from the hip

Most European countries have experiences with totalitarian regulation. Censorship was implemented during World War Two in Germany and all German occupied territories by the Nazis. Italy had the same under Mussolini. And in Eastern Europe it was in place until the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet dominated communist states were smashed and censorship was finally abandoned.

Today we witness a new kind of totalitarianism. This time implemented by men unknown in the corporate offices of the American corporations Google and Apple. Behind closed doors executives of these two corporations have decided that American moral standards must be imposed all over the globe. Rarely, if ever, have we witnessed more self-righteous and cultural imperialist corporate decisions than these.

Apple has decided to block what it considers “objectionable content” from being shown on iPhone. And “objectionable content” here refers to nudity. Completely ignoring the fact that moral standards differ considerably from country to country in the world, it is, of course, American moral standards that are the ones being implemented – standards which most Europeans consider completely silly. No nude legs, breasts, bodies, or – heaven forbid – female nipples can be shown on an iPhone. Despite the fact that European newspapers and magazines – Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, French, and so on and so forth – bring such photos all the time and nobody raises even an eyebrow.

And Google has actually done the same thing for a long time without being explicit about it. If you look at some of the posts in this blog that contains beautiful pictures of women – perhaps even showing their nipples – you will notice that the content of the Google ads disappear (as a matter of fact, all images shown on this site have also been published in European newspapers and magazines). It is the same on millions of websites all over the world. And what defines what is appropriate and what is not? The views predominant in the country where the website is located? The views common in the country of the person looking at the blog or magazine article? No! You guessed it! The American puritan moral standards!

I don’t know why corporations feel they ought to use technology this way. And I certainly don’t know how to stop it. I do know that I am appalled by it. And I hope the EU or some international organization will put an end to corporate censorship and cultural imperialism. We don’t need it. We don’t want it.

PS: See also:

• The excellent article about this in New York Times: In Germany, a Nude IS No Big Deal, Except on an iPhone, in today’s paper, page B4.
• Gizmodo.com: It is time to declare war against Apple’s censorship
• Apple discussion forum about “Is censorship really needed” – which has strangely been closed for comments
• Cult of Mac: Apple censorship reaches new levels of stupidity
• Seth Finkelstein: Google Censorship – how it works
• See the censored version of “Nudity in Art” at YouTube

The Icelandic band Sigur Rós has recorded a somewhat unusual music video for a song entitled “Gobbledigook”. The video has lots of nudity (what is known as “frontal nudity” in the US). As a result, it will be banned on MTV and has been removed from YouTube.

The movie may be interesting because of the nudity – it has both nude males and nude women. It may also be interesting because of lots of pubic hair – a new trend? In Iceland?

However, the most interesting aspect of this is the marketing aspect. We have seen Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, and others using sex videos and nudity to become world famous. Is this possible for a band with a music video too? If it has lots of nudity?

Also, the media world is changing, and this video may well illustrate how relatively unimportant traditional media channels are becoming – even YouTube, when it chooses to censor. My bet is that this video will go viral, and that it will be one of the most viewed music videos this year.

It is still art? Who knows? However, the new album, which this song is from, is called “Nude”, so at least it reflects the title of the album.

What remains to be seen is whether sex sells, and whether the group will be able to reach their intended audience with this content or not?

We will see!

PS: Oh, and the video? You can find it on the homepage of Sigur Rós:  Here.