Will Australia Follow China's Google Ban? 280
gadgetopia writes "A news report in Forbes says that China has blocked Google with its great firewall; now the world waits to see if Australia's Minister for Censorship, Senator Stephen Conroy, will do the same following his outrageous attacks on Google."
Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics might be stupid in Australia, like lots of places. But no, it won't go the same was as China.
We have transparency and rule of law.
However fucked out Communications Minister might be.
--Q
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>>>rule of law.
"What's that?" - leader
"No clue." - other leader
Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>rule of law.
"What's that?" - leader
"No clue." - other leader
"Well, fuck off then." -voter in next election*
*only valid in literate and civically active cultures
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Most voters don't know what rule of law is either.
Look how many of them think the Constitution is just a piece of paper,
and therefore Parliament can do whatever it wants.
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Most voters don't know what rule of law is either. Look how many of them think the Constitution is just a piece of paper, and therefore Parliament can do whatever it wants.
The Tea Partiers seem to be stirring up some interest. If they ever discover the real cause of their tax burden [warresisters.org] and the reality of effective commercial tax rates [reclaimdemocracy.org], I'm afraid their loving relationship with the GOP and it's corporate outlets [foxnews.com] will quickly deteriorate. [debbieschlussel.com]
PS (Score:2)
PS. Be careful - you could end up arguing for publicly financed, non-profit news sources.
Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:4, Interesting)
You're forgetting that the "tea partiers" are largely defined by Faux News. They are whatever Fox tells them to be.
My favorite was Stewart's last-night moment of Zen - they had a clip from Fox with some woman going "well we need to fight this because he's a communist!". The commentator says "well, he's not a communist" and she says "well then he's a progressive which is the new code word for communist. Glenn Beck taught me that"
I find it terribly hard to believe those people actually have any independent beliefs. If they really were annoyed about parliamentary procedures that circumvent the will of the people, how about the Bush tax cuts for big business that were done the same way?
LOOK! Over there! A DAMN DIRTY WHIG! (Score:2)
It's kind of sad that our country has that large a group of people dumb enough that their well-founded ire can be so crassly misdirected like that.
Re:LOOK! Over there! A DAMN DIRTY WHIG! (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, it's no guerrilla theater. After Victoria Jackson left SNL and couldn't get any work, she went around the bend.
She's following the pattern of others that have failed in their chosen fields and have turned to right wing groups to try to resuscitate some sort of career. Dennis Miller is another. John Voight still another. I guess they figure the yahoos aren't all that discerning, so they can make a buck as long as they say bad things about liberals.
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I thought she was putting us on too, but it turns out she is a long time conservative and a genuine supporter of the tea parties.
Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:5, Interesting)
As any good democratic socialist, I believe that people will eventually arrive at the truth. Fox is damming a flood of people asking questions, and hoping that they will stick to the script. Throw in a few dark horses like Ron Paul, who doesn't toe the line on the narrative Fox likes to present, and Fox is only ensuring that they will be completely washed out once the dam breaks.
The damage they are doing to our country in terms of the destruction of the middle class, our ability to manufacture our own goods, and our outright dependence on islamic fundamentalist states for our energy needs may end up catapulting the nation into a great period of misery. That's why I'm headed outside of the fallout line.
China is scooping up every bit of available raw resources, and we're patting ourselves on the back for innovations like facebook and the iPad and air conditioned seats. Rome will fall, but how hard and how fast is largely dependent on how long people continue to delude themselves.
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>>>Stewart's last-night moment of Zen - they had a clip from Fox
No they didn't. That was a comedy bit. It was fake. You can't tell the difference? As for the communist bit, I think Obama's policies are more simply: Anti-choice. And being I'm a Pro-Choice kind of guy, I find Obama's taking away of my choices ("buy healthcare or be fined!") to be objectionable. It makes me feel like I'm a serf rather than a free individual.
goddamn, can't seperate the trolls from the gnomes (Score:2)
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There's a video of the actual interview here [mediamatters.org]
Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:4, Informative)
Not any more. Victoria Jackson really is a whacked-out teabagger.
You owe the OP an apology for calling him an "idiot or a troll", but my guess is you don't have sufficient manners to fess up and give him one.
Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:4, Informative)
I present to you the first two paragraphs from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Jackson [wikipedia.org] for your edification:
That only took a quick glance at wikipedia to find out that she really is a teabagger. Take a minute before you toss around accusations.
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Clip from the show [mediamatters.org]
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Trickle-down Reagonomics has been thoroughly debunked. All those rich guys didn't get rich by giving away free money.
And I've been quite disappointed in Obama. But the things these tea partiers are going on about are all things that the Republicans have done. Where the hell were these people a few years ago? Did they spring fully-formed from Limbaugh's forehead?
Face it. This is a backlash against Obama the person, and not anything he represents. It doesn't help their cause to keep going on about his birth c
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The tea partiers have no love for the GOP and are not comprised of only republicans. The thing is that the GOP is essentially trying to co-opt the movement.
And some of those stats you provide are outright nonsense. I'd consider this [nytimes.com] a more legitimate source. The highest I've seen elsewhere was on CNBC where they report 42 cents of every dollar goes to the military, 28.7 cents to current spending, 10 cents to interest on past and present military debt and 3.5 cents to Veterans.
I call BS on the story about co
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I call BS on the story about commercial tax rates but I currently don't have the evidence to back up my claim.
Fixed that for you.
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Rasmussen's polls have shown that nearly 80% of teabaggers identify themselves with the GOP.
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Right now that's the only party they can even begin to identify with so I wouldn't read too much into that. The Democrat's philosophy is antithetical to what tea partiers believe in.
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You refute his link that says ~51% percent of spending is on past and present military expenditures, and the details you give are:
Funny... 5 minutes of googling via site:cnbc.com could not come up with anything to support your figures. Furthermore, if you actually bothered rea
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>>>GOP and it's corporate outlets
I have no great love for the GOP, but if they keep their promise to return to conservatism, they are still the lesser evil from the Tea Party point-of-view.
After all, it's not the GOP that's trying to shove ACTA down our throats and the Mandatory Hospitalization Suppository up our ass. ACTA and this recent healthcare reform directly benefits the Democrats' buddies in Hollywood and the Insurance Corporations. Pople who think the Dems are not in bed with corporati
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it's not the GOP that's trying to shove ACTA down our throats and the Mandatory Hospitalization Suppository up our ass
Yeah. They just suspended habeas corpus, cut taxes for the wealthy while leading the country to war, and reduced corporate income tax rates for every corporation, not just "Hollywood" and insurance companies. I can see how draconian copyright laws and mandating health insurance and requiring insurance companies to pay out - the same way we mandate car insurance - can really get on your nerves.
I hold no loyalty to any political party, and I don't delude myself with visions of (D) fixing all of the problems.
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The biggest reason SS is broke is because politicians starting with LBJ started robbing from it. Both parties have done it. My first personal memory of it was back in the 70's. I was sitting in my car eating a gut bomb for lunch and listening to the radio when the news came on and the main story was about politicians taking several hundred million dollars out of the SS "surplus" to pay for something else. I got mad because I thought then that I was getting ripped off, and time hasn't lessened the intens
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From the paragraph immediately below the chart:
Our analysis is based on federal funds, which do not include trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised separately from income taxes for specific purposes."
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I have no great love for the GOP, but if they keep their promise to return to conservatism, they are still the lesser evil from the Tea Party point-of-view.
After all, it's not the GOP that's trying to shove ACTA down our throats and the Mandatory Hospitalization Suppository up our ass.
Yeah, they only wanted to do that in the 90s (example: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/03/26/hatch [salon.com]). Now that it's 2010 it's armageddon to do it apparently.
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Yes, but look at how many of them believe the Constitution gives corporations the same civil rights as individual citizens, and look at how many believe that the 2nd amendment means everybody is allowed to own and carry handguns everywhere.
You are right that many voters in the US don't know what the rule of law is. Even worse, there are 5 supreme court justices that don't seem to know what it is, either
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I'd like to see you give evidence for the assertion that anyone thinks that the Constitution gives corporations the same civil rights as individuals. I know we now have a law that says it, but I have never heard of anyone ever saying what you are.
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>>>without the mandate of the people who were already governed by a decentralized Articles of Confederation.
The Articles of Confederation was a contract between sovereign States.
The U.S. Constitution was a contract between sovereign States.
Nothing really changed, other than the organization of the central government. And you say it was "hidden" but the words are right there on the page. Just read them. If you have doubt of their meaning, do what the U.S. Court does and read the original intent o
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Yeah, the ratification of the constitution was so secret that it was printed in all the newspapers and on pamphlets distributed throughout all the states for a period of almost a full year, and the pros and cons argued in public the same way as well as at the conventions in each state that were mandated by the then Congress.
Ever heard of The Federalist Papers? That's a collection of what was publicly written answering the opponents of the Constitution and giving us great insight into the thoughts and reaso
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Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
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*phew* Good thing the US of A got off that path before it was too late!
Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:5, Informative)
They sure do, but it is still by no means certain this legislation will pass. The Australian Government needs the support of the Senate to get its legislation through Parliament, and it has already had several setbacks in that regard, hence the likelihood of a double dissolution election this year.
Conroy himself is an arrogant little shit, and apparently Kevin Rudd is being equally so by leaving the asswipe in that portfolio. But we can hope that the Opposition's taste for obstructionism might yet be put to some worthwhile use.
specifically (Score:4, Insightful)
when your economy is trashed by greedy speculation then fear and hysteria. that's what sent germany to the dogs: the great depression, the collapse of the financial world
aka, what the world just experiences in 2008 (on a much smaller scale, true)
but this historical parallel leads us to four observations:
1. the angry tea partiers, with their brick throwing and insane murderous anger, IS kristallnacht, on a smaller scale
2. intolerant deluded propagandized fools hording guns in the woods are the seeds of fascism, NOT our protectors from fascism
3. we need strong government regulation in the financial sector, and the assholes (greenspan and co) who dismantled the 1930s era (irony) protections need to be grilled a la congressional hearings and roundly castigated for their dangerous irresponsibility
4. hopefully the world, and the usa, can weather this horde of angry morons out of work, the seeds of fascism, without them crystallizing around some modern day hitler-like demagogue and mounting a political (and visceral: they love guns) challenge to civilization. and then let the retards fade away into history
interesintg note: many tea partiers receive government benefits (unemployment, medicaid)... while they rail against government aid. they go to tea party rallies... instead of looking for work. fucking ignorant hypocrites
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28teaparty.html [nytimes.com]
Re:specifically (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>1. the angry tea partiers, with their brick throwing and insane murderous anger, IS kristallnacht, on a smaller scale
You clearly don't know history. The destruction of Jewish stores/homes was perpetrated by government employees working for the National Socialist Party. Tea Party supporters are not government employees.
.
>>>2. intolerant deluded propagandized fools hording guns in the woods are the seeds of fascism
No. Hitler banned private ownership of guns in order to prevent backlash, because he knew the danger if citizens finally got fed-up and started shooting back. (See the Jewish Ghetto uprisings for examples.)
In a truly free society government does not need to fear the gun, because it is obeying the people's wishes rather than ignoring them.
Re:specifically (Score:4, Informative)
when your economy is trashed by greedy speculation then fear and hysteria. that's what sent germany to the dogs: the great depression, the collapse of the financial world
Germany went downhill because of the brutal raping it received in the peace treaty after WWI. That is also what caused the overwhelming resentment of the rest of the world (or at least the rest of Europe and the US) which resulted in Hitler's rise to power.
we need strong government regulation in the financial sector
We need regulation - however, once you hit a certain point, regulation turns into control, which then harms the economy due to government officials not having the slightest clue about how to run a company, let alone an entire industry.
the assholes (greenspan and co) who dismantled the 1930s era (irony) protections need to be grilled a la congressional hearings and roundly castigated for their dangerous irresponsibility
Actually it was the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) that lead to the housing bubble / slew of bad mortgages. The CRA was started by Carter and strengthened by Clinton and it existed to put pressure on banks to give loans to people (specifically mortgages) who would normally be turned away by banks (due to the high risk of them defaulting) because the government thought everyone should own a home, even if they can't afford it. That resulted in millions of people getting mortgages when they never should have had one as well as ballooning home prices. Add on top of that the fact that the average American spends way more than they earn each year (usually on crap they don't need) and you have a recipe for financial disaster. If the banks had been left alone and the CRA never existed, then home prices would have stayed in check (look at historical averages, home prices always adjusted for inflation but in real dollars, they stayed essentially constant - once the CRA was strengthened, all of the sudden home prices started going up way faster than inflation) and there wouldn't be anywhere near as many people defaulting on mortgages. The current recession is about 60% the fault of average citizens racking up way too much debt (mainly on credit cards) and about 40% the government naively pushing banks to give risky mortgages (which exacerbated the problem of people racking up too much debt).
I find it amusing that you demonize the Tea Partiers (who have no official group, it's a generic term given to anyone upset about government control of our lives and government taking away our freedom) for being "fascists" when the whole reason they're upset is because they don't want fascism.
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Ummm.... Where's your proof of those assertions?
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1. the angry tea partiers, with their brick throwing and insane murderous anger, IS kristallnacht, on a smaller scale
Seems like that's the intent and they'll just keep throwing parties till it works. The demonizing of their opponents fits.
2. intolerant deluded propagandized fools hording guns in the woods [...]
Now who's an intolerant deluded propagandized fool? Not every believer in the purpose of the 2nd amendment lives in the woods, or hordes guns (one is enough).
[...] are the seeds of fascism, NOT our protectors from fascism
If you see them as your protectors you're undoubtedly wrong, yes...
But I wonder why you see neighbors with the power to defend themselves as a threat? I know many hunters and treat them just like non-hunters. Most people I know have
yeah but i am referring to (Score:2)
paranoid idiots with guns, not the government
that's right! (Score:4, Funny)
there's no fascism in somalia for example. it is a utopia of people free of government living in happiness and prosperity. unlike socialist european countries with their silly concern for the common good, mired in poverty and misery
and i am sorry for smearing the tea party the way i do. clearly, i have absolutely zero evidence of any tea party anger. it's a meek polite debate society of highly intelligent philosophers. all of their language and actions is something out of '60s love in. and i have absolutely zero, zero! proof to the contrary. i apologize deeply for my horrible misunderstandings
pfffffffffft
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You did it again...
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You're acting like a complete moron.
No, there is no fascism in Somalia. It's basically an anarchy. What we have in the USA, today, is fascism: corporations running the government and writing our laws. Neither fascism nor anarchy are desirable things, but you're not going to gain any fans by calling things things they aren't.
As for European countries, they're democratic socialist, and a far cry from the style of government we have in the USA, because they don't allow corporations to have complete control
"What we have in the USA, today, is fascism" (Score:3, Informative)
i stopped reading there
the usa has plenty of problems
but if you believe the usa government is fascist, in any way, simply means you're low iq, highly propagandized, and beneath the intellectual charity of paying anymore attention to your ignorance
please wake the fuck up from your delusions
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Fascism = corporatism (according to Mussolini). If you don't think the corporations control our government, then you're the one who is a deluded fool.
corporations have too much influence in the usa (Score:2)
and i stand against it, and it disgusts me
but if you think the current situation in the usa is anything even remotely what went on in mussolini's italy, or hitler's germany, or franco's spain, you are simply unintelligent
we do not live in a fascism. really
the usa has plenty of problems, but these incredibly crude equatings that you are making with fascism does not even remotely describe the reality you live in. but they do adequately describe a lack of mental capacity on your part
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That's just a non-sequitor. Those few advocating anarchy are no more a viable political force today than they were twenty years ago, and they certainly didn't magically attract the affiliation of half the country in the last two years.
And trying to wrap your admission that you have no evidence of your claims in sarcasm doesn't... do whatever rhetorical trick you thought you were accomplishing there. Have you considered perhaps examining your beliefs to see if they should be changed, rather than just lashing
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IMHO, Tea Partiers are the ones trying to stop the full-on march to fascism, not create it. You can not create a fascist government regime by campaigning to strip the government of power! That's just stupid. Look to the ones trying to collect government power.
So which is it: are they trying to stop Communism [wikipedia.org] or Fascism [wikipedia.org]? Because it seems to me that they are equated in the minds of the Teabaggers.
I think what they are really trying to do is stop a black man from governing as President.
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So if I disagree with his health care reform am I a racist as well?
Of course not! What I was referring to were those people who call him a Fascist, a Communist, draw Hitler mustaches on his image, and take an effigy [wikipedia.org] of him and instead of burning it which is traditional, tar and feather and hang it, just like a fucking lynching. So if you think I'm unreasonable for saying these people are racist, then yeah, rational debate will be difficult.
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I guess the video that was released yesterday of the teabagger clearly spitting on Congressman Cleaver from Missouri didn't satisfy you.
When the teabaggers start believing in their philosophy enough to stop taking government benefits like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Disability, Food Stamps, etc, then they can be trea
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Fascism? Are you serious?
Ok, here's a quick politics 101 lesson: fascism is considered an extreme right wing ideology, and Communism extreme left. They have almost always been in strong opposition to each other.
But somehow according to the Tea Baggers, Obama and the current administration is simultaneously leading America in the "march" to fascism and communism, to the right and to the left. Either he's the most brilliant and manipulative politician in the history of the world, or his opponents love to
i'm certain (Score:2)
there's some very polite well tempered tea party activists
but what is the basis of tea party passion?: anger. anger at the government
you don't have a large movement whose root emotion is anger, without violence somewhere. which we've already seen, and will see more of. its inevitable. the way you talk, the tea part is some sort of philosophical debate society. sell that bullshit elsewhere please
i am directly refuting the grandparent (Score:2)
and refuting him on his points directly. there is violence in the tea party movement. the grandparent denies it, i assert it as simple truth, as any perusal of any reputable news source to your liking will show. any other confusions of yours you need help clearing up?
Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lol? Sif it will happen. (Score:4, Informative)
Very well seen. If the 20th century taught us anything, then it was this: any innocent-looking, peaceful society can almost without prior notice degenerate into a self-destructing monster, ruled by a tyrant. Which is a terrible and sad thing to say, but - alas - a true one.
Perhaps then you can cite an example where this occurred?
The problem with the Weimar Republic was that it was a weak government deliberately imposed by outsiders who wanted Germany to stay crippled after the First World War. In addition, Germany paid huge war reparations and suffered through two horrible depressions including some of the worst hyperinflation ever seen. There were brutal suppression of certain dissent (for example, the National Socialists and the Communists). Finally, you have numerous parties including the German military and various categories of elites plotting the end of the Republic. The Republic mostly certainly was not an "innocent-looking, peaceful society".
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Italy was peaceful.
Spain was peaceful.
Cambodia was peaceful.
They all fell to facism (aka corporatism).
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The myth, "It could happen here" is pervasive, but acceptance requires ignoring why these societies failed. This is particularly relevant to
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I don't think you can claim to have transparency while having a Minister of Censorship.
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The good thing is that the minister himself obviously doesn't believe in the effectiveness of his undisclosed blacklist. If the filter is any good, it shouldn't matter whether the contents of that list were made public or not, since the sites are supposed to be inaccessible in any case.
Bring on a minister who understands his portfolio...
[sigh]
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In the US they have transparency and the rule of law also. Problem is their government refuses to enforce the laws and claims national security trumps transparency.
Good Luck to us all Mate
You, sir, lack imagination (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, so Google has this "safe search" setting. Presumably if safe search is turned off at least some of what it returns will be material subject to bans in Australia. So it seems that is a perfect justification for banning Google, or at least requiring that Google queries pass through a government-controlled proxy server that can ensure that safe-search is always turned on.
Furthermore Australia has not had the best record of transparency regarding censorship either. For example, 9 Songs was given permission for screening but Comstock Films' documentaries were not, despite those documentaries winning awards (both contain graphic, explicit sexual content). Given that the government won't let citizens see what they are banning, what makes you confident that this won't be exercised in arbitrary ways?
Senator Stephen Conroy == Senator Joe McCarthy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Only a matter of time until the former discredits himself like the latter did. His railing against Google makes him sound foolish.
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Let's hope that his "McCarthy" moment comes soon. Unfortunately these kinds of delusional windbags are all too often give far too much rope, and while their fall is spectacular, there are a lot of casualties along the way.
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Since slashdot doesn't link to the actual comments, here's what was said:
Conroy went on television to take a shot at Google: "Recently the founders of Google have got themselves into a little bit of trouble because notwithstanding their alleged 'do no evil' policy, they recently created something called Buzz, and there was a reaction and people said, well look aren't you publishing private information?"
"They said the following: 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place'. This is the founder of Google. He also said recently to Wall Street analysts, 'we love cash', so when people say, shouldn't we just leave it up to the Googles of this world to determine what the filtering policy should be...."
Notice how this politicians ASSUMES that we want filtering (either by google or the government). We. Do. Not. I don't need my internet filtered either for me or my kids. Show me all the dirt and disgusting things that exist in the world. I can handle it.
So fuck off Conroy. (Yes I'm angry - I'm tired of politicians treating adults like their children to be babied.)
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The comments look a bit suspicious to me.
If he's trying to spin it so the Eric Schmidt quote was _a reaction_ to the buzz privacy cockup, he's way off.
The quote was in Dec '09, and Buzz was released in Feb '10.
The Schmidt quote sounds inflammatory, but the gist is don't submit sensitive stuff to a public network that is constantly spidered.
Re:Senator Stephen Conroy == Senator Joe McCarthy? (Score:4, Insightful)
It took around a decade to discredit McCarthyism, and there's a small but significant group of right wing pundits who still defend him. While waiting for people like this to self destruct, it's important do your part and give them a good shove in that direction whenever possible.
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It took around a decade to discredit McCarthyism, and there's a small but significant group of right wing pundits who still defend him. While waiting for people like this to self destruct, it's important do your part and give them a good shove in that direction whenever possible.
A new generation of McCarthy sympathizers is possible, given that the Texas textbook requirements have now been revised to show McC in a positive light.
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And then there are Andrew McCarthy's columns, which, for example, accuse lawyers who render services to Guantanamo detainees of treason.
More likely we will just see a new McCarthyism rise up based on Andrew's work rather than Joe's....
Re:Senator Stephen Conroy == Senator Joe McCarthy? (Score:4, Insightful)
McCarthyism was a matter of a power hungry person taking advantage of a real threat to increase his own personal power. It isn't a new thing, and has happened from time to time since the beginning of the country [wikipedia.org], and whenever it has happened, Americans have opposed it as soon as they realized what was going on. The solution is an alert and informed populace, and the result of the modern speed of communication can be seen in that Bush's attempt to consolidate power (based on the real threat of terrorism) was not nearly as horrible as McCarthy's or the federalists'.
On the other hand, if the population supports the power-hungry, then no amount of information will limit them. Fortunately for the US, the vast majority of Americans oppose this sort of thing when they are able to see it for what it is. I suspect Australians are the same.
Re:Senator Stephen Conroy == Senator Joe McCarthy? (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you grant that he was right (which I absolutely 100% do not) what he did was still horrible. He ruined people's lives out of idle suspicion, with little to no evidence to back it up. He split the country and indeed the world on how to handle communism and communist sympathizers and probably damaged his own goals at least as much as he helped them. Anyone who disagreed with him was immediately investigated and accused, regardless of how flimsy the evidence was. The man who called him out on the senate floor (Joseph Welch) was an American hero who showed real courage and could have just as easily have found himself being accused next.
As for the communists being 'everywhere', research has shown that of the more than 150 people accused by McCarthy evidence against them exists for only 9 of them. A significant minority of the people would have come back clean enough on a background check that they would have been granted security clearances. Finally, your assertion that communists took over one of the major parties I can only assume is idle trolling, I will simply respond by saying that if soviet controlled militant communists controlled 50% of the government for the past 40 years history would have turned out rather differently.
Could it have anything to do with... (Score:2, Funny)
Take your ball and go home (Score:2)
Simply: No (Score:4, Informative)
No infrastructure
Nobody is going to enforce it
No company wants all the phone calls saying "I can't access Google" broadband margins are that bad on a per customer basis, the moment they phone rings from a customer they are losing money.
Not going to happen
I DARE YOU (Score:2)
First they came... (Score:3, Insightful)
First they blocked the child porn sites,
and I didn't speak up because I abhore child abuse.
Then they blocked all gay sex sites,
and I didn't speak up because I'm not gay.
Then they blocked all the sites that support terrorists,
and I didn't speak up because I forgot that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
Then they blocked all porn sites,
and I didn't speak up because I like my sex real.
Then they blocked all the all political sites,
and I didn't speak up because who reads those things anyway?
Then they blocked all the web sites complaining about the blocking,
and I couldn't speak up.
(Apologies to Martin Niemöller)
No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In the name of the Greatest US President ... (Score:5, Funny)
Do you mean *Bing* it on ?
(I know.. sorry.. you may mod me down as appropriate).
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Certainly. Microsoft provides filtering / censorship solutions since 2006 and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donates millions to groups like "Save the Children" that lobby for blocking child pornography.
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Re:I would (Score:5, Insightful)
What about censorship of political, religious, and controversial viewpoints? This is about Freedom of expression and Freedom of communication more than it is about any single issue. If the blocking were voluntary so that people could decide individually if their internet should be censored, I could understand. If the black list were publicly available so that people inside and outside the country could audit what is being blocked, I could maybe understand. If the previously leaked block list hadn't included material that they had claimed wasn't going to be blocked, I could maybe, just possibly agree with you.
As it stands, you have a government organization which will have the ability to block any website that they want without warning or explanation. There will be no way for people inside the firewall to know what is and what isn't being blocked. And said government organization has already been shown to be either incompetent or nefarious regarding what is being added to the blacklist. It's a bad situation, and it in fact does trample on human rights.
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I don't know. It's still Google turning round to a country and saying "Your laws are wrong". If Google tomorrow decided that actually they were fully in favor of something we see as universally despicable (child porn, say), we'd be all up in arms about Google being immoral and acting counter to the rules of our country, I don'
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If the US passed a law mandating filtered internet to only filter child porn websites, then refused to publish a list of which sites were blocked, then leaked the list by accident and it was found that the list included many sites that had nothing to do with child porn, you can bet your ass I'd be up in arms over that law and I imagine so would Google and a lot of other people.
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That's exactly what we're claiming. Google believes that information should be free, not controlled by those in power for their own ends, and it has shown a willingness to fight for that freedom.
Before you say "But it's only kiddy porn!" just ask yourself how often bad and self serving legislation is passed under the mantra that it's "for the children"?
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It's still Google turning round to a country and saying "Your laws are wrong".
Of course. And Google (and everybody else) should do exactly that to every country whose laws are wrong
Now, most laws are really neither right or wrong in this sense, they're just different ways of doing things - but if you believe in right and wrong in the first place, you cannot avoid considering some laws to be wrong as well (against human rights, say) and then you should say so and and act accordingly, whoever or whatever you are.
As for child porn, the proper reason for banning it isn't the (admittedly
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First, Australia's censorship regimen is directed almost exclusively at sexually explicit content. It's not that different from obscenity law here in the US, except that the government (rather than a committee of twelve specially selected for their lack of qualifications) gets to make the decision. So I think the Australian censorship purpose is not directed at political viewpoints, etc. However, the fact that it is centrally managed makes it open to abuse. Believe it or not, we went through a lot of th
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Freedom of Expression is a factor of your country's culture. Not every culture believes it's so great. And even the USA censors many stupid things -- like a naked Bart Simpson. Go figure, he's twenty years old, but he looks like a fourth-grader, and so it's considered child porn and illegal to draw a naked cartoon.
You think Freedom of Expression is important. And you like in a country that agrees with you. If it didn't, you would leave. Others would not.
And either way, that's not to say that your cult
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Your vote simply doesn't count in other countries.
Assuming citizens of said countries have a vote in the first place. And a vote counts for jack shit when government strangles the media. Like North Korea; it's illegal to say that Tiger Woods is a better golfer than Kim Jong-Il. I guess you might say, "That's their culture of autocracy; deal with it!" but I'm more inclined to say, "That's terrorizing bullshit."
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This is about Freedom of expression and Freedom of communication more than it is about any single issue.
Ok, but if a country doesn't feel that their people have that right, who gives Google a right to usurp it?
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There's the problem right there: In a free society it's supposed to be a stewardship, not a dictatorship.
I highly doubt most citizens of a free country want their government to restrict where they can go online, much less censor via a secret list.
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Knowledge is just as much a real human right as food and water and torture.
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I demand my right to torture! ;-)
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Culture covers pretty much everything: Language, law, philosophy, values, religious beliefs, marriage customs, material creations, and much more. These all fit together in complex ways. I don't think we should be too fast to judge other cultures.
I don't think culture is beyond criticism either. However, I think it is important that the substance of the criticism not be "well, they aren't like our culture! They don't value the same things we do!" For this reason I think it is important for any criticis
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