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Australian Censorship Legislation
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."
I hate to say this, but it almost sounds like someone's been in the outback a bit too long. I am waiting to see someone try to do the same as the French have done in the Yahoo case.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
We just had a national vote, and unfortunately, the wrong people won (IMHO). Yes thats right the infamous sen. Alston is still in parliment. This really worries me, polititions are going on at the moment about the issue with refugees affecting our national image. What about something like this? It just proves there are too many people making decisions about things they dont understand.
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Just because life sucks, it doesnt mean you have to care.
Danny, what should people outside NSW do? Presumably writing to someone else's local member probably wouldn't make a difference.
Should I see my (Victorian) MP now or wait for legislation to be introduced here?
I guess I could write to the NSW Attorney General and thank them for killing the local internet industry in favour of other states...
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This is seriously whacked:
..."adult 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"
So someone could be gien troubole for making Dr King's speeches availible online? Medical sites? Support group sites/discussion boards? News sites? Slashdot troll posts?! What's left to put online?!
I hope they can't use extradition, or have laws like America is passing - set foot on our soil for violaiting our laws and you're under arrest! Oh, and you're not a citizen, so you have no rights! Eek! There go any travel plans I had to go see the Great Barrier Reef.
This might be troll/offtopic, whatever, but while reading this, a very weird and interesting thought struck me...
Why is it neccessary to suit the internet for children needs? Was the internet designed to be used only for children so we have to ban anything that is not children appropriate?
Banning content that is not appropriate for children would be very difficult to police (I'd say impossible, but who am I to know?). Would it be just simpler to ban children using the internet without the aid of the guardian or parent. Sort of shift the whole issue to the other side. I know some countries have a law that states that children can't be on the street at night alone without parent or guardian. And that makes mush more effective and easier than just plainly making streets at night kid-safe.
Just a thought.
Now I can't go to Australia, or I'll be arrested... for using the subject line "Holy fuck".
Before you accuse me of crying wolf, I'd better point out that "Holy fuck" is dangerous not because of the "fuck", but because of the "Holy". "Religious issues" are one of the criteria that the NSW Office of Film and Literature Classification uses to decide what is "adult content".
This is a Bill aimed not just at porn, but at any discussion of adult matters in any forum, even one which tries to exclude children. Here's a non-exhaustive list. I've highlighted one word which I find particularly interesting:
There's a pretty piece of legislation. Post an article suggesting that the legislators are corrupt, and get locked up purely on that basis. Unthinkable? Time will tell.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
So if suicide is an adult theme, then it would have to be illegal to talk about suicide prevention.
So the following site would be illegal in NSW
http://www.reachout.asn.au/home.jsp
Like when the US tries to enforce the DMCA on a certain Russian hacker?
And the U.S. is a republic, and it doesn't stop our elected idiots from pandering to the corporations/special interests/whoever will get them re-elected and then passing stupid laws (DMCA).
The only practical way to insure that the majority of the "people" want a law is to ditch the representative government model and go to one person - one vote and make voting mandatory. And guess what... that isn't practical.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
parenting???? Ok... before I start my rant, I :p. #1: There is an easy way to help
:) I mean, I would
:p.
must say, yes I do have, kids 2 of them. So, I
feel as though I have a right to bitch about these
people
protect our children online.... it's called
watching your kids. To put this very simply, when
I was younger, if my mother thought I was getting
into a situation that might have been unsuitable,
she either, took me out of the situation, or just
supervised very closely. Now I know it might
sound like a lot of work to the F*cking people
that start this stuff, but hey kids aren't easy.
#2: This is just my thought on the whole thing.
I don't think the lawmakers are taking into
consideration the problems involved with all of
this stuff. I mean, once upon a time I knew this
girl, her parents sheltered her life from the time
she was born, meaning no TV that was above a PG13
rating, no dating until she was like 104 or
something like that, no going out with the people
her parents deemed trouble makers, etc... The
funny thing about this story, is this, all of my
other friends that were allowed to do all of this
stuff, got older, got a job, and moved on. This
girl had no idea of how the "real world" was. She
stayed living with her parents, but since she was
legaly allowed to do what she wanted she started
going out and partying every night, where she
would do just about and drug that was around, and
any person that was around for that matter. This
is not the way to "protect" your children.
#3 My opinion as a parent:
Everyone is preaching about protect our children,
keep the internet "safe" for children, blah blah
blah. Now in my opinion, I hate seeing the this
happening, I hate the way they are gutting the
internet and any other form of entertainment.
Personally I hate the fact that my children aren't
going to have the option. I mean, seriously now,
if they are going to cut down on pr0n and all of
that online, I think there should be laws for
parents to better hide their own personal pr0n
collection. (Oh, and to all of you kids reading
this.... check your dads closet.... usually the
highest shelf you can get
rather for my son get online and do his thing to
pr0n then go out when he comes of age and get some
poor girl pregnant.
All I am saying is that the best fight for the
whole protecting our children thing is this:
EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN!!! tell them what's what.
it'll work a lot better than stealing their
rights.
Sorry for the long post, but this kinda shit gets
by boxers in a bundle
L8r
I wouldn't mind seeing the white supremacy racist crap removed from the net.
I find idiots like you offensive, and wouldn't mind seeing you removed from the internet.
People who think they have a right not to be offended are trouble. My point is that if you say it's ok to ban something you find offensive, then it's ok for EVERYBODY ELSE to ask for bans on anything they happen to find offensive.
EVERYTHING offends someone. Every political position(both sides of the abortion issue). Every religion. Science. History(no matter what it says, it's all "revisionist/sexist/racist/etc."). Children's TV (Telletubbies attacked for "promoting homosexuality"), Children's books/movies (have you seen the protesters destroying Harry Potter books because the movie "promotes witchcaft"?)
I think white supremacists are idiots, but protecting everyone's rights means protecting the rights of idiots.
You can't censor bad ideas out of existance. You can only out compete them with good ideas. The best way to fight them is to let people spout their nonsense in public. This will provoke the generation of exactly the ideas/speach you need to defeat it. Banning something only drives it underground and PROTECTS it from competing ideas.
You don't want to protect "white supremacy racist crap" from being exposed and effectively attacked, do you?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
first person that the government decides to make a test case of. If we are lucky, they will be hosting some child porn
No, actually we will be lucky if the first test case is against a respected medical site. We want crap laws like this struck down and exposed as incredibly BAD laws. If the first test case is a childporn site then a judge may go to extreme lengths trying to uphold a bad law in order to attack the childporn. Setting twisted precident in favor of a bad law makes it harder to fight when it is used against a respected medical website.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
According to NSW bill, the potential offender has to second guess how some panel would rate the content in question.
The FCC's decision to fine a radio staion for obscenity is based on the community's reaction after the broadcast. There is no way to find out ahead of time whether you will be fined for broadcasting a particular item.
I think the issue is that fanatical parents, "religious leaders", and legislators are terrified of any potential for evil thought-provoking entities to gain access to the minds of the children. Free speech in any medium is just about as scary to these people as LSD (same basic result - there is the potential that people will stop believing the BS being shoved down their throats).
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?