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Will Australia Follow China's Google Ban?
gadgetopia writes "A news report in Forbes says that China has blocked Google with its great firewall; now the world waits to see if Australia's Minister for Censorship, Senator Stephen Conroy, will do the same following his outrageous attacks on Google."
Politics might be stupid in Australia, like lots of places. But no, it won't go the same was as China.
We have transparency and rule of law.
However fucked out Communications Minister might be.
--Q
Only a matter of time until the former discredits himself like the latter did. His railing against Google makes him sound foolish.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
...one of the top google search results for "Stephen Conroy" being the less than flattering http://stephen-conroy.com/
... of all time - "Bring It On!!!"
No, wait - that didn't work out so well last time.
More like Google decided to punch the guy in the face and get thrown out. I suppose this is more appropriate when the other team has taken a liking to unwanted groping of the cheerleaders....
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Ok, so Google has this "safe search" setting. Presumably if safe search is turned off at least some of what it returns will be material subject to bans in Australia. So it seems that is a perfect justification for banning Google, or at least requiring that Google queries pass through a government-controlled proxy server that can ensure that safe-search is always turned on.
Furthermore Australia has not had the best record of transparency regarding censorship either. For example, 9 Songs was given permission for screening but Comstock Films' documentaries were not, despite those documentaries winning awards (both contain graphic, explicit sexual content). Given that the government won't let citizens see what they are banning, what makes you confident that this won't be exercised in arbitrary ways?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
That's not a firewall...
That's a firewall. :)
coffee | nose > keyboard
Clearly Google's don't respect a country's right to manage their own laws. If I ran a country, and enacted some laws, and law a company refusing to follow my laws in my coutry, yeah I'd ban them, of course.
A country's laws, and culture, are their own to set, and not to be controlled by any outside nation. Sure we'll make enceptions for real human rights like food and water and torture. But censorship of illegal material and such doesn't come anywhere close.
As a lone figure in a drover's coat stands beer in hand blocking a column of tourist carrying vans......
No infrastructure
Nobody is going to enforce it
No company wants all the phone calls saying "I can't access Google" broadband margins are that bad on a per customer basis, the moment they phone rings from a customer they are losing money.
Not going to happen
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
PS. Be careful - you could end up arguing for publicly financed, non-profit news sources.
Just do a search... Venona McCarthy
when your economy is trashed by greedy speculation then fear and hysteria. that's what sent germany to the dogs: the great depression, the collapse of the financial world
aka, what the world just experiences in 2008 (on a much smaller scale, true)
but this historical parallel leads us to four observations:
1. the angry tea partiers, with their brick throwing and insane murderous anger, IS kristallnacht, on a smaller scale
2. intolerant deluded propagandized fools hording guns in the woods are the seeds of fascism, NOT our protectors from fascism
3. we need strong government regulation in the financial sector, and the assholes (greenspan and co) who dismantled the 1930s era (irony) protections need to be grilled a la congressional hearings and roundly castigated for their dangerous irresponsibility
4. hopefully the world, and the usa, can weather this horde of angry morons out of work, the seeds of fascism, without them crystallizing around some modern day hitler-like demagogue and mounting a political (and visceral: they love guns) challenge to civilization. and then let the retards fade away into history
interesintg note: many tea partiers receive government benefits (unemployment, medicaid)... while they rail against government aid. they go to tea party rallies... instead of looking for work. fucking ignorant hypocrites
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28teaparty.html
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Your numbers are wrong. 9 were probably guilty of espionage. Most of the rest were in fact communists.
That woman was Saturday Night Live alumna Victoria Jackson. Made me wonder if she wasn't intentionally trolling Fox in some sort of lame attempt at guerrilla comedy to resuscitate her non-existent career.
It's kind of sad that our country has that large a group of people dumb enough that their well-founded ire can be so crassly misdirected like that.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Your argument is the same as the Pitcairn island rapists. ...as one of their defense.
They claimed it was in their culture to rape 12 year old girls
So should you respect that and let that happen ?
paranoid idiots with guns, not the government
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
there's no fascism in somalia for example. it is a utopia of people free of government living in happiness and prosperity. unlike socialist european countries with their silly concern for the common good, mired in poverty and misery
and i am sorry for smearing the tea party the way i do. clearly, i have absolutely zero evidence of any tea party anger. it's a meek polite debate society of highly intelligent philosophers. all of their language and actions is something out of '60s love in. and i have absolutely zero, zero! proof to the contrary. i apologize deeply for my horrible misunderstandings
pfffffffffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
there's some very polite well tempered tea party activists
but what is the basis of tea party passion?: anger. anger at the government
you don't have a large movement whose root emotion is anger, without violence somewhere. which we've already seen, and will see more of. its inevitable. the way you talk, the tea part is some sort of philosophical debate society. sell that bullshit elsewhere please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
are you entirely certain that wasn't genuine?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If you had went back to Germany in the 20's and told them that within 20 years, their country would elect one of the most intolerant demagogues and world history as dictator and begin systematically committing the genocide of a sizable portion of their population, they would have laughed at the thought.
They might not have expected actual genocide (I mean, no-one expects the Spanish Inquisition), but Weimar Germany was never a stable polity and everyone knew it. There was a monarchy before the war, which might not be Slashdot's favorite form of government, but it only got worse thereafter. The Kaiser's abdication in 1918 was immediately followed by violence in the streets between leftists and nationalists (who eventually all threw in their lot with the Nazis). There was even a short-lived "People's Republic of Bavaria" around this time, as well as the founding of the Nazi party itself. The various rebellions were eventually put down and replaced by the perpetually weak Weimar Republic, but they continued to operate. The brutal provisions of the Versailles treaty kept the country in a state of perpetual depression throughout the twenties (the famous hyperinflation was in 1923), causing widespread political discontent, characterized by street fights between socialists and nationalists. The government was already harassing leftist media outlets by the late 20's, before the Nazis even took power.
They might have been intellectually sophisticated, but politically and economically sophisticated they were not. I know Australia and the UK hate freedom a lot, so I'm not saying it couldn't happen there, but the situation in Weimar Germany is really not at all comparable.
I wanna see him do it, mostly to see what happens to him and how fast.
http://pinopsida.com
i stopped reading there
the usa has plenty of problems
but if you believe the usa government is fascist, in any way, simply means you're low iq, highly propagandized, and beneath the intellectual charity of paying anymore attention to your ignorance
please wake the fuck up from your delusions
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When people finally realize that 100 million free thinkers can overwhelm any government regardless of the consequences, then it will become interesting. However, weaning these people off their bread and circuses is the issue. Denying access to the mainstream circus ie. google, stumbleupon, 4chan etc... only creates the incentive to find alternative diversions. The greatest fear of any government is to lose the attention of the captivated. Boredom begets excitement.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
under clinton and then gwbush
that's the source of the 2008 collapse
really, that's the truth, plain and simple, deal with it
but thanks for the attempts at partisan smearing: "it's carter's fault! and then (insert creative reasoning in which no republican is ever mentioned) it's clinton's fault!"
carter?! LOL
how do you brain dead partisan assholes keep a straight face when you regurgitate this mental diarrhea? oh, right, you're brain dead, you're beyond the forces of embarrassment or irony or humor when you retch and cough up this mental pap. do you really believe the words you right? are you that fucking hypocritical and blind?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and refuting him on his points directly. there is violence in the tea party movement. the grandparent denies it, i assert it as simple truth, as any perusal of any reputable news source to your liking will show. any other confusions of yours you need help clearing up?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In Australia, people would care. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't just move to Baidu.
I though this was just a glitch on Google's part: Google issued a statement at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., that said: “Lots of users in China have been unable to search on Google.com.hk today. This blockage seems to have been triggered by a change on Google’s part.”
and i stand against it, and it disgusts me
but if you think the current situation in the usa is anything even remotely what went on in mussolini's italy, or hitler's germany, or franco's spain, you are simply unintelligent
we do not live in a fascism. really
the usa has plenty of problems, but these incredibly crude equatings that you are making with fascism does not even remotely describe the reality you live in. but they do adequately describe a lack of mental capacity on your part
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Who are they , where are they wha do they do?
Anyone
can't find them anymore
they'd just divert all Google requests to a proxy server that would do some extra filtering on both the request and response side......
If they actually blocked Google, many Australians would think they just went too far. Not like anyone uses Google to search for porn or anything (or at least that's probably not what most Australians think) ;-)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
First they blocked the child porn sites,
and I didn't speak up because I abhore child abuse.
Then they blocked all gay sex sites,
and I didn't speak up because I'm not gay.
Then they blocked all the sites that support terrorists,
and I didn't speak up because I forgot that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
Then they blocked all porn sites,
and I didn't speak up because I like my sex real.
Then they blocked all the all political sites,
and I didn't speak up because who reads those things anyway?
Then they blocked all the web sites complaining about the blocking,
and I couldn't speak up.
(Apologies to Martin Niemöller)
Do as you would be done to.
You broke my eyeballs.
Reply to That ||
this allowed them to act irresponsibly. any other observation falls secondary to this prime cause. do you see that, or has the propaganda choked your brain?
do you know what they are doing in washington right now?
they're introducing new (same as the old) REG-U-LA-TIONS
so it doesn't happen again. because REG-U-LA-TIONS will fix the problem. DUH
do you understand simple fucking reality yet you braindead partisan hack?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
people, organizations and groups act irresponsibly all the time in the market. its the default state in fact: no regulations leads to bubbles and pops, bubbles and pops, forever, in the market
study the banking panics of the 1800s sometime. simple human greed, followed by simple human fear: thats all you need. the cra isn't a cause, that's like saying the existence of money in my wallet is the fault of me being mugged, not the behavior of the mugger: the banks CHOSE to engorge themselves irresponsibly, no one held a gun to their head asshole
the idea of purely rational players in the market is bullshit. a world without regulations is one ruled by human psychology: greed and lust followed by fear and hysteria, banking panic after banking panic. you need regulations to keep the market fair and stable
they removed regulations under clinton, then bush, and gee, what happened next? use your genius to figure out what happens when you have an unregulated market, study some economic history, you ignorant free market fundamentalist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is a much better commentary:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/government-goes-to-war-with-google-over-net-censorship-20100330-r9bp.html ... the difference between online reporting and newspaper backed journalism.
That the education system relies on GMail in Australia for the student/teacher email accounts that they give out.
They truely think that the Australian population is stupid. Do they really think that no Australian shares a forum or IRC channel with foreigners? "Hey, can you check to see if this link is working?" It'll be a piece of piss to compile a list of everything that is blocked in Australia.
I am preparing for an embarressing backdown from the next communications minister.
Its not enough they ban certain titles. Now its only a matter of time before unclassified mature content video games make the great Aussie firewall.
Our Minister for communications etc. might be an idiot, but we're still a developed Western democracy in which the majority of the population have internet access and Google has most of the search engine market share. Blocking Google would be the end of this government and the internet filter; not a single voter would support it.
1. a market without regulations naturally bubbles and pops continually
2. therefore, you need regulations for a stable and healthy market
3. the reason the market crashed in 2008 is because it bubbled as regulations were systematically removed under clinton and bush
anything else i can help you with today darling?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ha-ha!
What on earth are you talking about? or even think you are talking about? What is it you imagine Google has done here? Conroy was simply attacking Google to distract attention from how much everyone hates the censorship, not because Google had done or said anything at all.
Maybe a full transcript of his remarks will help. TRANSCRIPT follows. Context: the host is trying to get quick closing comments from the Minister and from Colin Jacobs, the VP of Electronic Frontiers Australia. He asks for a closing comment from the Minister first; Jacobs is not given a chance to comment. (No one has even mentioned Google, Inc.)
CRA played a small part. A bigger part was played by the fact that a) Glass-Steagall was dropped and b) all loans were eventually packaged and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, perceived as quasi-government entities, who take all the risk and none of the benefit. This allowed banks to over-leverage (30:1 to 60:1, seriously, guarantee 60 dollars of loans with one dollar cash !?) and to take excessive risk by lending to people beyond their means, because they wouldn't be left holding the bag.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of loans were below the FHA limit that allows purchase by FNM and FMAC, and that right before the collapse efforts were made to increase that limit from under 500k to over 700k in some areas, is a clear indication of the source of the problem.
more than they fear morons running around with guns?
its a serious, honest question
i for one would gladly outlaw guns. the result? lots less senseless deaths. increase in risk of fascism? zero
guns are not the salvation from, nor the guard against, a descent into fascism. fascism does not derive from a gunfight, nor is some gunfight going to save us from fascism. its some sort of boyscout fantasy
indeed, if anything, if fascism comes to the usa, ti will be born of the same paranoid rantings of psychotics hording guns in the woods
put it this way: if you trust to guns, more than you trust to words, that shows the extent of your commitment to civil democratic values
guns are incompatible with democracy. they do not underpin it, they threaten it
if the noble experiment known as the united states ever comes to an end, it will done at the hands of armed factions, it will not be saved by such visceral forces
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Stop being so dramatic, that's not going to happen just because Conroy disagrees with them and said some barely nasty words.
The beatings and destruction of property was started by the Brown Shirts or SA in numerous riots. Whilst many of these riots were directed against the Socialists (Bolsheviks, and some yanks* believe Hitler was a commie) the Jews were always valid targets. The SA were not Government employees or even Nazi party employees. It was a mainly volunteer organisation (army) and unpaid. The SA could not have been government forces as one of Hitler's first acts was to disband the SA and move responsibility all official Nazi party enforcement to the SS (Black Shirts).
Tea Partiers are members of a political organisation, just like the Brown Shirts were in 1920's Germany. The only think the SA had over the Tea Partiers is organisation and German efficiency.
This is an outright fabrication.
It was the Weirmar government who introduced it in 1919 to comply with the treaty of Versailles (so in effect, We the allies put weapon bans in Germany). This was relaxed in 1928 by the German (non Nazi, they didn't get power until 1933) government to only require a firearm license permitting private weapon ownership. The Nazi government made a revision in 1938 which only banned Jewish people from carrying guns. The 1938 revision also exempted Nazi party members from gun laws (inc licensing), reduced the licensing age from 20 to 18 and most of the law was only applied to handguns, not rifles or ammunition.
Some reading on the subject here.
Please learn some history before commenting on history, thank you.
* Nothing against Americans, most of you are intelligent or at the very least nice people, but you have a fair few vocal nutters.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The solution is an alert and informed populace ...
Hahaha, you're too funny - or maybe, you're new on this planet ....
Most of what humanity has used as a "solution" has, unfortunately far too
often, come out of the barrel of a gun. Any many humans apparently still think
this is actually a great arbiter of morality. FSM help us all.
By the way, just as a side troll, we haven't yet, by a long way, seen all
the results of the "Bush era" power grab, so it's a little early to be calling it
"not as horrible" as previous attempts - evidence of the continuing attempts to
reinforce those laws is right before our eyes...
Uh, guys, I can still access google in china.
No more likely the U.S. Republic will end the same way the Roman Republic ended. A takeover by a single leader, who manipulates his way into a position of dictatorship, and then holds-on to that power using the force of government, to suppress the masses underfoot.
i agree 101%
but why do you think GUNS will save you from such a man? the only thing that matters is the power of belief: such a man will never gain power as long as enough don't believe in his charismatic lies. but if a certain critical mass believe in such a demagogue, his followers most certainly will make sure to outgun whatever resistance is offered as they claw their way, with guns, to power and to cement it... with guns
in other words, the deciding factor in such a nightmare scenario is not the gun, on the side of democracy. those who cling to the power of attraction to your cause with words do not reach for a gun, they reach for a pen. but those who depend upon coercion and fear will be armed to the hilt. guns appeal to those who wish to subdue, it is not the tool of those who wish to persuade. to depend upon the gun to save you means you don't believe in democracy and rule by consensus, you believe in rule by visceral force
simply put: the idea that guns will save us from fascism is a fallacy. when you examine it, the only thing that saves us from such a scenario is enough of the populace believing in the legitimacy of democracy over the charisma of a demagogue, who most certainly will be well-armed and will be careful to outgun whatever resistance is offered, because this is his way: physical force
simply put, in a domestic civil arena, the gun is the tool of the enemies of democracy, not the tool of democracy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's kinda stupid to use email (or search data) for any kind of sensitive communication as long as it's run by a company as google - probably having an outpost in your own country and ready to serve police forces with any stored information on you (regardless of where servers are). What this australian guy doesn't like is that only US probably has full mass data mining capabilities over Google data, and they want that too.
Google should just move mail to a neutral country which won't disclose data to foreign government without a good cause. Swift moved data to Switzerland recently, due to US forcing them to give away transaction data.