Hollywood2020

SPILLING MORE OF THE BEANS ABOUT THE GTA HOT COFFEE PORN SCANDAL: UPDATE

GTA Hot Coffee Boiling Over into Worldwide Controversy and cultural changes? (first of 2 part post)

On July 11 this blog Hollywood2020.blogs.com author Joyce Schwarz set the table (I mean the stage) for a quick recap on what was happening with the Grand Theft Auto videogame controversy about whether Porn segments were actually in the game when sold or part of a "Mod" called Hot Coffee available online. See details in previous blog: HOT COFFEE STEAMS UP GTA VID GAME BREW HAHA.  We also asked the rhetorical question of whether Interactive Porn was the new 21st Century mass cultural activity of choice as first penned in the blog THE REPTILIAN BRAIN (for full post click here):

TGS Hiddenmysteries Reptilian Agenda

Time to spill the beans on GTA Hot Coffee Porn Scandal....stirring up the pot that calls the kettle black...boiling up a cauldron of TROUBLE......now a quick update -- if you missed any of this scandal that now involves top leaders of the Western World including but not limited to this unspooling of a thread of trouble:

FROM SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON ---  GTA stealing innocence of children....

Senator Hillary Clinton who earlier this year was quoted as saying: there is a "silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it's okay to diss people because they are a woman, they're a different colour or they're from a different place." Recently update: "The disturbing material in 'Grand Theft Auto' and other games like it is stealing the innocence of our children, and it's making the difficult job of being a parent even harder," Clinton said.

CLINTON JOINS SENATOR LIEBERMAN: Clinton joined Senator Joseph Lieberman, who together called for action from either the game's maker or the government....to --->Lieberman who called for action: "I am asking you to bring this matter to light and resolve this serious controversy by voluntarily submitting your game to independent concerned and responsible parties for such technical analysis," Lieberman

CLINTON TO FTC calling for legislationhas asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. The proposed legislation would see retailers fined $5000 for selling violent and sexually explicit videogames to minors.
----------------> Miami Attorney Jack Thompson who made numerous comments including: "Rockstar is on the fast track to corporate destruction, all because they have decided to play chicken with the federal government," said Mr Thompson. And then Thompson reportedly (according to Prodigious Gaming Blog (see link later in this post) :

THOMPSON TO Entertainment Software Assn Members in open letter (reported on Prodigious Gaming Blog:

Thompson also wrote an open letter addressed to ESA members where he accused the association of failing to act quickly enough on the "Hot Coffee" mod. The letter was nothing more than an attack on the Entertainment Software Association and its president, Doug Lowenstein. Among other things, Thompson likened Lowenstein to Hitler, writing:"When Hitler invaded Russia, opening up an Eastern offensive on the eve of winter, Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted that 'Hitler must have been rather loosely educated, not having learned the lesson of Napoleon's autumn advance on Moscow."

JOYSTIQ.com links to more on hot coffee spillover......

Links from Joystiq.com to Prodigious Games blog and other crucial links in this thread of "trouble"More on Hot Coffee:
Clinton joins GTA ‘Hot Coffee’ debacle
San Andreas sex hack found in PS2 game, UK version not affected by controversy
San Andreas sex scandal spreads down under

TO HOUSE VOTES FOR INVESTIGATION..MODDERS HIT BACK TO ATTACK ON SIMS;
START OF "SIMGATE"?

...courtesy www.icerocket.com Jul 25, 2005)

Censors move From Hot Coffeegate to Simsgate … (Jul 25, 2005) Inquirer

Florida Attorney Jack Thompson Attacks EA, Sims 2 …

Modders Hit back at ESRB

Patrick Wildenborg, the modder who first publicized GTA's Hot Coffee minigame hack, sent along to 1UP a letter from the administration of GTAgarage.com, the …

(Jul 25, 2005) 1Up

Rockstar To Be Investigated? Amid the 'Hot Coffee' controversy, the House votes in favor of a Federal Trade Commission (Jul 25, 2005) cont'd next post (on top of this post)

HOT COFFEE STEAMS UP GTA VID GAME BREW HAHA

IS INTERACTIVE PORN 21st CENTURY MASS CULTURAL ACTIVITY OF CHOICE? click on thumbnail to see opening of Jonathan Leaf's post on his blog THE REPTILIAN BRAIN on interactive porn as possible great mass cultural activity for 21st Century.

iNTERACTIVE PORN: REPLACING MOVIES AS MASS CULTURAL ACTIVITY OF CHOICE?

In one of our favorite new search engines www.ICEROCKET.com we found a link to a fascinating post by Jonathan Leaf questioning what will the mass cultural activity of choice for the 21st century. How did we get to Leaf's post-- by searching for more on HOT COFFEE of course-- the "MOD" of GTA (Grand Theft Auto video game). See www.gtagarage.com for details  This blogger especially likes Icerocket because it provides screen grabs of the sites you are searching along with a choice of news, web, blogs, mobile phone photos and more. A great way to keep track of what's happening by the week. And quick peek into culture. Which brings us back to Leaf's post which makes these notes:

WHAT WILL BE THE GREAT MASS CULTURAL ACTIVITY OF THE 21ST CENTURY?

*iN THE 13TH CENTURY IT WAS CATHEDRAL BUILDING....

*iN THE 17TH CENTURY IT WAS THEATRE.

*iN THE 18TH CENTURY IT WAS OPERA

*IN THE 19TH CENTURY IT WAS FILM

For the full post go to:

TGS Hiddenmysteries Reptilian Agenda

BOINGBOING.com -- popular blog BoingBoing.com was among the first of the blogs to discuss the subject and give links to actual photos/videos and screen schots of the HOT COFFEE -- note these links are XXX rated.

Boing Boing: GTA: San Andreas Sex Hack said to be ...

CLICK ON THUMBNAIL (above) TO SEE BOINGBOING FIRST POSTS ABOUT GTA HOT COFFEE AND THEN CLICK ON SECOND THUMBNAIL (here) TO SEE PARTIAL VIEW OF XXX RATED HOT COFFEE SCREENSHOT -- MUCH TOO HOT FOR THIS BLOGGER TO PUT IN HER BLOG......wow first the CRAZY FROG GREW A THIRD LEG AND NOW THIS........let's see what ESRB (the rating board) says about all of this.

California Legislator investigating...Gamespot report execs say Porn not in original game 7/11/05

At post time 1:55 a.m. Monday, July 11, a California legislator was investigating and on Friday, Rockstar (developer of GTA) reported to GAMESPOT.com that the porn was not in the original game, implyling it was part of the "MOD"  (game modification). More on this as later.....

REVEALED: LIST OF 1000 WORDS CHINA IS FILTERING ONLINE

Revealing:"THE LIST of 1041 Words" China Bans Online by Joyce Schwarz, Blog founder, Hollywood2020:

CNN, AP, WIRED and other mainstream news outlets are raging about new censorship online in China. USA TODAY tackles the subject in a strongly worded editorial that US firms help China censor fr**dom, d*mocr*cy. Their opinion piece maintains "What is a shock is that several huge U.S. companies are helping China muzzle free expression." and chastises not only Microsoft, but also Yahoo and Google for "helping a repressive regime censor such ideas". 

SHHHHHH, forbidden to write:

    So are you wondering what's on the list of 'forbidden words'? Well, I was, and it took almost 30 minutes of searching online to get some insight into how extensive the list of censored words may be. Finally at "China Digital Times" link I find an excellent article that not only lists the 1041 words but also gives a Translation of the Filtered Key Words in Chinese Cyberspace ... Author is Xaio Qiang, Director of the Berkeley China Internet Project at the Journalism Grad School, UC Berkeley.

The list of 1041 words in the China Digital Times article is reportedly gathered from three different sources including Chinese Internet company Tenent and a Chinese ICP (Internet Content Provider) not named and an unnamed Chinese ISP (Internet Service Provider). According to the author there are some variations (less than 2%) of the banned list, but the majority are the same. Qang the China Digital Times says it will be interesting to test this list on the Chinese version of MSN SPACE link . Note, since I can't read it and despite 8 weeks of private Mandarin tutoring speak only few words, I'm going to leave that test to my readers. Here is a screengrab of that site:

Click on thumnail to see MSN SPACE China home page. Go ahead and test words to see what terms are being banned online according to news reports by CNN, USA TODAY, AP, WIRED etc.

Analysis of Banned Word List:

According to the "China Daily Times" the list can be divided into 7 categories including: Rough analysis: Falungong related ~ 20%; Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan ~ 15%; names of Chinese leaders and their relatives ~ 15%; democracy, corruption, politics ~ 15%; social unrest, police ~ 10%; names of dissident writers, political exiles ~ 10%; porn related ~ 15% .  Check ou the complete list now in English courtesy of a student translation, Cached - Did you notice that the words "night club" are on the list --unless there is a sexual connotation there I'm not sure why that made the list?

Wikipedia: Falungong Info

Okay what's Falungong? According to Wikipedia.com which lists it as Falun Gong is a Chinese spiritual practice, with some beliefs outwardly similar to those found in Buddhism and Taoism, purporting to improve the mind, body, and spirit.

One Picture Worth 1000 Words, One Video Worth 1 million words? : The list of banned words at 1041 is just 41 words more than the famous saying, "One Picture worth 1000 Words" which is increasingly being upgraded to the phrase "one video worth 1 million words". So I did a quick google search for "China blogs" and quickly came up with this link videoconf_ from a blog by Chris Enway, a Rhode Island resident pursuing a PhD. Enway's blog ironically themed " my journal; not very interesting lately" So here's the screengrab of his videoconference with his pal Michael (I dug deeper and found Michael was an intern to Tom Brokaw at NBC on September 11, 2001)who appears to have had no problem going into a Beijing web-cam equipped cybercafe to videoconference with USA on February 3, 2005. Thanks to both Michael and Chris for helping me make my point that nothing can ban the next-generation of communication for 93 Billion people forever.

videoconf with michael in beijing (courtesy link to Chris Enway's blog)

my friend michael's in china, just having recently arrived in beijing en route to teaching english in crazy-desert western china (xinjiang). i've been keeping odd hours lately, and by chance caught him online in a webcam-equipped beijing cybercafe, producing this neat screenshot of videoconferencing with michael in beijing!

Thanks to both Michael and Chris for helping me make my point that nothing can ban the next-generation of communication anywhere forever.