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Aussie Minister Backs Down on Internet Censorship
gballard writes "After the constant furore raised by rights groups, ISPs and concerned citizens over the Australian Government's planned 'internet filter,' it seems that Australia Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is finally backing down. In a recent interview, the Minister conceded that many of the sites blocked by the filter were legitimate businesses (including, in one case, a Queensland dentist's homepage) and changed his story on whether the planned filter would restrict 'Refused Classification' websites or use the broader (and more vague) criterion of 'prohibited.'
It's a positive step, but as the article above suggests, at the moment it's only one crack in the defenses of a censorship plan with broad ramifications for Australian internet users."
Also take note of the Australian Christian Lobby rep "Lyle" who interjected during the discussion saying that the majority view of anti-filter people was that rape porn and child porn had no effect on children which was not said by anyone in the audience or at anytime.
Its that kind of view that has to be struggled against. If you're for the filter you're pro child if you're against then you're pro child-porn. Its sickening.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
The only time I didn't spend yelling at the TV was during the AD breaks. Senator Conroy only further showed how disconnected from reality he is.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
I also I believe one of his comments was "We are happy with the filter being to RC (Refused Classification) material For Now"
Which is a big part of the problem I have with the filter (amongst other things) is that it's open to scope creep. Pet peeve of the month will be used to help get ministers onside, especially at the moment to pass anything Labour need the help of the Independant ministers, ones like Family First Senator Steve Fielding, religious right wing nut job.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
I think there is an idea from marketing that is relevant to this political issue.
Never try and compete directly with an idea that people have already bought into. If many people believe that anti-filtering is anti-child, to change someone's mind 180 they must admit that they were wrong...and people don't do that.
And because of scope creep I must say that the only acceptable filter is no filter. The basic premise of CP or whatever is simply not good enough of a reason to give such a big stick to the government.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Politicians can be so short sighted and stupid.
They scream, porn, rape, child molestation, crime, etc, etc, etc, this moral issue, that moral issue.
Of course you CAN legislate morality, the better question to ask is SHOULD YOU?
To have freedom of religion, no one religion can dominate, otherwise we all lose religious freedom. THIS IS BAD.
Now ask yourself, is your religion the dominant religion right now? (Answer is probably No)
Are members of your religion having more babies than all other religions? (Answer is NO, unless you are Muslim)
If you are Muslim, do NOT get too excited as ultimately you too will lose because the fanatic Islamist, also claiming to be Muslims are going to start nuking as soon as they get the capability, the money to purchase, to do so. So while from a population perspective you will dominant, after the first dirty nuke, those numbers will change, like it or not. It is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. Nothing anyone does can stop this fact...either Islamist become tolerant or the Muslim religion is ultimately doomed.)
Good luck with that one...you will need it.
The only point, any law passed with Religious intent or perspective, allows your law to be replaced by a religion with more population.
This is why you MUST NOT pass any law of a religious nature and why government and religion should NEVER mix.
To do so risks the loss of freedom of religion for you and your posterity.
Obviously any law of censorship, ultimately threatens your freedom of religion, no matter how that law is worded. Do you really want to do that to your kids? To their kids?
In America, our founding fathers understood religious persecution, sadly we have forgotten those lessons.
Net Neutrality is in YOUR religions best interest. Net Neutrality is what god wants you to have. Now go, worship freely, get out of government and sin no more!
Is your Internet Throttled? Install DD-Wrt, OpenWRT or Tomato to learn the truth! Google: 1Gbps/1Gbps: 5 Communities
I would say that the politicians that advertise their religiousity are the dodgy ones. They're basically taking the advice of Machiavelli which I'll quote for you here... "A prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality." For prince, simply substitute poticians.
Now with regards to the truely religious politicians who aren't cynically using it as a tool for votes, I would say they're simply not smart enough or critical enough to be put into a position of power.
You're completely missing the point. These kinds of nutcase zealots aren't interested in setting up their own personal blacklists, instead they want to control what other people see and do.
"On the other hand it could explain why it was kept pretty silent pre-election."
It "kinda" didn't exist before the election, check how Mr 2% got elected in the WP link. I say "kinda" because it's a cyclical thing...
1. Pre election - no censorship.
2. Post election - New government and a few independent censorship nuts are suddenly sitting members. Their heads swell with the phrase "balance of power" and believing their own bullshit they try and play the big boys against each other.
3. Government sets up an inquiry and wins the support of nut jobs.
4. Government sends draconian bill to the senate, opposition and public don their tinfoil and go into a turd flinging, arm flapping frenzy.
5. The trial drags on until mid-late term when the list is suddenly broad enough to include the nut jobs own supporters.
6. Trail ends, bill is voted down and considered by all not to be worth risking a double dissolution.
7. Goto 1.
8. ????
9. Profit.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There's also the fact that one of the biggest problems with the concept remains - it is still a top-secret blacklist that we aren't allowed to see. We're not allowed to know, or talk about, what exactly is being censored. We were assured by Conroy that no political content would be blocked, but we have no way of confirming that if the list is a secret (unless it leaks... which it did, clearly showing that political content was being blocked).
Time and time again, experience has shown that these lists WILL leak, and they WILL be trivial to defeat (particularly for those with the greatest interest in defeating them). And these people want to keep adding child porn to some of the most widely released documents on the internet?
Fucking imbeciles, I tell you. You're not helping the children, you're harming them, and you're pandering to fundamentalist wowsers who have about 1% of a clue about what they're talking about between them.
The point is that for Mao, Stalin, etc. their religious preferences were incidental to their communism-inspired mass-murder. They didn't kill people because they were atheist, but because they disliked opposition or genuinely believed that planting rice more densely would increase production, instead of causing starvation.
Equally, Mussolini and Franco were Catholics, but they didn't murder in the name of Christ, but in the name of political expedience. I'm just so fed up of this "Hitler* and Stalin were atheist, therefore atheism is evil" meme that I need to stamp it out before it even gets the chance to flourish in a conversation.
For what it's worth, I don't think atheists make better or worse leaders than secularists of any faith. I do think that religious rule of any stripe can only be a bad thing though.
*Hitler wasn't even remotely atheist.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with actually protecting anyone or stopping anyone from seeing things that perhaps they really ought not to see - we could argue about that one all day and I'm not even sure I'd know how I really feel about it, which is why I'm against the idea of blacklists even if I thought you could keep them ideologically pure. That's not what they're for, however; the idea is that they can "accidentally" slip sites which promote political speech of which they do not approve, sites that criticize their constituents (the real ones - the corporations) and other sources of information that "they" don't want you to have access to. It has already happened time and again and it will continue to happen so long as such blacklists are permitted to exist. You can examine the great firewall of China as your inspiration. While it is largely ineffective against interested parties, its purpose is to keep the masses largely ignorant so that they don't become interested parties.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"because of scope creep"
... and the "almost" aspect is a key part of their plan. Its a clever chess move as it provides a thin Veneer of credibility to hide their core goal behind and to force people to accept what the governments want. Which is simply to seek more power, just like they always do.
Scope creep is a major aspect, but its worse than that, as it also provides an example to all governments, which is a danger to everyone around the world.
People who seek governmental power go into that kind of work because they want to have power over others (and power also means money). (They are constantly looking for new ways to gain more power for themselves and fearful of loosing power to their opponents). The drive to seek power and the fear of loosing power is why they are seeking to control the Internet.
All governments are like slime moulds seeking food and what feeds governmental power is finding ways to control people. All the individuals in the governmental slime mould are clambering over each other to feed their thirst for power. Its why different departments of government work independently yet all end up moving in the same direction, as they all ultimately seek the same thing. Power over people. The Internet (and extending the Internet into the real world) is a huge potential source of power over people. People in power both want and fear the Internet, because of what it means for their goal of seeking power. For example, large numbers of people viewing things online can stir up public opinion, which can undermine the people in power, as this leaked block list demonstrates.
This battle for censoring the Internet is just part of a larger battle, which is going to get ever worse control of everyone, until everyone stands up and provides opposition to the people who seek to use the Internet to gain ever more power over people. Also as fast as some stupid power grab over the Internet is forced back, the different members of the governmental slime mould all force forward dozens of other new power grabs, some of which take time to surface. That's why scope creep is so difficult to limit, bacause as fast as we try to stop one power grab, they add loads more power grabs.
This battle isn't between different political parties. They are all the same when it comes to their core goal of seeking power over people. Therefore there is no effective opposition to the political parties on this point. They all want to control the Internet.
This battle is between the elite few in power and the majority of people who the elite few aim to control (and then exploit for their own gain). This will continue to get ever worse control until the minority in power make life so difficult for the majority, that they finally stir up the majority to force some kind of fairness out of the relentlessly power seeking minority.
It will continue to get ever worse control because that is what the people in power want and currently there isn't sufficient opposition feedback to rein in their uncontrolled power grab. Its like a machine without feedback. Without enough feedback the machine runs out of control. Thats exactly want is happening now all over the world, with relentless power grabs to find ever more ways to control peoples lives.
Almost all the censorship talk is simply using FUD to sell the idea the governments need to grab control of the Internet
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
If one managed to censor 100% of all child pornography without affecting anything else, there wouldn't be much complaint.
Well there should be. If one managed to prevent the production of such material then I would not complain.
You seem to be buying into the idea that this is about protecting children. Or at least the bizarre idea that it's ok for children to be abused as long as we don't accidentally tune into it.
What's becoming increasingly clear is that it is not about protecting children. It is about enforcing views and most of those views appear to stem from theological rather than rational origins.
100% of what? What exactly *is* "child porn"? Pictures of teens that they took themselves? Pictures of your kids in the yard spraying each other with hoses? Anime child porn? Anime child porn parodies? Adults pretending to be children? Adults who just look young? Teens over the local age of consent but under 18? Teens over their own age of consent, but under the age of consent in the viewer's area? Teens of indeterminate age? Teens having sex with each other in ways that are legal in their local area? If they took the pictures? If someone else took the pictures? Non-naked children in sexually-suggestive situations? Non-naked children in situations that are sexually-suggestive to certain viewers only? (Think of shoe fetishes. Seriously. Would we ban all pictures of shoes?)
It's not enough to say "it catches nothing but bad stuff" -- you have to clearly define "bad stuff", too. Not only are we not comfortable with that, we're quick on the trigger -- like the recent so-called "sexting" debacle.