man. for reals?

[amand_r]

I am not a serious person here that much, so I like to think that when I do get serious, it means something.

One of my greatest fears, aside from Jaws, zombies and gas station coffee, is someone telling me what I am and am not allowed to see. What my kid should be seeing. You are not my child's parent. You are not my parent. Not even my parents tell me what I can and cannot look at, because I am a grown up now, with real coffee and real debt and a brain inside my skull that is capable of higher thought processes, even when I'm wanking to porn that I got off the interwebs.

Because that's what the censorship issue in Australia is all about: kids, wanking, getting off, who does it, who's not getting any, and who gets to decide any and all of these things.

I forget sometimes, that Australia doesn't have a bill of rights, and so this is a very real thing.

And I can't really do anything about it, except direct you here, so that you can read it yourself and decide if you think it's real. I think it is. And I don't know what legal recourse Aussie citizens have if this goes through, to appeal. It makes me very grateful that we are actually capable of saying, "that's unconstitutional", because they don't.

Woah. For srs. So look. If we can do anything as non-Aussies, it's raise awareness.

This week, from the 25th to the 29th is the Great Aussie Website Blackout. If you're an Aussie, I feel for ya, and this is ridiculous.

I have a small soapbox, so: information should be unfettered by censors of this nature (I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that all information is running free through a daisy field, even as a society we often ourselves censor and each other, but that is for another day.). No one gets to decide what's appropriate for me to read/watch. You don't like spanking? Fine, DON'T LOOK FOR IT, AND WHEN YOU FIND IT BY ACCIDENT, GO AWAY. You don't remove it for everyone.

Seriously, people who thinks this is a good idea? And how much are they not getting laid? Or what? I got nothing.

Comments

[elainasaunt.livejournal.com]

Don't look now, but I think your LJ is being censored - there seems to be a word missing here and the only ones I can think of that fit have stars in them:
even as a society we often ourselves

Srsly, I will boost the signal on this, to the best of my ability, i.e. putting it on my Facebook (as soon as FB stops being f***ed up) and letting my S.O. know, as he's in Oz at the mo.

Do I really censor myself? Fuck no.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

OMG LOL!

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

THEY ARE TRYING TO TAKE THE PORN AWAY FROM ME, AMANDR!

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I KNOW! THEY BLOW.

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

Our internet is SO SLOW at the moment already (due to the cable under the Pacific with the bricks on it - BARROWMAN!), and they want to make it a fifth of the speed it is now, AND more expensive!

[bk7brokemybrain.livejournal.com]

I had a Skyehawke tab open on my Firefox yesterday, and I got that black box over my page. I literally sat there with my mouth open, wondering if that's what an air embolism in the brain feels like, because I could not FATHOM living in a country that would do THAT. DISGUSTING. And I was thinking about archiving there, too, until I realized, "Oh, no. That's the country where Harry always has to be 'eighteen' wink-wink. Forget you!"
And I love spanking. Nobody better ever try to take my kinks away or it will get UGLY.
Thanks so much for posting this.

[bk7brokemybrain.livejournal.com]

Oh, and 'Clean Feed'? Nothing connoting 'cleansing' that ever came from a government ever did anyone any good. *shudders*

It's bad enough that it feels like civil rights progress in the USA is slipping backward. *shudders harder*

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I was thinking too, of the whole "oh it'll never happen" factor, and I'm not so sure. I mean, the person who I know who's in on this tells me that TPTB, the people who introduced this, can push whatever they want, and it's not illegal, per se, because there's no implicit freedom of speech bill etc. So I think that it's a cascade of wrong people in the right place at a shit time.

[madder-rose.livejournal.com]

Yes, let's inspire the sexual predators to think up new clever ways to hide, aside from the new clever ways they've already thought of and take away regular, consensual porn from your average Ozzie. :/

I love Border Patrol Australia and went O.O when I saw the BP confiscate some guy's porn collection. Apparently more than one chick and one guy in each flick was too risqué. (Yes, the BP officers watched the films before they confiscated them! Hah!)

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

OMG WTF. In the US there are certain states you can't ship porn to. Like companies can't ship their porn there. I can get some and mail it privately. How fucked is that?

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this -- I didn't write about it over the weekend because I've been away, but this "clean feed" is really scary. Most Australians don't want it at all -- we know that it won't work in terms of actually stopping child porn, but it CAN be used to stop us seeing sites that the government doesn't think are "appropriate". It only takes one religious right douche to have balance of power in the senate before those sites include information about sex ed and abortion, and of course, fully legal porn created by consenting adults.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't even remotely see how it's a good thing. lastrega is involved in the anti-movement, and she told me the leaked list of things to be blocked is fucking scary.

and they're going to charge you. Man, this is the crap that could lead google to pull out. Wouldn't that be terrifying? It's like "What do Iran, China and Australia have in common?" You have to be kidding me.

[sthayashi.livejournal.com]

It'svery much real.

Dan of Dan's data, who maintains a skeptic's perspective on many things had this take back in the day.

Seriously, people who thinks this is a good idea? And how much are they not getting laid?
Will the latter be corrected if people admit to the former?

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, there was never any doubt that it's real.

And no, no one is getting laid, probably for a reason.

[gen241.livejournal.com]

There hasn't been much discussion around this here in Australia because (I think) most people have dismissed it is just a political stunt which won't get passed and if it does, it wont work all that effectively anyway. The only articles I've read/news I've seen have been really dismissive of it because the technology doesn't exist to do it well without pissing a vast amount of people off. Since everyone has to vote here, making voters happy will probably be more important than this latest (just *stupid*) attempt to 'solve' the child porn issue...

At least, I hope so (??)

[qthelights.livejournal.com]

The problem is that Conroy intends to push it through before any election is called. At which point, a lot of the damage will have been done.

I just cannot understand how we can live in a democracy and have this happen, with no debate (because he won't allow it) and when everyone thinks its a bad idea (the government report on the thing talks about it not working for crying out loud).

[qthelights.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the shout out, babe.

We need all the international ire we can get. Because what the ever loving fuck.

No one wants it. Not a single lobbyist group, or family or tech person. And yet it seems to be going ahead because one dickhead senator wants it to. It makes me really really mad and upset.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

It literally blows my mind at how little discussion about this there is, which in some ways makes me feel as if I'm chicken little. On the other hand, I'd rather be safe than sorry in this case and make a fuss. Because if I'm understanding this correctly, it will be hard to reverse if it goes through.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

Yeah it is stupid and we voted them in to get rid of work choices.

A lot of experts say it won't work anyway since our internet will slow down because of the filter. we are meant to be moving forward not backward.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we are meant to be moving forward, but I bet they would argue that you should be moving forward a certain way.

[(Anonymous)]

Appalling and frightening. I hope that bringing attention to this attack on freedoms will put a stop to this foolishness.

[lastrega.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the shoutout, bb, you are most awesome. I've been out at an Australia Day barbecue to promote the anti-censorship cause and am only just catching up. We really need to get the word out there on this. If Australians don't start taking this seriously, we're going to be stuck with this legislation forever and we'll be at the mercy of whichever fringe nutbag the government of the time wants to appease and the scope of the blacklist will inevitably grow.

For anyone who's interested, there's more info here: http://www.efa.org.au/ and here: http://www.stopinternetcensorship.org.

What the international community (that's all you guys) can do for us that would be most helpful, is to create anti-censorship content like youtube videos, parodies, essays, artwork, cartoons - all the stuff fans do best. We have a wiki and we're happy to host content there or at our site.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Thanks, bb.

[debitha.livejournal.com]

Oh Australia. No.

[kin-you-bi.livejournal.com]

I didn't comment when you posted this, because I'm an Aussie, and I spend approximately 97% of my time talking about this at the moment. But today I found out about this (http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/australia-bans-small-breasts/) (followed up by this) (http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/classification-board-responds-to-small-breasts-ban/) and just thought you might want to see just how stupid my country is getting. Like... we always used to say (no offense) "at least we don't live in America", and now we're saying "damn we should move to America". Because at least you have a constitutional right to free speech. And classification systems that understand the difference between 'under 18' and 'looking like your under 18'. So, um yeah. And thank you for rabble-rousing on your side of the planet on our behalf!