ladyfoxxx: (no clean feed)
ladyfoxxx ([personal profile] ladyfoxxx) wrote2010-01-27 12:13 pm
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Oh wonderful. They're going to "protect us" from Fandom.

Not sure if you're aware but the darling Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been bandying about the idea of filtering the internet in Australia for a while now. And it actually looks like it might even happen.

I, like every other free-thinking individual out there, am completely against is - I don't want my internet filtered, I know how to keep away from material I don't want to see and I never have children in my home who could use my internet and see something untoward.

I must admit it never occurred to me that the filter would affect slash. Until I read this article: Australia Set to Introduce Internet Filter that Could Block Access to Thousands of Anime, Comics, Gaming (ACG) and Slash Fan Sites by Mark McLelland of the University of Wollongong

If you can't be bothered reading the whole article, here are the headlines.

What is this filter thing?
In December 2009 the Australian government announced that it would be proceeding with legislation to introduce an ISP-level internet filter aimed at blocking access to material that would be 'refused classification' (RC) under the National Classification Scheme.

What are they going to filter?
In Australia child pornography legislation applies equally to 'fictional or imaginary characters', even in instances when such characters 'depart[..] from a realistic representation'. Given the ubiquity of such representations on both ACG and slash fan sites, it is easy for fans to stumble across material that would put them at the risk of prosecution.

The bottom line?
If the filter proposal becomes law, it could shut down Australian fans' engagement with broad and well-established international fandoms.

THIS MAKES ME VERY, VERY ANGRY.

You DO NOT come between me and my goddamn slash. YOU DO NOT.

Oh and you know what else is fun about the filter?
- They're putting the onus on the ISP's to administer it, so the internet, which is already pretty pricy in our sprawling nation, is gonna get more expensive, and SLOWER.
- It's not even going to protect children from everything harmful, because they're not going to filter X rated pornography, it's just gonna give parents a false sense of security
- The Banned Sites list will NOT be public. WTF?

WHAT THE FUCK PARENTS? MONTIOR YOUR DAMN CHILDREN ON THE INTERNET AND DON'T MAKE IT GOVERNMENT'S PROBLEM. THE GOVERNMENT IS BAD AT THIS KIND OF SHIT. THEY WILL GO BIG BROTHER ON YOU.

I'm not going to preach any more about this but if you are interested to learn more and/or do something click below.

No Clean Feed - Stop Internet Censorship in Australia

[identity profile] liescontinue.livejournal.com 2010-01-27 08:15 pm (UTC)(link)
urgh so yesterday at college there was a whole lecture on how the pmrc back in the 80's tried to get certain music banned because 'the kids might be disturbed by the content', and we had this huge debate and i got seriously pissed off at the fact that it would have meant that adults wouldn't get a choice in what they could and couldn't listen to because parents didn't want to take it upon themselves to monitor what their kids were listening to and just passed it off onto the government as their problem. (in the end they lost and the government just stuck parental advisory stickers on everything.)

and then today i read this, and eventhough it won't affect me in any way (hopefully), it pissed me off all over again because it's like exactly the same thing! and yeah okay, there are a lot of dodgy things on the internet that kids shouldn’t see, but parents can block those sites from home. schools are supposed to block sites with content that is inappropriate for minors (when i was in school they had bans on myspace, facebook and youtube as well; i don't know how it is in australia but they are pretty strict about that in britain, there are blocks on like everything in schools) so i don't understand how kids could access such content if the parents were doing their job properly. i don't think an adult's choice over what they can and cannot view should be made for them just because some children might accidently find their way onto it.

also my argument is, if the kids wanna find it, they will. even if they have a filter on the internet they will always find a way around it. nevermind the fact that nowadays sex is literally everywhere.

as for taking away the slash, i think it's ridiculous. i mean you don't get images with it. it's not like porn in that sense. it's just words, and in my experience if a child doesn't understand a word they tend to skip it or ask an adult, not go online and google it or whatever; besides i'm pretty sure i knew what sex was when i was like 7 and i didn't need the internet to find that out.
anyway back to the whole slash thing, lets just say hypothetically, i was an australian and this filter was in place right now okay, and i decided to read a fic about two 17 years olds 'getting it on' and i got caught, from what i've read i gather that i would probably be prosecuted for possession of child pornography, when 2 weeks ago i was still 17 and would be deemed a minor. does that mean that 2 weeks ago it would have been okay for me to be reading that? or could i still have been prosecuted?

for me the whole thing has too many grey areas and would be a completely ridiculous thing to pass, and i swear if the british government ever tried to install anything like this on us i would be straight down to london hammering on gordon brown's front door and telling him where he could stick it.

/rant.

sorry about that, i just read that and like, my brain exploded. i think i'm too opinionated for my own good sometimes. :(
ext_399013: (no clean feed)

[identity profile] ladyfoxxx.livejournal.com 2010-01-28 10:43 am (UTC)(link)
I can completely understand where you're coming from. Every time I think about this stupid internet filter I feel like my brain is going to explode.

It's a good comparison you draw with the Parental Advisory thing. I mean, the filter isn't designed to protect children (because if it was it would filter out all inappropriate content, which would include legal sites like porn etc. which they can't filter) so if it isn't for children then what is it for? To stop adults accessing kiddie porn materials? Well they're smart enough to find other ways to get what they're looking for.

So at the end of the day parents need to monitor their children anyway, because the filter is only going to stop them seeing illegal and Refused Classification items and not legally available inappropriate stuff.

And you're right, if kids wanna find stuff they'll find it. A gaping hole in the filter is that you'll still be able to get whatever you want via programs like bitorrent. Kids know how to use bitorrent, or whatever the next equivalent peer to peer sharing software will be. So they've already lost that fight.

lets just say hypothetically, i was an australian and this filter was in place right now okay, and i decided to read a fic about two 17 years olds 'getting it on' and i got caught
The age of consent in Australia is 16, so I would imagine that you'd have to younger than that, but yes - the article says Australian fans of ACG and slash who routinely access sites that may contain or link to representations of under-age characters in sexual or violent scenarios run the risk of arrest, prosecution and entry into the sex-offenders' list.

That is really, really frightening.