Australia Considering iPhone App Censorship

srjh writes "Having raised concerns about 'the classification of games playable on mobile telephones,' the Australian government has now 'put the wheels in motion to address this.' Under current Australian legislation, video games sold in the country must pay between $470 and $2040 to have the game classified, and due to the lack of an 18+ rating in Australia, if it is not found to be suitable for a 15-year-old, it is banned outright. This is the fate met by several recent titles, such as Left 4 Dead 2 and Fallout 3. Over 200,000 applications are available for the iPhone, many of them games, and developers have raised concerns about the prohibitive costs involved, with many announcing an intention to drop the Australian market altogether if the plan proceeds."

Comments

Re:This comment not safe for 15-year-old

[exomondo]

This is where parents should do something, not when government should.

Exactly! This is all about lazy parents trying to absolve themselves of the responsibility of raising children.

regulatory capture

[advocate_one]

a fine example of it as only the big boys can absorb the costs and this effectively closes the market on their smaller competitors.

Re:Good grief!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is with the Americans? PATRIOT, revocation of habeus corpus, free speech zones, a prison population 5-10 times that of *any* other western nation... even 2257? Is this really what the average American wants? Surely the Yank public is not this stupid? They do elect their politicians, don't they?

Or we could go across the pond to where it's the House of Lords, of all things, that is standing up for human rights by beating down unprinicipled legislation submitted by the House of Commons.

Yeah, it's all "those crazy people in Australia". No-one else has whackos. At least our major politicians don't have to mention God in every. damned. speech. Next time you see any quality of life measure, have a look to see which nation is usually nestled under the Scandanavian countries which top the list - it's not the US, nor the UK. But no, you go dwell happily in your caricature that we're weird and repressed.

Re:Good grief!

[tdelaney]

At least I can watch free-to-air TV in Australia that is not limited to what is appropriate for a 12 year old. You can say "fuck" or show naked people (including nipples!) on FTA TV in Australia after 9:30pm. I'm pretty sure you could even get away with "cunt".

All countries have some fucked up stuff. The US allows all kinds of violence on FTA TV, but not a hint of sex, swearing or (god forbid) blaspheming. Australia doesn't have an 18+ rating for computer games, and has a government that wants to introduce ubiquitous high-speed broadband (yay!) and a very broad (and technically useless) internet filter (boo!).

Re:This comment not safe for 15-year-old

[causality]

I don't think you understand that there is no "18 related films" and none is being proposed.

Why isn't it about the government trying to help parents?

If it were about trying to help parents, there'd be a category for adults. Then the parent can choose age-appropriate titles and adults can still get the apps they want. There isn't a category for adults. That's why this is not about trying to help parents. This is about censoring adults in the name of helping parents. If you think helping parents is a good thing then this is a mockery of it, a smack in the face.

Oh, I forgot, the fucking libertarians have taken over the asylum, so if it's done by the government it's necessarily evil.

No real libertarian would support censoring adults. Especially not when having an adult category does not negate the usefulness of all the other categories. Adding an adult category would be cost-free in the sense that it wouldn't hinder any of the stated goals of this proposal. The omission of it is either institutionalized stupidity or a deliberate attempt to censor. Both can be called evil.