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!

[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.

[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!)

[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]

I KNOW! THEY BLOW.

[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.

[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.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen that list too. It's just ... yeah, scary.

I have no idea how anyone thought this was a good idea.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that the people who think this is a good idea think that Jesus told them this is a good idea.

I hate those people.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Some of them, yes. But I think that some of them also think that being perceived as "tough on child porn" is a vote winner, even though most of us are not nearly stupid enough to actually believe that this will stop one bit of child porn (and Australians can be pretty damn stupid -- just not that stupid, most of the time). And of course, there are the politicians who no doubt simply want to have more control over what the population is reading (which has little to do with pornography at all).

The scary thing is that the opposition at the moment is more socially conservative than the actual government (they are technically our "progressive" party, not that you'd know it), so there are no major voices of dissent in parliament. Bloody hell, I have an article open in another tab right now which reports that the leader of the opposition (who IS a "Jesus told me so" type) is telling Australian women (just women!) to remain virgins until marriage, while also claiming that contraception has been bad for women because it lets men be more promiscuous (in other words, women are less effective as sexual gatekeepers). Oh, and he says that a woman having sex with a man is "a gift" -- because, you know, there's no chance that we'd do it for ourselves or anything.

We're fucked. And not in the good way.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Seriously, this sounds horrible.

[madder-rose.livejournal.com]

That's O.O also. Don't they know people have the internets (Unless you're in China and Australia obviously!)? I'll Mail People Porn!

I thought the Ozzie Border Patrol were confiscating for the Bad Bad Porn, but no, it was just "We'll confiscate this lesbian spank porn along with the potentially evil seeds that could wreck our crops".

[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]

Define "bad" porn, you know?

[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]

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.

[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).

[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]

That was the part that bothered me--that they intend to make this happen a) it seems like before anyone notices or cares and b) before elections and c) despite the study results. Duh, people?

[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.