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AU Classification Board To Censor Mobile Apps
bennyboy64 writes "The Australian Classification Board is seeking to censor mobile phone applications under its National Classification Scheme. 'I recently wrote to the minister [Minister McDonald] regarding my concern that some so-called mobile phone applications, which can be purchased online or either downloaded to mobile phones or played online via mobile phone access, are not being submitted to the board for classification,' Australia's Classification Board director Donald McDonald told a Senate Estimates committee. I wonder if they know that there are over 80,000 applications on the iPhone platform alone?"
This is not censorship: this is rating, like done with movies and so already. And this kind of rating can be a great help for parents to rate suitability of some game/movie for their kids. So I don't see this as a bad thing, and it is definitely not censorship as the content in question remains available.
Now how they are going to process and rate the tens of thousands of games available (tfa talks about games, not all applications) that is another matter. They may need to hire some extra staff.
Still I think it is basically a good thing, as long as it is just rating, allowing the buyer to get a better idea what they want to buy. Just like going to the movies, the rating gives you an extra clue on the kind of movie you are going to watch, or in this case what application you are going to buy. Or which you may want to pass on.
Australia have got so hot on censoring everything these days they're more of a great grandma state at this point.
With all the digital distribution options as well, I don't think they really know how easy it is to bypass regional restrictions on places like app stores.
I think they're heading in the right direction. They should also review and classify all websites on the internet as they can be downloaded to mobile phones as well. Shockingly, these so-called internet applications can even be downloaded to computers in even higher resolution. I wonder if they know that there are much more than 80,000 internet applications on just the world wide web alone. On top of this, they get regularly updated! Should keep a committee busy for a while, I think.
As far as I know, to release a game on a medium regulated by the Australian classification board, you have to have the game in question classified. This costs a minimum of $1000 AUD.
This will spell the end of any small-scale iPhone game development by individuals or indie developers in Australia. The only games we'll see will be from big publishers, if we see them at all - even a big-name game is going to struggle to recoup $1000+ from Australian sales alone.
Yes, but anything that is refused classification is unable to be sold. That's what censorship is. It's ironic that the predecessor to the OFLC was the Film Censorship Board, yet anything they didn't review was available to sell. i.e. they didn't censor.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
Then I RTFA:
Well, how charmingly honest of them. In a more sophisticated regime, that would be "Minister for the Protection of Cute Children's Precious, Precious Innocence."
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
No need to worry yet. Perhaps the categories will be
1. Boobies
2. Extra Boobies
3. Mediocre girl-girl
4. Wicked Awesome girl-girl
5. Why would you pay 99 cents for that boring thing, mate?
Government: magically transforming self-righteous assholes into civil servants.
Think positively: it's one of the few skills that government is really good at :-)
Unfortunately they're not quite that honest - that title is from the author, not the Australian Government.
His actual title is "Minister for Home Affairs".
I would have said that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy was more deserving of that title. He's the one pushing for mandatory state-wide internet filtering, three-strike copyright infringement laws, and privacy/interception exemptions for ISPs so they can prove their users aren't breaking the law. Also known as the internet villain of the year.
1) The South Korea's Games Rating Board is supposed to certify every game.
2) The Jesus Phone is finally about to be launched in South Korea and it will be widely popular for lots of reasons (you can trust me on this one).
But because of 1), the South Korean AppStore will not include games...
Yes, a state can do that.
[Already posted in a similar story a few days ago.]
Nobox: Only simple products.
Why don't we ever hear any GOOD news out of Australia? Is it just the media companies (and here I include /. ) only talking about the shitty stuff they're doing ... or is it really that shitty there now?
Australia used to be cool.
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!