More regarding freedom of intarwubs

[highlyeccentric]

1. This is the man to complain to if you feel inclined to make a formal complaint. Interestingly, his media releases page includes nothing about the filtering plans. But back here he promised that there would be a way to opt out of the censorship system.

2. I put A more cogent rant up on my blog, in which I make conjecture about the consequences for academia. We have the world's leading expert on Potter fandom working in Australia, people. Wouldn't it be entertaining if she couldn't access her research material?

Comments

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't have a problem with gun control either, but I think it's a slightly different kettle of fish to the internet filtering policy. Gun control doesn't aim to prevent anyone actually using a gun; it aims to make sure that gun users and their weapons are better registered, and that there are as few possible unregistered guns floating about among the general public. We wouldn't expect the govt to allow car users to drive around unlicensed in unregistered cars either, and I think that's more what gun control is like.

I was using the gun control thing more to point out that people will find a way to get around the internet filtering thing, rather than for the moral argument of letting people freely wave their own guns around (or not).

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm not sure if it's different to say 'I don't want my government to STOP me from viewing illegal porn, I want them to come down on me like a ton of bricks if I do' and to say that I want (which I don't) the right to own a gun and know that I'll face consquences for murder.

I want it to be different. But I'm not sure that it is, except that gun control doesn't ban everything that MIGHT maybe be a gun, or talks about guns, whereas keyword based filtering WILL do that for illegal online whatevers.

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

But in Australia people do have the right to own a gun - it's just that they are required by law to be registered and licenced to do so. What I was getting at, was that there are absolutely undoubtedly people in Australia who now own unregistered guns for which they have no licence; i.e. they have got around the law. This is the point I was trying to make with my gun control reference - that you can legislate whatever you like, but there will always be people who get around the rules, who are coincidentally the people you wanted to catch in the first place (rather than all the law-abiding citizens).

Unfortunately, you can't really licence internet use or monitor it in the same way as for guns, because then you run into privacy problems.

[(Anonymous)]

ok, so this has nothing to do with guns. It does have to do with kiddie porn though. Eg - Henson case. I think what has been overlooked, putting aside for a second the fac that it's ridiculously paternalist, is that by critising non-porn (eg. Henson) as promoting porn, you actually trivialise the problem - which is the opposite of what the laws are intended to do.

This is what the laws are designed to stop:

Kiddie-porn maker: Oh, Henson's allowed to photograph half-nekked kiddies. Therefore, I'm allowed to make explicitly sexualised and abusive kiddie porn.

But here's the situation they might be unwittingly endorsing:

Kiddie-porn maker: what I'm doing isn't wrong, the government are just being tossers like they were to Henson. That was art. Maybe my porn is art too, since the framework that differentiates art and porn has been so obviously ignored by policy-makers.

OK, artistic ontology aside (complicated question), my point is that you end up with an underground of seriously damaging stuff, like kiddy-porn, that has a new way to self-rationalise. The same could happen with illegal stuff on the internet. If LJ were banned, for instance, inciters of racial hatred could easily lump themselves in with less harmful, but apparently "illegal" censored things.

This makes me angry.
Also, I agree that it is action that makes someone a paedophile, not intent. To brand everyone who has a schoolgirl fantasy (or who plays that out with a consenting adult) as a paedophile is similarly to trivialise the problem. I think such fantasies are disturbing, and perhaps something to do with our society. But ultimately they don't hurt anyone unless a kiddy is abused.

When that happens, throw them to the inmates with children.

[(Anonymous)]

or rehabilitate them. I got carried away. Really, I do not promote vigilante behaviour. Rehabilitate them if you can, keep them away from kids.But use the prospect of the inmates-with-kiddies as a deterrent. Those who do not have too many mental health issues might be scared off, or at least talk to a counsellors about their urges. Prevention is definately good.

Sorry to anyone who was offended by my failing to account for the complicated factors influencing sex offenders - I know they're people too. It's just a particularly difficult issue to try and be humane and understanding about.