AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet

[jinx]

I did post my pants here once,

fixed it for ya...

[Cicero]

Oh yea? If that portion of my pants isn't interesting, then why is everyone always looking at it? Heh.

[TheMercenary]

Just waiting and hoping that you are actually going to show us some skin.

[Aliantha]

I don't think it's about law enforcement being slack about their jobs. Our cops here are just as overworked as anywhere else in the world. They need all the help they can get.

I would suggest that the success cops have had busting paedophiles lately is in the forefront of everyone's mind when they think of how this 'possible' filtering could affect them.

I highly doubt that even if the law is passed in some form, that it would affect the average aussie's web surfing at all.

ETA: With regard to the anorexia point, I'm with Dana. Some of those sites are filled with ideas on how to avoid eating food and how to purge etc.

I agree that eating disorders are a symptom of some issues with mental processes, but I believe it's in the same boat as depression. With the right treatment, people can be helped generally however, if no one really knows what's happening till it's too late, sometimes it really is too late.

Personally, I don't think blocking the sites will stop young people from developing eating disorders, but it might make it easier for loved ones to spot what's going on.

As far as euthenasia goes, I disagree with Australia's policies and laws surrounding this issue. I believe we all have a right to say when enough is enough. I don't agree with people trying to put on some kind of macabre internet show though. It should be private and it should be legal and health professionals should not have to risk their future for the sake of helping someone achieve peace.

[Skunks]

Censorship is an old-thought way of dealing with the, heh, 'information age.' It's part futile, part crippling: there are lots of things on the internet that I don't want to look at. Anyone remember goatse.cx?

But that's the name of the game, now; individually discerning what information you want to look at, while also not wrapping yourself in too much of an insular bubble of unreality: conservativism exists -- the dailykos cannot be your only source of news; liberalism exists -- matt drudge cannot be your only source of news.

'Who do you trust', 'where do you get your news', these are familiar questions. Next for us is the balance of comfort and reality. Blocking something, hiding or ignoring something, does not unmake it, and the failure of this approach is perhaps most perfectly illustrated by child pornography. Australia filtering child porn will have very little effect on the exploitation of children.

[Clodfobble]

Skunks, do you believe that there was the same amount of child-exploitation going on before the internet was around, able to tap into every tiny niche of demand that might be out there?

[Skunks]

No; the internet (technology) and porn (fetishism in general) are kind of like garlic and olive oil, or pasta and sauce. Deeply synergistic, and a lot of advances in one have fed from or into advances in the other. (VHS, et cetera.)

But you can't undo the internet. You can't, either, really stop it. Things like Australia's attempt to 'block illegal content' just delay a better solution. It might have an impact on casual pursuit of child pornography by Australians, but I suspect it will mostly make people feel as though they have done something while the market flows around them.

To oversimplify, it might at first glance seem that "because of the internet, child pornography has skyrocketed" leads directly to "block child pornography on the internet." This is an application of pre-internet solutions such as embargos and bans: distribution is completely different now (instant, nearly free, not reliant on the physical presence of people). Targetting the source is by far the more efficient use of resources, while conveniently not at all resembling censorship.

I think there's a second argument towards focusing on the source somewhere in the relationship between production and product, but I want some dinner first.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Skunks

Targetting the source is by far the more efficient use of resources, while conveniently not at all resembling censorship.

But when the source is outside their country, how do you propose they do that?

[jinx]

A war on porn, like our war on drugs?

[Aliantha]

Well if it turns into a war on porn, I'll be fighting for my right to view it.

Skunks, while I understand your point about the internet and accessibility to things such as child porn, I also believe that our government agencies such as police at any level, have a responsibility to continually update their methods of fighting illegal activities such as child porn. I'd support blocking access to any site which contained illegal images of any sort, however as stated earlier in this thread, that wont stop file sharing. It will however, stop people from accidentally finding these sites through ordinary searches for adult porn and anything that limits the exploitation of children is ok with me.

[Cicero]

It clearly says, adult content....What is so hard to get about that? Is everyone ignoring that or what?

[Aliantha]

What clearly says adult content? I don't understand your point Cicero.

[Cicero]

~snip~The plan was first created as a way to combat child pronography and adult content~snip~

Here, where adult content is lumped in with pedera@# pron. Doesn't it bother you that it was originally intended to combat the photos of ducksy's butt and filter? It bothers me. I like ducks butt.

[Skunks]

How is blocking Australian access going to do anything more than discourage one of many 'niches of demand'?

I'd be interested in seeing more leadership by example on a state scale: for them to aggressively pursue child pornography within Australian borders and then say, look, nobody makes child pornography here anymore, and here's how we went about it.

Digital pornography is a particularly odd thing to criminalize because production and product have a tenuous link: there's no shelf life, and there's no limit to how many 'copies' can be made of a given photograph or video. Unfortunately, on the whole moralizing and not-in-my-back-yarding is much more politically viable.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that the language of digital trade might mirror physical trade, import export smuggling and all of these things, but the notion of stopping information at the border is both frightening and deeply impractical. Neither a 'war on porn' nor high tariffs are going to do much about it.

[Aliantha]

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Australian police have been doing a cracking job of busting child porn rings lately. Hundreds of people have been arrested and charged over various offences. As I also mentioned, I think if 'the source' is the internet, they have to try and fight the source, and that's where a lot of these busts came from. Task forces targetting internet porn rings right back to the source.

Cicero, as I mentioned, I don't think it'll ever stop Australians from viewing normal, average adult content. I think the authorities are just trying to think of ways to improve on the job they're already doing. I support them on that, and I suppose if I can't view Duck's butt online, I can just jump on a plane and go see if for myself.