Internet uprising overturns Australian censorship law

The state of South Australia has a new election law that went into effect January 6, and its effect was shocking: anonymous political speech on the Internet was simply destroyed.

The law required anyone posting a political comment online during an election period to supply their real name and address or face a fine of up to AUS$1,250. The measure was grossly discriminatory-it applied only to bloggers and commenters, not to online "journals" (newspapers or magazine which are written by Real Journalists).

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Because the idea was not dopey enough, Atkinson took to the radio to prove that it was based on misinformation:

"I'll give you an example: repeatedly in the AdelaideNow website one will see commentary from Aaron Fornarino of West Croydon. That person doesn't exist," Atkinson said on the air. "That name has been created by the Liberal Party in order to run Liberal Party commentary."

This morning, AdelaideNow took great delight in posting a picture of Fornarino posing with a Mac and his young daughter. He's a second-year law student who moved to the area last year and "lives in a flat on Port Rd, about 500m from Mr. Atkinson's electorate office."

For some reason this idea has since been dumped. But here's the catch. He's promising: "I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively... It may be humiliating for me, but that's politics in a democracy and I'll take my lumps."

Yeah... right. We've got this law but we wont use it, promise, honest. And we'll scrap it when we are re-elected... promise. Fuck Off. Get rid of this shit now!


LifeHacker's article: SA Internet Forum Rules Are Chilling, Unworkable

SA Internet Forum Rules Are Chilling, Unworkable

Proposed national Internet censorship laws are reason enough to protest, but South Australia seems determined to make things even worse, with a new law covering what forum posters can say during an election campaign.

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WTF!? What is it with right wing lunatics and their need for full disclosure of names and addresses? When comments stop resulting in witch hunts I might feel more inclined towards that level of disclosure. If someone has actually broken a law the police IT forensics specialists are more than capable of tracking who wrote the post.

What's next? Checking paper diaries for dissent?

Another censorship wedge...

All R-Rated Films To Be Treated Like Porn In South Australia

Maybe all lazy parents should move to South Australia, because everyone's favourite state government seems to want to do all your parenting for you. The South Australian government is now enforcing a law that requires all R-rated films for sale or hire to be segregated from all other movies of a lower rating. Not only that, but advertising R-rated films will also be illegal.

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A little bit of censorship starts a rash of censorship. It becomes a competition between various governments to censor because this is held up to be a constructive thing to do to make children safe. Who doesn't want to make children safe. I never speed through school zones. I don't trip children in the supermarket. I don't smash beer bottles in sand pits. All of these things can be shown to do harm to children. People arguing for censorship need t show how children are being harmed by adult material. There was adult material when I was a child. It hasn't harmed me. What has harmed people has been weird reactions to sex that are illustrated by the calls for censorship. If a child sees an adult movie, and you can't tell me that the Bruno or The Hangover covers can possibly harm children unless some moralising fool teaches them an adverse reaction. The hysterical flapping of hands and tutting causes the child to be upset. They just don't see things. I didn't notice porn in my house for years until I really got going with puberty, suddenly they were interesting to me and I snuck a peek, then another, and so on...

So, parents out there, understand that this material probably wont harm children if they aren't exposed to it too heavily (not arguing that all children should watch adult movies) so that your reaction is appropriate.