‘It’s a Sad Day in Australia’: Government Approves ISP Filters spanking porn will be banned
posted by: michelleHello readers,
The following new has my blood boiling and will completely change our freedom in Australia.The government will be censoring the internet for all Australians so I and other Australians will not be able to view spanking porn or any porn anymore!!!
If and when this comes in to affect I will not even be able to write on my spanking blogs or view any spanking material online.
All my spanking blogs will die!!!
Every single day I go online and enjoy my spanking fix but that is soon to be no more.
We as Australians can not let the government do this to us!!!!
Democracy joins China and Iran in imposing internet censorship at the ISP level. Four million adult sites could be blacklisted, including non-explicit sites such as AVN.com
Posted Dec 15th 2009 03:45PM by Tom HymesMELBOURNE—Despite intense opposition from civil libertarians and others, the Australian government has been flirting with the idea of mandating the filtering of sexual and violent content at the ISP level for years. Tuesday, Communication Minister Stephen Conroy brought down the hammer by announcing that the government will introduce legislation next year that will make it the first Western democracy to follow through on its threat to filter the internet—all in the name of protecting the children.
“To think that our government has decided to decide what Australian adults can and can’t watch,” Fiona Patten, CEO of the Eros Association and convener of the Australian Sex Party, told AVN. “It is a sad day in Australia.”
Cyber-safety measures announced Tuesday include:
* Introduction of mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC)–rated content.
* A grants program to encourage the introduction of optional filtering by Internet Service Providers, to block additional content as requested by households.
* An expansion of the cyber-safety outreach program run by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the Cyber-Safety Online Helpline—to improve education and awareness of online safety.
Conroy also released publicly the Enex Test Laboratory report into the pilot trial of Internet Service Provider (ISP)-level filtering.
“We welcome the constructive input of Australia’s four largest ISPs – Telstra, Optus, iiNet and Primus. These companies came forward to help inform the Government’s approach. Between them these ISPs account for more than 80 percent of internet users in Australia,” Conroy said. “The Government has always maintained there is no silver bullet solution to cyber-safety. That is why we have established a comprehensive range of cyber-safety measures, including funding for 91 additional online Australian Federal Police officers and education.”
Once the law is in place, ISPs will be required to block RC-rated material hosted on overseas servers. RC-rated material includes child sex abuse content, bestiality, sexual violence including rape, and the detailed instruction of crime or drug use. Under related legislation it is already illegal to distribute, sell or make available for hire RC-rated films, computer games and publications, all of which are subject to take-down notices by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) if they are hosted online in Australia.
But Patten says that it is at best disingenuous of the government to imply that only illegal content will be targeted.
“It is very frustrating that most commentators are focusing on child porn and illegal content, because sites like Hustler.com will be blocked and there is a good chance that AVN.com would also have some content that was refused classification (RC) under Australian law, and would need to be blacklisted,” she said. “The Communications Minister states that this proposal is intended to protect young people. So does the Chinese Ministry for Public Security.”
Patten is not alone in her virulent opposition to the plan.
“The government knows this plan will not help Australian kids, nor will it aid in the policing of prohibited material,” said Colin Jacobs, vice chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia. “Given the problems in maintaining a secret blacklist and deciding what goes on it, we’re at a loss to explain the minister’s enthusiasm for this proposal.”
According to a press release issued Tuesday by the Australian Sex Party, the government RC blacklist will mean that 95 percent of the world’s four million adult sites would need to be listed. It also is claiming that the “very vanilla X rating” that that former Prime Minister John Howard imposed on the industry in 2000 is far different from the broader parameters enjoyed by adult sites in Europe and the U.S. The live trial undertaken by the government involved only 1,000 URLs.
“How you can have a filter blocking access to over 4 million sites with over 420 million pages and not slow the internet down, is beyond belief,” said Patten, adding that the filter will include mostly legal depictions of sex acts rather than the child porn and sexual violence being promoted to the press.
“The biggest selling porn movie in the world, Pirates, has been given an RC rating in Australia because it featured an animated dueling scene with two skeletons. It had nothing to do with sex whatsoever,” she said. “But under the draconian laws around X rated films it was deemed to be ‘violence’ in an otherwise non violent film. Pirates sold over a quarter of a million copies in its first week on sale in 2005, and remains one of the most popular adult film requests on the internet.”
The low threshold will invariably create other problems for the government, said Patten. “Senator Conroy also appears to have ignored the reality that a new classification scheme for classifying websites in Australia will be necessary to cope with the flood of adult website operators who will want to have their sites rated to ensure that they fall below the RC line,” she said.
Patten did applaud the decision by the government not to impose a secondary level filter—an opt-out scheme in which customers would receive a filtered service unless they asked for it to be removed. “The provision of grants to ISPs to develop an optional filtering mode for households that request it is a step in the right direction.”
The legislation will be introduced in parliament in August 2010 and will take a year to implement.
Source: http://business.avn.com/
| 99% of adult websites qualify to be blacklisted |
| Written by ASP Staff | |
| Tuesday, 15 December 2009 06:21 | |
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Almost all adult films that are classified as X in Australia require an edit.
In the past 4 weeks Customs have seized hundred’s of film titles depicting female ejaculation on the grounds that they would be refused classification.
Every site that features content from these films is potentially refused classification and qualifies to be blacklisted
Now how will they decide which of the millions of adult sites out there that might feature a consenting fetish should be blacklisted? The Enex report tested the existing blacklist that contains about 1,000 sites. That is totally unrealistic The X guidelines are below. Anything that does not fit these strict guidelines is Refused Classification and therefore should be blacklisted and blocked. I believe that possible 1-2% of adult websites would comply with the X rating the rest would be classified as RC and therefore should be on the government’s black list. We are not talking thousands we talking millions and if you only block a handful what is the point?
The report states“Telstra reported that heavy traffic sites could overload its trial filtering solution if included in the filtering blacklist. This is also the case for all filters presented in the pilot. “ Well the biggest adult sites such as the tube sites, that definitely feature content that would be RC, see millions of visitors daily. How will the “filtering solutions” deal with them?
This is not about sexual violent websites or child porn. Every US and European site featuring legal consenting sexual activity has content that would breach the X rating and would be classified as RC.
Australian guidelines for X This classification is a special and legally restricted category which contains only sexually explicit material. That is material which contains real depictions of actual sexual intercourse and other sexual activity between consenting adults.
No depiction of violence, sexual violence, sexualised violence or coercion is allowed in the category. It does not allow sexually assaultive language. Nor does it allow consensual depictions which purposefully demean anyone involved in that activity for the enjoyment of viewers.
Fetishes are not permitted.
As the category is restricted to activity between consenting adults, it does not permit any depictions of non-adult persons, including those aged 16 or 17, nor of adult persons who look like they are under 18 years. Nor does it permit persons 18 years of age or over to be portrayed as minors.
Wait! What’s happening?The Australian Government wants all Internet Service Providers in Australia (the people who you get your Internet access from) to block access to websites that the government considers inappropriate, or what they call ‘refused classification’. You won’t know exactly what websites are on the list and you won’t be able to ‘opt-out’ from it, even if you have no children. What on earth does ‘refused classification’ mean?Refused classification is what the government calls movies, magazines, video games and websites that don’t fit neatly into any other classification category (like G, PG or MA15+). Stuff inappropriate for children, but in nearly all cases not illegal for adults to purchase, own and view. For example, a movie which contains scenes of drug addiction that may offend against someone’s morals can be refused classification. Video games which are not suitable for children to play are refused classification. An adult movie which contains spanking can also be refused classification. In fact, any adult film with fetish material is refused classification. I thought the government only wanted to block child pornography?Unfortunately, that’s not true. Senator Stephen Conroy (the Minister in charge of this plan) has a bad habit of saying that only websites which contain illegal material like child pornography are refused classification. However, the National Classification Code (the Code which dictates what gets banned and what doesn’t) clearly says otherwise. Read it here for yourself: RC films and publications contain content that:
As you can see, refused classification is lot more than just child pornography. In fact, less than half of the government’s existing website blacklist is child abuse material. Why? Most child pornography is distributed through other means such as Peer 2 Peer networks — something a blacklist cannot block. More importantly, child pornography is illegal and Australian and international law enforcement agencies already act to bring those responsible to justice. Instead of wasting money on a filter, the government should fund more police to assist in the fight. A filter can’t stop child pornography, it just sweeps some of it under the carpet. So what will be blocked?Here’s a couple of examples:
Websites about abortion are also at risk of being banned. In January 2009, a page on an anti-abortion website was refused classification and added to the blacklist. It was only after it was revealed to be on the list by the complainant that it was reviewed and reclassified R18+. If mandatory Internet censorship is introduced, you won’t know a site is on the blacklist until you can no longer visit it. Worse still, other kinds of material may be added to the National Classification Code in the future and refused classification. But let’s be clear.The government is not out to ban websites about bingo or football, or your blog about gardening. It’s the stuff that is a little grey, a little naughty, a little adult, or a little bit controversial that’s at risk. Websites inappropriate for children, but okay for adults – Yet the government will block everyone from seeing them online. Are you okay with that? |
