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Few Contribute To Aussie Classification Review
dopeywan.kenobi writes "The Australian Law Reform Commission are conducting a review of the Australian Classification laws, the outcome of which will influence Australian internet filtering and/or the long awaited R18+ Video Game classification. Public submissions on the matter have been accepted since 20th May 2011 and will close on the 15th July 2011. From the article : '[A]s yet only 80 public submissions have been made — 80 per cent of them from people who believe in government intervention for the sake of child protection. Considering, the furious debates within Australia's technology communities, does this reflect the national balance?...'It's likely down to the media for failing to inform the public on the matter.' Having read the questionnaire, I can't help but wonder if their convoluted phrasing is contributing to reports that people are only partially completing the form without submitting." I wonder how much of it, too, is that people don't want to be tarred as favoring child pornography just because they're uncomfortable with by-domain censorship.
Thanks Slashdot for posting an article from a week ago, since then there have been at least 440 more submissions made - and my public submission from Saturday morning isn't up on the site yet, so there's a lot more probably made. You can read the public submissions at http://www.alrc.gov.au/inquiries/classification/submissions-received-alrc
Since the story hit kotaku there are now 547 submissions
Any Aussies should go to http://www.alrc.gov.au/content/classification-online-submission to fill it out while keeping the report side by side, and working through them together. Its the easiest way.
The report is linked at the top, and you have to register as well.
Cheers
Kactus
But I don't really have a problem with the concept of domain filtering or domain takedowns for child pornography.
I think it's dangerous to apply it to much else, and I'm not sure I can envisage a system that can actually stop it effectively, or maintain enough transparency to satisfy me that other "non-approved" content isn't being filtered.
And of course I totally disagree with the power being extended even to other illegal activities (file sharing, anarchist's cookbook type stuff, for instance). So for me it's hard to see what's best.
I apologise in advance to the gathered /. horde for not being absolutist enough.
I just hope that the 18+ rating for games comes through, because the current practice of banning games based on totally inconsistent criteria, whilst not applying similar criteria to other media, is ridiculous in the extreme.
"The Australian Law Reform Commission are conducting a review of the Australian Classification laws, the outcome of which will influence Australian internet filtering and/or the long awaited R18+ Video Game classification. Public submissions on the matter have been accepted since 20th May 2011 and will close on the 15th July 2011. From the article : '[A]s yet only 80 public submissions have been made — 80 per cent of them from people who believe in government intervention for the sake of child protection. Considering, the furious debates within Australia's technology communities, does this reflect the national balance?...'It's likely down to the media for failing to inform the public on the matter.' Having read the questionnaire, I can't help but wonder if their convoluted phrasing is contributing to reports that people are only partially completing the form without submitting."
This is completely incorrect for a number of reasons.
1) Appeal to incorrectness.
2) It might not be stargazer; it might be pew pew along the lines of magazine.
3) I came to the garbage of this place and realized it. We only have good old fakepassword3.
They're probably right about the convoluted questions deterring submissions. Yet I also think that's a good thing, since the people who submit their opinion should have an understanding of the issues.
I fear that articles such as this one will pull in a particular demographic who will share a narrow world view, say 20 something gamers who are not raising children and have no concern in community issues.
My apologies for that stereotype, but I've noticed that the perspective of young adults shifts radically once family and/or community plays a stronger role in their lives.
I didn't realise it was like this. I just filled out the questionnaire.
Referring to a post by MacTO above (and some others, not to single you out -- sorry no offence intended at all), no I don't fit that demographic. I don't agree with child porn or exploitation. I also don't agree with the crap that the current (and previous!) government are trying to shove down citizens throats.
so this has already happened
wikipedia sliped onto the list of baned sites
this page caused the problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer
so what happens when its a smaller site ?
regards
John Jones
In favor of intervention to protect children from what?
The classification review isn't just the internet filter and R18+ for games, it's also about applying a rating system to art and a number of other things. There's also a number of people who are proposing the R18+ rating specifically to protect children, so that 80% means just about nothing.
Having been one of the first people to instigate an ePetition before the Qld Parliament, and having been summarily told that the Attorney General "doesn't really give a rats", I have become more than a little jaded about our government's commitment to reform.
90's style Change Management is about making the punters believe that they contributed to, and actively selected, the course that you had already plotted for them.
Nothing much has changed in the last 15 years.
Still, I put in my public submission, and quoted the 6000 votes I gathered on my ePetition. Here's hoping the folks from EB Games (who gathered around 100,000 votes in their petition across the whole of Oz) throw their hat into the ring and contribute to a sane outcome also.
I don't know what happens in AU, but here in the UK (As I can personally verify from trying to look at the above link when it was blocked), ISPs tend not to actually give a block notice. Instead they spoof a 404 message, making it appear the file is gone. Unless the site admin is someone who checks the webserver logs and notices something is up, the owner might not even realise they have been blocked - only that they are mysteriously very unpopular in some countries. The users certainly wouldn't realise - unless you're poking around with traceroute, it just looks like a 404.
The most effective type of censorship is that in which the people don't even realise the censorship is taking place.
Welcome to this centuries' witch hunt! And as usual, it's not even about witches.
When you look down the history of witch burning (from medieval actual burning to the commie craze to the CP hype of today) it's not about protecting us from some evil bad man (or woman). It's just a nice tool to silence those who do and say things that certain people do not like but they didn't really break any other law, so we need another angle of attack.
It's not like there's no CP on the web. But please tell me, who is better off by not seeing it? The children? Are you kidding me? They still get abused, it's not like the abuse stops just because you cannot see it anymore. Oh, maybe it makes you feel better, I cannot see it, therefore it must not exist.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So the Aussies want me to google: "hot child porn XXX," go through the resulting sights and find the worst of the worst to submit.
Seriously, you have to register to use the sight and no one is going to ask were you learned about "Imapedaphile.com.au?"
Whatever. And uh,
The only thing I remember being actually blocked in Australia (until now of course) was some overseas male porn star who shared the same name as an Australian Idol winner or finalist, and somebody accidentally posted the URL of the former instead of the latter in the media release (.com instead of .com.au I think). And even then it wasn't really censorship... I think the user just got a message like "sorry... we think you probably meant to go to .com.au instead of .com", with an option to go to the original link if that's what you wanted. They fully disclosed what they were doing and I don't think anyone got particularly upset about it (except perhaps the .com website owner who might have liked to have profited from the ad revenue generated by the mistake :).
But now it seems like we're finally catching up to the UK :)
Considering the furious debates within Australia's technology communities...
I think you mean among the teen-boys-with-too-much-time-and-Internet-access community. Australia's technology communities have bigger collective fish to fry.
Interesting to see more anti-censorship submissions accumulating. It's kind-of charming to see such faith in bureaucratic process!
Fact is, no-one really cares what you say and it won't change anything. It is extremely unlikely that any of these turkeys on the "Law Reform Commission", with their ponderous 19th Century processes, even understand the issues.
Most sane anti-censorship people simply could not be bothered. To the extent it interferes with what you want to do, find a way of working around it. We are all going to have slower internet access thanks to the great moral panic of the modern era, but there is no escaping that downside.
TFK
But did you check out the questions? Chrome auto-fill didn't help at all!
actually blocked in Australia (until now of course) was some overseas male porn star who shared the same name as an Australian Idol winner or finalist, and somebody accidentally posted the URL of the former instead of the latter in the media release
because some marketing guy published the wrong URL all/some ISPs redirected the traffic to another page?
the rationale for this operation is imo even worse than the arguments for blocking child pornography...
Well the IWF just blocks it by fiat and no-one notices. If people do and a big enough fuss is raised, the IWF will back off for a while and try again later.
May the Maths Be with you!