Censoring Australian Censors' Blacklist

steveroehrs writes: "'Your access to the Web is being censored by the Government -- but it refuses to reveal exactly what it is we are not allowed to see.' Despite the attempts of Electronic Frontiers Australia in obtaining a copy of the Australian Internet black-list, the Australian government is still refusing to release the list to the public. This is in stark contrast to the situation for film classification, where the list is freely available. Article here "

Comments

The government doesn't care

[Goonie]

They're not *really* interested in censoring the net. In fact, I'm sure Richard Alston (the Minister responsible) wishes this stupid legislation would go away. It was rushed through the Senate in a (failed) attempt to impress a whacko Bible-basher independent Senator from Tasmania whose vote the government wanted at the time, and to a lesser extent to impress some of the government's more wowserish backbench and junior ministers.

However, when the government actually looked at implementing the legislation, they realised that all they could practically do was require ISPs to *offer* commercial filtering software, and for those commercial filtering providers to filter stuff that the classification board deemed offensive. It's not like the Great Firewall of China, people.

In practice, everyone's happy. The government is seen to be doing stuff (thus keeping the wowsers happy), the Bloggs family installs the filtering package on their PC, young Joeseph Bloggs gets around the filtering package, and the rest of us keep downloading porn and bomb recipes totally unencumbered by any filtering software at all :)

I agree that an unenforced bad law is still a bad thing, but it's a hell of a lot nicer than an enforced bad law.

appealing to the ignorant voters

[PaganRitual]

great. more 'internet censorship' bull that we australians have had to go thru before. if they arent banning classic games like GTA3, they are dictating that we cant display 'adult' material for other adults on the web, because 'minors' can have access to it. its a standard govt ploy to appeal to the voters thru scare tactics ... "the net is full of evil pornographers and blah blah blah that your children need to be protected from and WE are the people to do it".

for some reason it seems to work well tho (see the basis for the current australian govts recent election win; keeping out illegal immigrants) so im sure it will be a big hit with parents so lacking in parenting skills that instead of thinking that maybe they might possibly need to be the person required to guide their childs internet surfing, they can just sit back and let the govt turn into criminals anyone who wants to display anything the current govt doesnt agree with.

and who can possibly claim to properly be able to regulate what is 'suitable' and what is not? surely not some out-of-touch politicians. it all comes down to a point of view thing. i am tired of being told what to do and what to look at and what i can buy based on rules that are applicable only to 'minors' (i am 24). is there some way of getting a transfer to another planet for people who dont need to be told what to think and what they can look at and what they can do? not that it matters, im sure the site for that particular travel agency is blacklisted as well :)

'This site is intended for people over 18, but only because kids shoot each other if they hear the word "fuck"' (seanbaby.com)

(btw, to all you other aussies out there who missed out on GTA3, order it from a UK games site, mine only took 7 days to get here, and it all up cost about the same as it would have to get it from here. but im sure you all knew that anyway)