Australia Plans to Censor the Internet

SenatorLuddite writes "From January 20, 2008 new content laws introduced by the Federal Government will force sites to verify the age of users before accessing content intended for mature audiences (MA15+ and R18+). The laws bring internet classification into line with Film and Book classification laws and completely prohibits X18+ and RC content from the internet. ACMA (The Australian Communications and Media Authority) claims that adults will not be affected by the new laws, yet user-generated and even chatrooms are required to be assessed for classification and powers are granted to ACMA to send 'take down' notices to offending sites."

Comments

Time to invest into DPI vendor stocks

[arivanov]

Time to invest some money into DPI and cache vendor stocks. Pity that most of them are either private or diluted by humongous conglomerates like cisco. It is also DPI and cache, not content control. Most of content control is geared towards the corporate police, not ISPs so it is not what is going to be deployed down under.

More bits traversing the Pacific

[mbone]

Oh, I can see that this will work out well.

My guess is that a lot of small operators won't be able to comply, and that a lot of traffic will move offshore if this is really implemented. This law could take us back to the good old days, when almost Aussie web traffic went across the Pacific.

Re:More bits traversing the Pacific

[Dan541]

Oh, I can see that this will work out well.

My guess is that a lot of small operators won't be able to comply, and that a lot of traffic will move offshore if this is really implemented. This law could take us back to the good old days, when almost Aussie web traffic went across the Pacific. As an Australian resident I wouldent even consider hosting my website within Australia its just to expensive.

This is just another reason for my sites to remain in the United States.

~Dan

Re:More bits traversing the Pacific

[Cyserox]

this better not mean no more porn for under 18 year olds lol.

Re:More bits traversing the Pacific

[Cally]

One way: in 5-10 years' time, some damn good hackers will come out of Australia. (Assuming it takes some effort to work around and becomes a whack-a-mole arms race thing...)

I have a better idea

[skinfitz]

Ban children from the Internets. By all means build a kindernet and police an regulate it to fuck, but leave the adult net alone.

Re:I have a better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Ban children from the Internet I guarantee that if you do that, you'll cut trolling by 45%, at least. And think of how much better online games with voice communication would be! No more excessive profanity to make up for lack of maturity.

Re:I have a better idea

[Tom]

The problem being, of course, that the "kindernet" will be of zero interest to exactly the kids this legislation wants to "protect".

Very small kids aren't interested in sex. It means nothing to them. At the age where kids start to get interested in sex, there's maybe one thing that rivals that desire: Doing whatever the adults are doing. Those 12 and 14 year olds won't stay in their "kindernet". They will get on the (adult) Internet, if only because that's what the adults are doing.

I mean, really, can you imagine a better invitation to come in and look around than a "you must be 18 years old to view this page. click below to indicate that you are that old, kids must go elsewhere" boilerplate? No matter if it takes the form of the current porn website front pages or some legislation. Kids will find a way past.

Re:I have a better idea

[skinfitz]

Yes but if you control the kindernet, you could introduce concepts such as sex in a tasteful, sensible & perhaps even educational fashion. After all, they wont know any different.

Re:I have a better idea

[Teun]

Yes but if you control the kindernet, you could introduce concepts such as sex in a tasteful, sensible & perhaps even educational fashion. After all, they wont know any different. Yeah right, your nick is skinfitz so you must believe what you just excreted.

I hope you tried to be funny.

Re:I have a better idea

[Kadin2048]

Yes but if you control the kindernet, you could introduce concepts such as sex in a tasteful, sensible & perhaps even educational fashion. After all, they wont know any different. What a strange world you must come from. Here on Earth, at least in the United States of America, we prefer to teach our children about sexuality and reproduction by keeping them in the dark as long as possible, then lying through our teeth to them, and then letting them learn about it via the always-accurate medium of hardcore pornography. (Although the Catholic Church does offer some 'hands-on' advanced placement courses...they're quite the forward-thinking bunch there.)

But that's not the best part; just wait until you hear about our drug policy!

Re:I have a better idea

[lordofwhee]

What the hell kind of world do YOU live in?

Re:I have a better idea

[kypper]

[W]e prefer to teach our children about sexuality and reproduction by keeping them in the dark as long as possible, then lying through our teeth to them, and then letting them learn about it via the always-accurate medium of hardcore pornography.

You mean, you don't whack-a-mole the face after you're finished? *shocked*

Seriously though, that's due to our religious association. Major religious institutions figured out long ago that the control of sex was a wonderful way to keep everyone feeling guilty, hence returning to the church for 'salvation'. Because this is all indoctrinated at such an early age, it continues to persist in society. Abstinence teaching is one of the fastest ways to get your child pregnant. What happens when the parents find out? Guilt! Lather, rinse, repeat.

Re:I have a better idea

[trnet]

Very, very funny (& true)

Re:I have a better idea

[ChrisMP1]

Sure that would have some benefits, but that's just being a jerk to a whole group to eliminate a few dumbasses within it.

Re:I have a better idea

[Eli Gottlieb]

Actually, American kids don't learn about sex from hard-core pornography. They learn about it from fooling around with other un/mis-informed children while drunk. This explains some of the otherwise peculiar sexual mores among young people.

Re:I have a better idea

[san]

I salute you, skinfitz, with one of the better neologisms of 2007: 'kindernet'.

It's beautiful.

And I wish it were feasible.

Re:I have a better idea

[Tom]

Yes but if you control the kindernet, you could introduce concepts such as sex in a tasteful, sensible & perhaps even educational fashion. After all, they wont know any different. The conservatives and xian right-wing would literally kill you for that. They have two core beliefs that everything else rests upon: 1.) There is a god, 2.) Sex is something awful.

Re:I have a better idea

[Luscious868]

Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle. Be a fucking parent and watch what you're children do when they use the computer. I'm sick and fucking tired of all these things done "for the children". If parents did their jobs, most of these things wouldn't be issues in the first place.

Re:I have a better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

This approach is working so well they've decided to use it for Driver's Education as well. Prior to the age of 16, all students will receive 48 hours of classroom instruction focusing on the benefits of not driving. Bicycling, deciphering bus and train schedules, even hailing a cab - all are covered, but actual driving isn't discussed since that would lead to students wanting to drive. Once they reach 16, they're handed some keys and they're on their own.

Awful

[Odiumjunkie]

TFA is terrible. What is X18+ and RC+ content? How is it possible that this content is prohibited, yet "adults won't be affected"? Does the new legislation cover just commercial content? Does the legislation only cover content hosted in Australia?

I'm completely confused.

Re:Awful

[SirLurksAlot]

TFA is terrible. What is X18+ and RC+ content?

I'm sure the article is fine in an Australian context (the site does have a .au domain). How many people outside of the US know what PG13, NC17, etc, are? However, for your curiosity.... I find it highly unlikely that this would cover content outside of Australia, and exactly how would they enforce it even if it did?

Re:Awful

[gonebursar]

It would very likely cover content outside of Australia. This ties directly into Labour policy that will make ISPs provide a 'clean feed' that is opt-out rather than opt-in. ISPs will be required to blacklist and filter out sites containing material that is X18+ or Refused Classification, no matter where it is hosted. Our classification system is rather onerous, which means that a lot of stuff will be blocked that's seen as perfectly acceptable in, say, the US or UK.

Can't verify shit about Internet users

[c0d3h4x0r]

An internet service (web site, chat room, etc) cannot possibly be expected to accurately determine anything about an internet user. Even credit card verification doesn't work, since any kid can borrow their parents' credit card and any identity thief can supply someone else's stolen credit card information.

I hate seeing any kind of law that burdens internet services with having to "verify" anything. Instead, what I want to see are laws that throw irresponsible parents and conservative holier-than-thou types in prison for dragging the rest of society down.

Your 13-year-old daughter was raped when she met up in real life with a 40 year old man from MySpace? Then you should be thrown in prison for not making yourself aware of what your daughter was doing online and for failing to teach your daughter to be smarter than that.

Your 14 year old son was looking at porn? So what? Neither YOU nor anyone you knew ever looked at porn when YOU were 14? And every man who snuck looks at boobies and crotches when he was a teen has grown up to be some kind of dysfunctional degenerate psychopath? Hardly. Get off your conservative high horse.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Anonymous Coward]

It's shame. You don't have to be Freud to see the ways in which pent up guilt and self revulsion pours out of the ruling classes. It's an expression of their own inadequacy to defeat their inner greed, blood lust and worship of war and horror. The nanny state "good parent" is a psychopathic alter ego that hopes to be loved despite its abusive ugliness. Most of the political class are wobbling on the brink of a mental abyss, desperately trying to reconcile their self image as socially responsible leader figures with the dark truth they know in their hearts. The only outlet for such deep seated conflict is sexual repression of themselves and others.

Ask any psychologist about the link between Nazism and sexuality if you want to understand the pathology of the authoratarian mind.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Deb-fanboy]

I agree.

It is the responsibility of the parents to be aware of what their kids are up to.

However there is one factor which makes this responsibility harder. And that is the mono ecosystem that is Windows

A couple of years ago, when broadband first arrived in our area every Windows user I knew had told me that they had at some time received pr0n pop ups, or even desktop shortcuts to dubious sites arrive on their computers. Any 14 year old boy would be bound to investigate of course, what would you or I have done at that age?

People were surprised when I told them that I had not had the same thing happen on my family Linux box, in fact not a sniff of any unwanted malware. There was the impression around that the occasional unwanted malware was just "because of broadband".

Now I don't think that there was any harm done as these windows users struggled to control their popups, mainly just embarrassment. However you could interpret Windows as having been a funnel for malware which could "corrupt minors".

So why don't those ultra conservatives all hire themselves some buses to Redmond and protest outside the manufacture of the operating system which peddles the pr0n, and leave us our internet (which works fine as it is)?

It would be a most amusing spectacle

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[tinkerghost]

Even credit card verification doesn't work, since any kid can borrow their parents' credit card and any identity thief can supply someone else's stolen credit card information.

My favorite was a website requesting CC# for verification purposes. Right next to the entry field was a link to a CC# generator website. To me that was the ultimate example of the futility of the proposed US legislation. Without requiring every website that hosts adult content have a CC processing account, there is no way to even validate that the CC# is actually tied to an account. You can check if it's potentially valid, but not if it's actually valid without trying to process the card.

All forms of 'validation' are pretty much pointless when it comes to this. Unless they can figure out how to do a national authorization database with 2 factor authentication and anonymization , this is pointless. Here in the US, it was too much effort to do 2 factor for the BANKS, can you imagine trying to get everyone set up for this?

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[syncrotic]

In a conversation about personal responsibility and internet use, you've managed to find a way to express your derision for Microsoft Windows. Sure, you have a point, but is it really a point worth making? Is it related to the topic at hand in anything but the most tangential manner?

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Stan,

I'm nearly 50 myself, and I'm here to tell you that you are totally full of crap.

How do you rigorously define "pornography" in the context of adolescent males jerking off to swimsuit calendars, the lingerie section of the Sears & Roebuck catalogue, and the occasional newspaper photo of high-kicking high-school cheerleaders from the previous evening's football game? None of those things were especially difficult to find in the small, fairly conservative Midwestern town I lived in when I was 14.

And it wasn't that hard to cop a Playboy, Penthouse, or Hustler from somebody's uncle if you really wanted one, for that matter.

Guess what? People like sex, and like thinking about it, talking about it, or looking at it when they can't get it. Some people can't admit this to themselves and so try to make life miserable for everyone else.

So don't waste my time with any claim that "things were different in the good old days", because I was there, too, and I can see that they were not. 'Net or no 'Net, nothing substantial with regard to human nature has changed in at least a hundred millenia.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Deb-fanboy]

In a conversation about personal responsibility and internet use, you've managed to find a way to express your derision for Microsoft Windows. Derision as in jeering laughter? Towards Microsoft. Not my intention. If that is what you perceive then you have not understood me, or I haven't expressed myself clearly. So I will expand on this.

I reported what I have found, which is that those in my community running windows had malware problems, whilst running Linux there were no such problems. Ok that does not make windows look good, but it is what happened.

Sure, you have a point

thanks

but is it really a point worth making

Ah .. good question. My point is that microsoft windows because of some limitations, and how it was implemented by normal non IT literate people was taking certain aspects of the internet to these users, so that it would not just be a user looking for these sites, but the sites being able to present themselves unbidden to them.

That is a point worth making because, rather than saying kids are stumbling onto sites which the "ultra conservatives" are concerned about, I am saying that often it is the operating system bringing the sites to them. In which case the "ultra conservatives" rather than expending all their energy on reigning in the internet, which I feel is ridicules, would have by the logic followed above a good reason to also protest at microsoft. I was rather hoping that the idea of buses full of these protesters going to Redmond would seem ridicules. I suppose being British I am rather fond of irony.

Is it related to the topic at hand

I hope that I have shown that it is.

As a footnote, since the majority of Pr0n sites run on Linux and Apache, as soon as the conservatives have finished with Redmond they should proceed to Trolltech.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Anonymous Coward]

You can check if it's potentially valid, but not if it's actually valid without trying to process the card. By the way, this costs money. And if you're getting hit by some douchebags trying to find valid card numbers, it can cost a lot of money.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[jazir1979]

Why don't they? Because they're too stupid to know any better, let alone blame Redmond for it.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Quiet_Desperation]

Neither YOU nor anyone you knew ever looked at porn when YOU were 14?

You must be young. There was a time when getting ones hands on quality porn was not easy for a kid. Some days it was just National Geographics and the underwear section of the Sears catalog. :-(

However, this frustration probably led to the gestation of the video game industry. :)

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[gronofer]

An internet service (web site, chat room, etc) cannot possibly be expected to accurately determine anything about an internet user. Even credit card verification doesn't work, since any kid can borrow their parents' credit card and any identity thief can supply someone else's stolen credit card information.

I'd say it's even worse than that. Any ID that provides age verification is also likely to be useful for the scam/phishing websites. What confidence would you have, when surfing to a random porn site, that uploading a photo of your driver's licence or passport is a good idea?

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Sergeant Pepper]

I,m 50 and there wasn't an internet when i was 14. We had book and magazine stores which kept the playboy magazines in a brown paper wrapper behind the counter. Pornography was very hard to find and we certainly couldn't buy any. it was pops or the uncles stash we found, but at that age i wasn't really interested in porn,it was way easier to get a real girlfriend then porn when i was growing up.

We played sports,built plastic models,went fishing by myself or with friends,we all went to the high school football games every Friday nite. Didn't have to worry about drive byes and never herd about adults snatching kids,though i am sure it happened but no where near as much as today.

How the times have changed The good old days weren't always good, tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems - Billy Joel

Just because you didn't have porn and drive-bys when you were young doesn't mean other people didn't. My uncle (49) very much had to fear drive-bys when he was a kid... and my grandparents recently found a stash of porn from when he was a kid in his childhood room.

I, on the other hand (18), do NOT worry about drive-bys.

It has more to do with where grew up than with the time period. People in various areas have always done stupid stuff. To say otherwise, to say that people today are more "corrupt" than when you were young, is pure ignorance.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Sergeant Pepper]

You must be young. There was a time when getting ones hands on quality porn was not easy for a kid. Must have been more than 50 years ago... At least as far back as 40 years ago it was easy.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Eli Gottlieb]

it was way easier to get a real girlfriend then porn when i was growing up. You know, I think that may have something to do with the prevalence of pornography! I don't mean the ability to obtain porn in comparison to a real girlfriend, rather I mean the difficulty of obtaining a real girlfriend now to a real girlfriend when you were 14.

So leave us young-uns to our bitter virginity, please, we've no need to hear your smug ranting.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Anonymous Coward]

An internet service [...] cannot possibly be expected to accurately determine anything about an internet user.

On the Internet, no one knows you're a Canadian, eh?

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[tinkerghost]

By the way, this costs money. And if you're getting hit by some douchebags trying to find valid card numbers, it can cost a lot of money.

You can check if the card number is potentially valid - there are a bunch of routines available to do so. Validating the card against the clearinghouse system does cost money - some processors charge as much as $.25 per request. What's even dumber is that anyone can get an ATM card with the Visa logo on it & then it validates.

Re:Can't verify shit about Internet users

[Stan92057]

I grew up i a town 2 miles from Phila,it was more the criminals killing each other "the Mob" not innocent kids like today,Your cowardly spray and pray criminals. and i didn't say there wasn't porn,it was far harder to get. He probably got it from his dad or uncles or the trash.Today,just flick a switch and there it is.

And like it or not the facts speak for themselves,not just what i say.People today are far more corrupt then in my youth. There are far more children committing crimes with guns today then when i was 14, its a fact.Its a fact that today there are far more fat kids then in my youth,its a fact.Its a fact that there is less respect for other people today. So in retrospect it is you that is ignorant of the facts. I live in the same town today as when i was 14,Ive seen it get worse with my own eyes,and that my friend is a fact.

Is it really a bad thing?

[cumin]

First note that this applies only to new services and only to live services.

It doesn't bother me that there is a movement to classify content and restrict mature content to mature audiences. The article was scanty on how the age verification would be done, but honestly, I have a hard time thinking that trying to restrict content online in the same way our (US here) system restricts printed material is really a bad thing. It does not say that the providers cannot provide content, it just says that they must limit access, the same as access to other things is restricted. Here we limit access to voting, access to tobacco, access to alcohol and of course 'adult' media already. This seems like a rational step in the same direction for Internet media.

Of course I expect to be told I'm wrong, I'm just curious to hear why.

Re:Is it really a bad thing?

[Butisol]

You dumb fuck. Get the fuck of the internet.

Re:Is it really a bad thing?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Of course I expect to be told I'm wrong, I'm just curious to hear why.

You're wrong because it's different. With printed material, alcohol, tobacco...you can 'prove' age at point of sale.
On the Internet, not so much.

Re:Is it really a bad thing?

[Kadin2048]

Of course I expect to be told I'm wrong, I'm just curious to hear why.

You answered your own question several sentences earlier:

The article was scanty on how the age verification would be done... Setting aside the issue of whether it's the government's legitimate purpose and responsibility to limit access to these sorts of materials in the first place (and I don't think that it is -- that's definitely the parents' job, and I don't think that the government should be falling over itself to "help" parents, but that sort of stupidity is endemic to all democracies), it's idiotic to try and implement age limits when there's no effective way to determine age.

Re:Is it really a bad thing?

[Devoidoid]

Seems to me "the fuck of the internet" is exactly what they're trying to ban.

Re:Is it really a bad thing?

[flyingfsck]

"only to live services"

So necromancer sites will not be regulated?

Re:Is it really a bad thing?

[QCompson]

Of course I expect to be told I'm wrong, I'm just curious to hear why.

It's because accurate age verification is nearly impossible to implement on the internet without dramatically changing the way the internet, as we know it, works today. Necessitating identification of casual internet users would eliminate many of the user-generated sites and content on the internet, because they would be unable to comply with stringent age-verification rules. What has allowed the internet to blossom is the (perceived) anonymity. While you could argue the lionshare of those user-generated sites eliminated would be adult-themed (not just porn but profanity, violence, etc.), it's irrelevant, because those are the sites that are in demand.

If this was implemented on a wider scale, it would be the end of the internet as a medium for free exchange of communication, and turn into a corporate-dominated shell of what it once was. It would become cable-tv. All that's needed to change internet into a cable-tv like service is a foot in the door; once you accept various regulations and restrictions on content, legislation will come pouring through.

Make no mistake. Proponents of this type of legislation have no real interest in protecting children. They want to change the internet, and eliminate the access to pornography and uncensored communication. It is the righteous few attempting to force their views on the vast majority of the population.

It's for your own good

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, all references to to alcoholic beverages must be replaced by references to officially registered Australian beers or wines. All references to summer must be changed to winter, and vice versa. And all clips on Youtube that portray Australia in a negative light will be redacted, unless you have registered with the Ministry of Cultural Impurity and Moral Depravity, in which case you can expect a visit from the authorities. In the middle of the night.

The ACMA should learn to proofread its claims

[Jeremy Erwin]

The ACMA claims

The main elements of the new content regulatory framework in Schedule 7 to the BSA are:
a prohibition on X18+ and RC content;

and also

"In developing these new content rules, ACMA was guided by its disposition to allow adults to continue to read, hear and see what they want, while protecting children from exposure to inappropriate content, regardless of the delivery mechanism," Mr Chapman said in a statement.

what's the primary audience for X18+? Children?

Re:The ACMA should learn to proofread its claims

[ScrewMaster]

what's the primary audience for X18+? Children?

Well, if it's anything like the X rating here in the U.S., I'd say ... yeah, pretty much.

Re:The ACMA should learn to proofread its claims

[cbreaker]

I love the wording, don't you?

"to allow adults to continue to read, hear and see what they want"

Ohh, thanks mister! You're going to ALLOW us to read what we want! Thanks!

Re:The ACMA should learn to proofread its claims

[deniable]

what's the primary audience for X18+? Children?

Our federal government actually. :) The only place that can sell X rated material is the Australian Capitol Territory. (And if you go one suburb over, you can get fire-works too.) Actually, that may have changed, it's not like I've been monitoring the situation.

Yes, American friends, it's like Washington, D.C. being the porn capitol of America. Actually, that might be a good thing, some of your politicians look like they need some relief.

How will this be enforced?

[Pseydtonne]

Neither link provides any detail about how they're going to make such rules stick. What will be the fine for a blogger in Brisbane that talks about goat sodomy?

Also, how would such a crime be prosecuted? Most police work in Australia is state-based and not federal. I'm assuming there is an equivalent to the FBI which will handle detection, evidence collection and prosecution.

Are they going to use packet filtering to detect what people download or will they simply be picking on ISPs hosting content for not hassling their web serving customers?

Honestly, I'm not being sarcastic. I'm just looking at this as a scare tactic without teeth, since the notice from Canberra makes no mention of tactics. Please provide links if you find them.

Re:How will this be enforced?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither link provides any detail about how they're going to make such rules stick. You did not, apparently, note the mention of take down notices in the summary. Dude! Reading comprehension

Re:How will this be enforced?

[Pseydtonne]

Allow me to clarify. What, beyond "we get a tip and then send a nastygram" would happen? Assume, perhaps, that the recipient of said nastygram places it in the memory hole. Then what? Is that the moment three SWAT team dudes burst into the door or is there a fine? What is the scale of enforcement?

I ask this because that will determine how serious the government is about this censorship. Is it on the level of posting a prominently English sign on a shop in Montreal (thereby violating Bill 101), where the Office of the French Language depends on a photograph of the violation which would be the equivalent of dropping a dime?

Re:How will this be enforced?

[1u3hr]

Neither link provides any detail about how they're going to make such rules stick. What will be the fine for a blogger in Brisbane that talks about goat sodomy?

According to TFA, it applies:

tougher rules for companies that sell entertainment-related content on subscription internet sites and mobile phones.

I emphasise the word "sell"; thus your blogger, unless he charges for access, is free to discuss goat sodomy or whatever else they do up in Queensland.

Re:How will this be enforced?

[Pseydtonne]

I wanted to say Townsville or Rockhampton but neither alliterate with "blogger".

Broken Hill! Yeah, goats and blogs in Broken Hill... and hey, it's NSW. Suddenly an entire state is Not Safely Wanking, at least online. Hmmm... nah. Let's keep the goats free.

Re:How will this be enforced?

[the_womble]

And that, together with the fact that the rules target "content providers", not ISPs, mean that most of the Slashdot discussion is irrelevant.

Slashbots, please RTFA before being outraged. It is just the editors trolling you again.

Of course adults will be affected

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have age verification for children, you have to verify EVERYONE. If you have to classify "mature" content, you have to classify EVERYTHING.

It sounds just like the calls for special tamper-proof ID for resident aliens here in the USA which will require that EVERYONE will have to show their papers please.

Re:Of course adults will be affected

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds just like the calls for special tamper-proof ID for resident aliens here in the USA which will require that EVERYONE will have to show their papers please.

Of course EVERYONE won't have to show their papers you silly hippie.

Only brown people and hippies will have to show their papers.

FTFA

[dcollins]

"Personal emails and other private communications would be excluded from the new laws..."

Oh, well, thank god for that. For now.

Re:FTFA

[X-rated Ouroboros]

What if you design a service so most of the traffic can be defined as "private communication"?

Loophole!

Bad moon rising...

[KudyardRipling]

It starts with cleaning up the spectrum and the pipelines. Do we smell appeasement in the war on terror?

This will solve itself...

[MostAwesomeDude]

Just wait until they try to shut down 4chan. The Internet Hate Machine will sort things out.

Re:This will solve itself...

[twoallbeefpatties]

As if anonymous is THAT organized.

But it still begs the question, how does the government expect to deal with internet content that comes in from foreign soil? Beyond that, are they planning to have some kind of task force independently hunting down adult material, or are they expecting concerned consumers to file complaints? Neither the article nor the ACMA website seems to address just how any of this is going to be dealt with.

Re:This will solve itself...

[Donniedarkness]

Was just thinking the same thing.

Fox "News" will have a fucking field day with this.... LuL.

Re:This will solve itself...

[Donniedarkness]

Of course they are.

1. Post thread explaining the plan. Include picture of a kangaroo. Or boobs.

2. Say "go go go".

PROFIT!!!

Re:This will solve itself...

[etymxris]

I don't see Australia shutting down any sites that aren't hosted in Australia. I remember France getting upset about some Yahoo auction items containing Nazi paraphernalia, and I think Yahoo eventually complied, but only because they wanted to keep doing business in France. I doubt 4chan has any significant business stake in Australia. Things might get interesting for sites that do have a significant business stake in Australia, however. They'll probably only do filtering if you're coming from Australia though, using the same type of detection scheme that google uses to forward you to the localized version of their site.

Re:This will solve itself...

[meringuoid]

Just wait until they try to shut down 4chan. The Internet Hate Machine will sort things out.

In the UK, BT's internet service blocks /b/. It's on some blacklist because, well, you know that bear mascot of theirs? Yeah. That stuff. To their credit they left the rest of 4chan alone, which is impressive given that if they blocked /b/ they must at least have looked at what goes on in /d/.

Re:This will solve itself...

[1u3hr]

Just wait until they try to shut down 4chan.

TFA: "rules for companies that sell entertainment-related content".

Not free sites.

Re:This will solve itself...

[MostAwesomeDude]

Just wait until they try to shut down 4chan. The Internet Hate Machine will sort things out.

In the UK, BT's internet service blocks /b/. It's on some blacklist because, well, you know that bear mascot of theirs? Yeah. That stuff. To their credit they left the rest of 4chan alone, which is impressive given that if they blocked /b/ they must at least have looked at what goes on in /d/.

To be fair, 4chan doesn't permit child pornography, and cooperates fully with the FBI whenever it shows up, turning over IP addresses and chat logs. Also, /d/ is easily the politest, sanest, most on-topic board on 4chan.

Re:This will solve itself...

[Frozen Void]

You have ..umm a strange concept of sanity.

Re:This will solve itself...

[MostAwesomeDude]

I know I'm asking for it, but here is my /d/ folder. Completely work-safe. https://locke.aweenet.net/~simpson/images/d/

Re:This will solve itself...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like holding Goatse to a grindwheel for a bit. Still eww, but without the initial shock.

Re:This will solve itself...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that already did get tried. They don't read anything longer than two paragraphs. Not like anyone'd care, because they didn't realise what they were reading in the first place.

Re:Is it really a bad thing? - self correction

[cumin]

(No edit or append option, so self correcting with a follow up post.)
Re-reading both articles, I fail to see where this applies only to new sites, it will appear to apply to existing services as well.

Oh, Australia!

[Fear the Clam]

Yet again, Australia shows what a bunch of prudish old ladies it can be regarding the Internet. What a waste of effort.

Face it guys, you're all descendants of criminals. We all know it and we're cool with it. Getting all harumphy and uptight now now isn't going to fool anyone.

Re:Oh, Australia!

[Butisol]

Didn't their dude Chopper say something along the lines of "Harden the fuck up!" I guess they're not listening.

Re:Oh, Australia!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Australians are descended from free settlers and immigrants, you stupid, ignorant prick.

Re:Oh, Australia!

[deniable]

Yeah, when Whitlam becomes PM, he's going to stop you foreigners making convict jokes. As the AC said, most of us are descended from free settlers. IIRC, half of the population is from settlers that got here post WWI, or is it WWII?

Re:Oh, Australia!

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, chill the fuck out, Yahoo. No need to be so Serious.

.kid domain?

[iknownuttin]

Ban children from the Internets. By all means build a kindernet and police an regulate it to fuck, but leave the adult net alone.

Why not? Have a .kid domain, have the kid oriented content publishers (ex. Disney, FisherPrice ) finance it, and let parents restrict the internet to that domain.

Re:.kid domain?

[smash]

But that would be too sensible, just like the notion of .xxx to enable easy filtering.

My reaction, being an aussie, to all this is "meh". They have enough problems classifying movies in time for release, they sure as fuck aren't going to manage to rate the internet.

Re:.kid domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the last time, DNS is not a content classification system. But I've got this idea that'll work, it's called parental responsibility. I know, what a concept...

Re:.kid domain?

[KDR_11k]

That or use certificates like those that are used for all kinds of security and trust measures.

Re:.kid domain?

[speedc0re]

Yes, the other problem with this is that movies don't change whereas a website can change overnight (or quicker) so its rating would continually need to be reviewed. Its just not practical. They would (ironically) need an army of people constantly searching for porn on the net, isn't that what they are trying to stop?

Re:.kid domain?

[lloy0076]

Oh dear,

I misread ex. Disney as sex. Disney...

DSL

yeah ok

[Grampaw Willie]

ain't no way to verify age or maturity the only Right thing to do is to get all sex and violence off the net best clean up television and video games too

That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Are the parents of Australian children prepared to cover the cost of complying with this? Since they're not willing to supervise their childrens internet use, perhaps they should foot the bill if they expect others to do there job for them?

Re:That's nice

[digitrev]

Only as much as everyone else. After all, it's your civic duty to help take care of the little children.

Re:That's nice

[click170]

Won't somebody ^please^ think of the children!

Take-down notices, huh?

[palegray.net]

Quoth the headline: " ACMA to send 'take down' notices to offending sites . . . "

You send any of my sites a take-down notice and I'll send you a nice photo of my middle finger.

Sounds like a strong case for private registrations and offshores hosting.

Re:Take-down notices, huh?

[Malekin]

It's generally cheaper to host content outside Australia anyway. Australia has had a succession of ignorant and alarmist dickheads in the parliamentary portfolio for the internet. The current guy is no better, so I don't see either the state of internet censorship or the cost of hosting changing any time soon.

Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[DaedalusHKX]

You get what you want and pay for.

Want to be treated like a serf? Consent to be governed by others and be told what to do... consent to have some depraved power hungry, child molesting lunatics legislate morality to you and your children. (Sort of how the "conservatives" permit boy raping priests to tell them how to be good "Christian" men... which, if priests actually lead by example, is obviously "lie your ass off, rape little boys, be a hypocrite about it, don't get caught, and become a diocese before long.")

Politicians aren't crooked only in the USA, they're the same everywhere, they just get caught more in North America and Western Europe. But I love the braindamaged point of view I hear (mostly on authoritarian forums, whether left wing or right wing notwithstanding) where "we elect them to represent us" or "they represent the will of the majority" or some such bullshit.

Voting is a lottery. It isn't the will of the "majority" or the "will of the people". Voting is a gamble, is my winning ticket going to rip you off to pay me for however many years, or will your ticket screw me to pay you? After all, once you gamble, you cannot complain that you didn't consent because you lost. You consented to be ruled when you consented to play their game. If you didn't register (research that word) or vote, you can say you withheld your consent, but you cannot withhold your consent if you registered and voted and lost the lottery. Freedom does not enter into the whole thing. Once you've registered and voted, you've cast your freedom into the lottery, and whichever side wins (not you, but the ticket running) gets to own your freedom and you. Speaking of which, ever wonder why they say "X is running with Y on the ABC party ticket"? Doesn't it seem strange that they should use the same terms as that other state operated enterprise? The Lottery?

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Yetihehe]

Yeah, but if I don't register or vote, others will choose for me. And if I register and vote, I would like to be able to select those who will represent me. In my country it's possible. In USA there are only two parties, so it's not possible.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Beer_Smurf]

The system has broken down.
We really are down to Kang and Kodos with our current system.
Unless we all step up and have the balls to vote for someone different, this kind of thing will be coming your way soon.
The whole "save the babies" bit gets votes.
Me? I'm voting for Ron Paul.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[ashridah]

That's okay. In Australia, we'll fine you if you don't vote. (Hint: in Australia, it's illegal to not vote, everyone has to, whether they want to or not. It changes the political system significantly, and judging by the way you people complain all the time, for the better.)

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ron Paul? For fuck's sake, vote for someone sane. I know by that criteria there's really slim pickings, but there's at least less bad than him.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[z3d4r]

yes its illegal to not vote if your enrolled.

many simply dont enrole to vote in the first place.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, it's not actually compulsory to vote. It's compulsory to be enrolled to vote, it's compulsory to show up to the polling booths on election day and pick up ballot papers and put them in the ballot box. But it is not compulsory to have a valid vote on them when you do so, so if you are sufficiently unimpressed with any of the candidates that you do not want to indicate a preference in any direction, you can still get your way.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[omeomi]

In USA there are only two parties, so it's not possible.

It's got its ups and downs. In a 2-party system you might get stuck choosing between Turd Sandwich and Giant Douche, but at least the winner usually has at least 50% of the vote (or, unfortunately, 49% of the vote and a lot of powerful friends). In a 3-party system, you may have a leader who has only >33% of the vote. That means a majority of the people are SOL. In a 4-party system, >25% and so on.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[gnuman99]

No.

In a multi-party elections, in first round of voting, you vote for whoever you want. That narrows down the field to 2 people. Then you vote for one of the two in second round of voting. This tends to prevent fringe from getting in.

In the US, it is not suppose to be the president you vote for, but for the Electoral Collage. Then these people decide who is the president. Of course, it is kind of completely broken now and direct elections may be better than current implementation. Electoral College actually make it possible to win with minority vote anyway. No 'powerful friends' required for cheating.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[daBass]

In most multi-party parliamentary systems, the prime minister has much less power than the president in a system like in the US. (no veto!) On top of that, the prime minister can only pick from elected officials to create his cabinet, not his Yale friends and business buddies, making them far more accountable.

Also, that one party with 33% doesn't hold all the power, the entire parliament holds the power. Yes, the party that creates the cabinet has more opportunity to introduce bills, but it takes a majority vote of parliament to pass them.

Lastly, Australia uses "Preference Voting". To translate that to real US terms: you can safely vote for Nader without by doing do increasing the Repugnicans' chances to win the election.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm voting for Tancredo. And, yes, I'm probably going to be the only one in the country doing so. :-(

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Detritus]

Electoral College actually make it possible to win with minority vote anyway.

That's intentional. It's an attempt to balance the power of small and large states. A pure direct vote can suck if you live in a less populated region of a larger entity. You can end up with a situation where a few heavily populated regions have so many votes that they ignore the interests of everyone else. It's a real problem in many states.

Another issue is recounts. What happens if candidate A beats candidate B by a tiny margin of the direct vote? There will always be allegations of fraud in some places. What if candidate B asks for a nation-wide recount? The current system tends to limit the damage to a small number of states where there were allegations of fraud and the race was close enough for it to matter.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Detritus]

I was under the impression that political parties in parliamentary systems expect MPs to vote the party line, except for the rare "free vote". An MP who votes against his party is likely to be off his party's list in the next election.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[poptones]

Uh huh. Because, in spite of rampant soccer moms and closeted politicians we still don't have to worry about nonsense like "the great firewall of Australia."

And what exactly does the rest of the world have to lose? What Ozzie generated content, besides the Register, even matters outside that weird little island?

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Gandalf_the_Beardy]

In the US maybe. In the UK you can have (well there is no actual limit) but you can often see six or so candidates for a constituency. Three from the main parties and a few fringe ones, and if the fringe has enough local interest they can and do get in. All you need do is pony up a £500 deposit, not be mad or a bankrupt and you can stand. While it could be argued we still have two party politics, the third party has enough clout and interest that the two main parties have to take notice of them and not annoy their supporters too much less tactical voting occur. It works resonably well but some form of PR would be better.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[jazir1979]

1) It's Aussie
2) Last I knew of it, the Register was British (weird little island)
3) Australia is a weird HUGE island

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[TroopaCabra]

Uh huh. Because, in spite of rampant soccer moms and closeted politicians we still don't have to worry about nonsense like "the great firewall of Australia."/quote) I disagree. The Internet isn't a dump truck, it's a series of tubes. There are those here in the US that want to 'censor' the internet by giving control to large corporations.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[zsau]

It's not illegal not to vote if you aren't enrolled, no, but it is illegal not to be enrolled for Commonwealth elections and elections in most states and territories. (I think South Australia is the only exception there.) Break one law, break the other, up to you.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[zsau]

Actually, read the law. It is compulsory to vote. In fact, it's compulsory to make a formal ballot. If you only write "1" on your lower house ballot, or put your name on the ballot, or do anything else that invalidates your vote, you're breaking the law. Just because you don't (or even can't!) get caught doesn't make it legal.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[bug1]

"Voting is a lottery. It isn't the will of the "majority" or the "will of the people". Voting is a gamble..."

The strength of democracy is not its tendency to elect great leaders, its the ease at which you can get rid of the bad ones.

When you think about it, it doesnt matter how a leader gets power, whats important is whether they are good leader and if you can get rid of them.

So dont think of it as voting for someone, think of it as voting against the government (or not).

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[largesnike]

Yes, that's essentially correct, but illegal is a rather strong word. The worst penalty you'll get is a fine, if they even know where you are. Most of the time, if you are not enrolled, then you are also unknown to the Australian Electoral Commission. Even if they do fine you, they'll let you off if you can show reasonably why you're not enrolled.

So yeah, voting is compulsory, but they're not going to bust your balls if you don't.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[largesnike]

Yeah, often people do go down party line, but not always. There is the concept of conscience voting, and pollies have crossed the floor, from time-to-time. As far as party recriminations go after that, it is purely circumstantial. A prime minister that punishes every minister that crosses the floor, would look mean and vendictive.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[ashridah]

Hm. Zero Punctuation?
That's published in the US, but produced in Australia, by a British guy.

Also, as an Australian currently working abroad, stuff like Chaser's war on everything, media watch, and other assorted publications matter to me (although they're all on hiatus since it's christmas time there.)

The bigger problem is that it might start other countries from just throwing their hands up and blocking Australia outright, since there's probably no simple (hell, probably not even a complex) solution to this particular mandate that's going into effect. This worries me greatly, and doesn't surprise me in the slightest. We've had a seriously over-protectionist bent for far FAR too long. The hooting from the conservative family-first types that push this crappy agenda may not be as loud as they are in the US, but clearly they've had enough of an effect.

Particularly since my braindead country just voted in the fucking party that's in love with the idea. Oh, wait, both parties are in love with the idea. Ah well, guess we're fucked either way. Glad I don't live there anymore, I certainly won't be going back any time soon.

ash

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Xiaran]

And of course you can always simply cast an invalid vote. Ive done it before in Australian elections. I wrote the vote counter a poem... a haiku actually...

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[zsau]

That's also illegal (you can't get caught, but if you could you could be fined for it). And I doubt the counters bothered to read it.

(Actually, in the 2006 Victorian state election, the government introduced computers to allow blind people to cast secret ballots as a trial; the law passed allowing this required the computers to allow a user to cast an informal vote — which is illegal!)

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[nautsch]

You didn't get the the parent. You don't decide you play a LOTTERY. NO deciding, just hoping to not screw up.

Look at Germany. Four to five big parties but NO choice. They all do the same crap.

Theres no need to vote. you will always get the same result. nothing will change.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[WeirdJohn]

I believe that you can get gaol time for encouraging people not to vote or to vote informally.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[TobascoKid]

It works resonably well but some form of PR would be better

As long as what ever form of PR selected takes into account people not voting. I don't think it's right that if only 30% of people vote 100% of the seats available still get allocated as that's neither proportional nor representative. If only 30% of the people vote then only 30% of the available seats should be filled - this would go a long way towards stopping fringe parties getting undue influence.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[daBass]

Not only that, but in some system (like Australia and the UK), members of parliament are chosen by constituency. So not only would they have to replace the MP in question, they would have to do it with someone who would be a vote winner for the party in that constituency to avoid losing the seat altogether in the next election.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Double_Duo_Decimal]

People have been voting "sane" and "safe" for years now. Don't you think we could use a bit of crazy in our lives? At least things would be interesting.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[TapeCutter]

Yes, the electoral commission takes a dim view of people who encourage other people to donkey vote, technically you are not supposed to tell anyone "how to donkey vote" although poeple do so on TV talk shows every now and then and nobody bats an eyelid.

Attempts to censor the net via the OFLC are not new here in Australia, the one thing these attempts have in common is that they didn't work. Not so long ago an MP created a site offering advice on assisted suicide. The site was banned via the OFLC, the MP simply transplanted it to New Zealand and it was up again within a day. The parlimantary kerfuffle went on for weeks but the fact that the site was only down for a few hours made the puritans in parliment look naive and ineffective.

This new law is like the donkey vote law in that 99.9999% of the population will ignore it.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[sjdude]

What a troll. How can you change anything for the better when the choices are "crooks owned by bankers" and "other crooks owned by the same bankers"? You are a fool for thinking you have any real choice as long as the bankers control the printing presses.

See also George Carlin's comments here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ktIECyzf4YM

Oh, and Happy New Year.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[ta bu shi da yu]

No, you only have to worry about "free speech zones", Guantanamo Bay, sneak and peak searches, massive surveillance in violation of FISA, Electronic Voting with a non-open standard... and Fox News. :-)

The truth is, that was legislation passed by the previous Liberal govt. It's quite possible the Labor Party overturns the decision.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[hr raattgift]

On the contrary, the Prime Minister in a Westminster style system has much more power than the President of the USA, because the PM fully controls the legislative agenda.

In the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, laws that spend public money or raise taxes must be accompanied by a "Royal Recommendation". Since the Monarch of each country with respect to the exercise of the Royal Prerogative has been an automaton since at least 1936 (and for hundreds of years with respect to the UK and its legal predecessors), acting only on the advice of the Prime Minister, this means that the PM has a veto on whether Parliament can even consider most important bills. Ireland and India have similar rules, but have (appointed) Presidents instead of a (heridtary) Queen and (appointed) Governor-General.

This is Section 56 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (current version): "A vote, resolution, or proposed law for the appropriation of revenue or moneys shall not be passed unless the purpose of the appropriation has in the same session been recommended by message of the Governor-General to the House in which the proposal originated." The Senate and House of Representatives both have rules and standing orders forbidding the debate of votes, resolutions or proposed laws that may not be passed, and the President or Speaker enforces these assiduously.

Moreover, in all of these countries except the UK, either the Royal Assent can be deferred, or the Proclamation can be deferred, in the event Parliament passes a Bill that the Prime Minister does not want. In the UK, the Royal Assent has been automatic and has not involved the Monarch or the Prime Minister since the early Victorian era; Proclamation is not a feature of the UK system -- an Act of Parliament that receives Royal Assent becomes law immediately (or at a future date fixed in the Act itself). It is pretty clear that if it became necessary, the Prime Minister could constitutionally insist that "the Queen withhold Royal Assent in order to consider the Bill" ("la Reyne s'avisera", is the Norman French formalization), which in practice would mean sending a letter to the Department of Constitutional Affairs and the Clerks of both Houses of Parliament.

This is described in Sections 58 (Royal Aseent) and 60 (Proclamation) of the Australian Constitution.

Finally Section 59 of the Australian Constitution uniquely retains the power of Disallowance (it was abolished with respect to Canada and New Zealand, and never existed in the United Kingdom). (It reads: "The Queen may disallow any law within one year from the Governor-General's assent, and such disallowance on being made known by the Governor-General by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation, shall annul the law from the day when the disallowance is so made known.")

In effect, these tools represent a Prime Ministerial veto over legislation, available even if the majority of Parliament supports a bill.

Section 59 might actually be used by the new government. It is normally considered a political mistake to do so, but since the campaign dealt with legislation forced through at the end of the Howard premiership, it is plausible that the new Prime Minister can claim an electoral mandate to exercise the power.

In short, the veto powers of a Westminster-style Prime Minister far exceed those of the President, who must veto or not within a short period of time, and whose veto can be overturned by Parliament.

In the Westminster system, the only remedy for Parliament is to refuse to pass the bills the PM actually wants, or to withhold confidence in the government (by declaration of no confidence, or the defeat of a supply bill), which likely would trigger an election. However in that case it is the PM who decides whether to name a replacement, try to secure confidence with a new set of ministers, or set an election date. The Monarch or Governor is expected to act like an automaton in this

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[ChrisMP1]

Doesn't trying to "balance the power" of small and large states unbalance the power of the people? That is, if I live in New York, my vote counts for less than if I live in Connecticut, whereas if individuals are counted equally, I'm 1.00 people no matter where I live. Who cares if the actual states have more or less power? It should be the people who vote, not the states.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[TapeCutter]

Ummm, it is illegal to donkey vote in certain states (IIRC Victoria abandoned the law in the 90's), however any donkey vote law has always been mute since we are talking about a secret ballot and therefore the offence can never be proven without breaking other laws.

Furthermore spelling out how to donkey vote as you have done in your post is also illegal and can attract jail time. IIRC an activist in the suburbs of Melbourne was taken to court about a decade ago and given a slap on the wrist in an attempt to stop his "none of the above" style campaign.

The classic problem with a donkey vote in our preferential system is that donkey voters often just number the boxes from top to bottom as 1,2,3... the side effect is that this type of donkey vote benifits candidates that are higher up on the ballot. It is estimated that 2-3% of all votes are donkey votes of this type but this is a small price to pay when we are talking about 95+% of the adult population habitually turning up to vote.

TFA: If parliment does end up pandering to the family-first facists and tries to censor the net via the OLFC (which has been tried and failed before) then I belive most Aussies will ignore it in the same way they ignore the donkey vote laws. Never mind the technical difficulties of censoring the net, it's hard to enforce anything when everybody simply ignores you.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[dangitman]

Yeah, but someone has to build the roads, the schools and the hospitals. How are you going to pay for them, if not through taxes? How are you going to adminster them, if not via a government? I think most people don't give a shit about "moral" issues, they just want their infrastructure. That's why government moral crusades are rarely effective. But fuck with the infrastructure, and people will be up in arms.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[NoobixCube]

On the "Liberal" side of the fence, we can vote for hardline conservatives against any and all stem cell and cloning research, gay marriage, and would censor our reality given the power. On the Labor side of the fence, we can vote for hardline conservatives against any and all stem celland cloning research, gay marriage, and would censor our reality given the power. Kang and Kodos make the perfect analogy to Australian politics... We can't vote for anything different though, since the Greens don't have any stance other than "We hate Family First and we want to ban fishing, hunting, logging, and farming of any sort", Family First are the Mormon party, and thus also hardline conservative et cetera only worse, the Democrats are a disorganised rabble, and have been since Don Chip left, and no other party has enough candidates to win sufficient seats to win leadership. I was saying months ago that the parental filtering crap the Liberals were trying to push on us would lead to widespread internet filtering. Sure, you can look on the OFLC website for all the things that have been "Refused Classification", and it is illegal to possess materials refused classification in this country. Firstly, how do we know the RC list is complete? The OFLC could be filtering out anything even remotely objectionable to the current political agenda, and we'd be none the wiser. Secondly, how the hell do they plan to classify the whole internet for viewing in Australia? We can't view materials that are as yet unclassified in other forms of media (movies, games, books, magazines), so we'd be as effectively censored and isolated as China (perhaps more so, since the censorship is going to be the official line, and not some dirty little government secret that everyone knows). In accordance with Godwin's Law, I must say "You know who else zealously censored all media viewable by his citizens? Hitler!" Every time something like this happens, it just makes me more and more ashamed to be Australian. The ideals our soldiers fought for in WW2 and Vietnam, and in Iraq and Afghanistan today are long dead. Our "democracy" is a hollow mockery of what it should be.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is absolutely not illegal to cast an informal vote.

No one can force you to vote, that's the point - they can force you to attend a poling place, but once you're inside, what you do is up to you.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[cheese-cube]

Well although I am registered to vote I didn't vote in the last election and they haven't caught me ye%^@*#%^%@#*...NO CARRIER

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

"without by doing do increasing the Repugnicans' chances to win the election."

Vote DUMBOCRAP!!!

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Kurayamino-X]

Actually, we only fine you if you don't show up, you're free to submit a blank ballot, scribble obcenities on it, take it home etc. etc. Well they might not like you taking it home, but it's not like they can stop you folding it up and sticking it in your pocket. One problem with our system is everyone thinks they -have- to vote, so they cast bullshit, yet valid votes.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are under the delusion that you live in a democracy. You live in a federal republic.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[lsatenstein]

Canada, like Australia, has a parlementary system. It leads to much more democratic representation. The difference between Canada and Australia is that voting is not compulsary in Canada. Nevertheless, we get up to 70% votes from the eligible voters. (Non citizens are ineligible).

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

In the worst case scenario you can always vote from the rooftops. Oh wait, even airsoft is illegal in Australia. You and Britain can enjoy your police states, while in America corrupt politicians have nightmares of crazy libertarians voting with a .30-06.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[daBass]

That was very informative, thank you for taking the time to explain all this.

I shall have to do some more reading up on this.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[mastershake_phd]

Has your post been classified yet?

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

The DNC and RNC also exercise some measure of party discipline when it comes to the selection and promotion of candidates in Congressional elections. However, the executives of the two parties' national organizations are not always interested in pursuing or attempting to enforce their Presidential candidates' (or sitting President's) legislative agendas.

Membership in committees is also under the influence of the House and Senate leadership of both parties, and committee membership is often useful in raising a Congressman's profile and/or election funds by lobbyists and special interest groups.

The greatest amount of uncertainty in a Congressional election is when two new candidates square off. Incumbents almost always win. Therefore, an sitting member of Congress who does not vote with his or her whip all the time (or even especially often) but who can be relied upon in certain critical votes, will still get the full support of the electoral machine, since he or she is less of a problem than a more loyal replacement who loses to the other party's candidate. This was especially obvious in the DNC's open support of Joe LIberman's attempt to be re-elected as an independent, despite being dumped as by a democratic vote of the Connecticut Democrats, who were fed up with the frequency with which he supported the Republican party line. The outcome of that is obviously not going to increase party discipline in the Congress.

Finally, MPs can often receive extra pay and privileges when they support the government of the day (Parliamentary Secretaries, junior Ministers and the like are loyal MPs, and sit closer to the Prime Minister, who occupies the front bench; disloyalty puts them on the back benches), and the Opposition Parties have "shadow ministers" (or "official critics") who get better offices and research budgets, and more public and Parliamentary exposure. This promotes party discipline almost as much as a pure party list/proportional representation system.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[aussie_a]

Furthermore spelling out how to donkey vote as you have done in your post is also illegal and can attract jail time. IIRC an activist in the suburbs of Melbourne was taken to court about a decade ago and given a slap on the wrist in an attempt to stop his "none of the above" style campaign. Mustn't be illegal in Canberra because my school took me there, and I was specifically told what a donkey vote is and how to do one in some government building (they were teaching us to how to vote).

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[DaedalusHKX]

Wow, so you're telling me that I should consent to be ruled, by "registering" (research that term and understand it before you use it), and then... the merest power that surrender of my authority gives me... is to be ruled by whomsoever wins the dice roll between two groups of assholes I will be forced (at gun point) to pay for, and who will represent me not one bit? Oh but they WILL have the right (by my consent through "registration") to tell me what to do and dispose of my life and property as they feel fit?

I'm fairly sure I haven't consented for sometime now. My evidence was simple to see, I watched politics and tried the "Left-Right" scale. What a lovely choice. Bill Clinton and George Senior, then later Al Gore and George Junior... then some no name scumbag (Kerry) and George Junior? How exactly was it "easy to get rid of him" ?? He had 8 years to fuck up the country and its people as he desired, and the masses went along (as they always do). There's been screaming about impeachment, the "opposition" party went in promising to impeach Bush (impeach, for those of you politically challenged means INDICT the president, its a mere formalization of the other word, an impeachment does not guarantee removal from office, or even punishment.)

I've seen enough in my life to know that "voting" changes nothing. There are only TWO true effective votes. Feet and wallet. You either get going to where you want to be, or you pay for what you want in whatever manner you want. In the end, you cannot "petition" someone else for your freedom. In so doing, you become a begging serf. And rightfully should be treated as such.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, only if you register to vote when turning 18. I didn't, and at the tender age of 22, have received no fines, in spite of repeated letters requesting I register.

LONG LIVE DEMOCAPATHY

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[jimdread]

There's an old saying: If voting could change the system, it would be illegal.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[edbob]

I don't know about that. Maybe I'm crazy too, but all the others running for president sound like they belong in the loony bin. Ron Paul is the only one making any sense at all. Most of the so-called "leading" candidates won't even rule out a nuclear first strike on Iran! To me, that sounds insane. The leading Democrats (the supposed anti-war party) won't even guarantee that our troops will be out of Iraq by 2013. Come on, this war will have lasted longer than WWII and the supposed enemy we are fighting has no army, navy, or air force (unlike Japan and Germany). Furthermore, while I think that reducing the size and scope of our federal government will prove to be a good thing, I am not so naive that I think that things will change overnight once Ron Paul becomes president. These changes will take time and likely will not be entirely implemented during his term(s) in office. It would probably take a decade or more of voting not only for Ron Paul and like-minded individuals for president, but also for congress. Since I don't see a libertarian (note lower-case "l") takeover of congress as being likely, most of what Ron Paul will be able to do as president is prevent the government from growing further through the use of the veto. Whenever I see attacks on Ron Paul or the positions he has taken, it just reinforces the fact that he is the leading candidate among the American people. He won a blind poll awhile back (where only the candidates' histories and positions were mentioned, not the names) which seems to point to the idea that people are ready for the type of change that Ron Paul represents.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[msim]

thanks for that, it opened my eyes on the confusing as hell parlimentary system we have. It's still confusing now, but with different shades of grey to before.

p.s. theres nothing wrong with a family first kinda guy being the PM, except when something controversial comes up (i suspect Rudd would have binned the ru486 drug like Howard did). In any case it's when these unusual situations crop up that we'll see just how good/bad a PM we now have in front of us.

Mike.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. You're system is so great that your the only nation to have joined the US in every war it's gotten itself into since World War I. Including Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. A lot of good that superior system has done.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Rpettigrew]

It is not illegal not to vote in Australia, you will get fined if you don't get your name marked off at a voting booth, but i have not see ANY law stating that i have to vote. Don't get the whole idea that Australians have a gun at their head forcing us to vote ..... IT just isn't true.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[capnchicken]

On his 62nd birthday December 20, 2007, Tancredo formally ended his candidacy for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, and endorsed Mitt Romney.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Raenex]

Me? I'm voting for Ron Paul. He doesn't believe in the separation of church and state. He thinks "In God We Trust" is a valid thing to have on the currency, despite the fact that it violates the constitution. No thanks.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[zsau]

It is illegal not to vote in Australia. I assume Rpettigrew has simply never looked. For instance, here's section 87(3) of the Victorian Electoral Act (2002):

(3) An elector must vote at every election for which the elector is entitled
to vote.

Similarly, section 245 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act (1918) (which is entitled "Compulsory voting" not "Compulsory turning up to you have your name crossed off") begins:

(1) It shall be the duty of every elector to vote at each election.

(2) The Electoral Commissioner must, after polling day at each election, prepare for each Division a list of the names and addresses of the electors who appear to have failed to vote at the election.

(3) Subject to subsection (4), within the period of 3 months after the polling day at each election, each DRO must:

            (a) send a penalty notice by post; or

            (b) arrange for a penalty notice to be delivered by other means;

to the latest known address of each elector whose name appears on the list prepared under subsection (2).

And in case you're wondering, voting quite clearly refers to the process of marking a number on a ballot paper, not to having your name crossed off (see for examples sections 239 and 240).

Voting is compulsory. We do not have a gun pointed at our heads (merely the threat of a small $20 fine). We do not have a legal means of enforcing a vote (merely the ability to enforce having the name marked off). But the law is clear. You are required to vote. Voting is compulsory, and anyone who tells you otherwise is spreading a myth, mistaken or lying.

Merry Christmas!

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[dkf]

In fact, the President of the USA is much weaker than most heads of government of systems in which a president is given a personal mandate. In France and Germany, for example, the President (or Chancellor in Germany) has greater influence over the process of legislation both formally (various recommendation systems, and stronger vetos) and through the power of patronage appointments. The German post of Chancellor is approximately that of Prime Minister; there is also a President. Power primarily resides with the Chancellor though.

In fact, I can think of no area in which the President of the United States is formally more powerful than a Prime Minister in any European state other than Liechtenstein. It's just that the exercise of his or her restricted set of powers can be formidable, since the United States is such a large economic, political and military superpower internationally and domestically, so the President seems much more powerful than other executive heads of government. An important difference between the US post of President and, say, the UK post of Prime Minister, is that the US President has a direct mandate and set term. By contrast, the UK Prime Minister serves at the whim of his or her party; if they can't keep their own supporters, they're kicked out without any need for a formal impeachment. (I can't think of any case in recent history where someone was PM who wasn't also leader of his or her party.) An example of this was when Margaret Thatcher was replaced by John Major. This sort of thing means that PMs dare not become as unpopular as a President can become, and helps to moderate any tendency to extremism.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[braddeicide]

Yes, and this introduces many useless votes into the system. I have friends who "voted for the old short guy, because that fat guy looks sleazy". That vote had the same amount voting power as the next person that actually took the time to do some research, really think about it, and make an informed decision.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[bug1]

"Wow, so you're telling me that I should consent to be ruled"

To be ruled doesnt require consent, no point takign the discussion any further unless we can agree on this.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[Gideon Fubar]

The only good thing about this particular piece of policy (left by the Howard Govt, but i'm sure Rudd's new group will probably superficially endorse it too..) is that it is completely 100% unimplementable.

The first few times (if ever) this is tried in court will be laughable, and the AFP will just stop trying after a while.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[DaedalusHKX]

Actually no, you can be IGNORED, KILLED or CAPTURED without consenting, but to be RULED, you have to consent, otherwise those who would rule you, would have to either KILL, CAPTURE or just plain IGNORE you. Only three possibilities without consenting. You can only be ruled if you surrender/consent. Otherwise aggression must be initiated and carried out against you.

There are always choices. There are always consequences, some natural, most man made.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[bug1]

What about being decieved, how do you know an "evil deciever" isnt ruling you without you being aware... or would you consider that all a person needs to be free is to think they are free ?

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[hr raattgift]

The German post of Chancellor is approximately that of Prime Minister; there is also a President. Power primarily resides with the Chancellor though.

Maybe if I added parentheses and changed a conjunction, my initial meaning would have been clearer:

In France (or Germany), for example, the President (or Chancellor in Germany) ...

In other words, there is no disagreement here.

However:

(I can't think of any case in recent history where someone was PM who wasn't also leader of his or her party.)

There are only three Prime Ministers in recent history. Four if you go back 17 years to Thatcher.

Tony Blair ceased being the leader of the Labour Party on 24 June 2007 and ceased being the Prime Minister on 27 June 2007.

That's not a very long period of time, and neither was Margaret Thatcher's single day (27-28 November 1990), but it underscores an important Constitutional point: a Prime Minister always has the right to face Parliament to attempt to secure the confidence of the House of Commons in his or her own right.

A Motion of Confidence introduced by the government (i.e., by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, or another senior Cabinet Minister) also takes precedence over all other business of the House of Commons excluding those calling upon the Speaker to see Strangers. They are rare -- the last one voted in Westminster was in 1945, and the most recent one tabled was in 1993 -- and are essentially threats, such that if the Nays prevail, the House immediately adjourns in anticipation of dissolution. However, they are a significant tool of the Prime Minister in that if he can demonstrate command of the House of Commons despite the opposition of M.P.s in his own party, there is no constitutional mechanism by which they can force him to resign.

By contrast, the UK Prime Minister serves at the whim of his or her party ... without any need for a formal impeachment.

No, the Prime Minister continues to serve at his or her own whim, until he dies, names a replacement, or loses the confidence of the House of Commons twice -- the first triggering a general election, and the second during the exercise of his right to face Parliament and secure the confidence of the House of Commons.

It is a strong tradition that Prime Ministers rapidly "recommend" a successor to the monarch after losing a general election, but the Constitutional convention is that the PM is not obliged to do so, since she may be able to assemble a majority of MPs from different parties willing to vote in her favour on matters of confidence.

Thatcher could not assemble such a majority, and had no prospect of being able to do so after a general election, so she resigned about as gracefully as she could manage. Legally, however, she could have dissolved the House of Commons, fought a general election campaign, seek the confidence of the newly elected and re-elected M.P.s, fail to do so, and dissolve the House of Commons yet again, in order to seek the confidence of the newly newly elected and re-elected M.P.s probably to find that there would be none left. At that point, not naming a successor who would likely command the House of Commons would provoke a serious Constitutional crisis involving the monarch acting on her own or with the advice of someone other than the Prime Minister. Those two things are never done.

In fact, the Constitution of Ireland codifies this explicitly to make it clear that the President has absolute and exclusive say over a Prime Minister's fate if the latter seeks a dissolution immediately after an election triggered by a loss of confidence. Canada has been pursuing a similar statutory codification, although it may require an outright constitutional amendment there.

By way of contrast, Tony Blair's awkward relation

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[DaedalusHKX]

So the question then becomes, why are you allowing yourself to be deceived into thinking "Government By Others Through Force And Fraud" is something you're willing to fight for (and likely willing to die on someone else's whim, as all who fight for others eventually do)? More precisely, when you get the shaft rather than the payoff, why are you so hard and hell bent on fighting for them and enforcing these ideas even more? I mean, I can understand if you hadn't been shafted by the crooks in charge, that you might give them "the benefit of the doubt", but when the shaft gets rammed up your collective asses, each and every election, why remain a collectivist and fight for the politicians? I am failing to understand this.

Any serious or logical reason other than usual half-brained excuse of "we *need* the politicians because only they build the roads with 10% of the loot and stuff the other 90% in their own pockets" ??

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[ta bu shi da yu]

As I was called a "redneck" by a previous poster, figured that I'd come back again and post a response here.

Labor has scrapped the Liberal's "identity card" proposal. Still think we're mired in civil liberties abuses?

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[ashridah]

ROFL. Build your bridge already (although, whoever called you a redneck probably needs to look up the definition, last I checked, rednecks were conservative :) ). Plus, being tracked by the government is basically par for the course when you're working in the US.

National ID cards are a moot point anyway. There's already more than enough information floating around about your average citizen to track where they are, what they like to do, and what nasty habits they've got, on-line or off. A national ID card won't change that.

It also doesn't mandate that they *judge* what you do. I draw the line when I have people telling me what I can and can't read or watch. This is also why I've been distinctly disappointed in the Australian censorship system for a long time. Of course, there are still limits to be had, sane limits, such as ensuring that parents can take responsibility for what minors can get their hands on.

Re:Ahh yes, the "benefits" of tax fed governments.

[bug1]

(was afk)

"why are you allowing yourself to be deceived", well, the thing about being deceived is that you dont know it is happening, if you _know_ your being deceived, then deceived isnt the word you should have used.

What is the alternative to democracy... you may well be right in saying democracy is flawed, but unless there is a less flawed system then democracy is the best we can expect.

The only way to truely be free is to be alone, but thats not something a society can have.

News services excluded

[zrq]

Personal emails and other private communications would be excluded from the new laws and so would news or current affairs services.

So does this mean if someone setup a web site called "SlashSlash - News for pervs", with articles and pictures about all the latest news and events in the world of 'X18-plus content' ... then it would be exempt from regulation ?

Re:News services excluded

[sauge]

SlashSlash sounds more serial killer oriented than perv oriented... :)

fuck the kids

[Tom]

Because, you know, in a world of war, terrorism, economic depression and a climate change that just might wipe us out as a species, protecting the children from something their hormones will drive them to in five or ten years (if that) with a force that nukes pale against is certainly the most important thing to do.

I say fuck the children - not literally, except if they want to fuck each other, they've got my blessings as long as they know some basic health principles (for both physical and mental health). So how about we stop worrying about the children and start worrying about the real issues?

Because, when you think about it, things are very simple. Either, growing up the way past generations did wasn't totally fucked up, and the kids will be just fine, or if growing up the way past generations did was totally fucked up, and is something we must protect the kids from at all costs, then those who grew up in that fucked up way are the last ones you should entrust those decisions to.

Re:fuck the kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, when you think about it, things are very simple. Either, growing up the way past generations did wasn't totally fucked up, and the kids will be just fine, or if growing up the way past generations did was totally fucked up, and is something we must protect the kids from at all costs, then those who grew up in that fucked up way are the last ones you should entrust those decisions to.

Except, you see, this generation will never, whatever happens, grow up the same way past generations did, so that entire argument is just wrong. The world is a highly dynamic environment, you see - you can't jut generalise from the past generations to this one, because most of what shaped past generations no longer exists or has become irrelevant and most of what is shaping this generation was simply not around before. So it is valid and important for this generation to ask if, perhaps, we are letting things get out of hand and are bringing our children up in a really fucked-up way.

That said, I do agree that we seem to tend towards brainless overprotectionism.

Re:fuck the kids

[Scrameustache]

if growing up the way past generations did was totally fucked up, and is something we must protect the kids from at all costs, then those who grew up in that fucked up way are the last ones you should entrust those decisions to. I think the ones trying to do this grew up without transistors. This intertubes thingamajigger scares them, and they want it off their e-lawn.

Re:fuck the kids

[alan_dershowitz]

Because, when you think about it, things are very simple. Either, growing up the way past generations did wasn't totally fucked up, and the kids will be just fine, or if growing up the way past generations did was totally fucked up, and is something we must protect the kids from at all costs, then those who grew up in that fucked up way are the last ones you should entrust those decisions to. No, it is not simple at all. Your great-grandparents lived in a world of increased daily crime and violence, oppression of women and infant death. It was not common for schools to teach sex education, but marriage around the age of 13 was. Society generally cooperated to keep sexually explicit imagery away from children. Abortion was largely illegal and birth control was hard to acquire.

In the interim what has happened is that people have fallen away from the traditional centers of morality such as the Church and social organizations and replaced them with nothing. We more understand the psychology of the child and the deleterious effects of premature sexualization, yet we bombard all media with constant, lascivious and unrealistic depictions of sex. For good measure we combine it with rampant consumerism so that sex is a product that is to be desired. Prior methods of easing children into adult relationships by mixing the sexes in a controlled manner, such as camps and retreats and dances are being abandoned as hokey remnants of a prior century. Things like abortion and birth control are legal and prevalent, yet large numbers of people still don't use them responsibly.

Nothing about the question is easy at all. There were things in the past that were good and bad, and there are things today that are good and bad. There are both things that we have done as a society that should help raise kids into healthy adults, and other things we have allowed that potentially make it much, much harder. You can't just assume that everything's going to be okay. Children need to be raised, healthy adults DO NOT just "happen," and there is a social and moral aspect to sexuality that cannot be adequately addressed by a sex ed class in middle school. We should be very, very concerned about the next generation, and we should be looking at how as a society we are raising them and if necessary, try to make changes.

Re:fuck the kids

[Quiet_Desperation]

they've got my blessings as long as they know some basic health principles (for both physical and mental health).

Yeah, well, there's the rub, you see. (So to speak) They don't, no matter how much sex ed you give them, and then I, as a taxpayer, get to pay for all those little mistakes. Fuck that. *Mandatory* abortions, I say.

Re:fuck the kids

[corsec67]

And who is going to pay for those Mandatory abortions?

Re:fuck the kids

[Tom]

They don't, no matter how much sex ed you give them, And that is the fault of the kids, or the fault of the sex ed?

I've been through sex ed as a kid. At least we had some. In hindsight, I realize it was the worst part of school, from an education perspective. I can only imagine what it's like in the US (do you even have sex ed in school?).

I'm not a teacher or other professional in the field of education, but I have a little amateur knowledge on the subject. That alone tells me the major things that are wrong in current sex ed:

• Sex ed should start before the kids "feel funny" about it.
  
• It shouldn't be anything special. Just like you teach kids how to brush their teeth, or how to call the police if they're ever in an emergency situation, you tell them the basics about sex.
  
• Don't use fear. It screws people up and that's all it does. Hormones block out fear in the heat of the moment. It's a simple biological process, and if you don't understand biology that far, then what the fuck are you doing giving sex ed anyways?
  

Re:fuck the kids

[Tom]

Your great-grandparents lived in a world of Yes, they did. And they managed to bring up our parents in the same way their own parents did. Fact of the matter is still that if you think that the way you were brought up was a total fuck-up, then welcome to the party, because pretty much every generation for the history of mankind has had that feeling.

people have fallen away from the traditional centers of morality such as the Church and social organizations and replaced them with nothing. And that's as blatant a lie as I've seen in this thread. Two, actually. First, the church isn't and never was a center of morality, but you can go read some Hitchins for the detailed argument. The second is that nobody has replaced them with "nothing". Our modern-day replacements are just too diversified and individual to be lumped up in a simple statement. We still do get our morality from somewhere. It's just that Jane has hers from those six magazines and these four TV shows and her circle of friends, and her parents, and her youth group, and her school, and basically her entire environment, whereas Joes has his from his environment, which differs from Janes. Other than our grandparents, we didn't grow up in a homogeneous environment.

Speaking just for me, I certainly have morals. They're probably different from yours, but they're not "nothing".

the deleterious effects of premature sexualization I'd be interested to hear about that. Please send me your newsletter. No, seriously, for all I know, not teaching kids about sex causes actual, visible, considerable damage. I have yet to see a single study that shows that premature sex-education does any harm. I don't quite know what exactly you mean by "sexualization", but if it is what I think you mean then you should consider the fact that nothing - and I mean nothing creates more sexualization than repression does.

Prior methods of easing children into adult relationships by mixing the sexes in a controlled manner, such as camps and retreats and dances are being abandoned as hokey remnants of a prior century. It might just be that we found out that artifically keeping the sexes seperated is about as dumb as, say, keeping people seperated by skin colour.

Things like abortion and birth control are legal and prevalent, yet large numbers of people still don't use them responsibly. I agree on that. Do you think it's because those people know too much about sex or too little?

You can't just assume that everything's going to be okay. I don't. I agree it isn't that simple. But please follow the argument: If our current generation of decision makers was raised in a way that was totally fucked up, then why, tell me, can we trust their judgment on proper education? Shouldn't we look to those who were raised well instead?

Re:fuck the kids

[Quiet_Desperation]

Oh, I'll vote for those. FAR cheaper than keeping the subsequent little monsters in prison for most of their lives.

We're going to wind up paying for SOMETHING, so I pick the cheapest and quickest.

Re:fuck the kids

[Quiet_Desperation]

And that is the fault of the kids, or the fault of the sex ed?

All of the above.

don't make this mistake...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't make the mistake of thinking this kind of thing isn't the way of the future, and not just in Australia.

Already we've seen US web sites having to self-censor to comply with European censorship laws, and conversely, content hosted in the EU taken down when it violates US copyright laws. We've seen US companies cooperating with China's regulation of political speech. Governments are fearful of the unregulated nature of the internet, which means that over time, that unregulated nature is going to go away. They all have a vested interest in grabbing more control over online communications.

This from AU is a small thing. But a million small things taken together can be a big thing.

If *everyone* on the net would start using anonymous proxies for everything, it would help, but only a tiny, tiny fraction of online users have the necessary awareness, understanding, and motivation to do that.

Re:don't make this mistake...

[Architect_sasyr]

And only a tiny, tiny fraction of people running Tor nodes are kind enough to provide me with more than a dial up connection...

Isnt't this the same country that ...

[burdicda]

Isn't this the same country that I saw mountains and mountains of private legally owned firearms piled up out in parking lots and destroyed by the authorities.

Now I get it
First you send your undesireables to this penal colony
Then when their way of life is more free than yours
You move in take over and enslave them all again

What a country
I think it's time for the everyday working aussie
to take back their country again....
Did they have an equivalent of the Boston Tea Party ?

Re:Isnt't this the same country that ...

[Skapare]

I guess they would need to have a Sydney Tea Party.

Re:Isnt't this the same country that ...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the bloody hell are you on about?

For a start, Australia in addition to being a penal colony had free settlers come too.

Great Britain hasn't come in and "re-enslaved" anyone.

I know I'm not going to get through to a yank on the subject of gun control, but it's really not the big deal you make it out to be.

And finally, it's not Australia that needs to be taken back again.

Re:Isnt't this the same country that ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, something very similar... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_stockade/

Re:Isnt't this the same country that ...

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't any hope in convincing the rest of the world that Australia wasn't founded on convict labour. In actual fact, for a large part we wouldn't have been anywhere near as successful as we have been without the attitude held by convicts and free settlers alike of a new start and equality amongst men. And the work originally done by the British convicts and free settlers was built upon further by other nations joining our country - from the gold rush settlers in the 1800's to the present day migrants.

And really, when you consider just how far we have come in 200 years, living in a huge desert land and with a small population, it is quite a testament to our ancestors' courage and determination.

I say embrace the 'convict nation' ideal; it has given us a wonderful community where people have (mostly) opportunity, equality and freedom. The Americans can take their 'land of the free'; I'll keep 'Australians all let us rejoice' over that anytime.

Re:Isnt't this the same country that ...

[deniable]

Ruby Ridge, Waco... Keep your fucking guns.

Re:Isnt't this the same country that ...

[dbIII]

I suppose that's the sort of comment I would expect from somebody that is not paying attention from the country that sent us both Oral Roberts to say the entire population of the country was cursed to go to hell and also sent us the weird Pentacostals that are demanding these restrictions on the net in the first place. The US based churches are pushing this and not the average Australian taxpayer. Personally I don't think it will amount to much because they do not have much political power here at the moment.

People in Australia see guns differently to those in the USA anyway. It is a tool and not a "symbol of freedom" since we don't have some creation myth about poorly armed guys freezing in the woods winning a country (Shh! Don't mention the French! It ruins the myth and we hate them now!). There are a lot of guns around and I learnt how to shoot at eight which wasn't really unusual - but we do not obsess about them like those in the USA. We have sport for that.

Re:Isnt't this the same country that ...

[Just Another Poster]

Ruby Ridge, Waco... Keep your fucking guns.

You realize that those incidents happened because the government decided to enforce gun-control laws, right?

Accidental Idiocy

[SQL Error]

This is an update to the existing law regarding access to phone chat services. Realising that the wording of the law only covered traditional telephony, the ACMA seems to have simply stuck "and teh internets" into the wording wherever they deemed it appropriate, rendering a total hash of the regulations. Defining "content" when you're talking about fixed-line phones is easy. When it comes to the internet, it's effectively impossible.

In the US, this would get stomped by the Supreme Court as unconstitutionally broad in five minutes flat. Here in Australia that may take longer, but I expect it to be largely ignored in the meantime.

adults will not be affected by the new laws

[YrWrstNtmr]

Bull.

The only way this could be instituted is that you are assumed to be a child. Upon going to a particular site that may or may not have 'adult' content, the user will have to attempt to prove he is not a child. Of course, such 'proof' is impossible. You never really know who is behind the keyboard.
That impossibility is primarily why the Communications Decency Act of 1996 got shot down. It puts the onus on the adult to prove his legality.

A .kids or .xxx TLD is equally stupid.

one tiny problem...

[thegnu]

Have a .kid domain, have the kid oriented content publishers (ex. Disney, FisherPrice ) finance it, and let parents restrict the internet to that domain.

I would probably actually prefer my kids running rampant on an unprotected internet than living in Disney/Fisher-Price world. Kids are stupid enough as it is today. They need real experience, and while the Internet barely qualifies as "real," it's more real than a fake Disney Internet. As fucked up as I am from all the porn I've seen, I think I'm pretty OK. Especially when I compare myself to kids who grew up sheltered. And I'm probably more fucked up from all the things real live humans did to me. So let's just leave the Internet alone, no?

That being said, as long as filtering along a top-level domain were voluntary to the parents, then I'm fine with it.

OT:
I finally watched Wizard People, Dear Readers, and it is the best thing in the world. If you die before you watch it, you lose.

Re:one tiny problem...

[syousef]

As fucked up as I am from all the porn I've seen, I think I'm pretty OK.

If you were as you put it f*cked up, you'd have no need for porn now would you!?

Re:one tiny problem...

[xtieburn]

It is extremely worrying to me that this comment can get modded 5 insightful.

We are talking about children here and while I am not a fan of over protecting or sheltering children the internet is chocked full of the most disturbing content. Sex, death, drugs you can see it all with a simple search even in google images, and you dont have to be very specific for some horrifying stuff to turn up.

No good parent should allow children free reign on something like that. You let your children go out and have fun, you dont let them take a trip to amsterdam to check out hookers though.

Re:one tiny problem...

[thegnu]

Well, luckily, I'm 24 and have no girlfriend and wear condoms when I do stick my junk in a lady. In fact, I have no evidence my stuff is even magical enough to make a baby.

What I'm saying though is that in lieu of putting my child in an intellectual jail, I would put them a little at risk. We have far too many fear-inspired intellectual jails for ourselves and our children in this culture. To be fair, I wasn't exposed to the Internet until I was 14, so I at least had the opportunity to be molested several times before I was exposed to anything that might damage me. And I was also on dial-up, which limited my access to video. So I only saw *pictures* of people cut in half, or tangled up in train undercarriages, or laying on a tarp cover in shit and vomiting. No video.

I suppose part of it is that I would be able to discreetly (and discretely) get a general idea of where my children were going because I'm a geek. I also don't give much more than a teeny tiny flying fuck about money, so I'd gear my life towards creating a home with a parent's presence in it, rather than a Playstation 12 and Nintendo YipiiBox. Though the Nintendo YipiiBox is very reasonably priced, I must admit. And Mario Jumpy Time Seventy Box Twelve is a fun game.

I suppose if a child is 4, a Disney Internet is OK. But I would be more interested in a child only having access to Wikipedia, slashdot, a visual thesaurus, and even youtube than a pandering bubblegum childhood hanna montana circle jerk.

And if the child showed up and said, "What is fuck? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." I'd do what most parents do when their child arrives from a game of 4-square with a new swear word: I would explain to the child that since I am the big monkey that has the obligation to take care of him and since he's tiny and has noooooooooooo freaking idea, that he should just not use the fuck word, because it's inappropriate. Yes, people use it, but it's inappropriate when they do.

Huh?

[ScrewMaster]

Australia Plans to Censor the Internet

Yeah well ... good luck with that.

thumbs up

[Corson]

it would be great and all countries should follow suit, provided it works out.

.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[Kadin2048]

But that would be too sensible, just like the notion of .xxx to enable easy filtering.

Hold it right there. A .kids namespace and associated content makes sense; but a .xxx space does not, and would not work. They are fundamentally different concepts.

A .kids TLD (or better yet, .kids.us or .kids.au or whatever) is a WHITELIST. You only allow content into it that's been reviewed, and is guaranteed-clean. It's trivial to restrict browsers to it. You can set up whatever kind of review committee you want to keep tabs on it. It's strictly opt-in by design.

However, .xxx or .porn or .adult are exactly the opposite. They are BLACKLISTS and can only function when you effectively censor the rest of the Internet, in order to force adult content into the "adult" TLDs. This is hugely impractical and spectacularly dangerous from a freedom-of-speech perspective. Essentially what this tries to do is turn the entire Internet EXCEPT one corner of it into a "kids"-zone, and that's just not going to happen. It's impossible to police effectively without a national firewall (because unlike a TLD, which you could put under your country's namespace and easily apply national laws to, you'd be trying to censor all of the 'net), and such a scheme would lead to fragmentation of the network in short order.

Do not confuse .kids, which is a good idea, with .xxx, which is dangerous and stupid.

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[rs79]

"Do not confuse .kids, which is a good idea, with .xxx, which is dangerous and stupid."

You're guessing. And I'm guessing you're guessing wrong.

Who'd want example.com when they could have example.xxx ?

I think in time any pron sites left in .com will feel pressure to move to "where they should be".

There's already a kids domain. It was a huge flop.

Thanks for playing. Don Pardo do we have parting gifts for our contestant?

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a slippery distinction made between the two domains in the context of "free speech". You would have the .kids domain restricted by a peer review committee and that's just dandy. But that same philosophical application somehow does not work for .xxx?

What about the MPAA? I assure you there are countless parents out there who have a trusted sibling or friend review G or PG movies first before even allowing their own kids to see it. Your .kids whitelist would be no different, and no more trusted for that matter.

The problem is our government has no vested interest in stifling (what they perceive) as the commercial growth of the internet.

Do not confuse your perception of "free speech" by compartmentalizing one with restrictions but not the other. It was a nice piece of stink bait which plays well here for the other slashdot catfish all too willing to chew. All too worried they might lose unrestricted access to their porn. You can just as easily segment a .xxx domain with vested commercial interests. Using their own whitelist, by committee they could ensure that no other party infringes on their valued namespace. Why would .xxx domains not be interested in ensuring that their content is only accessible to those who wish to see it? I think that's the real point. Isn't it? Your argument is disingenuous at best. How many of you here chewed?

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[Kadin2048]

Are you just trolling or are you seriously this thick?

Who'd want example.com when they could have example.xxx ? Why would anyone want the latter, particularly if it means they're going to be automatically censored in large parts of the country/world? I suspect there are lots of porn consumers who live blatantly hypocritical lives ("uh, sure, honey ... you can block .xxx, I certainly don't care about it..."). At any rate, it doesn't make much sense to restrict one's market. And with the price of domain names, the logical solution for any adult site would be to buy both: get yourname.xxx and yourname.com. This is the main driver behind the .xxx TLD in the first place -- it's a cash cow for the registrars.

I think in time any pron sites left in .com will feel pressure to move to "where they should be". Pressure from who? And why would they care? Certainly not social pressure. There are porn sites around for lots of, shall we say ... fringe activities; things that are certainly not acceptable in mainstream society. No amount of tut-tutting is going to push them into the .xxx ghetto when there's a clear ongoing economic incentive to remain in both. And as for government/legal pressure, that only works within the borders of a single nation; there's nothing stopping me from setting up a .com porn site in some neutral territory and thus reaching all those consumers stuck behind .xxx-blocks for whatever reason. The only way you could enforce this is with a national firewall and universal content screening.

And this whole scheme doesn't do anything about adult content that appears on sites other than ones 100% dedicated to porn. You're always going to have imageboards and interactive/user-created content sites that are going to tend towards 'adult,' because that's what people are interested in. You're not going to change that through any amount of legislation.

The result is that no matter how much you try, there is always going to be adult content available in the 'general' Internet. And that means it'll never be "porn free," ever, undermining the whole point of the endeavor. You can't make the Internet, in general, "safe for kids," because the Internet is mostly populated by adults, and much of what adults want to talk about is, well, adult. So not only is it a recipe for censorship and unnecessarily burdensome, it's futile in terms of actually achieving its stated purpose.

There's already a kids domain. It was a huge flop. Yep, very true. The take-away point here? Nobody really gives that much of a shit about protecting kids, or creating a 'safe zone' for them. The .xxx proposals are about two things: they're an attempt by the registrars to make a few bucks, and they're a way for some social authoritarians to try and regulate the lives of others' and censor the public sphere by pushing content they find disagreeable into a walled ghetto.

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[techno-vampire]

You would have the .kids domain restricted by a peer review committee and that's just dandy. But that same philosophical application somehow does not work for .xxx?

The point you're missing is that you couldn't get a kids domain unless a) you asked for it and b) passed the review. If you want to register a .com with kids content only, there'd be nothing stopping you; it would be strictly opt-in with review. Most of the suggested implementations of .xxx imply that adult content would be forced onto .xxx either by law or market forces, and that's unlikely to work. See the difference?

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[LiquidFire_HK]

You're missing the GP's point. Which was this:

If there was a .xxx domain, people (parents, bosses, etc.) would be blacklisting it so that kids, workers, etc. don't have access to it. But since the rest of the Internet is unrestricted, they could still find porn elsewhere (say, one under .com).

If there was a .kids domain, it would be the only domain allowed for kids to open (well, sure, you could allow, say, .edu too). Since everything in the .kids TLD would be preapproved, there wouldn't be any adult content.

Which doesn't mean I approve of either idea. Just clarifying the GP's point.

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are dangerous and stupid for not realizing 4 corner simultaneous 24 hour .xxx domains that occur within a single 4 corner rotation of the Internet.

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[Anonymous Coward]

But I thought the .xxx, .porn and .adult domains are the places where my browser should be restricted to...

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who'd want example.com when they could have example.xxx ?

I think in time any pron sites left in .com will feel pressure to move to "where they should be".

There's already a kids domain. It was a huge flop.

Thanks for playing. Don Pardo do we have parting gifts for our contestant?

Wikipedia has pictures of genitals on it.

Should it be "wikipedia.xxx"?

Who decides - America, Iran, France?

America would ban porn but allow violence.

Iran would ban everything critical of Islam.

France would forbid the use of the swastika symbol online.

Who do you want censoring your internet?

By the way, it is permissible to write paragraphs of more than one sentence.

It makes things easier to read if you do that.

Reading a post written like this is quite annoying.

I thought you might like to know that.

Re:.kids and .xxx are fundamentally different.

[owlstead]

The social authoritarians only need to show that they care for the kids; having practical proposals doesn't even get into their equations, it's all about the votes.

Domino Effect...

[aephoenix]

So.. How long until America tries this? I'm shocked we haven't already. I mean, then we'll really be living in a dictatorship.

Re:Domino Effect...

[YrWrstNtmr]

So.. How long until America tries this? I'm shocked we haven't already.

About a decade ago. It got shot down.

I mean, then we'll really be living in a dictatorship

Indeed.

Re:Domino Effect...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah - right.The US got a multibillion $$$ Pron industry (where most of the sites are strangely enough registered in Utah - might not be true anymore though).Thats the last thing they are going to do.

News might be another story......

Re:Domino Effect...

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea has already been floated around at least to some degree. Alberto Gonzales proposed a content labeling system that would have forced content providers in the U.S to label content that might be inappropriate for children or face prosecution with stiff fines and even jail time possible. COPA (Child Online Protection Act), had the majority of it not been found unconstitutional, would have required age verification on mature content. Finally, there was the Communications Decency act, also found to be mostly unconstitutional, which would have regulated indecency much like it is on broadcast television and terrestrial radio.

Re:Domino Effect...

[psued0ch]

It already has. If you look out a little farther, you shall see that most facets of the Internet in America have been locked down and regulated by capitalist ISPs. In order for the civilian population to regain total control of their sector of online communication, they will have to dismantle the ISP corporations, something as difficult as dismantling a major television broadcasting corporation.

Thats insulting to fisher-price

[voss]

A lot of us learned to experiment and use our minds as kids on fisher-price stuff.
However that being said censoring adults is no substitute for supervising children.

Just in case you did want a fisher-price internet for your 3 year old slashdotter-in-training.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5788078
Fisher-Price Easy-Link Internet Launch Pad, Elmo and Dragon Tales

Re:Thats insulting to fisher-price

[thegnu]

Well, I'm more opposed to Disney. I just mean that even a Fisher-Price Internet is a sad excuse for an open communication medium. There are plenty of games that use internet access on a closed network as a way to move the game forward. That would be an excellent way to introduce young children to the Internet. In fact, having a game from within which you could only access .kid domains would be pretty nifty.

My other problem with this as a "solution" is that parents are increasingly content to use electronics as babysitters. If something's completely safe (, vapid, and vacuous), then parents are more likely to assume it's a healthy alternative to human contact.

Toys are good for you, though. Fisher-Price is nice, in its place. Disney is nice, in its place. Hardcore pound-fucking... well, that's nice too. In its place. :-)

King Canute?

[serviscope_minor]

People keep tagging these stories "kingcanute". Canute was trying to prove to his courtiers by demonstration that he could not hold back the tide. Somehow I doubt these would-be censors are trying to demonstrate its ineffectiveness.

Don't Laugh

[nurb432]

The WTO has a lot of control ( blackmail ) over other sovereign countries when another with lesser laws gets irritated.

Parent is a MiniCity troll...

[Anonymous Coward]

and a dickhead.

Can't spell, either.

(And WTF is with this MiniCity crap, anyway? Looks pretty stupid/useless/boring.)

There's a pretty big difference.

[Kadin2048]

This is a slippery distinction made between the two domains in the context of "free speech". You would have the .kids domain restricted by a peer review committee and that's just dandy. But that same philosophical application somehow does not work for .xxx? Well, there's a valid argument as to whether we should even bother to 'protect' children from pornography, rather than trying to educate them as to the differences between healthy and unhealthy sexuality, reality vs fantasy, etc. I think that's a valid discussion to have, and in an ideal world, I'd be all for education rather than enforced "innocence", but I realize that's a non-starter in most parts of the world today.

So, if we take on premise that children need to be 'protected' from some content, I think it's more practical and less philosophically repugnant to create safe-zones around children than to try and 'child-proof' the entire world except for certain 'adult zones' where we allow uncensored conversations to take place. Basically, if you go into a kids' zone, you agree to self-censor. If you don't want to do that, you don't have to go in.

Similarly, if you wanted a site in .kids.us, or some other "kindernet," you would have to go through some sort of review process, or perhaps post a bond and swear that you'd keep it clean. If you didn't want to do this, you could just get a regular domain and not worry about it -- the only customers you'd lose would be the ones whose browsers don't let them access anything outside of the kindernet.

This is a pretty fundamentally different process from trying to censor everything that's in the general TLDs and force everything that's 'kid-unfriendly' into .xxx-type zones. Plus, while there's only one "general" Internet to censor and make child-friendly (meaning that you have to find one lowest-common-denominator standard), you can have many kindernets, corresponding to what different people feel is appropriate for different groups of children. You can have .kids.us and .kids.ir, for George Bush's and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ideas of kid-friendliness, respectively; you could also further subdivide .kids.us into .G.kids.us and .PG13.kids.us and the like for fine-grained control. Parents could feel free to enable whichever domains they thought were appropriate (and sites in more restrictive could automatically 'trickle down' to less restrictive ones; e.g. PG13.kids.us would be a superset of .PG.kids.us and .G.kids.us plus its own sites).

Now, I'm not saying this would be the best solution -- I think the overall best solution would be to educate kids so that they won't be harmed by 'adult' culture as early as possible, rather than keeping them in bubbles, and I think DNS may not be the best way to signify the 'adult-ness' of content on a page -- but it's certainly better than trying to force all 'adult' content on the Internet into a 'free speech zone.'

Ronald McDonald

[EmbeddedJanitor]

No doubt you'll be able to lobby/bribe your way onto the whitelist the way McDonalds do into classrooms etc. What kind of parent would let their kids into that world?

Wilhelm Reich on Authority and Sexual Repression

[handy_vandal]

You don't have to be Freud to see the ways in which pent up guilt and self revulsion pours out of the ruling classes. It's an expression of their own inadequacy to defeat their inner greed, blood lust and worship of war and horror .... Ask any psychologist about the link between Nazism and sexuality if you want to understand the pathology of the authoratarian mind.

Wilhelm Reich analyzed the relationship between authority and sexual repression.

"In [The Mass Psychology of Fascism], Reich categorized fascism as a symptom of sexual repression. The book was banned by the Nazis when they came to power."
- Link.

"The moral inhibition of the child's natural sexuality, the last stage of which is the severe impairment of the child's genital sexuality, makes the child afraid, shy, fearful of authority, obedient, 'good," and "docile" in the authoritarian sense of the words. It has a crippling effect on man's rebellious forces because every vital life-impulse is now burdened with severe fear; and since sex is a forbidden subject, thought in general and man's critical faculty also become inhibited. In short, morality's aim is to produce acquiescent subjects who, despite distress and humiliation, are adjusted to the authoritarian order. Thus, the family is the authoritarian state in miniature, to which the child must learn to adapt himself as a preparation for the general social adjustment required of him later."
- Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Link.

Total Porn Restriction?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I am reading these correctly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Film_and_Literature_Classification_(Australia), http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_310907

The main elements of the new content regulatory framework in Schedule 7 to the BSA are:
a prohibition on X18+ and RC content;
a prohibition on R18+ content, unless it is subject to appropriate access restrictions;

R18+ is classified as 'High Impact', and X18+ is classified as Pornographic content.

If wikipedia is accurate with it's explanation of X18+, then this means australian sites can no longer host porn, at all?

Re:Total Porn Restriction?

[Anonymous Coward]

But we can still view it. Thanks for scaring the kangaroo shit out of me, mate.

Re:Total Porn Restriction?

[msim]

this reminds me of the whole half assed "movie / game classification" situation/joke.

Now the current ratings here are G (General Exhibition), PG (Parental Guideance), MA15+ (Mature Audiences of 15 years or older), MA (Mature Audiences, do we even USE this rating anymore?), R (Restricted, 18+ only) and X (Nuthin but T, A & jiggly bits). Currently games here are *refused* classification if they don't meet the MA15+ rating. So there's a whole raft of games that we dont get here due to the naffheads in the Office of Film and Literature Classification having issue with adult themes in games. Personally its another step in the direction of "wont somebody think of the children", when personally i think it is up to the PARENTS to teach about such things, and they should face the repercussions for these things. I really don't see why anything imported to our shores should be modified because we are the "special child" in the worlds classroom.

b.t.w. sorry that turned into a rant, but shit like this just disgusts me.

Re:Total Porn Restriction?

[msim]

blah, forgot to allow html in this post.
games banned in Australia

Office of Film and Literature Classification

Re:Total Porn Restriction?

[msim]

blah, forgot to allow html in this post.

games banned in Australia

Office of Film and Literature Classification

bah that'll teach me to hit submit before proofreading / posting at 2am.

on a further note this kind of reflects my point precisely

We made this bed

[nfc_Death]

The first time some parent demanded the whole world change for fear their child may be affected by it, and the world complied, that was it the bed was made. Our desperate need to work harder and for longer hours has allowed us to class our governments as surrogate child rearers. You must personally be aware of what your children are into, wrapping them in bubble tape and putting blinders and earmuffs on them , only makes them want to see what they cannot, harder. As usual everyones rights get trampled because people are incapable of caring for, and having eyes on, their own offspring.

Old Government, new Law

[kramulous]

This law is the culmination of what another Slashdot story stating today. When we had an election recently, the then government was doing anything to prostitute themselves to buy votes, especially the 'won't somebody please think of the children' votes. I see Hilary Clinton is doing the same with video games. Unfortunately, the then government were able to pass any law they liked without scrutiny because they had the majority in the upper and lower house. This law smells stupidly like former Communications Minister Helen Coonan, the very same that brought us the $85 million web content filter that only worked for IE (and was hacked by a teenager that it was meant to 'protect') and that Internet bandwidth is measured in Hertz.
 
It won't be long before the current government turfs this law because it is just not practical. Not in this way. The .kids mentioned above seems plausible.

Uh, duid anyone, including the submitter RTFM?

[TheAwfulTruth]

It does NOT say X18+ is banned.

In fact is specifically calls out that it is allowed as long as you "verify" that you are over 18.

I quote: "service providers will have to check that people accessing MA15-plus content are aged over 15 years and those accessing R18-plus and X18-plus content are over 18."

How could that have possibly be interpereted as X18+ is banned?!?!?

Please explain.

Re:Uh, duid anyone, including the submitter RTFM?

[cranos]

Probably because under the current framework, X18+ is banned already. This is just extending that framework and setting the scene for the eventual ISP filtering the Government promised in its election campaign.

Hey, why not, after all...

[merc]

most prisons already do this! ;-)

Re:Wilhelm Reich on Authority and Sexual Repressio

[mazarin5]

[quote]"The book was banned by the Nazis when they came to power."[/quote]

And the Polish. And the French. And then copies were collected and burned in America.

I've read it, and I just don't get what the hubbub was about.

Good.

[ta bu shi da yu]

Please, if that's the way you feel, feel free to stay right where you are.

Re:Good.

[ashridah]

Please, if that's the way you feel, feel free to stay right where you are

Huh? If that's the way I feel I should stay out? How does that make sense? Because I'm not happy with the conservative nature of both parties right now?

There's still a *lot* that I like about the Australian political system. It's certainly not the three-ring circus that America has, and while it's clearly unbalanced some of the time, it's usually fairly sane, and gets quite a fair bit right, particularly it's ability to represent smaller parties.

For instance, regardless of what I thought about the man's inability to do his job, Senator Alston did push for better internet access, particularly in rural areas. Quite frankly, I fully believe that Australian internet is better (albeit slightly more expensive) than what's available in the US (these people haven't heard of ADSL2+ yet, they're trying to roll out fibre to the home, and at crappy speeds too). What I don't agree with is parties pandering to the ultra-conservative nature of people in order to play on the family-first sentiments that seems to exist.

Of course, with the way teenagers and young adults act nowadays, I'm not surprised that people WANT to do something to control them. The problem I have is that they're doing it too late to help the current lot, and they're not doing it the right way (It's called discipline people! an absence of porn or violent media isn't going to do anything to fix them!)

The other problem is that it's blown out of proportion. Most people are sane and good-natured, regardless of how much porn or violence they see. A minority are not, and the media does as much as it can to sensationalize it to the limit.

Re:Good.

[poptones]

Ha. I see it's not just the US that also has its fair share of "love it or leave it" redneck types.

Re:Good.

[ta bu shi da yu]

Hardly. Exactly how is he helping by whinging from the other side of the world? He's not.

Re:Good.

[ta bu shi da yu]

Huh? If that's the way I feel I should stay out? How does that make sense? Because I'm not happy with the conservative nature of both parties right now?

No, because you are complaining from the other side of the world, and the fact is you wrote:

"Particularly since my braindead country just voted in the fucking party that's in love with the idea."

Then you wrote:

"Glad I don't live there anymore, I certainly won't be going back any time soon."

You wrote that. As I say, if that's how you feel, don't let me stand in your way!

How precisely do you know about the current state of play in Australia? It sounds like you have no clue. For instance, are you interested in the fact that Kevin Rudd is interested in signing the Kyoto protocol? Or the fact that he's willing to spend $150 million for starters on the homeless? How about reforming the industrial relation system royally screwed by the Liberal Party?

Perhaps it's your whining about a bit of legislation that was not passed by Labor but by the Liberal party. How do you know that this is what Rudd is going to do? He's only been in power for several weeks, in which time he has been to Afghanistan and Bali. Parliament hasn't been sitting, and won't be till next year.

So, that's why your comment gets on my nerves. You have gone overseas, that's all well and good. But don't think that you're somehow better than everyone else because of it.

Re:Good.

[ashridah]

Oh, ffs. Nevermind that I qualified my statement with the notion that *both* sides support the idea. It was rhetoric. Look it up. I wouldn't say that Labor's the worst offender, either.

My point was that I don't want to live in a state of forced censorship. I value that over a PM who seems 'intelligent' on your pet ideas. Yay, he's signing the kyoto protocol, woo for the homeless, etc. I was alive last time labor was in power, and I'm willing to bet they're going to screw it up just like they did last time. As you noted, parliament isn't in session yet. Watch what happens when the union bosses call in their debts.

Here's a hint: Every time labor's been in power, interest rates in Australia have sky-rocketed. Every. Time. And the working class certainly didn't win last time labor was in power, yet big spending was the ticket *then* too, which is exactly what our new PM seems to be doing!

And messing with the IR laws doesn't really sit well with me anyway, but maybe because *I* came out in front with them, but while I concede that some people may not have been happy, they weren't that bad. No-one actually got successfully screwed by the IR laws, regardless of labor's hooting, particularly once people got wind of their ability to get proper compensation, via official channels.

ash

Re:Good.

[ta bu shi da yu]

Ah. The old interest rate furfy. Like to explain why interest rates where at 20%+ when Howard was treasurer? Or what about the fact that interest rates are set by the (gasp!) Reserve Bank. Here a thought: interest rates would have gone up regardless of who was in power. The economy is overheating, largely due to the resources boom.

So please, don't give me that "old fart" act.

As for "big spending", $150 million on the homeless and signing the Kyoto protocol isn't just my "pet idea". It's actually something that we should be doing - the $150 million, in fact, isn't even a drop in the ocean for what is needed.

I'll look back on your comments with interest in 4 years time - probably when you aren't back in Australia. But... with the attitude you display, please, as I said before, don't let me stand in the way of you coming back! I suspect we are better off without you.

Trust me, it will be half-arsed.

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

For years, X-rated material has been 'Unrated' in Australia, therefore illegal. Yet you could still pick up an X-rated magazine in a 7-11. Just as an idea of how useless we are at restricting access to pornographic material:

In magazines, they put stickers on the naughty bits, as if peeling was beyond the abilities of a 12 year old. The only way I see that happening is if they somehow made it that you needed to peel it off with a credit card.

Re:Trust me, it will be half-arsed.

[flajann]

And I would not want to be giving away my credit card numbers to such questionable sites!!!!!!

That is to say, I might be interested in the content, but that does not also mean I would trust them with my financial information.

sovereignty

[MSDos-486]

Ok, lets say if I open a porn site right here in the good old US of A and i get on of these take down notices?

tl;dr

[Anonymous Coward]

Too Long; Didn't Read

Translates to: That was too long to read.

So it appears that

[iminplaya]

The new boss is the same as the old boss? I was kinda hoping that they voted that kind of crap out of their government. Oh well...

Re:Wilhelm Reich on Authority and Sexual Repressio

[Eli Gottlieb]

Haven't you ever at least seen parodies of 1950's sitcoms? Americans, French and Polish were every bit as authoritarian in the home as the Germans of the time, despite living in non-fascist states.

Only for products being sold?

[t0nz0r]

Does this only apply to companies selling things? I certainly don't want my WoW guild website to get taken down because we sometimes use swear words and post some porn (which usually gets taken off anyway cause then the site gets blocked at peoples work). We definitely wont be putting any age verification system on our site.

Who cares?

[Dash Hash]

Who cares about sex and porn? That stuff is so over-rated, it's pathetic.

Now, murder (and violence in general), showing people's heads get splattered against a wall, watching people get thrown through a window and land twenty stories below in a heap of gore, watching people get skinned alive, now /that/ stuff is the good stuff!

All this talk about penises and vaginae and sex is just so tiring.
I think I'll go watch a few murder movies to get my mind off it.

Am I in trouble?

[Sigvatr]

Hey, I registered an account specifically for this article. I live in Brisbane and am currently the webmaster and creator of the following two sites (NSFW, please don't judge me): http://www.electricretard.com/ http://www.spreekillers.org/ Do these laws apply only to where the content is hosted (Canada, in this case) or where the creator of the content lives? Should I expect some angry emails soon? What are my options if I get angry emails?

Re:Am I in trouble?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're an Australian registered entity of some sort yes, but if you're not AND you have your content offshore I can't see what they can do.

What is best for kids

[Anonymous Coward]

If little Timmy comes across goatse when he is looking for Bob The Builder or Thomas The Tank Engine I dont think he will even give it a second glance before moving on to TTTE or BTB. At worst it might cause some embarrasment for mommy or daddy when he asks "what is that?" or "What are they doing?" Kids have absolutely no interest in that kind of stuff untill they are about 11 years old. By then it is time for them to explore and learn about it. It is natural that they have to grow up and grow a sex drive. You can`t keep little Timmy and little Wendy 6 year olds forever. The only thing I would be concerned about is keeping my kids safe from predators. Ignorance, however is not bliss and I will never sensor anything that my kids want to learn about.

Wait, what now?

[damncrackmonkey]

Right, because any system in which you can win the 5 biggest states (and 1 other state of your choosing) with 51% and lose the other 44 by 100% (you flat out told them to fuck off because you didn't need them anyway) and still win the overall election is clearly the ideal way to 'balance the power of small and large states.'

Under this system, my state's electors effectively cast my vote (which is still worth roughly as much as it would be without them since the number of electors a state gets is based off of its population) to whoever they want (it doesn't technically have to be with the popular vote) regardless of whether I voted or even who I voted for.

It seems like it would be really easy to just let states' electors cast their votes proportionately to that of the voters. The biggest issue would likely be that campaigns would have to figure out how to effectively gain the most votes instead of just continuously pushing in "battleground states" to get that 51%, and the big parties are both extraordinarily opposed to change -- no matter how trivial.

Nothing to see here... Well, not at 24Kbps anyway.

[Cyanara]

I'm not sure they can effectively censor something most of us don't really have access to yet...

Australian Hegemony

[flajann]

How silly, considering the bulk of the Internet content -- including stuff they deem inappropriate for children -- originates outside of Australia! Is Australia, like so many other governments, trying to control International Cyberspace? What if, say, someone in Germany or Russia runs a site without any age checks that the Australian government doesn't like? Try to extradite said person to Australia?

These are dangerous times where many of the governments of the world attempt to impose parochial morality on the international "waters" of Cyberspace. And why do they attempt to do this, I wonder? Is it that they are simply trying to look like they are "doing something" to the people back at home? There's little hope of enforcement for any content originating outside of their borders.

And that brings me to another long-standing pet peeve of mine -- where are all the parents in all of this? Is it not the responsibility of the parents to control and meter out what their little Johnnies see on the Internet? What, with all the blocking software available and the like, why can't they do their own due diligence as responsible parents? Why do they expect government to be a substitute for their roles? Mommy Government, please watch my Johnny for me, will ya?.

As a parent of 3 kids, I don't expect and would not want "Mommy Government" to decide content for my kids -- that's my responsibility. Government will get it wrong more times than not, anyway.

And ultimately, if you raise your kids right, you should have no worries about their activities on the Internet. If you do anyway, you can simply not let them on it!

Mass media and mass communication technologies can make it a challenge, yes, for a paranoid parent to control what her Johnny sees. But then, you've hit on the real crux of the problem -- paranoia. Kids are not as stupid as many -- including "Mommy Government" -- may suppose. The kids will be OK, so relax.

Re:Wilhelm Reich on Authority and Sexual Repressio

[handy_vandal]

I've read it, and I just don't get what the hubbub was about.

Agreed, it's kind of repetitious and dull.

I think the hubbub was less about the book itself, more about Reich's personality (getting himself thrown out of the Communist party, making enemies with the Nazis, etc.).

Re:Wilhelm Reich on Authority and Sexual Repressio

[handy_vandal]

And then copies were collected and burned in America.

In think the anti-Reich hubbub in America was mostly about his orgone boxes, which were either (a) fraudulent, or (b) conducive to sexual amplification. Neither (a) nor (b) was acceptable to the authorities in 1950's America. (Can you imagine June Cleaver stepping out of an orgone box, crackling with cosmic sex energy? "Leave it to Beaver" would have been a very different show.)

Re:Wilhelm Reich on Authority and Sexual Repressio

[handy_vandal]

Americans, French and Polish were every bit as authoritarian in the home as the Germans of the time, despite living in non-fascist states.

Indeed. America rounded up over a hundred thousand American citizens of Japanese decent and stuck them in concentration camps. And jailed Quakers for their concientious objection to the war. And issued ration coupons for food, fuel, cars and tires, etc. And imposed nation-wide censorship.

Didnt happen then....

[iosq]

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/07/censorship/ Wonder how long Krudd will keep this up before he realizes how huge a task censoring the internet would be. Also, could they block proxies without raising questions on how that affects the publics right to animosity