems highly reluctant to ease its hold over television programming.

During oral arguments on the constitutionality of banning our favorite four-letter sentence enhancers and nudity, Justice Antonin Scalia insisted that the “government can insist on a certain modicum of decency”. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. further clarified that “All we are asking for is for a few channels” free from profanity and lewd sexual content. He is a parent of two.

Since the 30s, federal law has prevented radio and TV broadcasters from producing material considered “obscene, indecent or profane.” It’s axiomatic to us, we don’t question it, even though it is a form of censorship.

Another thing we haven’t noticed is how heavily the government and the FCC have been leaning on broadcasters in the last decade. Under the Bush administration, the FCC issued several networks hefty fines. Fox was fiend for allowing celebrities (Cher, Bono) to use sentence enhancers during live awards programs. ABC was fined to the tune of $1.4 million for Charlotte Ross’s now-infamous NYPD Blue shower scene (couldn’t find it for linkage, but if you go hunting for it, be warned: NSFW).

Lawyers are urging the Supreme Court to strike down the FCC’s indecency rules, saying that such standards are out-dated and useless, especially given the amount of uncensored content that individuals are exposed to via the internet. They also pointed out the vague and arbitrary aspects of the standards, pointing out that an uncensored broadcast of hard-R rated Saving Private Ryan was permitted while other networks continued to receive fines for single-offenses.

The judges were primarily unswayed.

Justice Roberts told one lawyer:

“People understand that context counts, [...] Your argument is that they can’t take context into account.”

Justice Elena Kagan straddled the issue, saying:

“It seems no one can use dirty words, except Steven Spielberg,” but then went on to say, “It seems to be a good thing to have a safe haven” in prime-time where such standards are enforced.

No matter what side of the issue you are on, so far: no progress. Oh, and in case you were wondering, by sentence enhancers, I meant profanity. I’m not being PC or glib, just cheeky.

Do you think the FCC’s decency standards should be lightened or thrown out all together?

Here’s the video report from our pals at Newsy:

Supreme Court Reluctant to Remove Indecency Measures for TV is a post from: The Inquisitr

Steven Tyler- you know the guy who is like an ancient plesiosaur but has like a whole bunch of kids with groupies and has spent the last four decades wearing obscenely tight pants?

That guy is complaining about indecency. Like, not that people are calling his music indecent, or criticizing the shenanigans on the show he hosts, American Idol- like rockstar Steven Tyler would like it if people on the tee vee would comport themselves in a more dignified fashion, thank you very much. Oh, and his remarks are addressed to the Supreme Court, who are about to review a case about decency standards and broadcast TV.

It’s an interesting perspective because when I was a kid, Frank Zappa was leading a charge against censorship and all the big alt-rock bands of the day spoke out about it, so supporting censorship seems to me to be a very un-rock-n-roll thing to do. But Tyler says he is sick and tired of scantily clad women dancing across his television screen, and doesn’t wish to see people using coarse language to one another. He explains:

Steven Tyler of Aerosmith Says Supreme Court Should Be Stricter About TV Swears, Nudity is a post from: The Inquisitr

Yet sometimes, even the KCNA slips up. According to the two images above, a spot of Photoshopping isn’t out of the question for the government mouthpiece. The top image was snapped by Japanese agency Kyodo, while the bottom image was later released by the KCNA to foreign news outlets.

The main difference isn’t hard to spot: a camera crew features on the left of the Japanese photo, while in the ‘official’ KCNA image the camera crew has been digitally purged, replaced by white blobs of what purports to be snow.

This sneaky bit of editing was first spotted by a Reuters editor, and it’s a chilling illustration of just how much effort goes into controlling information in North Korea. The snow is also brighter and purer in KCNA’s image, though this could be down to different settings on each photographer’s camera. The North Korean image certainly looks ‘cleaner.’

So why remove a fairly innocuous camera crew in this way? It seems baffling, but North Korea is probably keen to show the Kim Jong-il funeral isn’t a media circus. Much better to present Kim’s funeral as a massive and spontaneous outpouring of grief from the North Korean people. Reuters says:

“This combination picture of two handout images from KCNA shows a limousine with a portrait of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il leading his funeral procession in Pyongyang December 28 2011. In the top picture released by Kyodo, a group of men is seen on the left side of the picture. In the bottom picture which was sent directly to Reuters by KCNA, the group is missing. Reuters now believes the bottom picture was altered by KCNA.”

Interesting (and also sinister)!

Of course, North Korea and Photoshop have a history. In 2008, a photograph of Kim Jong-il with soldiers was found to be a hoax, after it was noticed Kim’s shadow was cast at a different angle to the shadows of soldiers stood either side of him.

Spot the Difference: North Korea Photoshops Kim Jong-il Funeral is a post from: The Inquisitr

Here goes Joe Lieberman again trying to get the Internet to bend to his perception of what is allowable and what isn’t.

This time he is behind an initiative to force Twitter into censoring any Taliban tweets that should happen to show up on the service. His reasoning apparently is to “eliminate violent Islamist extremism propaganda” that is proliferating on the social media site.

Of course he seems to ignore the fact that unless you are silly enough to try and suck back the complete public timeline of tweets you would need to be following the Taliban related accounted to be able to see their offensive messages.

According to the report in the Telegraph an aide to Lieberman has confirmed that he along with a group of other senators are asking Twitter to close down some specific Taliban related accounts.

From the Telegraph:

Leslie Phillips, a spokesman for the senate homeland security committee, said:

“Senator Lieberman’s efforts to eliminate violent Islamist extremism propaganda from the internet and social media has been a campaign of persuasion.

“He has written letters, for example to Google seeking the company to enforce more strongly its terms of service, which ban the sort of thing that we see from violent Islamist extremists.

“Google responded positively to the Senator’s letter.”

Apparently Twitter is resisting any pressure to close the accounts using the argument the Taliban is not considered to be a terrorist group by the US government and as such they do not see any reason to shut the accounts down.

via All Twitter

Congress wants Twitter to censor tweets from the Taliban is a post from: The Inquisitr

Remember back when Twitter was bragging about how the US State Department had asked them to hold off on a service update that would have taken Twitter down for a very short period during the unrest that had swept Iran in 2009.

Or how about the way that Twitter was used during the whole Arab Spring uprising and was held up as the greatest thing for social change since the invention of the printing press.

Well times must be changing if the post by David Seaman at the Business Insider is any indication. It would seem that he had his account on Twitter nuked by the company for talking too much about the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and the concern over the government’s FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

According to Twitter his account was suspended because he ‘was annoying our users’; but by Seaman’s account the followers he did have appreciated the effort he was putting into keeping them informed with the newest news regarding those two things.

Plus there is always the standard fallback for any Twitter user who doesn’t like what is showing up in their streams – unsubscribe from the person.

If they didn’t appreciate it, ignorant bliss is only an ‘unfollow’ away. So why was I suspended only for covering two very serious news stories, and offering my own brand of commentary? I wasn’t harassing users. I wasn’t spamming. I wasn’t hawking affiliate or porn links or any of the trash that should get one swiftly suspended from Twitter. (I’ve received some spam direct messages already; funny that those aren’t suspended, but I was.)

I have contacted Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter, and several tech journalists hoping to get some answers. I don’t want to start a big thing — I just want my account reactivated. This is America, not Iran, thanks in advance.

As Seaman found out he wasn’t alone in this as three other people have been deleted so far by Twitter because of this so-called ‘annoying users’.

So it would seem that like the government Twitter considers the use of its service by people looking for social change to be a good thing – except – when they live in the US.

Talk too much about OWS and lose your Twitter account is a post from: The Inquisitr

It seems that three is a puritanical streak to Apple’s Siri service but one that for something that is promoting itself as the next big thing in search is kind of disturbing.

You see if you ask Siri for directions to a Planned Parenthood you will get directions just as you would expect but if you then ask for an abortion clinic Siri turns silent as Jolie O’Dell from VentureBeat found out when she ran it through its paces.

While she had not problem getting directions to the four Planned Parenthood offices right around where she was she was told that there were no abortion clinics in the area. The same silence greeted her when Siri was asked about locations where one could buy “Plan B”, the commonly available emergency contraception pill.

Even funnier was that Siri had no problem with getting directions to stores selling condoms but when asked about locations where one could buy birth control pills there was no answers forth coming.

While it’s not in our purview to offer bald-faced speculations on the reasons for these discrepancies, VentureBeat CTO Chris Peri’s professional opinion is that the supposed glitch is actually “purposeful programming.”

Peri elaborated, “Given how well Siri interprets other requests, and that Google and Bing will give you the proper responses when doing a search, and [that Siri] offers [anti-abortion] CPC sites… this has to have been something placed in the code or taught to Siri by someone(s). If this is the case, then we have a problem here.”

via VentureBeat

This from a service that has no problem getting you phone numbers for escort services when you ask for prostitutes.

Siri might be a know-it-all but not when it comes to birth control or abortion is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dallas Cowboy cheerleader Melissa Kellerman gained instant Internet Fame™ on Thanksgiving, after she was shown on TV being accidentally tackled by a 265lb footballer from her own team.

The clip (embedded below) is faintly amusing: Cowboys tight end Jason Witten catches a wide pass, before being run off the field and colliding with a blissfully unaware Kellerman. The cheerleader was thankfully unhurt, and to her credit cheerfully laughed the incident off at the time.

She might not be laughing quite so much now. After taking to Twitter to joke about the collision (sample tweets included: “Not hurtin’ today, like some of y’all thought I would be! Our TE isn’t as tough as he looks…That or I’m WAY tougher than I look. and “I’m not the best at Jason Witten trust falls. )” , it appears the Cowboys ordered her to shut down her Twitter account.

While the team has yet to comment on the matter, CNBC’s Darren Rovell reports that the 22-year-old was forced to delete her account by the organization. Which, y’know, strikes me as kind of humorless. Are they worried about Jason Witten’s man points?

She’s not the only Cowboys cheerleader in the spotlight right now: earlier this month, Buffalo Bills wide receiver David Nelson scored a touchdown and immediately ran to the opposite end of the field to present the ball to his Dallas Cowboys cheerleader girlfriend, Kelsi Reich.

Here’s that Witten-on-Kellerman tackle again:

Melissa Kellerman, Cowboys Cheerleader, Forced Off Twitter By Own Team? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Banned Books Week runs from September 24th through October 1st, and is enjoying its 30th annual celebration this year. The event was founded in 1982 by librarian and director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom Judith Krug.

To celebrate the week, a tribute to the authors and literature that have been the targets of censors, colleges and libraries in the U.S. are hosting readings of banned works.

Across the nation, readers are tucking in to some of history’s most famous banned works, including Ulysses by James Joyce, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (challenged as late as 2009), The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Animal Farm by George Orwell, and The Awakening by Kate Chopin.

Since the creation of Banned Books Week, more than 11,000 works have been challenged, according to the American Library Association, the sponsor of the week. Few challenges lead to outright bans, but the act of challenging the appropriateness of books has not died out. Yahoo! notes the following texts were challenged in the past 12 months:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Challenged for passages explicitly dealing with teen sex, homosexuality and bestiality.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Challenged due to complaints about sexual and homosexual themes.

Push by Sapphire (Ramona Lofton)
Challenged for the numerous adult situations described in the novel, including rape, incest and child abuse.

What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras and Dane Saavedra
Banned from 21 Buda, Texas, school libraries due to definitions of rape, incest, sexual assault and intercourse.

Are you planning on reading a banned book this week? Let us know!

Banned Books Week Celebrates 30th Anniversary is a post from: The Inquisitr

Earlier this year, British comic Ricky Gervais was supposedly in hot water for his roasting of celebrities at January’s Golden Globes. Gervais spent the Globes ceremony ripping into celebrities with his trademark snarky remarks, even slipping in a gay joke about Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

The comedian was absent from last night’s Emmy Awards, though did deliver a pre-recorded message joking that he was “no longer allowed on American soil” during award ceremonies. What followed was a speech with diplomatically timed edits over any potentially contentious remarks.

“I’ve won a few Emmys myself. I’ve lost a few too,” grinned Gervais, “I was up for five last year and I lost them all to other shows that in my opinion were absolute [edit] ‘Schindler’s List’ but then went on to do TV with ‘Band of Brothers’ and ‘The Pacific’ for HBO, which in my opinion is the greatest channel in the world [edit] apart from [edit] Fox [edit] that is, [edit] obviously.”

He then ended with a variation on his “Thanks to God, for making me an atheist” closing line from the Globes.

Well, I quite liked it. Here’s the speech in full (and below that, Gervais’s Golden Globes intro for those who somehow missed it):

Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globes Infamy Leads to Emmys Censoring [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

What happens when Disney-owned  ABC decides to ban a movie trailer? If you’re the people behind the Paul Rudd vehicle Our Idiot Brother you release an even more raunchy trailer.

Directed by Jesse Peretz, Our Idiot Brother is a movie about a dysfunctional family with a brother who doesn’t always think before he acts, which leads him to a questionable drug deal and getting high while he also uses a juice box to simulate urination which ABC censors were against.

According to ABC Standards & Practices:

“The ABC Television Network approved and accepted multiple spots for Our Idiot Brother, and has aired spots for this film. The network did not accept spots that violated our long-established Ad Guidelines.”

Unhappy about the ban The Weinstein Company have retaliated by releasing an even dirtier version with more F-bombs and a near full frontal nude scene.

According to Harvey Weinsten:

“We’d like to dedicate our new red band trailer for ‘Our Idiot Brother’ to censorship everywhere.”

According to the movies official synopsis Rudd plays “Ned, a dopey stoner-with-a-heart-of-gold recently released from prison for dealing dope. Ned crashes the lives of his three sisters, played by some of the best actresses in movies today: 500 Days of Summer’s Zooey Deschanel, Zack and Miri Make a Porno’s Elizabeth Banks, and Emily Mortimer, of Match Point fame. There’s pee jokes, nude poses, and embarrassing family slip-ups aplenty.”

The film opens in theaters everywhere on Friday.

Are you planning to watch the movie when it releases this weekend?

ABC Bans “Our Idiot Brother” Trailer, Even More Raunchy Version Released In Response is a post from: The Inquisitr

Chinese government officials have sensored searches for ailing leader Jiang Zemin for fear that issues regarding his health could lead to revolt and other actions in the country.

The censorship began after Jiang, 84, was said to be dying or possibly had already died as early as Friday when he failed to stand alongside various other leaders of the country’s communist party during the party’s 90th anniversary celebration.

The country blocked terms on Twitter that not only included Jiang’s name but also “301″ which is the name of the hospital in Beijing where he is being treated. Other words banned include “river” (the word used by some savvy Tweeters in place of Jiang’s name), also banned were “brain death” and “brain dead” among others.

The move shouldn’t surprise many citizens in the country who find it common place for their leaders to guard secrets about their senior officials.

It’s still unclear why Chinese officials have decided to block terms about their leaders health, however speculation is that they want to control how his death is perceived in the media, while officials are still unsure how his death will resonate with citizens.

Jiang took over the party after the Tiananmen Square massacre and has helped introduce free-market economics to the country while reducing the state’s role in business.

Jiang Zemin Internet Searches Censored by Chinese Government As Health Possibly Fails is a post from: The Inquisitr