Slashdot Mirror
Australia Wants to Regulate Internet Streaming
Paul writes "After an incident that occurred on a popular television show's internet stream, the Australian government has once again demonstrated that it simply does not understand the internet by indicating that they intend to regulate streaming video. I wonder what these geniuses plan on doing with porn streamed from Europe?"
...the write up here is awfully vague. The incident it refers to happened on Big Brother Australia - one of the guys in the house held a girl down while the other rubbed his penis on her face. Both are now facing charges.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
What a terrible article to link on the issue. It has next to nothing to say about any kind of regulation of online content other than that content broadcast live online is not covered by current laws. It seems quite sensible to bring this in line with other laws governing online content - it's what those other laws are which is the sticking point. The relevent federal minister's statement on the events can be found here - a link I found in a good blog post (on the news site linked in the summary) here. I would say that this is a classic case of governmental over-reaction and bumbling misunderstanding, but you can't really tell that from the article linked in the summary. In fact, I would say that the real fallout from it hasn't been seen yet - we'll see what legislation brings.
Knock yourself out! Here is a video of the incident.
Does it go on forever?
"Australian government has once again demonstrated that it simply does not understand the internet by indicating that they intend to regulate streaming video. I wonder what these geniuses plan on doing with porn streamed from Europe?"
k ing.html
This is a poor summary of the situation. It's clear from the article that the government's intention is the review regualtion, not necessarily (as the poster snidely suggests) to impose regulation on porn streamed from Europe. The outcome of such a review could reasonably be that material streamed from within Australia should meet certain guidelines. While this doesn't prevent trash coming from overseas sources, it does ensure that broadcasts where responsiibility lies within Australia meets certain standards. This is typically what governments seek to do, and would lead towards consistency with other broadcasting formats for shows which have a large, youthful viewership such as Big Brother.
About eight years ago the government did show naivity on internet regulation by passing measures that were unworkable and which were panned within the IT community and within sections of the Liberal party itself. However, the current minister has cleaned things up a lot. Her approach to internet regulation has been to encourage education of parents and availability of client-side filtering - which is exactly the approach that I'd expect most of the slashdot readership would endorse.
Notice that of all the players with something to say in this article the government is the most restrained - calling for a review but not going overboard with censorship demands. In fact, it has been the federal opposition in recent times which has called for ridiculous measures while the government has been realistic in its approach, even by the reasonable (but in earlier times typically conflicting) standards of Electronic Frontiers Australia. See http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/mandatorybloc
Slashdot editors - panning Australians for our bad internet regulation system may once have been fitting. However, it would be nice if you could review things a bit more carefully based on the evidence rather than knee-jerks to posts making grand claims about Australian policy. It's annoying to see my country being portrayed as stoneage based on bad evidence. This snide post is not a story and it shouldn't have been put through.
Believe with me, my saplings.
There was no complaint made by the female housemate in question. Whether or not it was acceptable or not we do not know (that's between the housemates themselves).
However, the "crazy bitch" in question is not the housemate who was "assaulted" (she claims it was all in fun - big brother stepped in without her complaining) - i believe the GP post is referring to our Communications minister, Helen Coonan... she "didn't get her way" in "getting the show off the air"...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
No, we're not all like John Howard, but the majority of us are. We, Australia, elected him to represent us
Ok i am not an electoral expert but with our preferential system it is very possible to have a *party* that less than half voted for as a first preference. Only because we *have* to put them down somewhere did they end up with more than half the votes. (ie on my card i probably put the major parties last and second last - 8 and 9 if i remember-, who i really wanted doesnt really matter)
On a second note, noone actually voted for John Howard. He is a figure head of the party we voted for. The PM is not elected like the president of the USA, but by his mates in the party, once again on a similar system that could have a person that is not half of everyones 1st choice (and is corrupted by being an open system with lots of deals being made).
Come on be fair :-)
we have first past the post electoral system here, that's been gerrymandered pretty well.
So really only 5mil of those people elected the wrong leader.
The rest are too young, shuffled into strangely shaped electorates, or just voted down the page.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
The government is just trying to stop the TV stations from exploiting loopholes in the legislation. Capital 10 (one of the Big Five stations in Australia) broadcast some sexually explicit material live through their website. Apparently that's legal because it wasn't broadcast over the television band. The government reckons that's a copout and I agree.
Now bear in mind that Australia has some very relaxed rules for sexual content on TV. The stations are allowed to broadcast sexual intercourse, full frontal nudity, and even fetishes. One of the stations SBS is sometimes called "Sex Before Soccer" because they'd frequently schedule something blue from Europe before the live soccer broadcasts. The stations just have to show that content at certain times and put an appropriate disclaimer at the start of the show. There is censorship but it's very mild (eg, no penetration unless it's educational).
In this case, Capital 10 stepped over the line and was enabling children to view filthy content via the Internet. The dominant audience for Big Brother is the 12-14 year old teen market. Do you think it's appropriate for young teens to see a bunch of dimwitted Big Brother contestants teabagging a female contestant who was being held down against her will? I don't.
I think the government is doing the right thing here. Personally I wish they'd say "we're backdating this new legislation and slapping you with a big fine for being jerks". I'd support any bending of the law necessary to force Big Brother off the airwaves.
If we don't have a First past the post system then what do you call it?
;)
Preferential voting in the lower house. First past the post is where the person with the most number of votes (even if less than 50%) wins. And it's different again in the upper house.
... the US plans to do - something that doesn't reflect reality.
People try and fit things they do not understand into things they do. We all do it, many times with things called "analogies". I know some of the better description I had of networking revolved around analogies to roads - I had enough knowledge to know where those analogies failed. In this case regulation has always worked - why not now? After all it's just broadcasting and lines within thier control.
Unless you can frame it how they understand it (and in a way they care about, for example if cost is irrelevant then saying it's cheaper will persuade none) you are wasting breath/bandwidth/time.
This will continue to happen for some time. As the population that is comfortable with current technology comes into power it will recede. But then, there were be something new out there that gets the same treatment. It always has and it always will.
It's a fact of life. If you want to affect change you have to accept it and work within those strictures (that doesn't mean not try and change it, just accept it happens and work from there).
Accept what you can not change, strive to change what you can.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
If we don't have a First past the post system then what do you call it?
The Commonwealth House of Representatives (Lower House) uses Preferential Voting, with full transfer of preferences.
The Commonwealth Senate (Upper House) uses Proportional Representation (Single Transferable Vote), with group ticket voting ("above-the-line" voting.)
See page 24 of this document for the systems used for state elections.