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."

Comments

That's Incredible...

[Meffan]

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...