British Olympic chiefs have forced athletes to sign a contract or face being banned from traveling to the Beijing Olympics. The contract is essentially a gag order preventing the athletes from speaking about China’s human rights record.
At the 1938 Olympics the English Soccer team was given an order to perform the Heil Hitler Salute.
Live Journal to make its site less attractive to sex pests seems to have backfired as the administrators purge the site of hundreds of sex-themed discussion groups.
Users are incandescent with rage after they found literary critiques and fan-written fiction about Harry Potter purged in an effort to protect children. Live Journal deleted around 500 journals this week in hopes of better “protecting children” following requests by activist groups.
While some journals were clearly dodgy the online journal burners seem to have demanded the removal of science fiction, fantasy or user-written “fandom” stories.
The Ten Network yesterday dumped its Big Brother: Adults Only series, just one day after being told by Coalition MPs the steamy show was damaging the network’s push for key media reforms.
Network Ten executive chairman Nick Falloon and chief executive Grant Blackley received an ear-bashing in Canberra this week while lobbying for law changes that would drive up the potential sale price of the Canadian-controlled company.
Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce said yesterday he harangued the executives over Big Brother on Thursday in a meeting arranged by Ten to argue the network’s case for media reform.
“I listened to what they had to say then told them in no uncertain terms that they were doing themselves no favors arguing for reforms while Big Brother was still on the air,” Senator Joyce told The Weekend Australian.
Mr Joyce said the delegation argued the adults-only version, screened at 9.40pm on Mondays, had been sanitised after complaints about last year’s series.
“And I said, ‘The other night you had simulated anal sex on the TV just three hours after The Simpsons‘,” Senator Joyce said. “Tell me how I explain that to my daughter.”
It is understood Communications Minister Helen Coonan, who has put together the proposed media reforms, also told Mr Falloon many MPs were complaining about the show.
Ten said yesterday it had dropped the series, saying there were only “three or four episodes” left to run.
“Questions continue to be raised as to whether the show should be on air,” a Ten statement said. “We did not see that situation changing, regardless of how we treated the program, and that uncertainty was putting unfair pressure on our team.”
Asked whether the show was dropped due to the push for reforms, a Ten spokeswoman said: “This has come from us looking at a range of issues.”
Ten owner CanWest, a Canadian media company, said in its submission on media reforms to Senator Coonan that plans to wind back foreign and cross-media ownership would enable the industry to increase its profits.
A change in ownership laws would allow more companies to attempt to buy Ten, driving up its price.
The Ten network has also received complaints about Big Brother from the Coalition’s Classifications Issues backbench committee.
Senator Joyce said the Ten delegation had remained largely silent during his spray on Thursday. “They just sat there sheepishly, looking around for the nearest exit,” he said.