Google Rejects Australian Censorship Proposal

Xiroth writes "Google has rejected overtures from the Australian government to censor YouTube clips that had been given an RC rating by Australian classification authority, the OFLC. According to a Google spokesperson: 'YouTube has clear policies about what content is not allowed, for example hate speech and pornography, and we enforce these, but we can't give any assurances that we would voluntarily remove all Refused Classification content from YouTube. The scope of RC is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information. RC includes the grey realms of material instructing in any crime from [painting] graffiti to politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia, and exposing these topics to public debate is vital for democracy.'"

Comments

This is getting interesting!

[openfrog]

Now that the Australian government finds itself to be on the same side than China on censorship, I hope their legislators take a second look on the path they have taken for a while, and this apply to a few other Western parliaments as well...

Re:This is getting interesting!

[ircmaxell]

News at 10: Australia, the new China... Just with a crapload less people, better living conditions, democracy (well mostly) and well, pretty much everything else...

Re:This is getting interesting!

[MrNaz]

Also worrying is the fact that YouTube considers itself infrastructure for "free speech". What if they decide to broaden their definitions of "hate speech" and "pornography"?

The Internet is supposed to be free. It is supposed to allow equal access to data by equal parties. The existence of megacorporations in this space undermines the original spirit of the Internet, and provides just another way to turn the once-egalitarian Internet into just another tilted media outlet like Fox News.

This brings about a good discussion point: I remember the days of usenet, when IRC was the main form of IM, when gopher provided beautiful cruft-free content and I pine. No really, I still use pine. How could we, as citizens of the global Internet connected society, go about moving back towards an egalitarian Internet? I recognize that technology has moved forwards, however, I am left wondering how would we move the *values* back to what they were? Was it the massive influx of average people that did this to the Internet community? Or was it the megacorps who eventually found ways to monetize Internet users?

Re:This is getting interesting!

[ZeroExistenZ]

Now that the Australian government finds itself to be on the same side than China on censorship, I hope their legislators take a second look on the path they have taken for a while, and this apply to a few other Western parliaments as well...

Maybe they have the same agenda...

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

...including the funnel web spiders, dingos, sharks, billions of mice, 3 of the top ten deadliest snakes, cane toads... Dreamy!

Re:This is getting interesting!

[maxume]

Expect a corporation to look after its own interests.

Take it as a happy surprise when one looks after yours.

Don't rely on the corporation to look after your interests.

It isn't much of a puzzle.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[HungryHobo]

Lots of people complain about Endless September.

But those communities are still there. at least many of them are.
they just look small and puny next to the megacorps.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet is supposed to be free. It is supposed to allow equal access to data by equal parties. The existence of megacorporations in this space undermines the original spirit of the Internet, and provides just another way to turn the once-egalitarian Internet into just another tilted media outlet like Fox News.

Private instituations on the Internet, much like those in reality, follow the same basic rules regarding free speech: there isn't any. They can restrict speech in any way they want, because you can just go somewhere else if you want to say something they won't allow.

Does this mean that the removal of all free speech within a private institution's reach will make them just or popular? Clearly quite the opposite. Does this mean that I support the subjugation of all free speech on the Internet to the control of private institutions, or even the creation of Internet "free speech zones?" Definitely not.

But to extoll the mantra of "all free speech everywhere no matter what and down with the corporations" as your answer to the situation is naive at best, some synonym for "stupid" at the worst.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[morgan_greywolf]

Replying to undo a bad mod. Sorry.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[cgenman]

Yes. Clearly the internet is lacking in pornography because of Google's efforts. There's just wave after wave of nothing out there.

Personally, I wouldn't mind uncensored content in a walled off room of YouTube. But I understand that would be a hard sell for investors. And quite frankly, vomiting up a video of racist, homophobic, sexist viewpoints to a private server is pretty cheap and easy to do these days. It just isn't needed.

In this case, I applaud Google's efforts. Australia's BS Refused Classification status is a complete cop-out that everyone in the creative industries has been dealing with for years. Either man up to banning stuff that you don't like, or let it in an accept that 15 year olds will need to sort out on their own which holes the pointy bits go into.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[biryokumaru]

I think the central issue here is that people view the internet as a commodity, and use it as they would a tool. They don't see their usage as part of a message, or to have intrinsic meaning.

As an analogy, let's talk about my car buying habits. I buy American. I've had 4 Chevys over the past 4 years. They didn't break down, I just went through them for various reasons. And I loved them all. In particular I miss the Cobalt, it was nice.

But then there are people who have been driving the same Volvo for the past 30 odd years. Or have cars that they've personally put 300,000 miles on. That's great. That was a sound economical investment.

But what was the message? It was just a tool to them. How far can they drive for their investment? How many years and how many miles can they go before they need to put in more money? Their message was that the car was a tool, just a means to an end.

My cars were the ends. I could work on them (I miss the old Corvette, spewing coolant like some B movie gore flick), they were fun to drive, and they were each a learning experience. I didn't buy them to get me any further than into the driver's seat.

Now look at the internet. For many of the people here, it's the ends. They work in an online business, or they have a vested interest in the underlying technologies (hardware or software) and furthering their knowledge of the internal workings thereof is their real intent. Honestly, how many of us have internet to check Slashdot? Slashdot is a nice bonus, but we don't have internet just to check Slashdot. Slashdot is not our ends.

But that's what the internet is to "normal people." It's just a tool they use to check Facebook or Twitter or their AOL email. They use the internet like some people use their cars, to get where they're going. They don't buy the car because it's American made and it'll support their fellow countrymen and they can work on it themselves and so on and so forth. They buy the car because they want to get to work, or school or the football game. It's just a car.

And that's the problem. To some people, it's just the internet. It's not a technology that has revolutionized the entire world. It's just the way to get where they want to be. Like a car.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[tehcyder]

Also worrying is the fact that YouTube considers itself infrastructure for "free speech". What if they decide to broaden their definitions of "hate speech" and "pornography"?

Who cares? If you can't find enough hate speech and pornography elsewhere on the internet, you're really not trying.
Just because YouTube is big and popular doesn't mean it's the whole internet. It's like complaining that the Disney Channel is engaging in censorship by not showing hard core pr0n and horror movies. They're commercial organisations, it's up to them.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Mitchell314]

"Get of my lawn"

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the hookers! They have lots and lots of hookers.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[eiMichael]

How could we, as citizens of the global Internet connected society, go about moving back towards an egalitarian Internet?

We as citizens simply cannot. We have very little control of the infrastructure of the Internet. It just takes 1 popular politician, and we could have a great big firewall.

The only way to avoid and/or remove censorship from the Internet is to remove the idea that censorship is acceptable. But that idea is just too radical for the average schmuck who thinks he shouldn't have to even be aware that other people think differently than him/her. It has become okay to censor. From "hate speech" to "pornography" to anarchy cookbooks.

But as I'm typing this I realize that perhaps a return to walled gardens for the majority of users could be a good thing. That way the politicians and their vocal self-absorbed constituents would never be aware of the stuff they want censored.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Dog-Cow]

You're supposed to be more intelligent than you prove yourself to be, but, well, you're not. You actually come across as a complete imbecile.

Youtube can censore whatever the Hell it wants. It has zero responsibility to ANYONE in this regard. Your misguided desire to use Google's resources for yourself not-withstanding.

The Internet is not "supposed to be" anything except a network of networks. Each network is free to police itself as desired.

You are an idiot and should be censored from the Internet.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[zolltron]

This is completely right. Just because a particular vehicle for speech doesn't allow *all* speech doesn't imply that it's not a vehicle for public debate about certain topics. The newspaper doesn't print porn, does that mean that newspapers are not involved in an active democracy? Or that any attempt to censor a newspaper doesn't effect free speech because the newspaper doesn't allow a totally unvetted expression of ideas?

Thinking about free speech in this all-or-nothing way is not productive, and it tends to alienate people from supporting free speech because they feel like they have to support porn.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

people are stupid and don't care. as far as the masses go, if you only had facebook, e-mail, and news left on the internet, they wouldn't notice.

IDIOTS!

Re:This is getting interesting!

[vadim_t]

IMO, a tool must do whatever I want it to do.

The Internet should transfer data whatever data I want, when I want, between endpoint A and endpoint B. If governments and companies start getting in the way of that it stops being a good tool.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

And absolutely no poofters!

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet is supposed to be free. It is supposed to allow equal access to data by equal parties. The existence of megacorporations in this space undermines the original spirit of the Internet, and provides just another way to turn the once-egalitarian Internet into just another tilted media outlet like Fox News.

I remember the days of usenet, when IRC was the main form of IM, when gopher provided beautiful cruft-free content and I pine.

Your memory doesn't go back far enough. Remember that the internet started as a DARPA project? Remember when it was SAGE? Remember when it was ARPANET? The original "spirit" of the internet was for US defense communications.

Freedom is not free. Freedom is not unlimited. You want to be free to say and do what you want? Do it on your own site. Google is giving you access to THEIR site (youtube) to use as they see fit, not as you see fit. You want more freedom than what they offer? Make your own. You are free to do that.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. A car analogy that is actually apropos.

My hat is off to you sir.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[element-o.p.]

I think you are confusing the issue here. Google (and therefore YouTube), as a private entity, has the right to say what they will and will not allow on the forums they create. Don't like their censorship? Then build your own forum. I have, and found myself forced to censor the forum because of the spammers -- in fact, I ended up shutting it down because it was just too much work to maintain. A completely free forum is anything but the "cruft-free content" for which you pine nowadays. Back when the Internet was limited to researches and academics who lived by a code of professional ethics, it was possible to have a pretty much "hands-off" network. That's not the case anymore.

But, IMHO, that's not the real issue. The real issue is that governments, including China, Australia and, unfortunately, the U.S. where I live, keep trying to push their own legal requirements on the Internet as well. Rather than simply saying, "anyone in our country who violates these laws will be prosecuted", they are trying to force the Google's, the eBay's, and so on to police the networks for them. France freaked out a while ago because people were selling WWII memorabilia that had Nazi logos on them (which violated their "hate speech" laws). Someone in Illinois sued Spamhaus for including a domain that the plaintiff owned in a blacklist. Spamhaus elected not to travel to the U.S. to fight the legal battle, and therefore lost by default. That's just two examples from the so-called "Free World" It's even worse if you want to think about the mid-east, the banana republics, etc.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Kjella]

To some people, it's just the internet. It's not a technology that has revolutionized the entire world. (...) Like a car.

And the wheel was not a revolution, you could always walk and carry what you needed. If neither Internet nor cars is a revolution, despite affecting more than a billion people of all ages in almost every profession, then I'd like you to list all the technical revolutions in human history. Will that require one hand to count or two?

Re:This is getting interesting!

[thetoadwarrior]

For western civilisations, Australia has, imo, always been closer to China than the US in regards to freedom or at least in recent years.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[julesh]

But those communities are still there. at least many of them are.
they just look small and puny next to the megacorps.

Yeah, some of still BBS. Occasionally.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Zerth]

You're right, I'm going to find a gopher server and put up some racist furry cookbooks, the noobs will never look there. /I know, the furry bit was too much. I'll just go censor myself, OK?

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Hognoxious]

Australia, the new China... Just with a crapload less people, better living conditions, democracy (well mostly)

Give 'em time. They'll fix that when the need arises.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Hognoxious]

I remember the days of usenet

If people keep breaking the first and second rules like you just did, then sooner or later they're going to find out about it. And slightly less soon or slightly more late they'll shut it down.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[biryokumaru]

Just FYI, I'm on the side of internet being a revolution. In case you couldn't tell, what with the whole "my cars aren't tools" thing.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[ultranova]

And that's the problem. To some people, it's just the internet. It's not a technology that has revolutionized the entire world. It's just the way to get where they want to be. Like a car.

The Internet is not a car. The Internet is the very concept of a road itself.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[bug1]

It is said that the only thing that has protected Australians from oppressive censorship over the decades has been the incompetence of the government in implementing it.

Could it be that Australia finally has a competent government, oh the tragedy....

Re:This is getting interesting!

[ArundelCastle]

The Internet is supposed to be free. It is supposed to allow equal access to data by equal parties. The existence of megacorporations in this space undermines the original spirit of the Internet, and provides just another way to turn the once-egalitarian Internet into just another tilted media outlet like Fox News.

Good discussion point or FUD? ;-) Okay I'll bite.
It's all very good and nostalgic to say that the original spirit of the "free internet" has been lost to commercialism. But in fact very little has been lost, the values you speak of simply get drowned out by "bigger and better". You're talking about net neutrality. I've been using the internet since the 1980s, and in fact the network is not designed to be free, it's designed to be redundant. Why can't we get back to the values of preserving communication in the event of global thermonuclear war? Twitter goes down for 10 minutes and the entire world fucking flips out. THAT'S what we're losing. The eggs are back in small baskets.

We pay for things that we decide have a certain level of value. I choose to pay for a cell phone, internet access, DVDs-by-mail, and ignore broadcast television completely. I don't pay Twitter or Google a dime to use their services because there's no paid tier that would be improve my life. If they were obliterated tomorrow I'd be grumbling for a weekend while I change my bookmarks to other services, and rebuild whatever data lost since my last offline sync. No matter how big one service gets, the "spirit" of the internet dictates that there will always be alternatives because enterprising folks are free to create those alternatives. Huge corporations, like governments, rise, crumble, and disappear. It's just that the perception of time works differently here and we can't imagine life without YouTube. But I promise you it exists.

Google doesn't just believe it offers an infrastructure for free speech, that is in fact what user-submitted content allows. Time magazine said so. And there is simply too much of it to police effectively. The fact that Google is not willing to simply roll over on any Government's whim, be it U.S., China (recently), or Australia, makes me feel better about Google as a global force. Governments are full of old puritans. Google is full of horny twenty-somethings that like streaming. I'll take my chances with how they choose to define pornography. It's their servers, and guess what, they get to make the rules and we are free to voice our dissatisfaction on their policies or leave. It's the same reason I'll never live in Australia or England.

Google is completely incapable of removing things that it didn't establish. If I give you ten apples and later decide to take back two that were rotting, you haven't lost anything, and I had no moral obligation to give you a certain number of apples. You can still pick your own apples. You can still use pine and sendmail. You can still use IPv4 addresses. You can still get access via freenets, universities, and government offices. You can still use Gopher, FTP, Archie, Jughead... but you can only see the information made accessible in that way. If you want to see Flash content, you install Flash. If you want to read Da Vinci's original notes, you have to learn Italian. Scream all you want, but access to information is a privilege, not a right. If you're illiterate, newspapers are not obligated to broadcast aloud on the radio. Someone else does that because it makes them a profit.

You are more than welcome to set up your own egalitarian area of the internet out of your own pocket, and hook your servers up to a trunk so that you don't have to pay a service provider with a puritan TOS agreement to deal with cease and desist letters. But odds are I would find your site through Google. There's nothing wrong with any of that. That's how it's supposed to work in the society we have built for ourselves.

You are also more than welcome to start your own society. I'll bring the kool aid. :-)

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to the British: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Julian

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Philip_the_physicist]

And in a few weeks it will be back, using NNTP over SSL. Enough people have cheap servers that many of the text groups can be kept alive, even if some of the smaller groups go quiet, people stop carrying alt.binaries.*, and are more active about cancelling spam (which would be a good thing, IMO).

Re:This is getting interesting!

[MrNaz]

Agreed except for "Take it as a happy surprise when one looks after yours."

More like "be suspicious when one looks after yours because it's totally not in their interests to do so".

Re:This is getting interesting!

[maxume]

That's covered by the expecting them to look after their own interests.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[metlin]

The Internet is not a car. The Internet is the very concept of a road itself.

No. You're wrong. The Internet is a series of tubes.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, recognizing that that kind of POV exists is a start. Every field of expertise has an expert/user divide, like the law (lawyers and ordinary people), religion (priests and ordinary people), engineering (engineers and the people who use the trains/bridges/etc).

What the user thinks may not necessarily be the correct view. OK, with those incorrect POVV they should not try to do what experts ought to do (lead the experts). But on the other hand, the lawyers/priests/engineers shouldn't try to mould society at large, since they are not its leaders.

So the average guy/legislator/whoever shouldn't try to redefine the internet in a way which permits some impossible model of censorship. The average sysadmin should recognize that most people just want "their internet to work".

(I didn't say that this post's parent implied that computer literate guys tried to dictate to the general public on what to do.)

The harsh sounding conclusion is to "know one's place in life".

Re:This is getting interesting!

[countach]

The problem I see is that every time there is something in society that is not ideal, some schmuck asks a politician to fix it. And the politician has only one hammer: legislation, so every problem looks like a nail.

Look at this bunch of kids interview Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Half the "problems" raised by the students are not really government problems at all. Rudd, if he had any balls should have told these kids "not my problem". But no politician ever seems to have the balls to say that. Every problem must be a government problem and "solved" via the heavy hand of legislation. Every problem must have multiple senate committees appointed and so forth, when most problems are simply problems for the community and individuals to solve by themselves. There needs to be a sea change of attitude reform. Stop looking to the government to solve all your problems. You're just mounting up legislation on top of legislation until the point where the real problem becomes the government itself, and everyone is so hamstrung and neutered that nothing can be done any more without the government.

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Jedi Alec]

More like "be suspicious when one looks after yours because it's totally not in their interests to do so".

Indeed. God forbid corporations treating their customers properly in order to ensure repeat business.

I knew those girls at the checkout with their smiles are up to something!

Re:This is getting interesting!

[ultranova]

The Internet is not a car. The Internet is the very concept of a road itself.

No. You're wrong. The Internet is a series of tubes.

Let's compromise: tunnels :).

Re:This is getting interesting!

[Hognoxious]

You can get text on Usenet? I never knew!

lazy

[hey]

They're probably trying to avoid work more than anything else.

Re:lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

They're afraid of annonymouse.

Re:lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet is a global network, which seems to be an often overlooked fact lately. (Heads buried in the sand?)
Pulling down content is a choice, and if there is something that bothers a particular nation out there, they need to grow the fuck up.

Intolerance can not be tolerated.

Rating every YouTube video?

[ODiV]

How do I get that job?

Re:Rating every YouTube video?

[flurdy]

When the current reviewer gets promoted to rating PornTube

Re:Rating every YouTube video?

[dangitman]

Why would you want that job?

familiar

[wizardforce]

Too bad Google didn't tell the Chinese govt. to frak its self in the beginning as well. Then again It'd be like Google saying that the govt. was being unreasonable because Google already prohibited anything on Tiananmen Square anyways.

Re:familiar

[daveatneowindotnet]

Exactly, Google is grand standing against the much less menacing Australian Government. The only reason pulled out of China was a) they were the kings of the internet like they are back home and b) an attack that came from China (potentially). PR move in my mind

Re:familiar

[dangitman]

You actually wrote "frak"? In a post about government censorship?

Re:familiar

[metlin]

I dunno, man. Some people don't like to fucking cuss, alright? Give the douchebag a break, for cryin' out loud. And stop being such an asshole. Now fuck off.

Re:familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

It's uncensored on Caprica...

Re:familiar

[wizardforce]

I can say fuck whenever I like I just prefer Frak. Also I'm a big BSG fan :)

Google still not evil

[N3tRunner]

As Google grows and expands into different markets I personally am more and more suspicious of their activities, especially the tracking that is inherent in their Chrome browser. However, there are constantly things like this were Google seems to be standing behind its principle of "Don't be evil". I hope that they never forget it.

Re:Google still not evil

[Nerdfest]

Tracking the information is not evil, it's what they do with the information once they have it.

Re:Google still not evil

[garcia]

However, there are constantly things like this were Google seems to be standing behind its principle of "Don't be evil". I hope that they never forget it.

I think there's a difference between "doing no evil," and deciding that they don't want to police the Internet for specific countries. I have a feeling that while their words say one thing, this has less to do with their mantra than the simple fact that they have better things to waste their time doing than the bidding of Australia's ridiculous government.

Re:Google still not evil

[Anonymous Coward]

However, there are constantly things like this were Google seems to be standing behind its principle of "Don't be evil". I hope that they never forget it.

I think Google is just being pragmatic. In the long run they don't want to have to hire scores of people to police all the different jurisdictions around the world. Also, they don't want governments all around the world arbitrarily making up rules to limit Google's resources and profitability. Google is big enough that they can be listened to. If they lose a few million dollars in potential profits along the way it won't really bother the executives that much, but if they keep bending over to every political whim of the dictatorships and the authoritarian democracies then their economic and popular status will dwindle.

Re:Google still not evil

[bgarcia]

especially the tracking that is inherent in their Chrome browser.

For more information about what information is tracked in Chrome, including instructions for disabling many of those features, read the Google Chrome Privacy Notice.

Re:Google still not evil

[Yaa 101]

Google will be evil as soon as the original people are ousted at some point, then in comes the new psychopath overlords that have only eye for the next 3 month financial statement.

Re:Google still not evil

[jgtg32a]

True but rarely does anything good come of it.

Re:Google still not evil

[martin-boundary]

Tracking the information is not evil, it's what they do with the information once they have it.

No, the act of tracking the information itself is evil. The reason is that a company is not a single person with a single goal, so you have to factor in that, each time there is an employee restructuring or a change of ownership, this information can be misused, and sooner or later will be.

It's like giving a blank cheque to a friend, and he gives it to one of his kids to play with. Never do that.

The only non-evil thing to do is not to track information, and to redesign all the algorithms so that tracking information is not necessary in the first place.

Re:Google still not evil

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD.

http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=114836

Re:Google still not evil

[gronofer]

However, there are constantly things like this were Google seems to be standing behind its principle of "Don't be evil". I hope that they never forget it.

I think there's a difference between "doing no evil," and deciding that they don't want to police the Internet for specific countries. I have a feeling that while their words say one thing, this has less to do with their mantra than the simple fact that they have better things to waste their time doing than the bidding of Australia's ridiculous government.

In this case the pragmatic option is also less evil, if we assume that filtering is inherently evil. If the politicians go further and demand by law that Google apply these filters, Google would have the better option of ceasing to make youtube available in Australia at all.

I guess Google's gonna have to pull out of

[wiredog]

Australia, just like China.

Re:I guess Google's gonna have to pull out of

[pitje]

China's pulling out of Australia?

Re:I guess Google's gonna have to pull out of

[0100010001010011]

Pulling out never works and you still end up with a mess everywhere else.

Re:I guess Google's gonna have to pull out of

[timmmaay]

There is a lot of commentary about Google here but my concern is that Australian's seem to have gone to sleep and awoken up in China, or worse North Korea, since the last election. Howard needed to go, Abbott is not a good alternative but the Ruddinator's lackeys are going to turn us into even more of an information backwater if they continue unchecked. The policies being pushed in Australia of late are very concerning.

Re:I guess Google's gonna have to pull out of

[drinkypoo]

Actually, the withdrawal method has been shown to be highly effective, not even that far behind condoms.

Just a ruse

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is leading you into a false sense of security.

CAPTCHA is "Verily"

Can an Australian brother...

[gravyface]

explain to me what a) brought on these draconian laws/ideals b) what the opposition is doing against it? I've always (maybe naively) thought of Australia as a laid-back and liberal kind of a place. This censorship movement seems... odd.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Kratisto]

They're so laid back that they forgot to keep an eye on the kinds of people that like to go into politics.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[AlexiaDeath]

Im amazed as well. Im wondering if someone at the top has some mental issues that have gone unnoticed a and a lot of influence to get others to agree to this insanity.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[twidarkling]

According to Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation, the Australian government passes it off as "not censorship" because all they're doing is "refusing classification." Unfortunately, anything without a classification cannot be sold in Australia. So, they're not banning it, technically, they're simply making it impossible to sell in a legal manner.

It's a shit politicians' trick, and it's worked for a while. Fortunately, much of the citizenship there seems to finally be waking up, if the repeal of the law that made it illegal to anonymously comment on politics due to public outcry is anything to go on.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[skirmish666]

Basically... our prime minister known here as K-Rudd is enforcing the "Won't someone think of the children?!?" act. IMO the way this came about is that our current PM who's party is by far the more liberal of the two main powers (interesting fact, the conservative opposition party is actually called the liberal party) got elected into government because he campaigned for the same issues as our previous conservative PM but with a more modern, less "old fuddy-duddy" & slimy political appearance. The swinging conservative voter helped elect him because his policy didn't conflict with their ideals and the youth of Australia helped elect him because he wasn't a drooling 80 year old with a speech impediment who went for a daily "jog" in the countries national colours for the media. Basically our old PM had will and enforced it. Sure, it made the average Joe's life hell and his CEO schoolmates life easy and that was his downfall - there's more average Joe's than CEOs. In reality the only thing that's changed in Australian politics is the work place relations, and even that's been a slow ongoing process. Meanwhile we're still trying to dig ourselves out of being a technological backwater...

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Asic Eng]

Australia is missing constitutional protection against these sort of things. Apart from that they are suffering from too many politicians who believe they know better than the "common people". Unfortunately that's a problem which they have in common with ... well, any other country in the world.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Zarath]

Back in 07 when Australia was deciding between our two primary parties, the current government (Labor) used a policy of an opt-in filter system. This system was going to replace the method used by the old government, which didn't work at all (computer-side filters) because people could bypass them fairly easily. Not as easily as this though. Moving on about 1 yeah from when they were elected in, their policy suddenly changed. No longer was it an opt-in system, it was now compulsory for -everyone- to be filtered. And there would be a secondary opt-in filter that would block all porn. From that, they've continued on their censoring rampage. Unfortunately, the current government doesn't seem to listen to its people at all. And a lot of Australians are ignorant and blind. As long as someone says "it's to block child porn" they agree with it. When explained properly, almost everyone says it's stupid. Our government is up for election again soon, I can only hope that people will wake up and see what's happening... But I'm not holding my breath. Both governments are terrible.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom of speech just isn't on the radar in Australian politics. It's all about being comfortable, having a big house, and being safe from bushfires (and nature in general). Abstract concepts don't really enter into it.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[epp_b]

So, they're not banning it, technically, they're simply making it impossible to sell in a legal manner.

So, exactly, how gullible are the Australian people and/or how stupid are their politicians for anyone to think these two things are different from each other?

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[twidarkling]

Apparently, very gullible.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[element-o.p.]

Stupid question for you, then...if it isn't being sold, but is being freely given away, does it still run afoul of the law?

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[stimpleton]

Don't confuse laid-back with liberal. Australia is laid back, but is also one of the most conservative populaces. There are oasis of left wing attitudes in say Melbourne.

In the US, the Rosa Parks seat-on-a-bus incident took place in the 50's. In Australia the film Romper Stomper is based around events in the 1990's. Consider that film and the Cronulla Riots where average joe office workers left their desks and stormed a Sydney beach all because of an altercation between some immigrants and some life guards. The Cronulla beach riots happened in 2005.

Australia is conservative, not just its adminsistration.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[julesh]

So, exactly, how gullible are the Australian people and/or how stupid are their politicians for anyone to think these two things are different from each other?

Of course they're different. You can give it away free. You can import it yourself. Posession isn't an offence. All three of these would be illegal if it were actually banned.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[twidarkling]

Being a stupid law, and not having the exact phrasing to hand, I cannot answer for certain, but I'd have to guess that probably the law is phrased "it is illegal to make available any materials not having received a classification." That'd cover selling, giving away, loaning, etc, but leaving the ability to import, since that seems to be a popular option there.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[YankDownUnder]

The thing boils down to several issues that "just don't get passed down to the Australian voter" as it were. One is that huge companies like Microsoft are in pocket with the Australian Federal government - hence putting things in their ears, and getting them paranoid about "not being in control". Two is that every single one of the Members of Parliament and the Senators are about as smart as a box of rocks when it comes to anything at ALL to do with "forward thinking technology" (our MySchool website, point in fact). Another aspect is Australia's hush-hush involvement with the ACTA talks. And then you've got the "do-gooders" that seem to think that it's the government's responsibility to protect our young from harm instead of enforcing parental responsibility. If you want to dig further into the entire scene, you'll start to see exactly how "backwater" Australia has let itself become - all due to greed and graft, really - and this also shows why we in Australia pay the highest broadband rates and GSM rates...(it's not because of the old standard excuse "We're ten years behind the US because of technology" - it's because the big-wigs force it on us and justify it with excuses like that). Phew. Time for a coffee.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[SleazyRidr]

I was always taught in school that because we were founded as a prison colony, the laws in place from the start were very strict. Everyone just got used to that being the way things were and no one has really produced a compelling argument to change it.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Zerth]

Unless you live in Western Australia, where mere possession is illegal as well since 2008.

Re: Can an Australian brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Senator freaking Conroy and his stupid excuse of "Protecting the Children." It's bollocks. He's even stated himself that it's impossible to do, yet he's pushing forward with it.

Stupid politicians, wouldn't trust them with my kids.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Spikeles]

It really depends on the state. In the Australian Capital Territory for example it's illegal to even posses RC content.

See Part 10: Division 1 and Division 2: Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995

Whereas in Queensland, they have different legislation (see section 26). It's only illegal if you intend to sell or make an RC game or it has child abuse in it, otherwise you can do what you want with your RC game

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Spikeles]

Doh, just realized, it's different again for Films(was talking about games there). The Film act does make it prohibited to posses (section 41)

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[PaganRitual]

You can import it yourself.

I'm guessing you're just being stupid, or ultra subtle, or something else I'm not picking up on yet because I haven't had coffee.

I imported a copy of GTA3 on PC from the UK and it was subject to a 'random' customs search (or the idiots I bought it from put a detailed invoice on the outside, I'll never know), and I got a nice polite customs form letter saying that the game was RC in it's non-Australian form and thus was illegal to have anything to do with, and as such has been 'surrendered to the crown'. I went in to customs thinking it would be a simple case of saying "wait you've got it wrong, I'm actually 23, you can give me my game now" and was told in no uncertain terms that I wasn't getting it and there was a subtle threat that I actually could have got in trouble for making the attempt to import it. I was told the senator I could bring it up with, whose name I can't remember (the dishonorable member for Croydon wasn't on the tip of everyone's tongue back in those days) but was told that it was likely a waste of time.

Of course I picked up a copy on the way home, took it home and changed the regional settings on my PC and hey presto, but that's another story.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[PaganRitual]

This is correct. Australia is not liberal, and definitely not the lucky country, nor the smart county that I believe is/was attempted to be portrayed in the ads of old. When it's described as laid-back, what most of us mean is that it's full of apathetic retards who neither know nor understand what's going on most of the time. But what a lot of people here do know is that they want their government to do their thinking for them, and to protect them from themselves. They're happy to introduce a secret blacklist that blocks a few thousand 'fringe' topics, because if it stops a single post of a picture that someones parent took of their own 5 year old child in the bathtub then it's worthwhile to them.

While we're bringing up examples, about a year ago a couple in an eastern state here tragically lost their child in their own (I believe unfenced) backyard swimming pool after leaving her unattended "for only a second". Their response was to have their 15 minutes going on a mini-crusade to attempt to get the government to implement a commitee that would oversee the checking of all pools for mandatory fences. Because the threat of losing a child to drowning in it apparently isn't enough and the goverment needed to step in to force parents to look after the safety of their children. This country is becoming a nanny state and there are plenty of people here that will welcome it.

"Where the bloody hell are you?"

Well, I'm here, but I'm wishing I was somewhere else.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Dan541]

According to Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation, the Australian government passes it off as "not censorship" because all they're doing is "refusing classification." Unfortunately, anything without a classification cannot be sold in Australia. So, they're not banning it, technically, they're simply making it impossible to sell in a legal manner.

However youtube does not sell access to it's video's.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it's a frying pan / fire type. So long as Australian's fool themselves into thinking that a vote for a minor party is a vote wasted (which demonstrates a remarkable lack of understanding of our preferential voting system, but that's beside the point) then we are restricted to two options: Tony "virgin until marriage" Abbot and his band of conservative climate-change-is-all-in-the-mind, privatise-or-perish "liberal" party or the current mob. So what we have is currently the lesser (by the slimmest of margins) of two evils.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[minorproblem]

Was gonna say, even though voting in Australia is compulsory most people don't really pay much attention to politics. Everyone i know at university who was interested in politics always leaned to the extremes....

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[twidarkling]

Check the other replies, someone provided a link to the actual Australian laws that say even *possessing* something RC can get you in shit. Selling isn't a prerequisite in all areas there.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[fabs64]

I don't recall at any point someone coming out and saying it's "not censorship", and I can't find any reference to anyone saying it.
Censorship is *old* and established in Australia. The chaotic nature of the Internet is causing light to be thrown on it and shaking things up. This is a *good* thing.

The problem is, it's old and established because quite a lot of people are happy with it.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Techman83]

I can tell you what happened, Priminister Kevin Rudd successfully campaigned and got elected over a government (Liberals/Nationals Coalition) that had been in power for 12 years, that same government had also made some pretty unpopular decisions and their leader was likely to retire before the end of the full term, meaning that someone we didn't vote for would be in charge.

As for the Censorship, Optional Filtering that must be provided by all ISPs was on the cards and has been for every governments election agenda to investigate these issues for over a decade. Senator Conroy placed very little focus on it, but instead toured the country giving talks in lots of communities about how the current government was letting Telstra hold the country back and that something needed to be done about the infrastructure. I went to one of these "Broadband Forums" and was very vocal in regards to the fact he was making the wrong decision, that Fibre to the Node wasn't good enough and it turns out I was right and they wasted a whole heap of money investigating that.

Now as it turns out Senator Conroy has proven to be an uptight Religious Nut that wants to make sure no one can see "Unwanted" content on the Internet. Not only that, unwanted will be decided in secret, behind closed doors and no one will be told what is unwanted. Senator Conroy is wasting a bucket load of the Australian Tax Payers money and there are a lot of people who are very very angry about it. Anecdotal evidence this may be, but I have not spoken to a person who, once explained in full what they are actually doing, in support of Senator Conroy's position.

I applaud Google for not buckling to the whim of one very closed minded man and his agenda.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Macgrrl]

Of course they're different. You can give it away free. You can import it yourself. Posession isn't an offence. All three of these would be illegal if it were actually banned.

Dont assume that possession is legal - did you know that owning more than 50 X-rated titles is illegal in Victoria?

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[deek]

Don't confuse pockets of racial behaviour to be reflective of the Australian populace in general. I'm born Australian, from immigrant parents, coincidently of the same ethnic culture as those that triggered the Cronulla riots. I think Australia is one of the best examples in the world of different cultures living together. I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Now if we can only get rid of these politicians that have nanny state tendencies. They seem to appear no matter what party we vote for. As the old saying goes: same shit, different smell.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[atomicstrawberry]

Possession isn't illegal, but importing RC material can actually be a violation of Australian customs laws. RC material is considered 'objectionable content' and you are required to have a permit from the classification board before importing it (and yes, purchasing online and having it shipped to an Australian address makes you an 'importer').

In practical terms, the chances that customs will bother to open your packages and inspect them provided that they're correctly labeled with a customs declaration is fairly remote. They have their hands full stopping people from importing heroin and live rattlesnakes as it is.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as an Australian, that's pretty insightful.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know anything about the so called 'riots'? It was a completely peaceful meeting of people of all nationalities that had gotten together to fight against hatred, xenophobia and unprovoked violence shown in the majority by one particular minority. This minority intended to start the violence and succeeded admirably. I wonder what Americans would do if they saw a minority that is out of control arrive at their peaceful gathering and urinate on a US flag. Everyone in Sydney knows which country and which religion the perpetrators of the violence and abuse come from and anyone that claims that it doesn't occur or that it is exaggerated is truly a black belt in doublethink. I can accept just about anybody regardless of sex, colour, persuasions, etc. What i won't accept is lifeguards who are in a lot of cases voluntarily giving their time to protect beach goers having to fear violence whenever they go to work at the hands of ONE particular group of people. If you don't believe it happens just go to the beaches affected in summer on a weekend. You can ignore them calling your girlfriend a slut and a whore, allow them to play soccer all over the flagged areas kicking sand, balls, and your gear all over the place. Actually moving your stuff around while you are in the water so the extended family of fifty can have a contiguous area in which they all speak loudly in a language that isn't English(the only English you will hear is when you are beiong called a white c--t or something similar). Then during the week you can watch their parents walking the western suburbs (the wife will be walking 20 paces behind and looking at the ground showing how accepting they are of Australian values). I for one do not support this countries ridiculous immigration policies and haven't done for the last two decades. Now what I predicted is occurring and lots of the ignorant, chardonnay swilling, children of the seventies(who feel guilty for betraying what they believed in for the capitalist dream) pretend it isn't even though examples of the failure of multi-culturalism exist all over the EU. Did I mention this is the same ethnic group that made a sport of gang raping(14+ armed males) 13/14yo australian girls and in court stating that they deserved it as they are aussie sluts. Even the mother of one of the rapists decided to start abusing one of the girls in court for being a whore. If my hating people who behave like this makes me a conservative in your eyes then you are an idiot. During the Balkans business we had cars driving around the western suburbs of sydney flying the flags of the parties involved and fighting each other in the streets.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[drsmithy]

explain to me what a) brought on these draconian laws/ideals [...]

Under the Liberals: because that's just what they do.
Under Labor: buying off independents.

b) what the opposition is doing against it?

Publicly I'm sure they're condemning it as "unAustralian". Privately, they'll be cheering it on, given they got the whole ball rolling.

I've always (maybe naively) thought of Australia as a laid-back and liberal kind of a place. This censorship movement seems... odd.

They're loud and proud, but ultimately a minority. Most Australians will simply assume such stupid laws will never be enforced, and hence aren't worth getting upset about.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[drsmithy]

Australia is laid back, but is also one of the most conservative populaces. There are oasis of left wing attitudes in say Melbourne.

Huh ? What relevance does an "oasis of left wing attitudes" have to do with conservatism and censoring porn ? Those are right-wing policies.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Splintax]

explain to me what a) brought on these draconian laws/ideals b) what the opposition is doing against it? I've always (maybe naively) thought of Australia as a laid-back and liberal kind of a place.

As others have pointed out, Australia has a pretty socially-conservative citizenry. In fact, it's the less conservative of the two major parties (Labor) pushing the censorship legislation. The opposition (who actually call themselves the 'Liberal' party) are not attacking the legislation because it's not an important issue to the Australian public -- people are more concerned about energy policy than anything else at the moment.

Both the mandatory internet filter legislation and the AFACT v iiNet case have been mentioned on Slashdot several times, but neither have much presence in the Australian media. I've never seen either issue mentioned on a mainstream news broadcast, nor have I seen them appear before page 15 or so of the major newspapers in my state. The average foreign Slashdot reader knows a lot more about the 'censorship movement' in Australia than the average Australian.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe funny - Australia is the place that British people go to when they feel the government is too soft on crime or immigrants.

Re:Can an Australian brother...

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir, are a true blue dinky di Aussie. The Silent Majority stands proud and strong aside you.

The key word (from TFA) is "voluntarily"

[Rogerborg]

Google are just playing the coquette. They'll give it up all right, they'll give it up hard, but for the sake of their reputation, they want three dates, flowers, and a subpoena first.

Next up:

[Anonymous Coward]

Google accuses Australia of Hacking its systems!

sigh

[the3stars]

America should start sending their idiot conservatives like Palin and Limbaugh to Australia. This worldwide surge of stupid "won't someone think of the children and our values (while padding our bank accounts)" is washing up on too many shores lately.

Re:sigh

[fl00ders]

Yeah nah; we have an Atkinson and a Conroy as it is - were you to add THOSE two sock puppets, the intellectual vacuum would collapse the universe.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

wait... They will take them!?!?!?!

Quick mother, get station wagon and your trank gun, we have work to do.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't just keep sending our problems to Australia.

Re:sigh

[Machtyn]

You forgot to mention Gore and all the other the-rules-we-make-only-apply-to-you liberals in your list.

Re:sigh

[the3stars]

troll? I'm glad someone got my point, this is all about trolling. The GOP is a massive troll organization, as evidenced by their recent 'census' money grab. The party is all about con'troll'ing free thought and replacing it with empty values while profiting off of the whole deal.

Re:sigh

[the3stars]

Yes, there are plenty like Gore who blur the lines. But Gore spent his time making rational claims like 'pollution=bad' not "how's that hope-y change-y stuff working out for ya'll?".

Eternal September

[sakdoctor]

You're looking at it through rose tinted glasses. There have been walled gardens such as AOL practically right from the "start". The value of the internet grew with popularity, and popularity brought in the noobs, who dived head first into the most convenient bucket provided by megacorps.

This is the status quo.
This is what happens when average people interact with megacorps on a mass scale, so nobody is to blame per se.
Whilst some very clever people were involved with the building blocks of the internet, the values and ideology, like everything in this world is completely up for negotiation.

Re:Eternal September

[whoever57]

You're looking at it through rose tinted glasses. There have been walled gardens such as AOL practically right from the "start".

The AOL example is not appropriate. People may have chosen to use AOL, but they had a choice. While other, uncensored, alternatives exist this is very different from what the Australian government want, which is to remove the choice of uncensored access to the Internet.

Re:Eternal September

[sakdoctor]

No, it's completely appropriate. Much of the government censorship is aimed at web 2.0 type constructs, which people willingly choose.

But these are completely centralised, and much less censorship resistant than the older internet technologies that GP was lamenting the loss of.

Re:Eternal September

[MindlessAutomata]

Not to mention, the same idiocy that allows AOL to exist is, fundamentally, the same process that drives democracy--individual choice. Whether my purchasing or voting, there's a similar result--the idiots help set up the only (terrible) game in town.

Re:Eternal September

[Hadlock]

You're looking at it through rose tinted glasses. There have been walled gardens such as AOL practically right from the "start". The value of the internet grew with popularity, and popularity brought in the noobs, who dived head first into the most convenient bucket provided by megacorps.

A slight tangent here, but the number of obscure and/or interesting films available on bit torrent really dropped after bit torrent became main stream. Sure, you can find movies like Avatar a week before their release date, but good quality rips of independent films and just strange stuff in general sort of disappeared by 2007 or so as it got lost in the noise on trackers like supernova and the pirate bay. I'm sure there's private tracker with a community around it nowadays if I looked hard enough, but to download an obscure 60's camp scifi movie I had to wait nine days while enough people finally seeded the damn thing (doesn't help that the only torrent available was for the 1.1gb version).

Re:Eternal September

[Anonymous Coward]

The AOL example is not appropriate. People may have chosen to use AOL, but they had a choice. While other, uncensored, alternatives exist this is very different from what the Australian government want, which is to remove the choice of uncensored access to the Internet.

I think it's perfectly appropriate. At the time AOL was popular in the USA, the Australian government was funding free (as in beer and in speech) and uncensored internet to the public.

It's only since the demise of AOL that the Australian government has started on this internet censorship kick.

Re:Eternal September

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, seriously profound point there. Really, everything on the internet is a walled garden. If it's not indvidual sites like YouTube, its the ISP. And you can't get on without an ISP. Even if you were to start your own ISP, you'd be hooking up to some meta-ISP, who in turn would be hooking up to other ISP's. All of them with their own policies on things such as torrent traffic and whatnot.

We like to think of the Internet as the realization of the information anarchist's wettest dream, but you don't actually get absolute information freedom - you only get the freedom the rest of the nodes on the internet offers you collectively.

Re:Eternal September

[Nefarious Wheel]

Whoa, seriously profound point there. Really, everything on the internet is a walled garden.

You're right, of course. But there are natural operators that come into play to level the field.

"Anyone that tries to chop it [the Web] into two will find that their piece looks very boring."

- Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Re:Eternal September

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not. Generally, they want to introduce laws, which will affect all of the net.

This Conroy guy?

[Angst Badger]

Fuck him. For any public official in a western democracy to be openly clamoring for things to be more like China is a disgrace, to say nothing of the corrosive effect it has on liberties elsewhere. Here's hoping that the good people of Australia will feed him to the sharks.

Re:This Conroy guy?

[kaptink]

I completely agree. And as the government takes away freedoms as they are doing the people will revolt. I am certainly not voting for labour in the next election and I think almost all geeks will be doing the same. I am glad to see google stick it to them.

Re:This Conroy guy?

[abdulla]

It's an election year, we Australians need to ensure he is not re-elected. I'm not sure how to go about this, but anyone who has an idea, I'd be willing to help.

Re:This Conroy guy?

[Max Littlemore]

I like the idea of pushing the "Won't somebody think of the children" right back at him. Censorship at the ISP means more people are going to find out how to circumvent it. I have already heard about more methods of circumvention since this debate started than I knew of before.

So this policy is already propergating methods of circumvention. I find abuse of children and particularly young children disgusting and worthy of corporal punishment. Death's too good for them - public skinning alive and salt torture seems about right. Now information on circumvention and evasion is more public and I see Conroy's actions as being largely responsible.

Letter writing to the crazy fanatical Christian groups seems like a good idea to me for a start. Letters to the paper probably wont do much because the fuckwit doesn't actually listen to anyone who has a clue what they are talking about. He does care about votes from the Christian wacko lobby though and, as they respond more to fear and emotive language than logic, I think using the "think of the children" line might work.

I really hope the obviousness that we have just gone from a fascist government to a fascist government causes more moderates to wake up, realise that the two party system is bullshit and give the Greens a go. If you read their economic policies, they actually make a lot of sense. The only trouble they have is the old "they are a minor party so a vote for them is a vote wasted" which is a self perpetuating pile of crap. If they held balance in the senate, things like this would never get through. Balance in the house of reps could gives us genuine democracy - any major party would have to listen to constituents over lobbiests and put pragmatism above inane rhetoric or risk losing government mid term.

Re:This Conroy guy?

[GrubLord]

In some ways, I wish you were right... but revolution is something no-one ever does until things get so bad that they can't feed their family.

Australians and Americans both will just suck it up, even as they continue to lose right after right. Particularly with political debate controlled, they likely won't even know what they've lost until they need those same rights later.

It's sad, but that's human nature.

Maybe if news outlets weren't so enamoured of all these censorship initiatives, and actually reported on the harm that the government is doing, Australians would wake up before walking like lemmings over the edge of the cliff.

Re:This Conroy guy?

[jobst]

simple, don't vote Labor (or Kevin) ... but then you need to vote for Tony "fuckwids" Abbott ... or is this what you mean?

"Overkill"...

[tjstork]

Man, the only thing Australia would have needed to ban would have been the third Crocodile Dundee Movie and the third Men at Work Album, and all would have been absolutely fabulous. Instead, it seems like they are banning everything but the third Men at Work album, and that's just tragic.

Re:"Overkill"...

[osu-neko]

There was a third Crocodile Dundee movie?

*googles*

Oh dear... /facepalm

The Streisand effect

[Locke2005]

Isn't any attempt to ban a clip just going to send the view count for that clip way up? Where is the list of clips that the Australian government doesn't think I should see, I want to watch them all... over and over again!

Re:The Streisand effect

[Anonymous Coward]

That's part of the idea. They will end up keeping the specific list secret, as their logic is: "Anyone who wants to know where this content is must be a pedophile or criminal."

What is hate speech?

[howardd21]

I am not a member or supporter in anyway of the KKK, Nazis, etc., but why is certain speech categorized as "hate" and therefore not allowed to be even stated? Who decides what is hate? That whole movement makes me nervous...

And will this be like the porn guy that was convicted in Florida, though he lived in California, for distributing videos via the internet. If I complain about Barak Obama and make a statement that includes his race, am I suddenly guilty somewhere on some level? If I am a religious leader and have a youtube video that states a conviction homosexuals are in danger of hell, am I guilty of hate speech? If not now, how about 5 years from now when the social winds change?

Re:What is hate speech?

[sanosuke001]

I would say that hate speech should be considered any speech that advocates the attack on another person's rights based on a more generalized idea such as their race, sexual orientation, etc.

So, saying that you don't want illegal Mexican immigrants into the country wouldn't be considered hate speech, as it doesn't interfere with their rights; they don't have the right to enter our country illegally.

But saying that you want all Mexican's out of the country regardless of their citizenship because "they" stole your job, then yes, that would be hate speech. (Now if you said illegals only, that would not be hate speech as they are illegally in this country and technically don't have the right to stay here)

Re:What is hate speech?

[Lord Ender]

"Hate speech" is a term invented by EU governments to allow them to censor their populace. The term does not have legal meaning in the US, where freedom of speech is considered unalienable.

Re:What is hate speech?

[Archangel Michael]

I would say that hate speech should be considered any speech that advocates the attack on another person's rights based on a more generalized idea such as their race, sexual orientation, etc.

What about economic status? Why not?

So, saying that you don't want illegal Mexican immigrants into the country wouldn't be considered hate speech, as it doesn't interfere with their rights; they don't have the right to enter our country illegally.

They don't? Says who? There are 30 million of them here now. And in places like San Fransisco, they are a protected class, like homosexuals are.

But saying that you want all Mexican's out of the country regardless of their citizenship because "they" stole your job, then yes, that would be hate speech.

Who is saying all Mexicans should leave the country? Of course, some people have equated "undocumented workers" as being "all Mexicans" for political reasons, if not explicitly, it is implied. So even refining your statement to be "Illegal Aliens" is considered "hate speech" because "illegal aliens" is code for "all Mexicans".

And the moment you outlaw certain words, we change other words to take the place of the now missing / forbidden words.

Take the word "Retarded", which used to be a perfectly acceptable word to describe someone who was less intelligent than average. Now that word is nearly forbidden, because of people using it in a negative way. Now we have substituted "Special" in place, trying to make people feel better about calling them "retarded". Except now, even that term is starting to gain a negative quality. "Aren't you 'special'?"

The fact is, communication is wrought with all sorts of subjective interpretations and meanings and subtleties that shift as words evolve in meaning to route around societal censorship.

I'm a libertarian, and so I don't find ANY speech all that offensive. Worst case scenario is that we find out what people think plainly. I'd much rather have the KKK marching down the street (obvious who/where they are) than hiding in back rooms and secretly planning their next cross burning.

If you're offended by the presence of the KKK, you probably should get some help. A bunch of wackos shouting slogans of hate don't offend me. The best thing we can do is make fun of them, laugh at them, tease them, and show how ridiculous they are.

I'd much rather have all speech open where I can see it, and react accordingly than stick my head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist for the sake of my sensibilities.

Re:What is hate speech?

[canajin56]

Google's policy defines it as anything inciting or advocating violence, or making insulting stereotypes or generalizations about any group. Anyways, YouTube only has this policy due to constant harassment by Lieberman demanding they censors Muslim videos. But yeah, you can't use THEIR OWN PERSONAL SITE to spew various retarded stereotypes about Mexicans (Look out Mencia!), it's the end of the world. Free speech means the government can't interfere (Like in Australia) it doesn't mean Google has a legal obligation to carry your hate speech. Oh yeah, in the announcement where Google added this to their policy, they said "We don't expect you to treat everybody like nuns, the elderly, or brain surgeons." Amazingly, some catholic nutbars started posting about down with Google the great satan, for picking on nuns like that, saying Google's announcement itself was hatespeech! The nerve, implying nuns should be treated with respect, how dare they!

And what the fuck are you talking about, guilty? Google doesn't make laws, you're not guilty of any crime. They delete your video because they find it tasteless. Did you scream with such rage when Kramer got shitcanned for screaming racial slurs over and over and over and over? Clubs stopped hiring him so basically he was found guilty of hate speech and banned, just like youtube does! OH NO SLIPPERY SLOPE. You can say how you hate black people and gays all you want. You can't force Google to say it for you.

If you're referring to countries like Canada that actually DO have hate speech laws, it's a lot more rigidly defined than Google (Except Manitoba, but even their own courts throw all those cases out as unconstitutional, and make (unheeded) demands that the provincial government fix them). As in, to be hate speech, your speech has to be speech that will cause violence or hatred of the group you are targetting. And judges have interpreted that quite narrowly. As in, if you say "GOD HATES FAGS, BURN IN HELL HOMOS" that has time and again been affirmed as not hate-speech, as nobody hearing that would start hating gays if they didn't already, and nobody would read it and go beat up a gay person if they weren't going to already. It's also been held as allowed because the hate speech law has exemptions for anything that is true, or said in good faith. A preacher believes what he says, and so it's protected speech. If he actually calls for violence though, that's a different beast, and it doesn't matter if he believes beating gays to death is God's will or not.

As for the Australian law, the Australians have passed a law banning porn that features cartoons (because you can't tell how old a cartoon is so basically its all child porn), female ejaculation (because it's obscene) and women with small breasts (As underage teens also have smaller breasts, and so seeing women with less than a D cup may cause people to turn into pedophiles). There is currently no word on if they eventually plan to ban having actual consensual sex with adults with small breasts, or if you will be OK as long as you don't film it.

Re:What is hate speech?

[Bengie]

I agree, there's a large grey area on this subject, but a lot "hate speech" seems quite clear. Most people who do hate speech have an agenda and have VERY biased info or out right falsehoods about a person/persons.

Your "religious leader" example wasn't a good one, but I know what you were getting at. Hate speech is very contextually dependent, so it's hard to make a law that would be perfect.

Here's a snippit from wikipedia

"Hate speech is speech perceived to disparage a person or group of people based on their social or ethnic group[...]"
disparage: To speak of in a slighting or disrespectful way; belittle

Synonyms: ridicule, discredit, mock, demean, denounce, derogate.

Re:What is hate speech?

[swb]

It's a nonsense term dreamed up by the left to politically marginalize and in some cases criminalize political speech they are opposed to. In the US, anyway, it is closely related to "hate crimes" which are structured in a way such that the only victims are non-whites and the only perpetrators are white males.

It is the byproduct of Western leftist political thinking on the concept of racism that generally holds only whites (usually males) culpable for racism and discrimination, despite ample evidence for non-white racism domestically in the U.S. (eg, Hispanics and Blacks) and globally (Arabs v. Black Africans, ethnic Indians versus non-Indian races, ethnic Asians versus others).

Taking the concept of "hate speech" and/or "hate crimes" at face value, most fundamentalist religious leaders (of all religions) should fit, yet religion seems to escape scrutiny, as do quite a few shocking black-on-white and black-on-other-race crimes despite overwhelming evidence that victims were targeted because of their race.

Re:What is hate speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I am a religious leader and have a youtube video that states a conviction homosexuals are in danger of hell, am I guilty of hate speech?

Yes, but I don't think you should be prosecuted for it.

Re:What is hate speech?

[dangitman]

Take the word "Retarded", which used to be a perfectly acceptable word to describe someone who was less intelligent than average. Now that word is nearly forbidden, because of people using it in a negative way

Sorry, I didn't get that memo. I'm not sure what part of the Universe you live in, but I hear it used all the time. Surely, as an avid internet commentator, you frequently see it written on the internet as well.

For a word that is "nearly forbidden," you didn't hesitate to use it.

Re:What is hate speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're offended by the presence of the KKK, you probably should get some help.

You might not be offended, but are you the target of their hate speech? I think the people that are the target are rightfully frightened by it. Even assuming the KKK stays on the right side of the law and never directly incites harm or takes action, their words are a form of bullying. The right answer is to ignore it, but that's not simple and most people, even if they respond correctly, would feel better if the bullying wasn't there.

Re:What is hate speech?

[Trepidity]

It's possibly worth noting that Google takes a pretty expansive view of a historical/educational exception to their "hate speech" restriction as well, in contrast to some countries. For example, there are plenty of Nazi propaganda videos up on YouTube.

Re:What is hate speech?

[Kjella]

I am not a member or supporter in anyway of the KKK, Nazis, etc., but why is certain speech categorized as "hate" and therefore not allowed to be even stated? Who decides what is hate?

If you want it in US lingo, think of it as class action libel/slander. There's usually some rather blatant accusations and dehumanizing insults involved, it's just not aimed directly at one person. Usually it's followed shortly by a call to take away rights that one in the US would call "unalienable", sending Europe back to where the US was before the civil rights movement. sometimes I think even before the Civil War. One set of rules for the white people, another set of rules for everyone else.

To really understand it, you must understand the difference between the country and the people. Americans tend to have a very strong allegiance to their country, but little to the people. Compared to say the German or French or English, I'm not even sure you can say there is an American people. In the US, the last step is your citizenship when you "really" become an American. In Europe you can become a citizen, but getting accepted as part of the people takes much longer and requires you to adopt their lifestyle and values and culture.

That division is much deeper in Europe, and nothing in the US really compares. The KKK had six million members and yet: "The number of lynchings escalated, and from 1918 to 1927, 416 African Americans were killed, mostly in the South." according to wikipedia. The Nazis killed more Jews per day than that during WWII, not counting all the other millions of people they were at war with in no small part because they deemed themselves a higher race destined to rule over the lesser races.

That ideology is dead, but people still think in terms of ethnics not citizenships. The only reason the US doesn't have hate speech laws is that it's never seen its own people truly go "us" against "them". Europe has, and has paid the cost in blood by the millions. So did 400,000 Americans. And those lines will lie latent in Europe long after Obama makes the US mushpot an even more well-mixed mushpot. In Europe there will be the "natives" and "foreigners" for centuries to come, even if they are natural born citizens.

Re:What is hate speech?

[misexistentialist]

It's forbidden to use the word in reference to people who are now called "developmentally disabled."

Re:What is hate speech?

[orgelspieler]

In the US, anyway, it is closely related to "hate crimes" which are structured in a way such that the only victims are non-whites and the only perpetrators are white males.

You are downright wrong about this. Of the 9,691 recorded hate crime victims in the US in 2008, only about half were targeted for their race. Of the racial victims, 16.8% were singled out because they were white. source

Re:What is hate speech?

[Toonol]

51% because of race, 12.7% because of ethnicity. (I understand the difference, but I think most people casually lump those together.) 17.9% because of religion (jewish, mainly), then 17.6% because of sexual orientation (male homosexual, mainly).

Interesting source, thanks. The 28 hate crimes that were motivated because the target was physically handicapped is confusing. I kind of understand racism, and such... I don't even begin to understand "that guy's crippled! Get him!"

Re:What is hate speech?

[swb]

Of the racial victims, 16.8% were singled out because they were white.

The FBI has a terrible statistical history of including Hispanics and Whites in some categories, often as perpetrators. Table 3 of your data has no Hispanic perpetrator category. They don't commit hate crimes, or they're included under White?

Table 4 makes the pedantic distinction between Ethnicity and Race, placing anti-Hispanic crimes in a wholly seperate category, blurring the distinctions further.

Some of the table data makes no sense at all -- Whites committing anti-White bias crimes?

And it's kind of interesting that Blacks commit half of all violent crime (about 4 times their rate in the population, per the FBI and US Census) and whites are victims of violent crimes 5 times more than blacks are (DOJ). By those two statistics, black-on-white crime is huge, yet we're to believe that blacks only perpetrate "hate" 11 percent of hate crimes, lower than their rate in the population?

It doesn't make sense and it certainly illustrates the political nature of "hate" as a crime.

Re:What is hate speech?

[martin-boundary]

I am not a member or supporter in anyway of the KKK, Nazis, etc., but why is certain speech categorized as "hate" and therefore not allowed to be even stated? Who decides what is hate? That whole movement makes me nervous...

It's a perfectly rational response to the evils of WWII. The Nazi movement(s) are outlawed in many countries to prevent sympathisers from re-organizing. After WWII, many fascists simply blended in with the population, and could not be prosecuted, but they still exist (and teach their children etc).

If Nazi parties (and speech promoting them) were allowed by law to exist, then the fascists would in time recreate a clear and present danger to the world, so instead this kind of speech is simply outlawed. The advantage of outlawing Nazism is that as long as it is outlawed, these organizations are stuck on the fringes, where they cannot grow beyond a small size without being detected.

Re:What is hate speech?

[amRadioHed]

I don't see how "That guy's crippled! Get him!" makes any less sense then "That guy's skin is a different shade! Get him!".

Re:What is hate speech?

[dangitman]

I don't know about hate speech, but your post should be banned for violating the laws of coherent writing.

Re:What is hate speech?

[dangitman]

It's forbidden to use the word in reference to people who are now called "developmentally disabled."

Who by?

Re:What is hate speech?

[Dan541]

When we deny free-speech to one particular group of people we eradicate the justification for our own and the downward slide towards totalitarianism begins. First we block the neo-nazi's then the white supremacists and who's next?

Who is going to decide what should or should not be added to the blacklist? What if the person adding sites to the blacklist has an opposing opinion to that of your own, what if they are a Muslim and you are a Jew, what if they find violent video games offensive but you enjoy playing those games, what if you hate opera but they love it. This list is potentially limitless, the Human race is so diverse that any attempt to have a Human decide what is or is not desirable content is a complete failure of logic. The blacklist is inherently flawed due to the vast differences in interest and opinions within Human society.

Re:What is hate speech?

[misexistentialist]

Correct: "Jesus Christ, Slashdot is filled with retarded kids"

Incorrect: "Jesus Christ, I love teaching retarded kids computer skills so that they can use Slashdot"

Re:What is hate speech?

[GrubLord]

He might've been mentally ill, rather than crippled.

Plenty of people are very uncomfortable around the mentally handicapped, and lash out in fear.

Re:What is hate speech?

[howardd21]

You must have missed the news for the last few weeks, Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff, just had to vow he would never use that word again. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/rahm-takes-pledge-not-to-use-rword.html

Re:What is hate speech?

[drsmithy]

I am not a member or supporter in anyway of the KKK, Nazis, etc., but why is certain speech categorized as "hate" and therefore not allowed to be even stated?

Because it serves no purpose other than to incite hatred of, and aggression towards, particular stereotypes.

Who decides what is hate?

A jury of your peers.

Re:What is hate speech?

[dangitman]

I'm well aware of that. But it didn't stop Rush Limbaugh or anybody else using the word. So, where is this law that the use of the word is prohibited? Media tempests in a teacup don't count.

Re:What is hate speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest it would be simpler to write

"I have no clue about statistics"

than to ramble on like this with no grasp of what you're talking about.

Google deserves a little praise

[BountyX]

I know many people on slashdot have mistrust for Google becuase the sheer amount of data they possess is a looming liability and their "don't be evil" mantra may not always pan out. One thing I wanted to point out is that Google at least makes an effort and a global effort at that. They are probably one of the few companies to have a Chief Culture Officer whose job is dedicated to issues of morality, culture, and ethics. I'm not saying anyone should "trust" Google, I'm just saying that the company deserves a little praise for its effort. An effort that most companies here in the US don't even attempt to make. Although in the long run Google may in fact be a liability, it doesn't change the fact that they represent a cultural step in the right direction for corporate ethics, especially given their size and power.

Re:Google deserves a little praise

[syousef]

I know many people on slashdot have mistrust for Google becuase the sheer amount of data they possess is a looming liability and their "don't be evil" mantra may not always pan out. One thing I wanted to point out is that Google at least makes an effort and a global effort at that

Please stop drinking the coolaid and smoking fairy dust. Google does whatever is in Google's best interests. If that's playing on the "don't be evil" propaganda, they'll milk it. If not, they'll cite external pressures. To think otherwise is naive.

Re:Google deserves a little praise

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying anyone should "trust" Google, I'm just saying that the company deserves a little praise for its effort. An effort that most companies here in the US don't even attempt to make.

Good point. Like any large company, Google probably has employees who want to do things you dislike, and others who see the world as you do. When you treat them as guilty of doing bad thinks because they might do bad things, the people you disagree with will say "The tiny minority of people who care already hate us. They give us no credit when we do things they like. There is no point trying to make them happy.". This is a powerful argument. Don't enable it.

I <3 Google.

[2obvious4u]

Happy Valentines Day Google. Thank you for the gift. I <3 U TOO!

They should have answered:

[Hurricane78]

“Censorship is a crime, forbidden by your most fundamental laws. Ladies and gentleman, you are engaging in criminal behavior. Do you wish to continue, and go to jail for it?”

And then when they do continue, launch a huge campaign, causing the government to be overthrown.
I am sure Google can do that.

Re:They should have answered:

[Max Littlemore]

"Censorship is a crime, forbidden by your most fundamental laws. Ladies and gentleman, you are engaging in criminal behavior. Do you wish to continue, and go to jail for it?"

Censorship is not a crime. Read the fine title perhaps? Fundumental laws have nothing to do with free speech here.

uhhh..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, I'm a Google fan, but what? http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/technical-difficulties-pot-tv-removed-youtube

Youtube has already closed politically charged channels. Growth of democracy? What? More like growth of exactly what you want.

Who Should Decide Policy?

[eegad]

Setting aside for the moment what we personally (or nationally) think might be right and wrong for the whole world (such as democracy or freedom of speech), is it Google's place to decide policy in every nation? I see two real alternatives here:

1. Google decides to determine policy (other than its own) and provides exactly what content is allowable to each country as determined by each country.

2. Google decides to ignore each country's policy requests and each country must determine to what level they will censor Google internally.

And of course, by "Google", I really mean every content provider on the internet. I can see arguments for each alternative, but I think I lean towards #2 because it doesn't place an undo burden on providers or start subjecting them to international information restriction laws or any such nonsense.

Re:Who Should Decide Policy?

[jwinster]

This is very easy question to answer. The people should decide their country's own policy. But in Australia, just as in America, the people elected by the people to make that policy don't always(ever?) have their people's best interests at heart, they have their own. Google's really just enforcing what is surely the popular opinion of the people. (citation needed)

Arbitrary application of policy

[KnownIssues]

So, this sentence works, "The scope of RC is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information." But this sentence doesn't, "The scope of DMCA is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information." Weird.

Re:Arbitrary application of policy

[russotto]

So, this sentence works, "The scope of RC is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information." But this sentence doesn't, "The scope of DMCA is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information." Weird.

The appeal to force is not a valid rhetorical device, but it works quite well in the real world. That is, Google is in the US and standing against a US law is not practical for them.

Re:Arbitrary application of policy

[John Hasler]

> The scope of DMCA is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about
> restrictions on access to information.

Please explain in what way the DMCA limits Google's ability to provide access to information.

If you can afford to, don't ban hate speech.

[copponex]

Most of the western world has a sufficient police force to allow all kinds of backwards hate speech to exist. Some people are bigots, and there's not much you can do about it. Providing a passion for their narrative, by trying to suppress their free speech or incarcerating them for saying something, helps them more than it hurts them. It gives them the attention that they crave, an in some ways legitimizes their "struggle."

Here in the states this is one thing we get mostly right. You can parade around in white sheets, and say nigger and kike all you want. The rest of us will be over here, chuckling at your foolish costume and face tattoos, while the FBI continues to build a profile of your idiocy.

Then, if you actually follow through with the nonsense, hate crime laws will put you away for a few decades. In essence, you're welcome to continue acting like an idiot, but if you actually hurt someone you're going to pay dearly for the crime.

I only wish we could apply the same principles to drug users and other non-violent criminals.

Re:If you can afford to, don't ban hate speech.

[linux_geek_germany]

I only wish we could apply the same principles to drug users and other non-violent criminals.

I agree in principle, but would say that you can't generalize the statement that much. Financial criminals, for instance, should at least be forbidden to harm other people's finances.
I'd rather say that we shouldn't criminalize people that don't endanger or harm other beings in any physical or psychological manner. Some examples that come to my mind are private drug use or copyright violations.
In my opinion that is pretty much a core principle of anarchic systems as non-compliance with any legal orders is genereally also not hurting others. And both private drug use or copyright violations are pretty much artificial legal orders that don't directly affect others but rather interfere with the agenda of TPTB.

To return to the original topic: hate speech is pretty much in the grey zone as it potentially frightens or offends some group of people. I'd say that it's fine as long as the target group is not unvoluntarily forced/harassed to consume the information. That would mean to me that publishing hate speech on the internet or in a book is fine as no one is forced to read it. Stalking people on the streets and harassing them should be absolutely unacceptable. The interesting question here is where the line should be crossed.

Aussie Google office HAD to say no

[Areyoukiddingme]

After the Chinese office of Google told the Chinese government to get stuffed, the Australian office had no choice but to follow along. There are some seriously ballsy people in the Chinese offices of Google. They have a substantial possibility of being hauled off in chains and locked up, and a non-zero chance of being shot to death. What's the worst the Australian government is going to do? Send a harshly worded letter? Demand a hearing before Parliament? If the Australian offices had caved in, they'd have had to turn in their giant Dundee knives and stop saying "G'day mate"......

Re:Aussie Google office HAD to say no

[Samah]

What's the worst the Australian government is going to do? Send a harshly worded letter?

It's the vibe!

Simple

[SmallFurryCreature]

A: Lots of people don't vote and democracy has always been the dictatorship of the majority of voters. So the only people who vote are the people who care about things.

B: Solving real problems is hard, porn is simple and it appeals to those who bother to vote.

C: And how dare a person living in a country that invented the bleep AND the mosaic over the mouth of the person being bleeped say anything about anyone other country?

Re:Simple

[ashridah]

Congratulations, you only get partial credit, because you've never bothered to look up even rudimentary details about Australian politics.

In Australia, voting is compulsory in both State and Federal elections (we vote for people, not on issues for the most part, so the ticket isn't gigantic, except for the occasional senate ticket, which you can avoid by going for 'party' instead of 'people')

A) in your example simply doesn't apply.

What's really happened here is that we voted a party in, and then they changed their minds and have gone on a giant censorship rampage for no reason.

Re:Simple

[Gadget_Guy]

What's really happened here is that we voted a party in, and then they changed their minds and have gone on a giant censorship rampage for no reason.

Actually, the great firewall of Australia was one of their policies prior to the election, it was just that nobody was interested. Both Labor and the Coalition tried to on-up each other and make their censorship policy worse than the each other to court the Catholic vote.

That was why I voted for the smaller parties and independants first before any of the majors.

interesting times

[circletimessquare]

google is facing pressure in europe too to conform to national policies, lets see if they push back there too

basically, we are seeing the end of sovereignty, and the emergence of a global decision making body, that is not consensual and hamstrung like the UN

personally, i'm not one of those wackjobs that thinks one global government is bad, i actually view nationalism to be the real evil in this world. fuck sovereignty, its so much tribal posturing and it excuses crimes and war making. far better that the world someday be a federalist conglomerate, like the united states and its states

look out, paranoid schizophrenics, here comes the foundation of the world government that figures so prominently in your fear-addled feeble fantasy lives

Re:interesting times

[myowntrueself]

personally, i'm not one of those wackjobs that thinks one global government is bad, i actually view nationalism to be the real evil in this world. fuck sovereignty, its so much tribal posturing and it excuses crimes and war making. far better that the world someday be a federalist conglomerate, like the united states and its states

I'd go so far as to say that 'the nation state' is the worst thing to ever happen to the human race.

Pitting human beings against one another on the mere basis of some fraudulent, fictional 'difference', carving the globe up into blocks that have no relevance outside the fictional nation-states, has been a shameful phase of the development of civilisation.

Personally, I am opposed to ALL nations and would like to work toward the downfall of ALL of them. And at the same time... I am not an 'Anarchist'.

Four in four years?!

[SteveFoerster]

I've had 4 Chevys over the past 4 years. They didn't break down, I just went through them for various reasons. And I loved them all. In particular I miss the Cobalt, it was nice.

Four in four years, without breakdowns? One was hit by a meteor, one was destroyed by a UFO when you were abducted by aliens, one was sucked into an interdimensional vortex, and one was stolen by Neil Patrick Harris?

Re:Four in four years?!

[osu-neko]

Four in four years, without breakdowns? One was hit by a meteor, one was destroyed by a UFO when you were abducted by aliens, one was sucked into an interdimensional vortex, and one was stolen by Neil Patrick Harris?

I personally am not like that, but I know someone who is. They get a new car (none of them actually new, just new to my friend) every year. Nothing happens to the old cars beyond the fact that they cease to be "new", and something else comes along that's exciting for some reason (e.g. a very nice Jeep, or a classic VW Bus, or whatever strikes his fancy). As he only ever seems to have a vehicle for a year and he keeps very good care of them (they're usually in better shape when he parts with them), he frequently sells them for as much or at least close to as much as he bought them for, it doesn't really cost him much. And he has fun with each new vehicle for whatever reason he got it for. So, cool...

Way to go google...!

[hesaigo999ca]

Awesome, it's nice to see finally someone able to not only tell the chinese where to go, but any country willing to try and censor
their population's voice.

What's Australia's problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard, anecdotally, that Australia is similar to Canada. Yet they are constantly in the news under topics of censoring this, banning that, etc, etc. They seem quite strict, conservative and heavy on regulating in the name of protecting its citizens from evil media.

What I want to know is why? Germany for example has a thing against violent video games. Understandable. You could say that it's a reaction to a certain "trauma" they suffered. But what trauma did Australia suffer to lead to this? What going on out there, or is the sun baking people's brains a bit too much?

Re:What's Australia's problem?

[AHuxley]

Family First: A Federal Crusade
http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1358912.htm
They spent decades getting people on the left and right of state and federal politics to listen.
Been tax free helps too ;)
Supporting where they could, guiding and talking.
Now they have their people at the top its time to reshape Australia.
Their view of the 'net' is just the start, they have views on woman too, professions and other faiths.
Like their view on the 'net' it not going to be positive.

Re:What's Australia's problem?

[jonwil]

When the next election rolls around, I am going to vote in such a way to either A.Kick Family First senator Steve Fielding out of office or B.Get enough other senators to support the government that they no longer need Fielding to get anything done. (right now its very hard to actually pass anything without the support of Fielding)

you ARE an anarchist

[circletimessquare]

you are espousing anarchy, no matter at your dislike of the word

enjoy somalia, idiot

for all the crimes of a nation state, a world of mad max style warlords like in somalia is far worse

i look forward to one world government

Re:you ARE an anarchist

[myowntrueself]

you are espousing anarchy, no matter at your dislike of the word

I don't dislike the word, whatever gave you that idea?

I'm not advocating absence of government...

You sure seem to have leaped off of the wrong end of the stick or something! LOL

Kids nowadays

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been walled gardens such as AOL practically right from the "start".

Dude, I have to break it to you, but AOL only sprang up in the 90s. Heck even the Web was on the net earlier than them.

Thank you!

[Sunnz]

Thank you Google!! For what you did in China and Australia (2 place that I live in the most) I will be switching back to use google's search engine!!