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Censorship Your Rights Online

Speaking Out Against Australian Internet Censorship 281

Posted by timothy from the manson-family-friendly dept.
edo-01 writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting opinion column up that details some of the opposition to the federal government's net censorship laws, most notably from the government of Australia's most populous state, New South Wales. An interesting quote from the article: 'Essentially, [the federal government] does not see that the Internet in Australia has much of a future as a forum for adults.'"
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Speaking Out Against Australian Internet Censorship More

Speaking Out Against Australian Internet Censorship

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  • ... trying to run our lives. Most of the politicians making tech based laws have no idea of the technology for which they are making legislation.
    • Why must the Internet be safe for kids? What possible reasons could they have for this. Is TV safe for kids? Rock Music? Do they completely ban alcohol and cigarettes, for fear that the kiddies will get there hands on them?

      ah... posing, that must be it.
  • What a wonderful idea!
    Let's just make it illegal for anyone anywhere to put pr0n on the net.
    Surely then they'll all stop?

    It's nice to see that at least they're starting to realise that writing laws, without understanding the tech is a waste of time. A bit too late for those who've already been squished by such heavyhanded legislation, but nice to see none the less.
    To (mis)quote a Dilbert strip: You wish to pit your expertise against the collective sex drives of all the teenagers in the world? Good luck.
  • 'Essentially, [the federal government] does not see that the Internet in Australia has much of a future as a forum for adults.'

    Come ON! It's all about potential; 10 years ago very few people had an inkling of the sheer potential of the internet. but NOW? That's just stupid.

  • Virtues (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Renraku ( 518261 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @04:29AM (#2772926) Homepage
    In theory, the virtues that governments wish to convey look quite nice and noble. However, in practice, they do too much to restrict freedom. What's to stop any 'censorship' department from censoring what they don't like? If any Australian governmental officals hear this, freedom is more virtuous than trying to put a mask on everything. The truth is out there, however people might encounter it, the truth doesn't care.

    • Re:Virtues (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mpe ( 36238 )
      In theory, the virtues that governments wish to convey look quite nice and noble. However, in practice, they do too much to restrict freedom.

      As is commonly said "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions". Most kinds of censorship, be they for broadcast media or "hatespeach" come in very attractive packaging. To the effect that they will "protect" the "powerless".

      What's to stop any 'censorship' department from censoring what they don't like?

      The article addresses this to some extent refering to the "R" classification of films. The basic problem with any thing so open ended as "unsuitable for minors" is that it can be perverted to cover just about anything.
    • You sir, have comitted a thought-crime.
      Please report to your nearest social re-engineering centre for thought process adjustment.
      Under the 1984 mental discipline act, you should make your way to room 101 forthwith.
      :)
  • I live in australia, and i can tell you, this country has absolutly NO IDEA when it comes to the internet, the broadband we have costs 89 australian dollars a month for a pitiful 3 gig limit, our minister for IT banned forwarding email without permission, he also said "broadband is for kids playing games", the ignorance of the australian goverment about anything to do with computers is beyond pathetic (P.s. there is another company called Optus@home who offer a decent amount but they are not available to the majority of australians)

  • heh (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sk3lt ( 464645 )
    'Essentially, [the federal government] does not see that the Internet in Australia has much of a future as a forum for adults.'"

    *cough*Bullshit*cough* But since when does the Australian government talk the truth.. I live in Australia and we have to battle with High Taxes (GST blah) and other crap all the time.

    I can honestly say that the government probably doesn't see the Internet for what it really is.. An Information ground.

    >_ @ the aussie government.
  • Aussie classifications for film and literature HAVE SUCCEEDED. We can watch and read pretty much what we want, with commonsense restrictions that limit the availability of this material based on age.

    This attempt at 'net laws is aimed to appease the ultra conservatives , whilst being recognised as generally ineffective and useless.

    They limit the publication and dissemination of information - but not the perusal or production. You can still make and peruse what you want - just don't publish it to a audience that is deemed restricted - (ie) those under 18. The www is uncensored , therefore is deemed an unsuitable publishing meduim for this sort of stuff in Australia.

    The author in the SMH article has missed the point - but the content will generate letters to the editor , wanker angst and generally help to maintain newspaper circulation.

    There was a recent chance to start classifying information based on this sort of content - much the same as film classifications - with the recent new top level domains...but we are stuck with .biz and .info ....thanks for nothing.
    • He was commenting about the legislation, not about the realities of how the legislation will be enforced/not enforced.

      And the legislation /is/ important, even if most people ignore it - at some point or other it /will/ be enforced, even if only as a tool for putting some serious criminal in gaol. Just saying that a law will be ignored doesn't stop it from being potentially damaging.

      himi
    • Aussie classifications for film and literature HAVE SUCCEEDED. We can watch and read pretty much what we want, with commonsense restrictions that limit the availability of this material based on age.

      How old do you have to be to get "Grand Theft Auto 3"?

  • JonKatz is the culprit (Score:3, Funny)

    by mESSDan ( 302670 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @04:56AM (#2772962) Homepage
    It looks like the Australians have been reading JonKatz. The ones who are speaking out read some, took a positive message out of his extremely wordy articles, and took it to the government and said "This is what we want!"

    The sad part is that someone in the Aussie government probably read a JonKatz article also, but they couldn't shake the often silly messages he tries to portray as being serious, so they thought "Hey, maybe if we censor the whole net, we'll get this guy too."

    Another attempt at humor by myself. Probably a troll though. Who knows.
  • Adult themes may include verbal references to and depictions associated with issues such as suicide, crime, corruption, marital problems, emotional trauma, drug and alcohol dependency, death and serious illness, racism, religious issues

    Thats some scary shit! I would have been totally unsurprised
    to see 'political issues' in that list as well. Surely a progressive
    society that believes in free speech has an interest
    in making sure material, of any nature, is available to anyone,
    regardless.


    I sure has hell can't think of any text, sound, or image, moving
    or still, that is so harmful to my kids, that I will disregard my love
    for free speech so much, that I would censor that material from them.


    Its the fear, the banning, and the censorship, from superstitous fundamentalists
    such as christians, that gives this material its stigma, not the material itself.

    • In fact its not mentioned at all, just alluded to. The government can censor whatever they want, they only have to worry about being voted in again. But I think that PM Howard has proven that you can flat out lie repeatedly to the public, implement an extremely unpopular tax, do various other things and _still_ get re-elected.

      You have to realise that it is rare to find Australians that are really involved in politics, most aussies "don't give a sh*t", all politicians are regarded as being as bad as each other. The majority of the vote comes down to the personality of the party leaders, and to put it frankly, the last three labour (the other major political party) leaders have all come across as slime balls. Regardless of how good a person they really are.

    • Thing is, most of this stuff /is/ freely available (Score:5, Interesting)

      by himi ( 29186 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @05:16AM (#2772994) Homepage
      As a number of other posters have said, Australians tend to ignore laws that they don't agree with. Unless there are people standing over us, we'll just live our lives however we feel happy and ignore the stupid laws. The good laws simply codify what the majority consider reasonable, so very few people have problems with them.

      Another thing to note is that our constitution doesn't codify anything other than how the state governments relate to the federal government - we don't have any bill of rights saying that freedom of speech is a fundamental right, or anything like that. Rights like that are established through a combination of legislation, the actions of the courts, and public opinion about things. And, contrary to what a lot of Americans seem to think, this process actually /works/ - our rights aren't written down on paper, they're negotiated on a continual basis. This makes things very flexible, and means that our rights are always immediately apropriate to the current situation - we don't have things like the US's 2nd amendmant, which was a nice idea when it was made, but is kind of pointless in an age when there's a centrally controlled military force.

      A large part of the reason this kind of legislation has come through is because of the work of one man, who just happened to hold the balance of power in the senate - basically, in order to pass bills, the government of the day needed to have his vote. So, parties would pander to his (very unrepresentative) views on things like morality, and support legislation like this in order to buy his support.

      Australia /is/ a very free and fair society - it's consistently rated one of the most pleasant places to live in the world. Hiccoughs like this happen, but by and large they don't seriously affect things.

      himi
      • So uh, where can I grab a copy of GTA3 down there then?

      • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • we don't have things like the US's 2nd amendmant, which was a nice idea when it was made, but is kind of pointless in an age when there's a centrally controlled military force.

        Um - there was a centrally controlled military force at the time, and it had just been kicked out. The second ammendment was designed to oppose centrally controlled military forces - sort of a less organized Switzerland. In addition, it was designed to oppose a corrupt US government, should the need arise. There may be arguments against the second ammendment, but the existence of a national armed forces is not one.
    • Australia specialises in making laws, then not enforcing them. We have a bunch of similar ones on our books. Our current internet "censorship" regulations have only resulted in about 10 complaints which led to take-down orders, and in all those cases, the material was material which would be refused classification were it to appear in a print magazine.

      The point is, very few Australians actually bother hosting their sites here, so connecting the site to Australia would be difficult.
  • In deffense of making laws that ban speech agaisn't the government - If you don't support or speak agaisnt the government, then your a counter revolutionary.

  • How about a techinological compromise (Score:4, Informative)

    by Twylite ( 234238 ) <twylite.crypt@co@za> on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @05:31AM (#2773019) Homepage

    Every time censorship of the Internet is brought up, the geek community shoots it down in flames as being impossible or impractical. But what if technology was to meet legislation half-way?

    Here's the proposal (although to some extent it only works with global-treaty buy-in):

    Every ISP is legally obliged to distinguish between Adult and Non-adult accounts. They are also obliged to run a transparent proxy service through which all connections must pass.

    An extension is made to HTTP (and other relevant protocols) which includes an Adult/Non-adult content flag. This allows the proxy to block connections to inappropriate sites.

    The further legal obligation is on all site owners and maintainers (and hopefully not the hosts!) to ensure that their sites comply with the rating they claim.

    There is also a legal obligation on all adults NOT to make their account (password) accessible to minors; and only to allow minors access through their account if they are a legal guardian (or acting on behalf of one) and the minor is under constant supervision.

    This is very much like existing censorship systems, but with three major differences: it is more transparent, there is legal recourse if the site fails to live up to its claimed rating, and there is an onus on adults to protect children (while not denying parents the right to allow their children access to material as they see fit).

    Yes, there are ways around this. There are always going to be some sites that evade the law, just like there are porn shop owners that ignore the age of their patrons. There will be kids who "steal" adult accounts, just like they sneak into R movies.

    But it is a great improvement on any system that is currently in place, and could be a suitable middle ground for all parties.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @05:44AM (#2773035)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • The problem with that is that no one really gets porn from the web anymore, unless they REALLY don't know what they're doing.

        So what you are saying is that most people who want porn online "know what they are doing" with a computer?

        I doubt it. Most people are chumps. Hell, it wasn't that long ago that 1/2 the people online in America were on AOL.

        Your point is valid but I believe you are way overestimating the competence of the average computer user.
          • So what you are saying is that most people who want porn online "know what they are doing" with a computer? I doubt it. Most people are chumps.

          Before Napster, I'd have agreed with you. But now everyone and their grandma knows about P2P (helped along by the RIAA's legal and PR campaign against P2P). Have you used any of the KazAa clients? They really are idiot proof. Within 2 minutes of downloading, I was leeching software, music and quality pr0n, using a front end that's easy to understand, and a back end that makes Napster look like tin cans and bits of string.

          I have to agree with the original poster. Compared to juggling a dozen browser windows and trying out hundreds of dead web passes for pr0n sites, P2P is actually simplicity itself.

      • I can see blocking the adult usenet groups, but how do you block the other stuff? Ban file-sharing programs and FTP access? Not likely...
        It'd be very difficult technically to ban p2p sharing but Optus (one of the two cable providers in Australia) has fired the first shot by throttling traffic to ports 6700-6702 [slashdot.org]. It might be possible to filter at the protocol level if they needed to ban something outright. Are any of the p2p systems using an encrypted protocol yet?
        • Wooo... lucky MS has decide that port 80 is the Internet after all.

          p2p stuff may be more difficult to use now, and encrypted traffic may be for geeks only, but all this stuff will be available off the shelf the minute the current alternatives get blocked. No-one seriously used Napster alternatives until Napster was shut down.

          What are they going to do? Sit in on all my video conferences in case I show any pink bits? As long as we have genitalia, we will have pR0n.

          Xix.
    • It's a nice idea (leaving aside the fact that ftp etc. won't have this). The major flaw is how do you make anyone comply?
      The _biggest_ problem with trying to legislate the net is that it's not in any single country. So what we have at the moment is a nasty legal tangle where things are illegal on a website hosted in one place, but is legal elsewhere.
      You could publish an RFC suggesting this, and you might get some sites complying (IIRC it's a fairly minor modification to an apache config file). But the offenders (IE the pr0n sites) won't bother. They'll just move their hosting to somewhere where it doesn't apply.
      Such a method _would_ allow for voluntary content rating, and I'd imaging it would be possible to allow or deny traffic based on if it is rated or not. Unfortunately, this is what a load of the 'netnanny' programs do already...

      Vote now! Make me Tzar of the Internet and I shall make everything wonderful and safe, but also free and happy. Or something :)

      • Its not as difficult as you think. You get political agreement between consenting countries to support this effort. In legalese it would be a treaty to rate content and penalties for governments and individuals who flaunt the rating system, whether by technical means or blatent lying.

        Since the countries would oblige all ISPs to behave in a particular manner, that group of treaty-bound nations can ensure that all connections to anywhere OUTSIDE the treaty group are treated as adult-only (even a special tag: adult-only, non treaty ; so that nations wanting adult censorship [not that I hold with this] can do so).

        The all traffic from outside the treaty nations is considered unsafe for children. Within those nations any flaunting of the rating system can be followed up through normal legal channels.

        Its not really a matter of legislating the net, but of putting a technical system in place that can support various legislation (as I suggested in another post: make content classification more granular than simply adult/child) and getting buy-in from countries to agree to enforce that if ratings are used they are accurate.

    • Re:How about a techinological compromise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by radish ( 98371 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:40AM (#2773100) Homepage

      One question - who decides what "adult" means? Stuff which is legal in Holland is illegal in the US, stuff which is illegal in the UK is legal in the US. And that's only comparing 3 "western" countries, when you start hitting islamic countries (and even, it would seem, Australia) the definition of "adult" changes dramatically. Until every government can agree on what should/should not be censored your plan is a dead duck.

      • I considered this, and decided to describe a simpler system ;) But there is no reason that content can't be classified with better granularity than "adult/non-adult" ; then each country can insist that ISPs implement filters according to its laws.

          • there is no reason that content can't be classified with better granularity than "adult/non-adult"

          Oh please! Consider pr0n. Look at the granularity that you need in that. Off the top of my head, I can think of countries where the age of consent varies from 13 to 21, and even then depends on the sex act and the age and relationship of the partner(s).

          And honest pr0n is simplicity itself compared to applying abritrary labels that distinguish between art and titilation (David, Venus) and the minefield of political and religious speech.

          Any useful system would be so complex that it would be unused. How many people right now bother even with such trivial stuff as HTML version numbers?

          Fortunately, attempts to classify or censor the net aren't in the least concerned with coming up with a useful system. They are PR or ego exercises, pure and simple.

          • Consider pr0n. Look at the granularity that you need in that. Off the top of my head, I can think of countries where the age of consent varies from 13 to 21, and even then depends on the sex act and the age and relationship of the partner(s).

            Actually in this case it varies from 0 (no age based law forbidding an activity, e.g. female homosexuality in the UK) to infinite (laws against anyone doing it, e.g. the various laws against non PIV sex in parts of the US.) Let alone some countries have laws on consent which apply only to marital status...
            Also laws about ponography do not always corrolate well with laws on consent. You can end up with the bizare situation of someone being "too young" to look at pictures of someone's genitals but "old enough" to see the same person's genitals "live".
      • One question - who decides what "adult" means? Stuff which is legal in Holland is illegal in the US, stuff which is illegal in the UK is legal in the US.

        Not only do you have this issue of what "adult" means when attached to content you also have problems of definition of "adult" when attached to people.
        How do you handle people who are "adults" according to the laws of their own country, but not where the website is located or vice versa? Even within countries you get anomolies such as the age at which someone can view pornography (or be a porn actor) is higher than the age of consent...
    • Your idea is close to a more workable one I had. I don't like censorship much but here goes:

      Most censorship schemes try to mark all the 'bad' stuff. Don't do that. Instead mark all the 'good' stuff, and only allow kids to see that. If it hasn't been marked, assume it is no good for kids.

      There's much less safe-for-kids stuff on the net than unsafe stuff, so it's easier to enforce, and you only get it rated if it is ok for the kids to see.
      To mark it, you have a censor sign it as 'universal rating in UK' (cryptographic signature) or 'ok for below 18s in USA', depending on where you live; or 'contains graphic violence for USA' or whatever, with any arbitrary level of granularity- multiple markings are fine.

      ISP/OSs should only allow kids access to certain stuff signed by appropriate censors; appropriate to the morays of the ISP/country- so, if the age of consent in Japan is 14, then 17 year old US teenagers will only be able to see stuff suitable for 13 or under on Japanese web sites. Adults in Moslem countries will probably be able to see Walt Disney films if they're lucky.

      But who censors? I think that a Slashdot style censorship scheme could be made to work, or else you can write a web page and offer it up to be checked for kid friendliness; possibly for a small fee.

      The danger of all this is that the politicians will start using it as a form of censorship for adults as well.
    • I strongly support creating the restricted TLD .kids. Sites that would be allowed on the .kids domain would be the ones that are not offensive to anyone, anywhere. Browsers/ISP's would then need to have a setting to "allow ONLY connections to .kids sites". That way, when you're an adult you're allowed to do anything, but if you're a kid (or a parent, etc) then you can know that every site on .kids is "safe".

      Too bad the US government decided to create .biz and .museum instead of .kids.

  • R vs. X in Australia (Score:5, Informative)

    by eekDude ( 412992 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @05:32AM (#2773020)
    I thought the article failed to outline the key differences between R and X rated material that is confusing the "save the children" moralists. So here goes:

    R: generally anything that has very high levels of violence, language, drug use (which does come under the broad "strong adult themes", unfortunately), and simulated sexual activity (soft porn only --no erections allowed). Films can have all of the above in one scene, provided there is context for each "adult theme" within the scene. The print publication equivalent of this type of material is "R rating category 1".

    X: this is only for sexually explicit films/video (uncensored/"hardcore" pornography). It allows for real sex scenes. It cannot contain any sexual violence, cohersion, or "fetishes which are deemed offensive" (I won't go into details of what is deemed offensive as some people in here might be offended. *g*). The print publication equivalent of this classification is "R rated category 2".

    RC: refused classification. Basically, includes anything that is so abhorent that it cannot be included in either the R and X classication (for example, snuff films, poo eating, animal loving works, etc.). The print publication equivalent is the same.

    As the article pointed out, most conservatives and/or moralists have lumped all three classifications into the "R" category without realising the strict restrictions between each rating and the allowed context that these ratings must adhere to. Ignorance is bliss when you've been blinded, I guess.

    What I thought was interesting about NSW's hesitance towards approving their censorship legislation was their interest in protecting adults rights to access adult natured material on the internet. However, this is from a state where it is illegal to sell X-rated videos (not that has stopped retailers of adult erotica from doing so), although for print publications, R-rating category 2 material is perfectly legal. And people wonder why our politicians are so ignorant about what is allowed within each classification -- it's inconsistent across mediums!. So for the internet where people mostly "read" or "view" material (rather than watch video), the medium is being classified using the classification system for videos, which will confuse people even more. But either way, I hope at least one state as *some* commonsense left in what is becoming Playground Australia.
    • R: generally anything that has very high levels of violence, language, drug use (which does come under the broad "strong adult themes", unfortunately), and simulated sexual activity (soft porn only --no erections allowed). Films can have all of the above in one scene, provided there is context for each "adult theme" within the scene.

      Except that these catagories, especially violence can be very subjectivly treated. Or did "Star Wars" (episode IV, "A new hope"), Get an R rating because of a genocide scene?
      How about cartoons such as "Roadrunner" (BTW the Warner Brothers were from Australia). These cartoons are full of violence with occasional drug use...

  • What Oz needs: A Bill of Digital Rights (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alexgp ( 173035 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:13AM (#2773057) Homepage
    The Australian net community has got used to opposing the stream of stupid laws that the States and Commonwealth pass, one after the other. It would be better to be more pro-active. I've proposed a Bill of Digital Rights to affirm rights at a national level, and pre-empt these stupid laws.

    Lindsay Tanner, the Federal Opposition's Communications spokesman, has given a positive response to the idea and expects to have serious discussions about it in the coming term.

    You can read more on it here [onlineopinion.com.au].

    Alex

    • I've proposed a Bill of Digital Rights to affirm rights at a national level, and pre-empt these stupid laws.

      First things first, we should get a general Bill of Rights of universal application protecting the whole panoply of civil rights. Gotta walk before you can run.

      Moving on to the proposed framework:

      Such a Bill would include:...A recognition that when communicating online there is the responsibility to not racially vilify or otherwise contravene the Commonwealth Racial Hatred Act or other Commonwealth Anti-Discrimination legislation.

      Already, you're weakening the definition of free speech protection to exclude "that which the majority has found offensive". That's exactly the problem we're trying to deal with. The laws that arise (deemed stupid because porn and other offensive material is in and of itself harmless) are merely symptoms.

      A less restrictive national definition of defamation, overriding laws of the states and territories. The defamation laws would provide:...1. Freedom for non-malicious speech acts concerning corporations.

      This may come as a shock, and I'll probably be modded off the face of the earth, but not all corporations are big and evil. Why should a Mum and Dad family business be refused the same protections afforded a rich and powerful individual like Kerry Packer, simply because the family business is a corporation and Packer is a flesh-and-blood natural person? It'll probably get a lot of support, because it's good populist anti-big-business sentiment, but it doesn't have much basis in logic or justice.

      2. Freedom for non-malicious speech acts concerning matters of public interest.

      Public interest (a special case of relevance) is already a defence under the law of defamation, AFAIK.

      3. That in the absence of malice no general damages be awarded.

      What's the big deal with malice? What about recklessness?

      Some guarantee of the opportunity for each Australian not just to access digital information, but to publish it. The information super-highway must not be one-way; barriers to entry must be lowered as much as possible for the Australian with an idea and a small budget.

      How would that be enforced? There is a problem with such 'second-generation' social and economic rights (other examples include public health care and education) in that the bodies traditionally responsible for safeguarding legal guarantees (i.e. the courts) would have to step outside their boundaries of competence to enforce these rights. If you were denied your right to public health care, what could the High Court do? Order that funds be allocated from the Federal Budget to cover your situation? That kind of policy decision is exclusively the domain of Parliament in our system.

      A right to use communications technology provided by an employer or educational institution for non-work or non-study purposes to a limited extent.

      I would disagree to a certain extent here. Your employer's box is his or hers to use (or allocate usage of) as s/he wishes. I would still afford a right to privacy for data stored on work PCs, though, to prevent employer witch-hunts.

      The rest is pretty good, IMO.

      • Why should a Mum and Dad family business be refused the same protections afforded a rich and powerful individual like Kerry Packer, simply because the family business is a corporation and Packer is a flesh-and-blood natural person?

        Why should Mum and Dad Inc. have any protections at all when both Mum and Dad have the same protections afforded a rich and powerful individual like Kerry Packer?

        • Why should Mum and Dad Inc. have any protections at all when both Mum and Dad have the same protections afforded a rich and powerful individual like Kerry Packer?

          Because an attack on Mum and Dad Inc. (or Pty. Ltd., or plc, or whatever) isn't necessarily an attack on Mum and Dad, if the company has other employees. If the defamatory statement damages only the reputation of the company, and not that of its owners, the owners don't have a cause of action.

          To put it another way: if you're a shareholder in a compnay, your reputation is not damaged simply because somebody makes a defamatory statement about the company (particularly if you're only one shareholder among hundreds or thousands). Therefore, you would not have a cause of action for defamation. However, you may still suffer economic loss in the form of the loss of share value as a result of the company losing business due to a loss of good will.

          There is also the issue of what happens to the employees of the company if it finds itself in such a bad situation that it has to lay off staff as a result of the defamation.

  • Scene from australian legislator's office:

    Legislator(browsing the internet): Crikey! What's with all these long words? I can't read em. This interweb thing is just too hard to unnerstand!

    Aide: Oh, thats one of them intellectual pages. They're using words beyond your mental capacity.

    Legislator: intel-what? These words is just too hard to read. Bloody hell!

    Aide: I know, let's write laws making it illegal to put anything on the internet that's beyond your intellectual level. That would be... about 6 years old.

    Legislator: Uh?

    Aide: I said, let's make it illegal to make internet stuff you can't understand.

    Legislator: Great!

    Aide: Since such a bill would normally go over like a lead balloon, if we deceitfully attach "child protection" to the name of the bill, no one will dare oppose it.

    Legislator: Huh?

    Aide: Let's fuckin' lie through our teeth and say it's a bill to protect children.

    Legislator: Wicked.
  • The Conservative party in Australia is dominated by members of a "Family Oriented Christian" Organisation (hooo weee that's a scary combination of words) called the Lyons Forum. They shoot down anything slightly progressive and enjoy persecuting minorities and workers while encouraging racists, bigots and, of course, BIG BUSINESS.

    The Australian govt also locks up refugee women and children in the middle of the bleeding desert because they dared to flee persecution by leaky boat and they are non-white muslims. It spreads lies about the Muslim refugees being terrorists or 'illegal queue jumpers', sends leaky boats back to sea or to bribes poor Pacific islands to "process" these wretched people, and was rewarded for these 'compassionate and non-discriminatory' *cough* policies by being re-elected by Australia's predominately white, narrow-minded and racist population.

    Read more Here [iso.org.au]

    just thought the world should know...

  • Have we not heard this all before? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anto ( 41846 ) <ajwNO@SPAMpobox.com> on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @09:42AM (#2773443) Homepage Journal
    How long ago was the federal internet censorship legislation passed? All Australians are now required to be running some kind of approved adult filter (as the ISP's didn't want to have to filter themselves). The funny thing is I can't seem to find *anyone* who is actually complying with the law.

    There arn't enough people in the country to even start to review & classify every web page produced from an Australian server. Yes the silly NSW government passed the legislation but they don't have to (and probably wont) ever provide the funds for it to be enfored.

    Its good to see that once again the Ausatralian public is lead down the garden path by a small minority - is the government *really* wants to start passing internet legisation perhaps they could start by providing access free to all NSW schools & libraries (but then why would they do that it would cost actual money...)
  • I say kill the fuckers. Just be sure to get it on tape.

    Better yet, let's take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

  • The only thing children need protection from..... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by leereyno ( 32197 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @02:21PM (#2774464) Homepage Journal
    ...is censor happy "adults" who think that hiding the unpleasant or politically incorrect aspects of existance from them is somehow a good thing. This stems from our culture's insane belief that human beings below the magical age of 18 are "impressionable" to the point of being human tape recorders. This would be funny if the consequences weren't so severe for the young.

    By the way, I turn 30 in less than a year so save your "wet behind the ears" responses for someone else.

    Lee
  • we all know that Australia does not have much future as a forum for adults either so it all works out... :) j/k BTW

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