Australia Abandons Mandatory Internet Filter Plan

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Well, at least this wasn't a complete waste of time and resources. Oh wait, yes it was. :eek:

The Australian government has abandoned its 5-year-old pledge to mandate a filter blocking child pornography and other objectionable Internet content. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Friday that instead of imposing a compulsory filter, Internet service providers have agreed to block a list of 1,400 websites.
Click to expand...
 
There's still blocking though :( Conroy should have been thrown out of parliament head first for even thinking about censorship plans.
 
This seems much more sensible.

However if the politicians were really serious they would give the police more spy powers and funding.
 
At least the 1400 websites are nothing compared to what conjob wanted to filter out.

As for police powers, they have been given more, at least in my area. They are currently wardriving and educating people on unsecured wifi networks.
 
I like how everyone puts "child pornography" in all the laws to make it seem legitimate!

"You are against our stupid law?!?! You must be for the child pornography!" :p

Or replace that with "terrorism". But people are silly and don't like to self think. :D
 
Yea some things are really bad, but once it because acceptable to censor someone's disliked information, then I see it becoming an issue of anyone who gets in power is going to feel their disliked information is just as bad and start filtering that. I know that's the slippery slope argument, but I can't help but to be fearful of it happening anyway. It's not like the universe, or people, stop and say "wait a minute, we're executing a known fallacy, let's reverse course" all the time. Oh well, maybe censorship will only ever be of things that are really bad (or at least that I agree are bad.)
 
DeathPrincess said:
I like how everyone puts "child pornography" in all the laws to make it seem legitimate!

"You are against our stupid law?!?! You must be for the child pornography!" :p

Or replace that with "terrorism". But people are silly and don't like to self think. :D
Click to expand...

Or the ever popular "If you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't care if the government spies on you."
 
ljbade said:
This seems much more sensible.

However if the politicians were really serious they would give the police more spy powers and funding.
Click to expand...

This plus a eleven billion. It works really well in the US for keeping an eye on the few messed up people we do have by letting them know that the alphabet agencies are totally watching them all the time.
 
They still agreed to block 1,400 websites, as long as they are sites that shouldn't be on the net, im ok with that.
 
Aw, but how do you have any idea which website is a good one and which is a bad one? I bet the bad ones are pretty scare, which is a good thing ... and, oh no I've gone cross-eyed.
 
DeathPrincess said:
I like how everyone puts "child pornography" in all the laws to make it seem legitimate!

"You are against our stupid law?!?! You must be for the child pornography!" :p

Or replace that with "terrorism". But people are silly and don't like to self think. :D
Click to expand...

Sure,
but then again considering all the jailbait content on any of the 10000 *chan.org sites, you can't say that sexual exploitation of minors on the internet is not a problem.
 
Australia does have too much random and unnecessary censorship. I say random and unnecessary, coz frankly it's all pretty pointless. We do stupid shit like banning a game because it has decapitation, but then allowing the next game which allows violent mutilation. It's not like they're actually censoring speech or anything like that, just random shit that's pointless and only a few people actually give a shit about.

I know the "slippery slope" argument, but I'd like to think that if censorship ever touches anything beyond child porn and random violent video games my fellow Aussies would actually stand up against it.
 
mastaBlasta said:
Sure,
but then again considering all the jailbait content on any of the 10000 *chan.org sites, you can't say that sexual exploitation of minors on the internet is not a problem.
Click to expand...

Sure, it is a problem. But what does that have to do with it?
 
lolstralia. Everyone with a brain saw this coming... the only reason Conroy is still there is because Labour needs him to stay in power. Also, if you guys re-elect Gillard then you really do deserve everything you get.

Posted from heavenly New Zealand :D
 
Tudz said:
Australia does have too much random and unnecessary censorship. I say random and unnecessary, coz frankly it's all pretty pointless. We do stupid shit like banning a game because it has decapitation, but then allowing the next game which allows violent mutilation. It's not like they're actually censoring speech or anything like that, just random shit that's pointless and only a few people actually give a shit about.

I know the "slippery slope" argument, but I'd like to think that if censorship ever touches anything beyond child porn and random violent video games my fellow Aussies would actually stand up against it.
Click to expand...

Does that mean Fallout 3 is banned there because you can remove heads? That's so weird considering how many people get their heads chopped off on daytime television in the US. Yeah we can't show any skin above the ankles or elbows or below the collar bones on TV, but we can totally chop off your head and then dismember you on children's TV like Sesame Street. Talk about silly and random. You should move to the United States sometime.
 
I'm surprised how vocal people get about game bannings in Australia. Whether coincidence or not, every game that was ever banned here was crap to begin with.
 
That's similar to the US no-call list. It just doesn't work that well and a waste of time and resources.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Left 4 dead is crap?
Click to expand...

Yup, it's a crappy zombie game riding on the coattails of a zombie-infatuated society. It would have been better if they made it a Left 4 Hogwarts or something. Besides, sticking a netspeak number in your name makes "u s0und stooped" anyway.
 
doofus11 said:
Aw, but how do you have any idea which website is a good one and which is a bad one? I bet the bad ones are pretty scare, which is a good thing ... and, oh no I've gone cross-eyed.
Click to expand...

They use an Interpol list. A URL which has been active for over 3 months and shows actual children in a sexual context. Not animated, manga etc.

Personally I agree with with the new rules, but what they wanted to ban before was ridiculous.

As for giving the police more power to spy on people?! "ljbade", they have enough powers as it is.

Next on their agenda is ISP's recording all users web usage for 2 years. They can shove that up their ass' too!
 
SkribbelKat said:
Does that mean Fallout 3 is banned there because you can remove heads? That's so weird considering how many people get their heads chopped off on daytime television in the US. Yeah we can't show any skin above the ankles or elbows or below the collar bones on TV, but we can totally chop off your head and then dismember you on children's TV like Sesame Street. Talk about silly and random. You should move to the United States sometime.
Click to expand...
No, Fallout 3 isn't banned, it's even more random than that. Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox was censored (not banned) for decapitations. So there were certain moves that would remove a head, in the Australian version it'd only actually decapitate the thing if it wasn't human.

But then GTA Vice City which I think was out at around a similar time, you could pop people in the head with a sniper rifle and their heads would explode.

The problem with game banning is we don't have an R rating for games. We have M and MA15+, anything that would get an R rating gets banned (or has to be modified to bring it down to an M/MA). But the ratings board is so fickle, I think because there is no R rating, they either shoe horn games that SHOULD be R into M/MA and they get through fine, or they pick something random up like decapitations as a reason to rate it R and thus censor it.

Note also that an R18+ in Australia is far worse than an R in the US, so not having an R rating for games, though bad, isn't as bad as it sounds as typically you have to be pretty fucking graphic in your voilence before you hit R rating. In the US R means you just have to be accompanied by an adult if you are under 17, which is closer in meaning to our MA rating. R in Australia is a hard restriction, people under 18 should not be admitted, MA means kids under 15 need to have adult supervision, M means no restriction, but recommended for mature audiences. Many movies that are R rated in the US fall under MA or even M in Australia.
DeathPrincess said:
Left 4 dead is crap?
Click to expand...
I thought it was pretty crap :p It wasn't even banned though, just censored. It is true that it's mostly shit games people don't care about that get "banned", though some more popular games definitely get censored. It's so random though.
 
Tudz said:
No, Fallout 3 isn't banned, it's even more random than that. Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox was censored (not banned) for decapitations. So there were certain moves that would remove a head, in the Australian version it'd only actually decapitate the thing if it wasn't human.

But then GTA Vice City which I think was out at around a similar time, you could pop people in the head with a sniper rifle and their heads would explode.

The problem with game banning is we don't have an R rating for games. We have M and MA15+, anything that would get an R rating gets banned (or has to be modified to bring it down to an M/MA). But the ratings board is so fickle, I think because there is no R rating, they either shoe horn games that SHOULD be R into M/MA and they get through fine, or they pick something random up like decapitations as a reason to rate it R and thus censor it.

Note also that an R18+ in Australia is far worse than an R in the US, so not having an R rating for games, though bad, isn't as bad as it sounds as typically you have to be pretty fucking graphic in your voilence before you hit R rating. In the US R means you just have to be accompanied by an adult if you are under 17, which is closer in meaning to our MA rating. R in Australia is a hard restriction, people under 18 should not be admitted, MA means kids under 15 need to have adult supervision, M means no restriction, but recommended for mature audiences. Many movies that are R rated in the US fall under MA or even M in Australia.

I thought it was pretty crap :p It wasn't even banned though, just censored. It is true that it's mostly shit games people don't care about that get "banned", though some more popular games definitely get censored. It's so random though.
Click to expand...

Those standards make no sense at all! Even reading them is like, utterly confusing to simple-minded people like me. :(
 
DeathPrincess said:
Left 4 dead is crap?
Click to expand...
Left 4 Dead isn't banned, and Left 4 Dead 2 requires quite literally two changes to its files to keep the dead bodies and blood.I was referring to crap that actually got banned like Mark Eckos: Contents Under Pressure or Syndicate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top