tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post8494686826584083812..comments2023-10-26T22:06:11.166+11:00Comments on Metamagician3000: Censorship - Labor's hidden policyRussell Blackfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-66109026448055290732010-07-24T15:37:42.724+10:002010-07-24T15:37:42.724+10:00There's absolutely no guarantee that the freed...<i>There's absolutely no guarantee that the freedoms won in that time will be sustained, especially if we don't fight to retain them.</i><br /><br />That's the cogent point, along with the article's point that the filter will not be effective on its purported target "porn," while casting its net too wide.<br /><br />Truth in labeling is better than suppression. Does anyone in Australia discuss the alternative to support the ".xxx" solution, in which adult sites <i>must</i> use the .xxx domain -- so that parents and public places such as schools and libraries can simply filter the domain? Also is there not a principle in Australian jurisprudence (as is sometimes wielded in the USA) that a law is unconstitutional if it is too broad? And how does a legislator remain in office, who proposes a law that is ineffective to control the problem it's meant to solve? In the USA (this works out to be unfortunate sometimes but it <i>is</i> political reality) a politician can pay with his/her career if vulnerable to attack on other fronts. Maybe you oppose a lawmaker's votes on abortion, for instance; it is possible to take that politician out of the game by attacking some other weakness, such as being soft on defense or voting to reduce or eliminate a popular program (for instance). Make common cause with other groups who have their own reasons to defeat a candidate who offends you. It's not cheating and it's damned effective. Just a thought...GTChristiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14390368105725901371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-38790446642572949562010-07-22T07:37:17.561+10:002010-07-22T07:37:17.561+10:00I disagree. First, 100 years is nothing. Yes, obvi...I disagree. First, 100 years is nothing. Yes, obviously we've had a stable democracy for, actually, 110 years, but that's a tiny amount of time from which to extrapolate <i>anything</i>. Besides, there has actually been much unjustified censorship in that time. It's only freed up in the last 40 years, and there have been plenty of attempts even in that time to introduce very ugly forms of censorship. That 40 years in the West has been an exceptional period in human history, following from the social revolutions of the 1960s. There's absolutely no guarantee that the freedoms won in that time will be sustained, especially if we don't fight to retain them.<br /><br />No one says that there will "all of a sudden" be a corruption of the classification board and future governments. Why would anyone suggest that anything like that would happen "all of a sudden"? That is simply not the argument and the article never says such a thing. Admittedly, sometimes there <i>are</i> dramatic events that restrict freedom of speech, as with the British cases about blasphemy and corrupting public morals. But it's usually by way of a series of decisions, each arguable in itself, that freedom of speech is restricted. That's why these decisions have to be fought at each point - it's no use waiting until we wake up in 20 years with far more censorship of what we can say, and having to claw it back all over again as was done in the 60s and 70s.<br /><br />Your reading of the tone of the article seems completely off to me. It seems to me to be very measured, and getting all this stuff in one relatively high profile place seems like a good idea. <br /><br />And as for the comparisons elsewhere with Iran, etc., they are precisely called for. Yes, no one is planning to extend such extensive censorship as in those countries "all of sudden". But the comparisons are salient. It's good to be reminded of the sorts of regimes that use internet censorship and of where it can lead.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-54891334996971623192010-07-22T03:38:59.957+10:002010-07-22T03:38:59.957+10:00The issue with the article Russell is that it is i...The issue with the article Russell is that it is in principle just a regurgitation of what has been said ad nauseum before, introduces nothing new and has added no new insights to the debate. It adds some exposure but does not get around the simple fact that the average Australian, who will make up the majority of voters, is simply not convinced by so many assertions and interpreted meanings from Conroys and the ALP's actions and policy.<br /><br />In a country where censorship has been around for over 100 years, and has not degenerated to political misuse in all that time, broader Australia simply gives no credence to the doomsday assumption that internet censorship will corrupt the classification board and future govts all of a sudden.<br /><br />The continual claim that the tech community knows best has fallen and will continue to fall on deaf ears, especially when the public begins to read the language being used and the accusations being levelled at Conroy etc over this issue. They lack credibility and boil over with just to much smarmy outrage, turning off the wider masses.<br /><br />And just to put the icing on the cake Russell, there are still loose cannons out there comparing Australia to Iran, China, Nth Korea etc due to this policy, which shunts the movement squarely into the radical fringe of public perception.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com