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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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.

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.

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.

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...

[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...

[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...

[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...

[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...

[Zerth]

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

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: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

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.

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).

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.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

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:familiar

[dangitman]

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

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.