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Internet Censorship in Australia?
Enaku writes "Right wing Australian Christian political party Family First wants an annual levy of $7 to $10 on all internet users in Australia to fund a $45 million mandatory national internet filtering scheme aimed at blocking pornographic and offensive content at server level. (Read Family First's Policy Statement on Internet Pornography and Children (pdf) ) Great firewall of Australia, here we come!"
Am I the only one to think that there are two contradictions in that sentence? If not, Ausse politics has got to be a confusing system...
Hey Pharmboy, get it now?
From the article:
Family First admitted the cost of the filtering scheme could be prohibitive for small ISPs, but said the scheme should proceed regardless.
We wish to practice futility at the cost of other families' livelihood?
But seriously, is this possible? Is it even legal under current law?
A religous group wants force its delusions on the rest of the world by passing restrictive laws.
All in the name of family and children, of course.
Wait a minute....
How are real leftwings atheists? That's just like saying all Christians are fundamentalist. Just because someone doesn't believe in god/s, doesn't mean they necessarily believe in government-sponsored healthcare and that which makes up leftist ideology.
There is no reason an atheist cannot believe in a small government that likes to promote a large military and whatnot.
Much of politics has little to do with religion at all. Sure, politicians love to speak of God and such to keep most of the electorate happy, but I'm pretty sure that atheists (myself included) look beyond such infantile pleas for votes and look at issues that actually affect their lives instead.
wrong there's an example right here ^
I'd demand a lot more, if only anyone would listen
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
One could argue that pornography is religion for the faithless. A picture of a person engaged in a sexual act is no more erotic than a book telling of the martyrdom of a quixotic rebel is holy
The significance of both are constructs in the mind of the viewer.. to the porn-seeker, the woman in the pic becomes a part-player in his imagination, to the believer, the suffering of Jesus becomes an atonement for our sins and his way becomes a path to enlightenment.
So a fit response to this would be to ban access to all religious sites.......
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I grew up in the days before the Internet. Was I exposed to pornography? Yes. In fact most, if not all, of my contemporaries were exposed to pornography. Where did this pornography come from? Well believe it or not, there was a time when pornographic material came in these things called magazines. That's right - magazines!
What used to happen is that one kid would nick one of these magazines and bring it to school. Everyone else would borrow said magazines (the rest is left as an exercise for the reader).
The interesting point is where these magazines came from. Strangers on the streets? No. Mad pornographers trying to hook impressionable kids on their filthy wares? No. Evil devil worshippers and socialists trying to destroy the fabric of society? No. The magazines were nicked from - you guessed it - parents.
Teenagers and adults have always sought out erotic material. It was magazines in my day, the Internet today. Family First, nor any other right wing party, are not going to be changing that fact of life too soon.
One last thing - if you are Australian and interested in IT related policy issues (mandating open file formats, IT procurement policies, censorship etc) please consider voting for the Australian Democrats - if not for the House of Reps then the Senate. Yes they've taken a pounding, but they remain the only party in Australian politics that are dedicated to ensuring accountability in Government and the only party that has aggresively pursued IT policy. Yes some of the others are trying to jump on board the OSS bandwagon (Greens, ALP etc), however the only party to have looked at these issues seriously, and proposed legislation are the Democrats. When they go - so will an accountable Senate.
I come from a LAN down under
Where the packets flow and routers chunder
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
That's because the liberal party _is_ liberal.
If it's right at all, it's centre right - with labour being centre left.
Also, the Liberal party has allied itself with left wing parties in the past - afterall, in the Liberal / National / Democrat coallition the only truly right wing party is the National Party.
The Democrats are probably the most left mainstream party next to the Greens.
I've never understood why they're part of the Coalition - their extra numbers do more harm than good - just look at the mess they made of GST in a misguided effort to protect those on lower incomes.
Furthermore, Family First do NOT have any politicans in parliament atm. They have a chance of winning one upper house seat in South Australia. That, however, would not be enough to pass such a law. Even if they had the balance of power.
The two moderate-right parties (liberal - in government and labour - in opposition) would never be stupid enough to agree to something like this.
Yes, if Family First ended up holding the balance in the upper house, things would be fucked, but not this fucked.
stuff
People often complain that Howard's new conservative brand of the Liberal Party is pulling this country as far right as the americans.
Well, he can't have been doing such a great job if the Family First party popped up. Ignore the submitter's insistance they're left wing - they're far from it. In fact, their main political rival is the Australian Greens, for their support of gay marriage.
The thought of equity in Australian society scares the shit out of these christian extremists. That's probably why they want to censor the internet now - god help us if a 15 year old sees some porn, it's going to unravel the very fabric of our "christian" society!
Really, and in fact, they could care less about "the children" and more about imposing their views on others.
But hey, lets take this even further, let's also demand everyone wear helmets everywhere they go...walking, biking, driving a car...I mean, it only makes sense to wear helmets because you never know if you'll slip and hit your head...and of course you'll be better protected in a car accident! Let's push for mandatory helmets for everyone everywhere now! Remember Dr. Atkins? He'd be alive today if he were only wearing his helmet!
Give me a break...
George Carlin said it best:
Something else I'm getting tired of in this country is all this stupid talk
I have to listen to about children. That's all you hear about anymore, children: "Help the children, save the children, protect the children." You
know what I say? Fuck the children!
They're getting entirely too much attention. And I know what some of you are thinking: " Jesus, he's not going to attack children, is he?" Yes he is! He's going to attack children. And remember, this is Mr. Conductor talking; I know what I'm talking about.
And I also know that all you boring single dads and working moms, who think you're such fucking heros, aren't gonna like this, but somebody's gotta tell you for your own good: your children are overrated and overvalued, and you've turned them into little cult objects. You have a child fetish, and it's not healthy. And don't give me all that weak shit, "Well, I love my children." Fuck you! Everybody loves their children; it doesn't make you special. : : : John Wayne Gacy loved his children. Yes, he did. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is this constant, mindless yammering in the media, this neurotic fixation that suggests that somehow everything--everything--has to revolve around the lives of children. Ist's completely out of balance.
Listen, there are a couple of things about kids you have to remember. First of all, they're not all cute. In fact, if you look at 'em real close, most of them are rather unpleasant looking. And a lot of them don't smell too good either. The little ones in particular seem to have a kind of urine and sour-milk combination that I don't care for at all. Stay with me on this folks, the sooner you face it the better off your going to be.
Second, premise: not all chidren are smart and clever. Got that? Kids are like any other group of people: a few winners, a whole lot of losers! This country is filled with loser kids who simply...aren't...going anywhere! And there's nothing you can do about it, folks. Nothing! You can't save them all. You can't do it. You gotta let 'em go; you gotta cut 'em loose; you gotta stop over-protecting them, because your making 'em too soft.
Nuff said...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
.. and because of compulsary voting, these loopy twits will remain at the margins of political power, rather than (in some countries) at the center.
In Soviet Amerika the ballot boxes YOU!
Well whatever.. the point is that in most industrialised states we have a separation of "church" and state. This means that enforcing any form of content control beyond what everyone has agreed upon in laws (controlled by a democratic process) will not be possible. The things that worry religious minorities are usually already illegal or under control of some sorts. The fact that controlling these things on the internet has not yet proved effective is no grounds to deviate from a secular, pluralistic and multicultural state. My point is (all cymicism aside) that any minority that wishes to impose it's will over the majority is inherrently antidemocratic in it's actions, and that, in itself, is in most "civilised" states a crime. Thou shalt not hate... This all being said, I really think that it is time for hate and antidemocratic "politics" to be put on the list of crimes against humanity. Anything less would imply a re-definition of humanity as excluding those who are not as the definers. Pax, ut Roma orbit terra ...
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
And what's wrong with attacking any punlic showing of faith? As an atheist I have the right not be forced to view "you showing your faith", do it at home or in a church, there is no need to do it in front of me.
where all religions are banned
I don't want to ban all religions. Just the ones where most of the followers are nutcase biggots (christianity, islam etc). I have nothing against Budhish or Taoism.
even if it would be unharmfull in anyway Prove to me that it would be unhramful. How can being a member of an organistion that promotes sexism and intolerance be unharmful. Again, this applies to messed up religions.
I think the common reaction then was "Be a responsible parent and TURN OFF THE TV!"
Besides, I don't think it affected me negatively in the least.
*strains to hide twitching eyelid*
The postman hits! The postman hits! You have mail.
Family First Party,
I was horrified to read in the news today details of your misguided
policy on instituting a Internet filtering system to block
pornographic and other offensive material on the Internet.
This policy is blatant pandering to lazy parents who wish others to
take the responsibility of properly supervising and raising their
children. I don't deny that pornographic material can be accessed on
the Internet, but having been an active Internet user for many years,
there have been only two occasions where I have accidentally
encountered advertisements for pornographic material. Hardly "easy to
stumble across".
Furthermore, I was flabbergasted at your easy dismissal of the burden
that would be faced by many smaller ISP's and that it doesn't matter
if you drive them out of business, because there "too many of these at
the moment". Never mind that this would negatively impact hundreds or
thousands of families (who I thought you were about putting "first"?).
It could perhaps be argued that Australia has too many political
parties, and that "competition could be maintained" with a lesser
number (like Family First, for example).
You quote figures that 73% of boys and 11% of girls have watched
X-Rated videos, but only 38% and 2% have deliberately sought out sites
on the Internet. So, according to these figures, MORE teenagers have
seen an X-rated video than have sought out Internet pornography.
Surely then your policy should be addressing the alarming numbers of
teenagers viewing these pornographic videos! Or then again, it's
quite possible that teenagers will view pornography any way they can.
You also note that poor uptake of end user filtering. Were there
reasons for this poor uptake? If it's lack of knowledge of the option
then you should perhaps be concentrating on educating the public to
use an existing system.
The policy also states we "acknowledge the need to regulate other
media". Regulation and censorship are two completely different things
- at least with regulation adults can still access legal pornography.
I dislike censorship; because you do not want "the" children to see
pornography does not make it right for you to restrict adults from
this. If parents do not want their children to access pornography,
they can take the appropriate steps. I do not believe it is the right
policy to inflict your censorship on everyone in Australia, whilst
increasing their tax burden (on those poor families again!)
If you are determined to provide an Internet without pornographic and
offensive material, an alternative, cheaper and far more preferable
solution would be for you to either set up, or arrange to set up, your
own ISP. Families would be free to use your ISP, knowing that their
Internet access it is filtered at ISP level, and the rest of us can
use the Internet free of your odious attempts at censorship.
Yours faithfully
I totally agree that an XXX domain would be a nice idea. However, some government agency would be forced to interpret which content should go under the domain, or put another way, decide which content is pornographic. In other words, we'd be in the same boat now.
Some judge somewhere would determine that Maximonline.com should be in the XXX domain. Some other judge might even determine that www.theonion.com should be under the XXX domain. I've seen penises there.
The best approach is to simply put some responsibility on the user. If you don't like porn, don't visit porn sites. If you're tricked into viewing a porn site, simply close your browser.
If you're worried about your kids viewing porn on line, simply be with them when they are surfing. I know that's hard, because I do it with mine. But you'd never consider leaving your kids alone in a city, so why leave them alone on the web?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
>> This is a disturbing trend i've seen lately - in everything from books, magazines, TV shows, to the Internet. Some people seems to be convinced it's better to ban everything questionable / politically incorrect instead of acknowgleding responsability as a parent and keeping your kids from seeing stuff you don't want them exposed to.
.xxx extention any the website address offering explicit material. That would go a long way in at least allowing easy management and oversight of what is being accessed on computers. Its just way too easy now, and any reasonably computer-savvy 10 year old often know a lot more about their computers than their parents, who basically use them to check their emails and cnn.com once every two days.
Another disturbing trend I've seen lately is sex everywhere, and I mean bloody well everywhere. In books, magazines, TV shows and especially the internet, people (including children) are being absolutely bombarded with sex. For me its not a matter of censorship as much as it is making this kind of content available to adults only. Remember those days, when explicit shows and other content were really Adults Only? More or less, anyway, we all found the odd porno stashed away in our uncles drawer or snuck out of bed at 2am to see a flash of tit, but at that time, the whole thing wasn't so In Your Face as it is now. Meanwhile, 12 year old girls are comparing their thongs while their 12 year old male counterparts simply type any one of hundreds of words into a search engine to get access to literally limitless hardcore porn!
Obviously the solution of this Australian right wing party is unworkable, but the current situation needs regulation of some sort, something like requiring a
Society is oversexed enough as it is. Lets let the words 'restricted' and 'adults only' mean exactly that.
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
Christianity will "get off its cross" when the world stops putting it back up there.
Whatever.
Nobody but yourself is putting you on a cross.
So they started calling what some people called "Christmas vacation" "Winter Vacation".
Big fucking deal.
In the first place, it was called "Winter Solstice" long before Christianity coopted it.
In the second place, it has not a god damned thing to do with your religion because all the evidence points to Jesus (if he ever existed which there is very little evidence for) being born in the summer.
So get off your pity potty because what you stole was given back to everybody.
Tough shit you whiny little bitch.
Further, why should we force the many good Americans who don't buy into your religion to put up with having your particular world view shoved down our throats?
Given Christianity's brutal murderous history regarding anybody who doesn't agree exactly with whatever particular magalomaniac is in charge of the main local branch, how fucking psychotic would you have to be to think for one instant that shoving that in people's faces is in the least consistent with basic human decency?
So in conclusion, nobody gives a flying fuck what the particular details of your personal invisible friend are. Believe whatever the hell you want, but keep it to yourself and out of my face and I will return the favor.
I'm terrified by the prospect of religious extremists gaining a balance of power in the Australian senate. These guys are never going to rule the country, but they could end up being in a position where the Government has to deal with them in order to get their legislation through the upper house.
The current censorship/ratings/whatever mess that exists in Australia now was introduced to appease Brian Harradine, a senator who held such a balance of power in the senate a few years ago. The Government did it so he'd pass their telecommunications privatisation legislation.
These guys would be worse.
To be honest, I didn't think I was being as clever as some of those who replied and modded me up.. I even wondered if I'd get flamebaited down to -1.
Its just a counterpoint to their argument that porn is a direct cause of undesirable behaviour. I would say, like religion, that the effects on the individual stem more from the workings of their mind, and as a result their personality, than from the material itself.
Religion has created monsters as well as martyrs, while in societies where clothing isn't habitually worn sexual deviancy doesn't seem to be any more common than in our straight-laced Westernised societies.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
As a Muslim from an Arab country, I am sort of glad to see this come out from a liberal Western democracy.
All the time, the media in the West portrays Islam and Muslims as the proponents of oppressivness, backwardness, literalism, religious zealotry, intolerance, ..etc.
This shows that extremist thought can happen ANYWHERE, at ANYTIME, within ANY RELIGION.
We have seen Harry Potter books burned in the USA, and now calls for internet filtering in Australia.
I hope that everyone now stops blaming a certain religion or culture as being always 'bad' or 'extremist' and see that this can happen anywhere. If you add political, social and economic factors, then you get more of that than you do in a place where these factors are less.
First off, is your AirAmerica a response to, or source of, ignorant hatemongering.
It is a response to. The issues discussed on that station have little to nothing to do with the subject at hand though.
Your Comments:"nobody gives a flying fuck what the particular details of your personal invisible friend are"
"how fucking psychotic would you have to be..."
And my personal favorite,"Tough shit you whiny little bitch."
There is nothing the least bit ignorant or even angry about my words.
I will admit that I am a little bit frustrated with the stupid ignorant crap that keeps spewing out of your and some other Christian's mouths.
For example:
Do I really have to argue the defense of christmas? Is it wrong for me to think that Christmas is an OK thing for our society?
I agree completely that celebrating the winter solstice is a great thing. You however, are trying to claim that your religious beliefs which came along far after the celebration was in place and usurped the celebration should be shoved down my throat.
You are more than welcome to think whatever you want as I have been saying. Where I have a problem is that you are arguing from the perspective that you are the possessor of ultimate truth. Given that, you are incapable of realising that a lot of people think your beliefs are very silly, and to some extent downright insane.
Now, would you be ok with the government putting plaques in courtrooms saying "There is no god only a moron would believe that"?
Of course not.
You however, think it isn't just your right to shove your viewpoint down my throat, but that you are being oppressed if you are not allowed to.
When you say you'll return the favor of keeping beliefs to yourself, does that mean that there will be no more pushing the big bang as fact and let there be a scientific debate?
There is lots of scientific debate about this. You seem to be suffering from the delusion that "Creationist Science" is actually science. It isn't
It has put forward a number of extremely dubious claims which have been entirely refuted. When people, like yourself as you did in a later post, repeat the same old claims about entropy and conservation of energy, it merely demonstrates that you know absolutely nothing at all about science.
Further it demonstrates that you have no interest at all in informing your self.
You repeat idiotic lies (they are idiotic at this point having proven false on so many occasions) when you have no idea whether there is any truth to them or not, and expect to be taken seriously?
Does that mean that those who believe homosexuality is a sin will be refered to as "those who have a religious belief" and not "bigoted homophobes"
Of course not.
I don't care what causes you to be a bigotted prick.
It could be because of a book, what your parents taught you, or because you want to be one and are scared.
I don't know, nor do I care in the least.
You claim to believe in some supreme being who created everything in the universe, yet fail to demonstrate the most basic ability to think it through. If what you believe is true, then god made homosexuality, and he made homosexuals exactly the way they are for whatever reasons he has.
By your ignorant bigotry, you are saying flat out that you know god's business better than he does.
Now before you point to the bible as proof that he wants you to hate them, read the rest of the chapter and make a feeble attempt to reconcile that with reality.
Also consider that was the "old" god.
There is a new and improved one that Christians are supposed to believe in.
or perhaps you just want Christians to shut up and not have thier voice heard in society.
They are welcome to have their voices heard in society.
They are not welcome to shove their religious beliefs into our laws, or into my bedroom or into anywhere else for that matter.
Im sure you ha
Because spoiled brats turn atheism into a religion to spite their parents. There are some who just don't believe in a god, but there are many who actively try to believe against a god.
:)
If a giant hand came from the heavens and said "Hi! I'm God!", we'd find out in a hurry where the distinction was, because only one of the two groups has any attachment to the opinion of atheism.
It's been a long time.