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Comment by mu53 | Hacker News Reader

One of the things that I will miss about physical medium is the permanence of the data. A famous movie from 2006 had a racist joke. I remember it very clearly because of an argument at the time with my friends watching it.

In 2021, I bought the movie on google. I looked for clips, but I couldn't find a copy of that racist joke. Its as if it never happened. No public mentions of editing the movie or clip to be more "in-line" with today's environment.

While its not bad in this instance, its just a comedian trying to protect their image. The possibilities in the future are not fun.

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The Office took out a shot of a character is in blackface https://deadline.com/2020/06/the-office-blackface-scene-crea...

of Montreal edited out a line "I’m just a black she-male" from Women's Studies Victims https://www.reddit.com/r/ofMontreal/comments/j0kqqn/what_do_...

This goes back to radio edits, https://genius.com/Zager-and-evans-mr-turnkey-lyrics has the line "Mister Turnkey, I forced that girl in Wichita Falls" but the version I have is "Mister Turnkey, there's been a rape in Wichita Falls"

I'm sure this would've been happening in the past too with books having editions. Streaming just moves towards consumption sticking to the latest editions. Like you say, not really a bad thing, but where it goes we'll see

I have no problem with the edits. Artists are allowed to bowdlerize their own works. Consumers should have the choice to edit their own copies to make the same edits - I fully supported "Cleanflicks"[1] attempts to sell edited "Family Friendly" versions of movies - Clearly labeled.

What really scares me is the inability to tell when an edit has been made. We're being gaslight by the media companies, erasing history.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CleanFlicks

Is it generally the artists themselves doing it or the publishers?

At the rate that Suno, Sora, etc are advancing, there won't even be a deliberate editorial act to report on. All streaming media content could pass through a newspeak software layer for JIT censorship that propagates the values of whoever owns the service.

At some point, all communications (movies, shows, email, text, live voice and videoconferencing) will also go through JIT AI management.

What we see, hear, think, and feel about the world, ourselves, and other people will be managed and guided by whoever (government, corporations) ends up controlling the technology.

Combine this with the continued fragmentation of social groups and personal interactions - families, relationships, workplaces.

It’s what made me drop Hulu/Prime and start pirating and buying (usually second hand) physical media for a lot of my content again.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia which actively lampshades all of the themes being censored now has so many episodes missing from streaming services it’s almost one per season. And they’re some of the best episodes!

I’m actually surprised Archer is still around.

>> It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia which actively lampshades all of the themes being censored now has so many episodes missing from streaming services it’s almost one per season. And they’re some of the best episodes!

I thought this was untrue so I checked. On UK Netflix there are at least 5 missing episodes and there's no indication they're missing. They're unavailable to purchase on iTunes too (although unlike Netflix, it numbers the episodes correctly so it's clear there are missing episodes). Appalling. I didn't think I would ever return to physical media for video content but...this is making me seriously consider it.

Edit: As an example of why this stuff shouldn't be censored, I'll explain my recent experience with NYPD Blue. The full thing (uncensored, I think) is available on Disney+. In the first few seasons, I was horrified at the racism. But, it served as an illustration of something that was shown on primetime TV in a specific time period. Personally I wouldn't have thought this type of content would have been broadcast in the early 90's and it was a good reminder of how far we've come. It's the same when watching old British comedies. There are lots of jokes that serve as a good reminder that things have changed for the better, even if it doesn't always feel like that. We shouldn't be erasing history.

It’s a very important reminder, it’s a reflection who we ourselves were. I suppose many of us has since improved our own behaviour.

When the Betty White is being censored for blackface, which wasn't blackface, it was obvious we are in trouble. It's modern book burning, just less dramatic without the pyres.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/entertainment/2020/06/29/...

Meanwhile, actual book burnings are underway.

That's interesting.

The episode is available on Disney Plus in the UK (we don't have Hulu in the UK, so most Hulu-exclusive content is on Disney Plus here).

Amazon Prime had the series and removed the episode, but has since dropped the series. Which is the other annoying thing about streaming services, they keep dropping shows often unannounced.

Even at the current stage I find it bad enough. Even famous series like Friends get edited and don't match what you remember. You are looking for this or that scene and get confused - maybe it was your imagination and it's never happened? So I keep the original copies for this precise reason. (And, to be honest, the vector space of possibly politically incorrect utterances seems to increase year by year, so this phenomenon is likely to increase, too.)

Same problem with physical books disappearing.

History doesn't change if you read a book. If you read Wikipedia, who knows?

Not picking on Wikipedia, same could be with any online source.

Can't you just download a Wikipedia archive?

Wikipedia is different, you can always check and discuss the edits.

I think your point still stands, just taking some heat off of wikis

Sure, as long as it's available.

> No public mentions of editing the movie or clip to be more "in-line" with today's environment.

well, what was the movie?

It could have been Shazaam starring Sinbad as a genie who grants wishes to a couple of kids.

No, I think you’re thinking of Kazaam, the one where Sinbad was a genie

Maybe Clerks 2, when Randall was "taking it back".

I’d guess Click: https://screencrush.com/rob-schneiders-racist-stereotyped-ch...

My understanding is that the official Saturday Night Live clips on YouTube have been silently edited to remove "problematic" skits.

I will again make my proposal regarding such edits (and continued availability of content in general <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39113529>):

* If a Blu-ray of a film or TV show has excised or modified scenes for whatever reason, and the original isn't also made available (whether on a different "theatrical cut" release, or as a different cut on the same disc), the entire original version immediately goes into public domain.

* If NBC posts Saturday Night Live skits on YouTube that have removed "problematic" scenes without explaining the differences—a diff file, basically—the entire original skit loses copyright protection.

>My understanding is that the official Saturday Night Live clips on YouTube have been silently edited to remove "problematic" skits.

The Official SNL Channel still has "Word Association" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuEBBwJdjhQ) available; so, maybe there's some hope.

TV shows with carefully selected music to fit the scene take a hit when the licenses expire. Streaming services serve the current version with substitute and often inferior selections.

I'd love to hear about a physical medium that can reliably store data for decades. All of the ones I'm aware of lose data within years; so much for permanence.

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