The USA, for one.
The MPAA does rate movies, and most theater chains choose not to run movies rated to contain extreme violence or sexuality, but anyone can privately film and distribute a political (for example) film that might embarrass the US government.
Many such movies also run in theaters- see Fahrenheit 9/11, Citizenfour, All the President’s Men, etc.
There was a French group, Oulipo, that imposed weird restrictions on themselves in order to reproduce this effect. See eg 'A Void', a novel without the letter 'e'.
Censorship in the US may be more subtle than elsewhere, but it is present. Banks and governments have their methods which have become disturbingly effective. Also consider SJWs who effectively drown out or ostracize anyone with a differing viewpoint - you are free to think whatever you want, as long as you agree with us!
http://imdb.com/title/tt4103404/ https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/corruption/cen...
Armstrong advised Reagan, Thatcher and numerous other administrations over the past few decades. He has been behind the curtain.
His computer system has been accurately forecasting long-term socio-economic trends and their apices since the eighties. This is what the banks wanted.
When Armstrong turned the banks down, they sought to forcibly acquire the software and utilized government to squeeze him. The story continued on with illegitimate confiscation of billions and civil rights transgressions as Armstrong was jailed for years over contempt of court because there were no legitimate charges that could be brought against him.
So yes, there's definitely a history that makes Armstrong a target. The deeper you dig, the more it makes sense why The Forecaster was effectively blocked in the US and others have no problem.
"SJWs"? Really? Does HN really need to devolve into KiA, TRP or T_D?
Their influence usually shows itself in how america/troops/wars are portrayed, such as negative language being replaced by neutral statements - but sometimes there are bigger changes.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hollywood-cia-washington...
In China and similar countries, good luck portraying the army in a negative light, whether you ask for their cooperation or not.
If you want your film to include footage on a warship, or with tanks, or etc you'll need the armed forces to cooperate, and they only cooperate on films that make them look good.
Better CGI and good set design is making this less of a problems.
This isn't really a problem of censorship, but it is propaganda.
Even though our government doesn't censor us, our society does censor a lot of unpopular opinions. For example, the neo-Nazis who were publicly shamed and then subsequently lost their jobs. And the Google employee who was fired after writing that email about sexual harassment. I've seen other cases, too, but can't think of them off hand. And I should point out that I'm not defending those views (I think they're shameful), I'm pointing out that they were publicly humiliated and punished for sharing them.
Practically speaking, is there much difference between government backed censorship and online mob justice censorship? Each one will ruin your life, just in a different way.
1. You can't sue a mob for justice
2. You can't convict or fire a mob.
3. You can move to somewhere where the mob isn't.
More neutrally:
4. Mobs are crowd-sourced. Government censors are appointed experts of some sort.
5. One rouses and incites a mob. One lobbies and corrupts a government.
6. Mobs aren't constrained by things like double jeopardy. The U.S. government is.
7. Mobs tend to be more situational than government rules. Mobs don't care about boring things, niche things, technical things, or sympathetic perpetrators.
Ditto for 2, and certainly 3 unless you have resources, luck, and manage to get away.
4. Experts. In what? Toeing the party line?
5. True, although mobs are easier kick off than new patterns in govt.
6. Neither is the PRC.
7. True.
Edit: typo correction of “can” to “can’t”
And didn’t the term “Human flesh hunt” start out as a chinese one?
That's the traditional explanation, but does it apply any more now that we have the internet?
With the internet, any screw up or faux pas can cause worldwide publicity for any business. They can theoretically stand up for their employee's free speech, but in reality it's so rare that it's almost not worth considering.
At the same time, it's more difficult for the government to silence people due to the Streisand effect.
The Streisand effect happens when you try to make people shut up about something but don't actually have the power to make them shut up. So of course they'll just talk about that unsuccessful attempt, after all there's no downside. House arrest/public humiliation/bullet through the head? Try talking about that in any way critical of the censors and you could be next. That won't actually inhibit "dangerous" ideas, of course, but it's pretty effective at making everyone stop talking about them.
In other words, it is still possible to find neo-Nazi social media in the US. (Yes, there's been some issues on this front with some of the more visible sites due to certain Internet corporate CEOs getting "caught up in the mob", but organizations like the EFF are allowed to push back with counter-opinion -- https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/08/fighting-neo-nazis-fut...). It is still possible to find the Google employee manifesto online, as well as social media both sympathetic to these opinions and completely disagreeing with them and anything in between.
In many cases of government censorship, unpopular causes and opinions simply disappear. They for all practical purposes don't exist. You are not allowed to talk about them at all, at least in public.