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Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net
Paul writes "An Australian Senator wants Australians' internet connections to be automatically filtered by ISPs. Anyone who wants to view pornography or 'other adult material' (details not specified) must apply to their ISP to be given access to it. Another step towards becoming a nanny state."
This is a Tasmanian senator. Tasmania is an Island long associated with jokes about incest and redneck stupidity. For you Americans think West Virginia style jokes (except that Tasmania is a very cold place and it's population quite tiny).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
As a term of reference for you delightful residents of the US of A, Tasmania is like the US 'south' (rednecks, interbreeding et al) and the 'Liberal' party isn't actually a liberal party, but a conservative party (similar to your Republican party).
... and the other three were lying about it.
However, this motion/proposal is unlikely to gain legs as Howard (current Australian Prime Minister) would almost certainly leave it as a 'conscience vote' and I sincerely doubt that it will have the popularity to get through the lower house, let alone the upper house.
And, as I understand it, this sort of 'filtering' would be quite difficult to do and the current upper echelons of politicians *and* public servants switched on enough to listen to those who would advise them on the viability of 'filtering'... so false alarm and ignore the political posturing. The guy is (most likely) in a marginal seat and is trying to buy some credit with the local religious conservatives.
"while two in five boys had deliberately used the net to see sexually explicit material"
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
Libraries worldwide have been contending (with varying degrees of failure) with this sort of proposal for years now. In the U.S., many states now require library Internet computers to be filtered; the federal government has also made it a requirement for most of the federal funding available to libraries.
... yeesh.
Because of these restrictions, the library where I work is filtered. We staff have to immediately disable the filter for any adult patron who requests unfiltered access (and we're supposed to, but often, er, forget to) restore the filter as soon as that particular patron's session is over.
You wouldn't believe the idiotic stuff that gets blocked -- innocuous, harmless, completely innocent stuff, right alongside the more questionable. One fellow from out of town couldn't log into his own business's web page with the filter on -- presumably because his first name, which appeared in the URL, began with a "D" and rhymed with "ick".
Meanwhile, the patrons blithely find all the porn and violence and four-letter-word-headphone-breaking rap music they like. They learn very quickly which sites the filter isn't catching, and openly share them with one another.
The staff terminals have the filtering turned off full-time (technically illegally, if I understand correctly). Although library policy says we are only to turn off the filter "as needed", it's dadblasted impossible to do our jobs with it on, so it stays off.
So now these Australian senators want to impose this state of affairs on an entire country
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
I wholeheartedly agree that the only sensible course ofg action is to vote them out of office ASAP. If only!
Just yesterday, the Australian govt. passed two contentious laws - one that basically undoes hundreds of years of hard-won freedoms at a stroke in the name of "anti-terrorism" - you're not even allowed to makes jokes at the govt's expense now - in fact this posting breaks this new law. Free speech has gone. The other contentious law effectively removes hundreds of workers' rights in the name of 'streamlining the economy' and 'remaining competitive'. Basically it gives employers carte blanche to demand what the fuck they like of an employee, and if they don't like it, they can always leave. This is modern 'liberalism' though quite frankly it's a total abuse of that term that the current regime use it to describe themselves.
This situation has come about because the Australian people were duped into voting for a totally unevenly balanced parliament, railroaded into this vote by a series of lies and distortions and scare tactics at the last election. (Don't vote for the other lot, they'll take away your right to SHOP!) The resulting majority means that they can currently pass whatever they like and no-one can really fight it. This is NOT what the Australian people thought they were voting for, as neither of these new laws were part of the election manifesto. Just like the USA, who our Prime Minister appears to be in thrall to, we are sleepwalking into a nightmare of Orwellian proportions.
If they so choose, this porn bill (if it becomes one) could well pass, then they'll worry about implementation later, no matter howe impractical it might actually be. However, in the scheme of things, this is nothing compared to what they've ALREADY done.
I think there is a prevalent belief that it is impossible not to be negatively affected by looking at pornography...
x .asp?PID=606
p hy/prngrphy_ovrvw.html
. html
According to Harris Poll: "No Consensus Among American Public on the Effects of Pornography on Adults or Children or What Government Should Do About It" http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/inde
There was a study done at the University of Hawai`i concerning the effects of pornography: http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornogra
There was another study done at the University of Pennsylvania concerning the effects of pornography: http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/chunter/porn_effects