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Labour and porn

From the Australian last week, via AJ

All internet service providers would be forced to block hard-core pornography reaching home computers under a radical plan to protect children being pushed by federal Labor MPs.

Yobbo gets to the nub of the matter; see also Jason Soon and Mark Gallagher.

Why doesn't some enterprising ISP offer a filtered service that concerned parents and schools can use? Surely this already exists? It wouldn't require any technical knowledge on the part of the parents. It also wouldn't impose any additional cost or suppression of free speech on adults who choose not to use it.

If anyone was worried about people accidentally seeing offensive material surely punishing spammers would be a more useful step. Just the other day two people on a samba mailing lists were annoyed by porn spam.

I listened to Hamilton's interview with JJJ, but there doesn't seem to be a transcript available. However, there are similar opinions in this Australian opinion piece.

The report that inspired this Labor move seems to still be secret, but a gaping nonsequiter is apparent in Hamilton's public statements. He says that sexual images encourage teenage boys to think about women as sexual objects — already a dodgy assumption. But then he proposes banning only the most hardcore porn, and allowing good healthy erotica. Surely if we wanted to try to make teenage boys not obsess about sex we ought to ban all depictions of the human form: no page-three girls; no underwear ads; no olympic beach volleyball or diving. Burqa, anyone?

By the way: why on earth is a government-funded report secret from the taxpayers who paid for it?

posted Tue 24 Aug 2004 in /issues/censorship | link

"Some of my best friends are pornographers"

jmason writes that SonicWall classifies his site as porn. Sourcefrog.net is for "software downloads" — I think there's an implication that it's slimely Windows "freeware", not free software.

Best of all, 2600.org is the government. The conspiracy is deeper than we suspected...

posted Tue 30 Mar 2004 in /issues/censorship | link

Special category: the bloody obvious

Ed replies to Stephane's excellent essay about censorship in Australia:

I'm not sure what alternatives or consequences Steph has in mind were the OFLC's power to completely censor removed. At the moment all I can think of is the snuff film at the centre of 8MM and its brethren. Do we trust the general public to sensibly view those films? Where should we draw the line?

The difference seems be so obvious that it escaped Ed completely, but let me spell it out.

8mm concerns a snuff film, which is by definition made by filming an actual murder. Fairly obviously, since murder is illegal, murdering somebody to make a film ought to be illegal too, as should be profiting from selling the film, etc.

Films which depict fictional murders are not illegal. (Surely over a third of the movies showing at a major chain theatre involve some kind of fatality or violence, whether in action, drama, fantasy or other genres.) Indeed, 8mm is not illegal, because although it is about a snuff film it is not in fact a snuff film. Ed: it's done with stage blood, dummies, CGI, etc. Nobody was killed in making it. I have to say I laughed out loud that anyone could be confused about this.

Similarly, although Ken Park is concerned with various illegal or unsavory activities, it is *not* in fact a film of an actual rape. All of the actors were of appropriate age, consenting, etc etc.

I despair for my country that most Australians arguing for or against the film are trying to weigh up whether it has "enough" artistic merit or not. That should not be the point. It is a matter of free speech, which should be protected unless there is an absolutely compelling reason to be restricted. Certainly there are some such cases, but they should be the exception.

It turns out that this whole teacup-storm occurred because of a mistake by the importer: had they applied for a classification just to show the movie for a film festival as was originally intended, it would have been granted [The Law Report, Radio National]. Hysterical comparisons to a snuff film are clearly bogus, and without shrill TV interviews it's likely prurient teenagers would never have bothered to download and watch it.

The other thing that enormously irritates me is the Orwellian name of the Office of Film and Literature Classification. In fact, they do more than "classify": if they refuse to classify a film or a book then it is effectively banned. They are censors; they should honestly be restored to their original title of the Censorship Board. Then we can have a proper discussion about whether we want censors or not.

posted Tue 15 Jul 2003 in /issues/censorship | link

Sick and Tired

I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not. But I'm sick and tired of being told that I am.
— Monty Python

posted Fri 4 Jul 2003 in /issues/censorship | link

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