Crackdown on television smut

Now the prudes are after television nudity! Why wont these people just leave others alone. How did it become their business to tell me what I should watch on TV? I don't care what they think. If they don't want to watch a show, change the fucking channel. Mind your own damn business.

Where will I be able to complain about stuff being cut out of TV shows? Is there a complaint form that I can fill out about their hacking of the groin feeling scene from Crocodile Dundee?


Herald article:

Censorship, where will it stop?

Once censorship gets a bit of momentum one never knows where it will end.

Wikipedia page on the most challenged books in USA.

File Sharing Case

Before we hear the excited "See, I told you the internet was full of child porn" calls from the "moral majority", let's look closely as what the police found and how they found it. This guy was using a file sharing program to source and redistribute illegal, child abuse material and he was caught by old fashioned policing.

Bear in mind too that his is child abuse material, not normal porn which is consenting adult people shagging with a camera in the room. Predominantly, Conroy's filter will block normal porn.

Conroy's filter will not block the layer that file sharing software runs on. It's a program not a website. Conroy's filter can only hamper good old fashioned police stings. So, don't chalk this up to the need to filter, chalk this up to the need to not filter.

Before we start stacking up the wood for a burning at the stake (I'm looking at you fundamentalist christians) let's look at what happened here. Is this guy going to get any help to bring his sexual orientation under control? How can anyone do that anyway? Sure, he's got his punishment but where is his help now? What are we going to do to help him avoid the crime that he is headed for? Does the court imagine that a penalty is going to cause his sexual orientation to go away? What psychiatric help and tools does he have to divert him away from these thoughts just as an alcoholic is forever diverting himself away from thoughts of drinking alcohol? For his jail term he cannot come into contact with children but he can't be jailed for ever. Many people want paedophiles jailed forever but the idea is not gaining traction with law makers. We need a holistic solution not more knee jerk reactions.


Article:

Ask Conroy

From:

At what point does internet filtering become censorship?

Access could be denied to sites on which victims of sexual abuse detail their experiences, sites that provide educational information about drug use and academic sites that describe the motivation and behaviour of terrorists.

Perhaps that's a price the Government is willing to pay in order to - as its spinmeisters put it - "improve the safety of the internet for families". But at what point does "filtering" undesirable content to protect families become censorship that undermines free speech?

Link:

Internet filter laws need urgent public debate. SMH Article

The report that underpins the government's decision to legislate did not offer any new ammunition to the proponents of the scheme. But, although not obvious at first sight, the report is actually a positive outcome for the schme's critics.

The report's findings reinforce that dynamic content filtering - or inspection of data as it passes through the system without any prior knowledge about the content - is not viable.

SMH Link:

SMH Letters 17th December 2009 on internet censorship.

Link:

Net filters 'thin end of the wedge': Kirby

Former High Court judge Michael Kirby has criticised the Federal Government's internet censorship agenda, saying it could stop the "Berlin Walls of the future" from being knocked down.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, announced he would introduce legislation before next year's elections forcing ISPs to block a secret blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users.

Most experts agree that Conroy's policy will not result in any meaningful dent in the availability of harmful internet content, will create significant freedom of speech issues and will be prone to abuse by politicians.

SMH Link:

Has a video too.

Senator Kate Lundy's thoughts on the filter

The Senator tries to sell the filter. The comments indicate that the sales pitch didn't work.

Link:

Commentary: Why we don't need a filter. ITWire

Mark Newton tells us about the conflation of RC and Illegal Material with the help of a Gladys.

I swear, if I see one more commentator buying-in to Senator Conroy's spin about child pornography on the Internet I'm going to pop an artery.

There are plenty of other places where you can read all about how the Enex Testlab report released by the Minister on Tuesday decimates the case for the Government's policy, so I'm not going to rehash that here.

Link to ITWire

If anything comes out of this discussion, I'd like to see Australian media commentators (who are more affected by censorship than virtually any other segment of the Australian population) understand that "RC" is not the same as "illegal" or "child pornography." Joining the two concepts together is a manipulative rhetorical tactic the Minister is using to garner support for his obnoxious policy, and I'm sure that the protectors of the Fourth Estate are clever enough to avoid being drawn in to it.

Evidence-based policy? Not on this filter!

For politicians, "evidence" isn't something to be gathered with forensic precision and preserved through a documented chain of custody. Nor it is something to be compiled transparently, justified through meticulous research and refined in the purifying fire of peer review.

No. For politicians, "evidence" is something to be plucked from wherever it can be found and sprinkled to justify a previously-chosen policy like so much magic fairy dust.

The Rudd government's internet censorship proposal is not about protecting the children. It's about politics.

ABC article:

Yes! Where's the evidence, Conroy. Your unfounded assertions, ad hominem attacks on anyone who dares oppose your filter, and beliefs are not evidence for the existence of massive social harm requiring expensive and ineffective solutions.

Produce your evidence and you can have your filter.

Produce your evidence that the current censorship system has merit while you are at it.

I just wanted to look up the name of a drug

What is the name of the date rape drug?

That was the question in my mind. So, I typed "date rape drug" into google. There it is. I've broken Conroy's thought crime law. I have wanted to look up the name of a drug that can be used in date rape. WTF!?

Anyway, the wikipedia article on date rape drugs mentions Rohypnol. That was the word I was looking for. According to Conroy's thought crime laws looking this up is looking up instructions on how to commit a crime so it should be filtered out. WTF!?

Metamagician and the Hellfire Club's post "What about the children?"

Extract:

I suggest that, if the state seriously wished to protect children from harm that results merely from being exposed to certain kinds of communications, rather than responding to ill-informed moral panic about the Internet, it would need to conduct extensive psychological and sociological research. Even then, it would have a great deal of difficulty determining an objective standard of "harm" - and if it somehow succeeded, the product of its investigations might well be surprising.

Link:

Russell brings up a strong point here. Before we pay extra for our internet and pay for more rigged computer tests, let's see the figures on children that have been harmed by porn. I don't know any. Why aren't the psychologists clambering to say "Yes! I see dozens of children a week who are mentally damaged by porn."

Children who are forced or tricked into sex with adults are damaged but this is predominantly coming from non-porn activities (I'm looking at the Anglicans and the Catholics here). Don't try shifting the blame for aberrant, abhorrent behaviour in clergy onto the porn industry. Show me a single man who has just watched a porno and spanked himself who is looking for a child to have sex with. Conflating these two activities to muddy the waters is useful cover for the church generated paedophiles but it does nothing to protect children.

Australia Continues Quest To Purge Internet Of Naughty Bits

Filter tests with no standards unsurprisingly found '100% successful'

The Australian government has been sinking millions of dollars into ISP Internet filters, conducting trials with a handful of ISPs, many of whom have been very vocal in their beliefs that the filters won't technically work. Australian political leaders in favor of the filters don't seem to care -- the government admitting the ongoing trials have no quantifiable metric to determine whether the trials were a success or failure

Link:

Net filter that helps no-one

Every proposal has costs as well as benefits and these have to be weighed. If the filter merely gives parents a false sense of security, by lessening oversight it may actually worsen the experience of children online.

Link:

ACL is on the move.

In Brief:

* Government moves to filter porn from internet.
* Sex trade and civil libertarians violently oppose this.
* Please write to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to thank him for protecting kids.

Dear ACL Supporter

It is important Governments don't just hear from us when we want something. It is vital we thank them when they announce good policy.

Yesterday the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced that the Rudd Government will make it compulsory for Internet Service Providers to filter the worst of the worst pornography and violence from the internet.

This means that child porn, rape porn, bestiality and anything else judged as Refused Classification (RC) under Australia's classification laws, such as instruction in crime and drug use, will be blocked.

This is a great first step in protecting children from the harms of pornography online.

Legislation is to be introduced next year giving effect to this policy. In addition, ISPs will be encouraged, and given incentives, to offer optional filtering of X and R rated pornography on a voluntary basis.

No one argues that books, films and magazines should not be subject to this form of appropriate censorship. Now this is beginning to be extended to the internet, where of course children are particularly susceptible to being exposed to harmful content.

Trials have shown RC content from overseas websites can be effectively blocked with negligible impact on internet speed.

Sadly, the sex trade, and some internet civil libertarians who believe there should be no control over the internet, are violently opposed and are putting out much misinformation in the media.

It is important that the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy hears from us - real people with real concerns for the safety of kids online. Please take a moment to write to Senator Conroy and thank him. A personal letter would be most effective, but we also understand this is a busy time of year and an email may be more convenient. His contact details are:

Senator Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002

His e-mail address is senator.conroy@aph.gov.au.

Thanks in anticipation of your response. May I take this opportunity to wish you and your family a blessed Christmas.

God bless

Jim Wallace AM
Managing Director

You heard the man. Start writing!

Link:

Forth article

The Australian government released a report today about trials it had carried out to see if Internet censorship was viable. The report concludes that internet censorship is possible (although it calls it 'filtering'), and the government plans to pass legislation in 2010 to force Australian ISPs to block material that has been refused classification by Australia's censorship officials. (1) The list of sites to be censored will be secret and unaccountable, although earlier this year the Wikileaks site published a leaked version of a then-current list of sites (2) which Australian-based websites may not link to, at the risk of an A$11 000 fine - which an Australian website was threatened with earlier this year after linking to an anti-abortion site. (3) Despite this, Senator Conroy claimed "It is completely untrue that the leaked blacklist contains political content. This is a list which contains sites that promote incest, rape, child pornography and child abuse", and was further embarrassed when the leaked list revealed that an innocent dentists' site had been placed on the list of banned sites.

Link:

Brisbane Action Meeting

There will be a meeting of people from all walks of life this Monday 21st December at 7:30pm to discuss the Federal Government's plans to introduce mandatory Internet filtering. This will be held at the Brisbane Square Library.

Link:

It was moved cause the original place was too small.

ABC article:

Criticism

But Electronic Frontiers Australia, which monitors online freedoms and rights, says the Government's plan is flawed.

"Although it may address some technical issues, what it leaves out is far more important," Electronic Frontiers Australia vice chair Colin Jacobs said.

"Exactly what will be blocked? Who will decide and why is it being attempted in the first place?"

Mr Jacobs says the ease with which users can circumvent the filtering raises questions about what it is actually trying to accomplish.

"What we're talking about is a filter that can only intercept accidental access to prohibited material," he said.

"Any motivated user will be able to get around it, it will be quite easy, so who is this being targeted at?

"If it's targeted at the people who traffic in illegal material, well, then clearly it's going to be worthless because they'll be able to get around it any time they want to.

"If it's teenagers the same is true unfortunately, and given the types of material that are going to be on the blacklist, younger children are unlikely to be affected one way or the other."

Link:

Australian government to introduce Internet filter

AP article via Yahoo

Adopting a mandatory screening system would make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among the world's democracies. Authoritarian regimes commonly impose controls. China drew international criticism earlier this year with plans to install filtering software on all PCs sold in the country.

Link:

Aussie content filters "work" (not counting IM, P2P, FTP...)

Results of a public trial have bolstered the Australian government's plan to implement both mandatory and optional ISP filtering in 2010. For the moment, though, violent video games are safe.

Ah, the Internet, defier of governments and slough of offshore porn-how can any country hope to control what is hosted beyond its borders? Actually, Australia has discovered an old Chinese remedy that just might do the trick: mandatory ISP filtering using a secret government blacklist.

Link:

Internet Service Provider (ISP) Filtering 'Live' Pilot

Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy:

As part of its commitment to examine the introduction of ISP-level filtering, the Australian Government conducted a live ISP filtering pilot in 2009 to provide valuable information on the effectiveness and efficiency of filters installed in 'real world' ISP networks.

The pilot was managed by Enex Testlab, an independent testing laboratory.

Link:

Jim Wallace (Aust Christian Lobby) vs Mark Newton (IT Professional)

Radio interview from about 10 months ago:

Mark Newton, Jim Wallace, and Clowns (not Jim Wallace, actual Clowns) from Geordie Guy on Vimeo.

Warning, there are tremendously annoying honking over the top of Jim Wallace's errors.

Not all Christians want it:

Link:

Crikey's coverage

Great Firewall of Australia