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Australian Censorship Legislation

Posted by michael on from the CDA-reborn dept.

danny writes: "Legislation is before the New South Wales (Australia) state parliament that would make it a criminal offense to publish material unsuitable for children online. Other states will be passing similar laws, as this is part of a uniform national approach. So please help us stop this! Note: earlier Federal legislation in Australia covered Internet Service Providers, not end-users. But this law follows that in attempting to directly transfer the film censorship system to the Net - one has to wonder how many of the politicians involved actually use the Net."

3 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Re:why is this necessarily wrong? by netnerd.caffinated · · Score: 3, Informative

    its wrong because:
    1. your restricting fredom of speech
    2. "unsuitable for children" could have a broad meaning & used to restrict things of a political nature... or have it's meaning streched, much like the US's terrorism laws & hacking.
    3. how the hell are they going to police this?

    Also one interesting fact is that they say politicians don't respond or take much notice of email , so its suggested to write handwritten letters... now why would this be? maybe its because politicians have no clue when it comes to computers! so incompetent they can't even check their e-mail on a regular basis. It's a bloody outrage & i hope this bill isn't passed

    --


    You tried your best, & you failed miserably,
    The lesson is:
    Never Try
  2. That's Incredible... by Meffan · · Score: 5, Informative
    The list of things that the bill covers:


    "[A]dult themes" include: "verbal references to and depictions associated with issues such as suicide, crime, corruption, marital problems, emotional trauma, drug and alcohol dependency, death and serious illness, racism, religious issues".


    And don't just think this is to "get" people who put stuff up any old how, oh no - "[I]f you place material unsuitable for minors on a web page, even on a password protected section of your site and give the password only to your adult friends, you could be prosecuted under criminal law."


    Is this for real? I thought adult content was the only content on the net that made real money?


    I'm guessing we're not going to be seeing "Genuine Aussie Amatuers" on the net for much longer then. Any Australians out there who can say how likely this bill is to pass? If it happens in one place it could happen in others...

    --
    I don't think I'm very happy. I always fall asleep to the sound of my own screams.
  3. Re:How do the Aussies feel about this? by Pseudonym · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Labor party was in favour of the Online Services Act too. Yes, Senator Alston is still a luddite and still in power, but in reality it didn't matter who won as far as this issue is concerned.

    --
    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});